What you can do NOW to get ready for the Influence Conference!

For the Influence team, conference season has officially begun.  After spending the beginning of the year dedicated mainly to building and caring for the Network, we've turned our gaze towards September and the second Influence Conference!  There are a huge number of exciting things in store for you, and we'll be unveiling more throughout the summer. 

Are you joining us?  

Let's talk about five things you can do NOW to prepare for an amazing conference weekend. 

1. BUY YOUR TICKET.  

If you haven't bought your seat yet, now is the time!  

2. EXPLORE THE BRAND NEW CONFERENCE WEBSITE. 

Get all your questions answered, read about the speakers and community leaders,  check out the gorgeous hotel, and sign up to participate as a volunteer or apply to be a vendor in the Sashes Market. 

3. ORDER BUSINESS CARDS.  

The Influence Conference will be a great place to connect with companies, bloggers, and friends.  Keep your brand fresh in people's minds with an awesome business card to hand out.  This is a perfect month to spend some time crafting a card that is "you" and placing an order.  Need help?  Our conference manager, Ashley, has created a download with tips just for Influence members.  

4. CONNECT WITH OTHER ATTENDEES BEFORE THE CONFERENCE.  

Don't wait until you walk through the hotel doors to meet other influential women.  The Network was created to enable relationships to be sustained throughout the year.  You've got 3 months, so pick a few women (maybe your roommates or mastermind group!) and commit to know them better.  Try a Google+ Chat or comment on their blogs or social media to start conversations.  It will make September that much sweeter.

5. WATCH THE LIVE VIDEO SIMULCAST AND USE #INFLUENCECONF.  

This Monday, June 17th at 9 pm EST, Ashley will be hosting a live video simulcast with Influence co-founders, Jessi Connolly and Hayley Morgan, and two special guests.  They will chat about conference plans and answer your live questions, using the hashtag #influenceconf on social media.  

(If you can't make it Monday evening, the entire simulcast will be posted here on the blog next Friday!)

UPDATE: Here is the link to the live simulcast... 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uku0lgcRKoI&feature=youtu.be

We can't wait to see you in Indianapolis in roughly 100 days!  

Love Where You Live: A Location Link-Up

It's time to go local, ladies!

Take a few minutes on your own blog to share a bit about your hometown roots, and where you're living currently. Don't forget to include that photo... we want to put a name with a face - and now, a city! Be sure to check out a few other submissions. Who knows? Maybe the network's newest member lives just a few streets over!

The Influence Magazine

Have you read The Influence Magazine yet? 

Our hope is that as you flip the pages, you will see the graphic embodiment of the Influence woman.  It's smart, it's pretty, it's well-executed, it's encouraging, it tells a story and encourages giving and service.

Shauna Niequist, author of Bread & Wine, is the very first Influence cover girl, and she is altogether warm, authentic, and modern.  We are thrilled to give you a glimpse of a morning in her home, welcomed over for brunch and charmed with her heartfelt conversation about writing and womanhood and the grace that comes during real-life experiences.

In this first issue, our team included top photographers, Sara Ackermann and Jennifer Blair, who brilliantly captured the light and vibrancy of influential women.  We sought out Jordan Brantley, an up-and-coming page designer, to bring the Influence aesthetic to life on the pages.

The Influence Magazine is an AMAZING benefit of being a member, and we have two more issues rolling out before the Conference!  The first issue contains 50 pages of fresh, beautiful, and encouraging content, which will spur you on in your influential life.

All Influence members get a free copy of the magazine.  Become a member today, and for just $5, get your own copy - along with all the other membership privileges!  

What's Your Plan?

Now that I’m thirtysomething (and old and wise, obviously), I field a lot of questions from twentysomethings who are trying to Figure It All Out. As a group, they ask one question more than any other: How do I figure out what I want to do with my life?

Usually, this question isn’t born of reflection or contemplation. No, it’s tinged with panic, or articulated in an all caps, I’m-doing-this-all-wrong email. These women think they’re doing something wrong because they don’t already have a clear path marked out for the next decade. 

My answer is always the same: Of course you don’t. Nobody does when they’re 22. (Okay, that’s not entirely true. Some people really do know exactly what they want to do with their lives on the day they graduate college, or even sooner. We call them “fast starters,” and they’re outliers.) 

When you’re 21 (or 24, or 29) you may not know what you want to do with your life. That’s not cause for panic. That makes you normal. 

Looking back on my twenties, I wish I’d known I wasn’t supposed to have it all figured out when I graduated from college and launched into adulthood.

I was ready to get married at 21, but I had no clue about so many other parts of my life. I hadn’t yet learned to develop good boundaries. I didn’t have a clue about my work. I thought I was supposed to have it all figured out by then. 

I was wrong. And I wish I’d known it. 

