Type-A Con Wrap Up

Last weekend I was blessed by attending my 4th Type-A Parent Conference. I don’t get to attend many blogging conferences but I have vowed never to miss Type-A again, I missed the first one due to finances. This year I almost didn’t make it but thanks to a financial loan from my oldest son and my Pastor loaning me his vehicle, I made it to Atlanta and survived my first ever 8 hour solo road trip! I am so glad I pushed through and got to the conference because it was exactly what I needed. I needed inspiration and coaching on how to better myself and my blog so together we will continue to grow in this space we call the blogosphere. I needed time with friends who truly feed my soul. I needed fun. Type-A Conference is all of that, and more.

Inspiration and Coaching

I attended many awesome sessions and keynotes during the 3-day conference. I learned how to optimize my LikedIn Profile, how to better use semantics and webmaster tools, how to better use affiliate marketing in my monetization strategy just like what’s taught in the Best Affiliate Marketing Training courses, new ways to use short form video and much much more.

Some of my favorite quotes came from the keynotes I attended. Amber Naslund encouraged us to, “Follow the Fear’-if something scares the crap out of you, it is probably the thing you need to chase.” and she reminded us that, “The only irreversible thing is death.” So we should step out of our comfort zone and take risks in our lives and in our businesses. Gary Buchanan spoke to us about creativity and imagination. He had us laughing, crying and cheering throughout his presentation. This slide from his presentation says it all…

I took pages of notes and my next step is to prioritize the action steps I can home with so that I can start implementing them into my life, my blog and my social media world.

Friends

Most of the people that I call my true friends attend Type-A. I look forward to our annual time together. Type-A is full of hugs, tears and heart to heart talks. These people feed my soul and make me look forward to turning on my laptop every day so I can connect with them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even G+. One of my missions this year was to enlarge my circle of friends-and I feel I did that. All four nights I ate dinner with some people I would consider “new” to my circle of friends. I truly believe bonds are made over food and I know I made some new friends over our dinners at Panera, Dantanna’s, the AT&T Digital Life event and especially Red Pepper Taquiera Buckhead where Lizz Porter and I shared our first grilled oyster together…and I can’t wait for next year to go back and have more.

BAT’s oyster Red Pepper Taquiera Atlanta

Fun

I LOVE to dance and I seldom have an opportunity to dance back home so I enjoyed dancing the night away at the opening reception and at the closing Feedblitz British themed party. My favorite parties were the Saturday night parties though. You already know I am a fan of all things Disney and Saturday night’s Disney Parks Star Wars party was awesome! I was very excited to receive a pair of “Glow with the Show” ears, which will debut soon at Walt Disney World! Here is a video I shot of the awesome ear table, complete with a cameo but Disney’s own Gary Buchanan.

The party was fun, the food was great and the theming was AMAZING!

After the Disney party we went downstairs to the Time to Play Game Night After Party. This was my kind of party! On the tables were different games and you just sat down with friends and played. My table played Jenga Tetris and Draw Something Party. They were both a lot of fun and I’d love to own Draw Something Party. Also during the party, The Toy Guy, Chris Byrne was calling out numbers and asking trivia questions. I got called up, answered a question…with a little help from the audience and I won a copy of Chris’ book that comes out soon. I asked Chris to autograph the book for me and he did so as we bonded over childhood stories of Baby Alive.

Chris Byrne-The Toy Guy

Type-A Con

In my opinion Type-A Con is a must-do for every blogger. There is truly something for everyone beginner or veteran, man or woman, reviewed, memoirist, frugal or green-it doesn’t matter what your niche is, there is room in the sand box for everyone, as long as you play nice with others. I already have the dates for Type-A Con 2014 (9/19-21/2014) and Type-A Con Bootcamp at Disney World (3/29/14) in my calendar. I’ll miss all my friends IRL until then but thanks for an awesome, inspiring weekend!