Atomicon19 was a business game-changer for me, and here’s why.
NAH. You’d be wrong!
I’m no conference junkie, the logistics of taking time away from the desk, family and travelling mean I plan the events I go to incredibly carefully. Travel is not cheap for me – it’s days out of the office that mean no client work is done and on top of that there’s the logistics around childcare (the main reason lots of us started our own business!). But as a regular conference-goer in my old corporate days, I’ve been to lots of events, listened to lots of speakers, taken part in more workshops and breakout sessions than I could count and (shock horror) I’ve also sneaked out of a few early that were just painful! (um, apologies to my ex-boss!)
Here are my takeaways…
1. SERIOUS FUN!
Sometimes I’ve wondered over the past 4 years if I’m having too much fun and if I should I take what I do a bit more seriously! Do people consider you more trustworthy and knowledgeable if you’re more profesh!? As an existing Atomic member, I’ve had a couple of 1:1s with Andrew & Pete that were structured, professional, targeted, business-focused, kept to time etc etc but that were also a heck of a lot of fun. 100% professional with laughs built in – the perfect mix for me, and very much what Atomicon19 was from start to finish. Serious business talk, serious learning, hugely relevant tips and structures to help us all move forward, all wrapped up in a big fun vibe.
The pre-conference fun included a Facebook group, lots of getting to know you chat, selfies, pre-party jazzy shirt wardrobe dilemmas, even taking part in picking the lanyard colours with Andrew & Pete – all of that made such a difference to feeling ‘part’ of the first Atomicon.
And the pre-party (which was brilliant) was a place where gin flowed, lots of laughs, conference lanyards were handed out and everyone got on with making friends! Excellent, considering many of us self-employed are working in fairly small circles on a daily basis, so hanging ‘out-out’ with lots of other business owners who get it is just THE best feeling. I’m soooo glad I said hi to lots of people here because the day of Atomicon just flew by. You know what really impressed me – there were Andrew & Pete and all the other speakers partying too. Now there’s not many places you see that! I don’t think I’ve met any other conference organisers out there who put so much effort into making people feel welcome in the months, weeks and days before the event – never mind hanging out all night at the pre-party.
2. GET COMFY WITH FEAR
Andrew & Pete shared their fears and their stumbles – they totally get ALL the things that can keep us stuck as small business owners, and they proved right there on stage with a live call to a client (not in a gimmicky way, but in a really genuine ‘yeah we get it, there are fears we ALL have’) that showed they can struggle just as much as anyone to face those fears. Sometimes it’s easy to think that our fears are because we’re newer/less experienced and it’s easy to look up to others and think they’ve got it sussed! But the entire conference day taught me that fear is just fear – it’s not going away – and for every fear tackled there will be another to follow. . And that is part of life, part of business and absolutely essential to going after what you want. There’s no getting away from it, so you might as well face it and get comfy with it.
I got a little emotional to see us all sharing the same fears – when you already see what the others are worth around you, and find out their fears are basically the same as yours (mostly around charging our worth, sticking to our terms, valuing ourselves, visibility, selling, confidence, over-thinking etc) then it becomes so much easier to see that fear doesn’t need to be a factor!
We all get stuck in our own catch 22’s and we CAN all take action every day to get out of them. The only thing stopping us is fear – whether it’s fear of video, fear of upsetting people, fear of failure, even fear of success. Atomicon was all about breaking those catch 22’s and FOLLOWING OUR FEARS. They are exactly where the magic sits and for every fear faced, an achievement is gained.
Basically – you’re always going to be scared in your biz, so you can either be scared and stuck, or scared and doing it anyway – the more you follow the fears, the less scared you become, the more you follow bigger fears. Win-win! (This kinda blew my mind a little!)
Their presentation on pricing was phenomenal – say, what if we ALL just decided to raise our prices!!? Em, what! But also – yeah, what if! The little train of thought that follows a statement like that were spot on – as were the tips for not just deciding to do it, but actually doing it, delivering it and keeping on doing it. After that as a starter to the day, you could actually feel everyone in the room getting fired up to take some serious action in their businesses. I felt I was starting to think like a Manager (again) rather than ‘someone who’s self-employed’. Focusing on the good of the business and the role it plays is bigger than whether I’m uncomfy with something.
A fear I had in going to Atomicon19 was that it might be a great day, but that its effects would be short-lived. Oh, how wrong was I. At 2 weeks post-Atomicon, I know this is long-lasting medicine! And I know lots of Atomicon peeps have been getting accountable in facing their business fears, so we’re all working on this together.
3. GROW UP BUT DON’T GROW OLD
You could just as easily think of your fears as growth. There was a moment on the day when we were saying out loud our big scary goal that really shifted something – it made me seriously focus on the long game, the legacy, the where I want to be for not only the rest of 2019 but for #Atomicon20 AND beyond.
