A couple of weeks ago, I attended the Blogher18 Creators Summit, the quintessential conference for female bloggers, content creators and social media influencers of all kinds (IMO). It was a two-day event with roughly 2,000 attendees and filled to overflowing with information, inspiration, interaction, collaboration, talent, opportunity and so much more. It was simply awesome! If I sound excited now, you can imagine what I was like two weeks ago. After two long travel days fraught with the typical travel challenges, plus the exciting time spent at the conference, I returned home with tons of helpful new information in my head and a huge smile on my face. Like I said, it was an amazing experience.

Attending this conference is a big deal to me because when I began this blogger journey I didn’t have a clue about what I was doing. I had a vision but didn’t know how to execute it. I didn’t personally know anyone who had been a blogger or who could give me tips on getting started. I didn’t know what to expect. I spent many months researching and benchmarking. From Google searches to personally created surveys, I learned a lot but some things were still missing. I needed to be in an environment with folks who’d been or were on a similar path. I started looking for it. God heard my prayers and the Blogher events found me quickly. I read every detail I could find about Blogher and SheKnows Media and knew it was where I needed to go. Several months later I landed in New York. Ready.

Listen, I could wax poetic about ‘pursuing your passion’ or ‘stars aligning’ or even the oft-repeated ‘If you do what you love’ statement, but it isn’t necessary. You’ve heard it all before. What I will share is this: roll up your sleeves and get to work! Allow yourself to be uncomfortable and to do the uncomfortable. Sometimes there is no roadmap to where you want to go, in which case you become the roadmap. The words ‘do, pursue and align’ are all verbs. Action words. There’s movement implied and that’s where you have to start when you have a vision for something. Start moving in the direction you want to go. Start asking questions. Start doing research. Just start. It can be exciting and excruciating at the same time, but it is worth it. My journey into this new venture has just begun. I have no idea where it will take me but I’m excited to find out. If my experience at the Blogher18 Creators Summit is any indication of what is to come, my smile will be so bright you’ll need sunglasses to talk to me. If we go together, we might light up the universe.