To say the Financial Bloggers Conference was life changing for me and this blog would actually be an understatement. You can not imagine the amount of excitement and energy in a room when you put 250 personal finance bloggers in one place. It was amazing, I wish I could bottle it up for the days I’m feeling low.
The most amazing part? We all have the same goal. We want to educate, help and make a difference in the lives of our readers. It’s more than just putting up posts every once in awhile. For us, it’s about changing the financial destiny of our readers.
What I Learned
To be honest, I have been struggling with this blog for most of the year. I’ve even toyed with the idea (several times) of selling it and starting something else. At times this blog has been an annoyance and I even got to the point I down right hated even looking at it. Then it got hacked. Seriously! That was getting close to being the last straw.
There were 2 problems this year. Problem 1: my year took an odd turn I ended up moving twice. I spent a lot of money and 4 months living in limbo while I was waiting for my house to get built. I wasn’t living a fiscally responsible lifestyle so I had nothing to write about. I felt like a fraud.
Problem 2: finding my voice. I think I write in too much generalities because I’m afraid to get too deep with you. I’m afraid what you might think and I don’t like to admit my failures.
What I learned from this conference has changed my whole outlook on this blog and has revived my love for writing about personal finance.
- I am not selling the blog.
- I am going to write for you, not at you.
- And I’m going to get personal with you. This is scary for me. We are going to go “there”.
I haven’t got it all figured out yet but I can realistically tell you that the Financial Bloggers conference has saved me and this website from going somewhere I could never get back from. I actually have tears in my eyes writing this. I am forever in debt from @ptmoney for putting this together.
The Fun Stuff
We managed to have a little bit of fun with our short time together. The people at this conference were amazing and I was so sad to have to leave. I have made friends for life and I am already counting down to the 2012 conference. Here are a few pictures I managed to capture:
Some of us having fun at the after hours party sponsored by @ramit
Love these ladies! Me with @applecsmith and @thefinancialite
@RomeoClayton and I finally got a picture where my eyes were open!
If you’d like to see who attended, you can check out the Financial Bloggers conference list of attendees to see what they have to say about personal finance. I’m still overwhelmed with excitement and can’t wait to get going in the right direction.
P.S. I used twitter more this weekend than I ever have in my life. Checkout the hashtag #fincon11 to learn what others are saying about the conference!
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