Just a little over a week ago, I hopped on a plane & traveled down to Dallas, TX for my 2nd Blissdom experience. I traveled with one of my blogging besties & real-life friend, Mandy, from House of Rose.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Blissdom is a blogging conference geared mostly towards women bloggers from all sorts of niches….mommy bloggers, fashion bloggers, creative bloggers, decorating/DIY bloggers….you get the idea. I had the opportunity to attend the conference last year & had a wonderful time. To read about last year’s experience, you can click HERE.

I think there were around 700-750 bloggers at Blissdom this year. Half of the attendees were new to the conference, the other half were repeat attendees.

This was the sixth year for the conference, which up until this year had been held at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, TN. But this year, the conference coordinators decided to move things south & host the conference at the Gaylord Texan in Dallas. The hotel was GORGEOUS. I managed to snap a few shots inside the hotel with my iPhone, but if I would have had the time, I would have LOVED to take my DSLR & get snap happy for an hour or two! The potential for gorgeous photos is unlimited.

Just like last year, the conference delivered BIG in terms of its speakers. The opening keynote speech was given by Scott Stratten, who up until last week, I was completely unfamiliar with.

He did an AWESOME job kicking off the conference! Not only was he hysterical, but he also made some really great points throughout his speech. Two things that really hit home with me were:

 1.) Your logo doesn’t matter. It is your actions & your performance that define who you are & what people will remember most about you. To understand this point, he told the story about the Ritz Carlton & Joshie the Giraffe. I’m not going to go into details about the story because this post is already going to be extremely long, but click on the link if your curiosity is sparked. (p.s. it’s a really cool story & worth the read.) 

2.) Twitter is a conversation, not a dictation. 75% of your tweets should be replies. If you are using twitter to only promote yourself, people are not gonna want to follow you nor are they going to engage with you online. So true!

Jon Acuff who gave the opening keynote at Blissdom 2012 was there AGAIN this year. I absolutely loved his keynote last year & was THRILLED when I found out he was going to be speaking again.

This year he taught one of the life development sessions & also brought down the house with an AMAZING & hilarious closing keynote speech.

One of the best take-aways I had from his Life Development session was “Time Management + Energy Management.” Because I am also taking care of the house and my children throughout the day, I have to blog whenever time allows. So, whenever I do get time, I should first determine my energy level before deciding what tasks to tackle. You should match your high energy to your high energy tasks.

For me, a high energy task would be writing blog posts. I feel like I have to be on my “A Game” in order to pump out a great post. Therefore, I should write posts when my energy level is at its peak. A low energy task would be returning emails, photo editing, etc. These tasks would be best suited for me to accomplish in the evening when I only have a few ounces of energy left. I think all you mom’s out there know what I’m talking about!

Jon has a new book getting ready to launch called START. I think that the keynote was largely based upon the new book & the key points that it delivers. One of which spoke to me in a HUGE way.

FEAR IS A LIAR.
Fear are the voices in your head that shoot down all of your good ideas before you even get a chance to put them on paper.

The voices that say “that’s a dumb idea”, “you could never pull that off“, or  “how are you possibly going to make that work?!“

They are the same voices that tell you,  you aren’t “smart enough”, “talented enough“, etc.

You know those voices, right?!  Yeah, I think we all do!

This last quote is probably my most favorite from the closing keynote.

Isn’t that so true?! So many times we let fear get in our way! I am REALLY looking forward to digging into Jon’s book. If the keynote is any indication, I know its going to ROCK MY WORLD! 🙂

In a nutshell?! Jon Acuff & Scott Stratten were worth the price of admission to the conference…at least in my opinion! They were both brilliant & really know how to engage with their audience. I loved listening to them speak!

I have seen & read some negative feedback from the conference and people saying that they didn’t really “learn anything.” I think the reason why people feel this way is because they are looking for things they can change, and/or things that they can do, which will DIRECTLY impact their blogs, & their traffic, as soon as they get home from the conference.

With Blissdom, I have found that I usually don’t leave the conference feeling like I learned a lot, but instead, I leave the conference feeling inspired & refreshed.

Not only are the speakers incredibly inspiring, but the other bloggers you meet in the sessions and in the hallway, are incredibly inspiring as well. Each one with their own dream, their own story.

The conference encourages me to…….

I ALWAYS leave Blissdom wanting to DO BETTER…. in life, in business, and everything in between.

When we flew back into St. Louis on Sunday, we flew into a snow storm……AWESOME!

I didn’t have a coat AND I was wearing flip flops….DOUBLE AWESOME! Thank goodness for the Starbucks inside the airport. My large coffee was the only thing that was keeping me warm!!

The good news was that back in Southern Illinois we had very little snow accumulation. In fact, we got mostly rain. That night we went out to dinner for my husband’s 31st birthday. I was so glad to be home in time to celebrate!

Although I was missing my Blissdom buddies, it felt SO GOOD to be home with my family again! There really is no place like home!

All in all, I had a great experience at Blissdom!! 

I made new friends & new memories. I’m refreshed, inspired, & ready to get my blogging butt in gear! 

Have you attended a blogging conference before? 

If not, what’s holding you back?

Thanks so much for visiting me today! I hope you have a great day!