Last week I was lucky enough to be invited by the wonderful @markvanrol to this year’s live event for Action Coach ‘Biz X’ – quite an experience to be at an actual event as opposed to a virtual one! My goodness I was in for a treat. I absolutely love these type of events – a real chance to take a step back, meet new people, learn something new, feel inspired and motivated to push further and higher.

It was a two day event with an awards ceremony at the end of the first day. Held at the impressive International Exhibition and Conference centre in Farnborough, it was an emersion into the world of business and self improvement as a business owner. The keynote speakers were all incredible! I was actually quite star struck by a few of them! So many useful points to take away, my head was swimming by the end of the two days.

To name a few particular highlights, the very lovely and super savvy Sarah Beeny. The wize snippets I picked up from her were;
Love what you do! We do our jobs for such a long time of our week that its going to be a much more enjoyable life.
Can you summarise your business in a few words? – if a child can understand it then everyone else will be able to. If you can’t then it’s too complicated.
Ensure your company works independently from you – it will be a healthier company if you don’t have to personally hold everything together.
Know your weaknesses and delegate – don’t try to do everything, it wont work.

The delightful Ian Woodhouse (I highly recommend trying to get to one of his talks, he is so positive you can’t help but smile throughout the whole thing) discussed the cause and effect of joy and spreading a little happiness;
If you have to do something, try to find some fun in it. Even if it is a seemingly mundane task.
Before entering your house at the end of the day, just take a second to check your mood and ensure you remain positive for the people the other side of that door, even if it is for a few minutes. Discuss positive things first before any hardships. It will boost your mood and the others around you.
Be a positive force in life and you will start to notice it will rub off on the people around you and your stress levels will decrease.

My particular favourite was the esteemed Stephen M.R Covey, taking us through the key points in his latest book ‘Trust & Inspire’. He was just so practiced and perfect at delivering his messages and made topics that could be very complex and dry into something fascinating and practical.

The wise words of ‘provide the right conditions for your people to flourish, be the gardener’ and ‘trust your team and inspire your team to do well’ resound in my head. I look forward to reading his new book with a highlighter and notebook next to me and putting some of those wise words into action over the coming weeks.

I also look forward to next year’s event and perhaps even entering Live Happy in for some awards! Any excuse to wear a ball gown!