The twentysomething years aren’t the time for executing the perfect life plan; they’re for figuring out what that might look like.  These years are for learning about who you are, who you love, what kind of work you want to explore. 

Progress in these areas isn’t steady. It’s not supposed to be. 

So you’re twentysomething and you don’t know what you want to do with the rest of your life? That’s just fine. Do some exploring. Gather some data. Say your prayers. 

And trust that you’re right where you’re supposed to be. 

For further reading (and watching):

21 Things I Wish I’d Known in My 20s

Like Blackberries on the Vine

Why 30 is Not the New 20 (a TED talk by Meg Jay)

What do you wish you’d known when you were 21?

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Anne Bogel loves strong coffee, long books, and big ideas. She puts a timely spin on timeless women’s issues at her blog Modern Mrs Darcy.

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Let's Shrink Things Up...a Network Link-Up Announcement!

When it comes to our women, we've learned a couple of important geography lessons lately... you Influence Network members hail from all over, but you intend to make your world smaller as you connect with each other.

We hear you! 

We hear you!

Now, to connect you!

On June 12, we'll be hosting a link-up that allows you ladies to connect with each other on a more local level. It's time to put a town with a face! On your personal blog, write a post that includes a snippet about where you grew up, and then a little plug about where you're living currently.  Then head on over here to the Influence blog and link up!

Be sure to include a fond memory and a photo. Make us fall in love with your city!
Can't wait to take a trip around the country (and the world) with you gals on June 12.
See you soon!

The Welcome Party

Ladies, conference season is in full swing (have you gotten your ticket yet?) We are SO excited to tell you about what will be your first experience at the 2013 Influence Conference- the welcome party. We want to set the tone for a really awesome weekend. We want to do something to give back. We want to give you a place to come together, hug old friends and meet new people. We want to make sure both our introverts AND our extroverts feel super comfortable and loved on at the conference.

So we decided to start things off with a little coffee, a little dessert, and coming together as a group to give back. This year we are teaming up with SoleHope and kicking off the conference with a shoe cutting party. If you haven't heard of Sole Hope , they are an incredible organization who's mission is to offer HOPE to widows, orphans, and others within impoverished and forgotten communities around the world by teaching the simple trade of shoemaking which provides jobs and shoes to those in need. They are helping to solve the very real and very sad Jigger problem in Africa.

Watch the video below (be careful around little eyes!) to see a very graphic view into the issue many children and adults are facing in Africa.



The thought of these sweet little children with parasites eating away at their feet simply from lack of shoes and water is too terrible. As women of Influence we always say we want our online lives to mean something, but we want our offline lives to mean something as well. And we can't think of any better way to reach out than teaming up with Sole Hope and cutting shoes to send to these children. We are collecting old jeans and fabric for the party so feel free to bring some old pairs if you have them!

During the shoe cutting party the lovely and talented Reeve Cobbs (who will be leading our worship night) will be putting on a concert of her original music. Not only that, but Christopher Kincaid, the crazy talented husband of our very own Forum Manager, Rachael Kincaid, will be playing for us as well!

This is going to be such a low key and wonderful way to kick off the weekend. Meeting up with old friends, finally meeting that person you've been talking to online for.so.long, nibbling some yummy desserts, listening to some incredible music, and really stretching the social justice arm of Influence.

So make sure and purchase your ticket today...We can't wait to see you there!

It's a Big Day!

Today is a big old day for us at The Influence Network and we are really excited to share with you.

This is absolutely a building season for us and we want you guys you to be anticipating and expectant for all that is coming up.

First, see that beautiful new logo up there? It represents more than a beautiful logo! We are working hard with the amazing people at Ghostly Ferns to not just punch up our design, but completely rebuild our site and the experience we give our women. That will be ready in July and we think it's truly going to blow you away.

Secondly, our first Influence Magazine is now available to members and we KNOW it will blow you away! Hayley and her magazine team have been working tirelessly on it and it's beautiful, uplifting, and informative. You can find it on the first page of the member's sign-in beside the forums tab. We're working on how it will be available to the general public later on, but for now it's free for all our members ONLY!

Third, Hayley and I wrote an eBook for all women that we're really excited about - The Refresh Book. You can read more about it here, but the thing that gets us really jazzed about the eBook is that it was officially published by The Influence Network. And that's exciting because we want it to only be the first of many eBooks we publish. We want to publish YOUR eBooks too! In July, with our relaunch of the new site, we plan to unveil the publishing side of the new network and we can't wait to help you get your content designed, formatted, marketed, etc!

So, yeah! Big, big, big day.
If you're not already a member of The Influence Network, today would be a great day to join!
You don't want to miss out on this beautiful thing that is getting built.
So grateful for you ladies.

Jessi + Hayley + the whole team