Key Takeaways from This Year’s Texas Conference for Women

Written by Maria Cammack

Thursday, November 13, 6,000 women gathered at the Austin Convention Center for the 15th annual Texas Conference for Women. The conference’s purpose is to provide connections, motivation, networking, inspiration and skill building for Texas women. Hosted by First Lady Anita Perry, the non-profit, non-partisan event featured keynote speakers, skill-building breakout sessions and opportunities to develop new relationships with other women. With sessions ranging from personal finance to health and wellness to career advancement, the event offered something for everyone. Several WCA members attended the conference this year and we caught up with four of them to hear more about their experience.

Rosemary Hook have been attending the conference since 2007 and as one of the career coaches in the career pavilion, she gets to coach 3-4 women each year in one-on-one sessions.  This year, the four women she coached, each came to the session feeling confused about how to figure out their next career path. “The wonderful thing was through a series of questions, we were able to carve out some tangible next steps for each to take … steps that they wrote down and committed to doing.  Each left with a big, smile on their face and I could actually see the stress leave their shoulders.  That for me is everything,” she said.

Anne Hebert have not only attended the conference at least nine times, she also started working with the Texas Conference for Women seven years ago and now leads social media for the conference year-round.

Judy Marchman attended for the first time and was happy her work schedule finally allowed her to have the opportunity to do so. “This year’s program contained such a diverse range of topics and some amazing speakers. It was hard to choose which sessions to attend,” she said

Julie Tereshchuk was also at the conference and loved the value she got even though she was only able to attend in the afternoon. She attended 3 social media roundtables at the Technology Pavilion and also enjoyed connecting with other WCA members including Mary Anne Connolly, sporting her press badge, Sheila Scarborough (roundtable facilitator and the introducer of John Gray, author of Men Are from Mars), Renee Trudeau and Anne Hebert.

The lunchtime speakers were especially well received.
This year, keynote Diana Nyad blew me away. Her speech had the entire audience of 6,000 women in complete rapt attention. One of my favorite quotes from her: “We’re all just living this one wild and precious life. – Anne Hebert

The luncheons speakers, Soledad O’Brien & Diana Nyad, had wonderful advice about not allowing others to decide for you what’s important in your life or career and not deciding for you whether you have what it takes to be good at something (or to pursue it). – Rosemary Hook

The lunch keynotes were such a compelling group. I was especially interested to hear Soledad O’Brien speak about going out on her own and starting her own production company — and working to conquer her fears along the way. But Diana Nyad gave an absolutely riveting and inspiring talk about her path to achieving her dream of swimming from Cuba to Florida. She went over time but I don’t think anyone cared. – Judy Marchman

Key conference take aways
Judy Marchman especially enjoyed the session on quieting your inner critic given by Tara Mohr (author of Playing Big) “[It] particularly resonated with me because, as a writer, I battle my inner critic pretty much every day whether it’s a simple blog post or a feature. And considering that the session was standing room only, I’m not along in that. I appreciated that Mohr offered tips for recognizing and dealing with that inner voice.”

 

Rosemary had these three key takeaways from the conference:

1. Answer an opportunity and take the risk
2. Revel in the discomfort of hard decisions and really ask yourself Why?  Why are you uncomfortable about this?
3. Men aren’t the only ones who can have grit.  Women have grit, too.  Soledad O’Brien said, “Grit is when you keep showing up when everyone else would understand if you quit.”

“This [last key take away] was especially poignant for me because this last year of my life has been particularly difficult with my husband passing away.” Rosemary shares. “I wanted nothing more than to run away, to go and live where I knew no one, no one knew me or my story, and basically exist.  I didn’t do that. Instead, I dug into my career but at a pace and on a timetable that made sense only to me.  Since I am the boss of my own career consulting practice, well, let’s just say the boss was very satisfied with my performance,” she said.

Over the past 15 years, The Texas Conference for Women has provided attendees with the inspiration and motivation they needed. “Every year, I love the fact that anyone can walk into this event and make a connection or find inspiration that can change their life,“  Anne Hebert shared. “We’ve heard so many stories from past attendees about how hearing one speaker, meeting one person, getting one piece of advice from a career coach, or finding one inspiring message led them to amazing new opportunities and ideas. People are there to help; all you have to do is ask!”