Not focusing on the next thing on my to-do list, but focusing on the BIG target, the really significant achievement I want to get to. When I first started I had a business plan that felt so BIG, and even though I’ve already passed where I wanted to be by quite a way, those big high-level goals are still there, and I am coming for them! That fire in the pit of my belly has had a wake-up call – you think you’ve got time, but if you don’t take small steps every day – what are you actually doing to get there!?
That’s another of my big takeaways from Atomicon – it feels like I grew up massively in the 9 hours of the conference. Those fears we all have but like to think we’ll deal with some other day, once we get this job finished etc etc… if we don’t face them and deal with them, how exactly is this business going to grow!? It won’t unless you grow up and adult your business! Another takeaway for me is that I’m not running a hobby that pays some bills each month – there’s a reason why I’ve invested heavily in training, in contracts, in relationships. I’m growing a business and that means taking some grown-up decisions, some risks and just not playing down.
Andrew & Pete talking about their ‘big’ vision for Atomicon at the end of the day was another head explosion moment for me – it turned out their big scary goal was nowhere near big enough. They didn’t see it, but they themselves had got prudent, they were playing it safe, they were being sensible, mature and found a target that wasn’t scary or impossible.
“The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible and achieve it generation after generation” (Pearl S. Buck).
So really, the less you know the higher you can aim. Don’t grow old and prudent, keep your perspective young and aim for those impossible possibilities.
4. EVERY DAY AFTER ATOMICON!
We all have a list of things to get done, we all have pressures and life stuff going on that varies day to day – sometimes that has to come first, and that’s okay. But what we all have in common is that ‘our stuff’ slips off the to-do lists – the groans of recognition from this one were HUGE around the 350 attendees. Andrew & Pete had some great ideas to combat that, and I’ve been putting these in place since.
You know when you’ve been to a conference and soaked up loads of great content on the day, you’re all fired up with ideas to start working on, and then the reality of your ‘stuff’ kicks in once you get back home. You’ve so many ideas and limited time. You’re worried you’re going to lose those sparks of inspiration so that even if you do take time out to take some action, there are going to be things that you forget.
Enter the implementation workshop arranged for a few days after the main Atomicon event – an online live with Andrew & Pete, no extra cost, all part of that bargain Atomicon ticket. This follow-up implementation session gave us time to recap, get clear, check back in on what we learned on the day, recapture those sparks of inspiration AND move forward with a structure and a process they use that means we CAN do a little every day to move forward.
Breaking the excitement down post-conference into actionable steps that apply to every single business feels like such an empowering way to move from conference excitement to taking real action right back at your own desk and it is GENIUS!
For me, it means I have a plan where I can take small actions every day and those conference brainwaves are not lost – they all connect back to my big picture, they are all noted and there’s a flow there that I’ve never had with my plans before… I know why I’m doing the little things and exactly where they fit right up to the big why. So nothing is going to be lost this week/next week/next month as I’ve already planned out and I know I can follow their structure. I’ll simply do one thing well, then move to the next and so on.
5. GIVE BACK TO GO FORWARD
Accountability! That is what’s happening in the Atomicon group right now – people taking action, sharing their progress, giving encouragement, showing up and facing their fears. Those connections made at Atomicon19 are only going to get stronger, and that’s exactly the kind of event I love to be a part of. One where the momentum and the learning carries on, everyone is involved and the encouragement grows and grows. I’m an Atomic girl as its always felt like a real community that is inclusive for everyone, but the Atomicon group has added another community that is awesomely action-focused. It’s a place where giving happens daily, everyone is taking action to move forward and the examples of comfort zones being broken show up every single day.
Truly, a fantastic result for a fantastic conference and one that is going to reap rewards for a long time to come for each business owner that took that wise decision to attend. It was so more than taking time out to focus on the business where those ideas could pop up.
SO – WHAT’S NEXT?
There was so much to take in after Atomicon19, I’ve not even mentioned the amazing guest and keynote speakers here (another blog coming on those). And I’ve not mentioned the presentations either, which were so well polished and packed full of information they were probably more live expert coaching sessions meets stand-up/west-end performance.
One of the many things I’ve admired about Andrew & Pete is they are happy to share all the bits of their business journey. And I don’t just mean sharing what they’ve learned to this point in time. It’s no secret the people they look up to – they share their coaches, their goals, their big why, who they admire, who they aspire to be, the things they want to do, the actions they are taking to reach their next level and what they do to plan for long term wins and short term wins from here on in. There’s no preciousness and they gave all of this throughout Atomicon (as they do in Atomic).
For me? My 2018 was the start of a change of thinking and direction in my own biz, and I knew my 2019 was going to be the year of taking action on a pivot from social media/online course VA to proper devotion to online content marketing.
Atomicon really cemented for me that my decisions were right, but now instead of muddling my way through I’ve got plans, targets, structured goals, actions I can see progress on, space to refine and review and guess what – everything fits! There’s no chasing shiny objects ahead and there are no diversions down side streets because ‘ooh that might be fun’. I know what my big plans need and I know what they don’t.
Allison Christie is an online marketing expert, and helps businesses scale and improve their sales online via Facebook Ads, email list building and Pinterest marketing.
