Attending My First-Ever Business Networking Conference: Real Talk Summit 2017
The MadeCreative Team and myself. From left to right: Me (Deon Towle), Andrew Nixon, Tom Alexander, and Heather Fisk.
The wake-up was quick.
It was 6:25am and I had to be on the ferry to Vancouver by 6:30am. A rush of adrenaline raced through my body and my mind went into overdrive faster than a 70's Mustang running from the cops. I knew it was impossible to make that 15 minute drive to the terminal. I jumped off my friend's futon that I had slept on for the past three hours, still a little queasy from St. Patrick's Day late night. I checked alternative ferry times, but the next sailing would rob me of 4 hours and surely I would miss the first half of the summit. "Shit, now I really messed up." I said to myself as I showered. I thought about the consequences of my decision to have a few drinks with some friends the night prior.
Then, as though an angel had caressed the soft edges of my mind, I remembered Harbour Air: a float-plane service that flies people directly to Vancouver in under 30 minutes. I jumped on my phone and booked my flight for 7:45am. It was a freeing moment. Not only did I earn myself an extra hour and fifteen minutes to eat breakfast and start my day, I would also be at the networking summit an hour earlier than if I had caught the ferry. Of course, time is money. I had to dole out over 10 times the amount of money that I would have paid to catch the ferry, but I had no other option and I wasn't going to miss this event. Being a young professional and having a very limited supply of cash, this decision was painful. But I had to choose between sacrificing a portion of my savings, or the opportunity of a lifetime. Money comes and goes, but you only get one life.
Over the loud humming vibrations of the plane, I felt at absolute peace. I peered down at the ocean below. The gigantic tankers who sat in the open bays off the mountainous coast and the 80 car ferries zipping across the open ocean added a sense of confidence to my day. We landed in Vancouver and I made my way to the convention centre, a 5-minute walk.
As I was hanging out in line before the summit started, I looked around at the range of people who had been attending. Posh business professionals loudly laughing in their social circles, 80-year-old seniors updating their Facebook profiles, young millennials talking to their DSLR cameras vlogging about the event, and a thousand other strangers. One of these strangers came up to me and introduced himself. His name was Chris, and he was from Alberta. We began discussing our similar home provinces, what brought us to the west-coast, and our companies. He was a hard-working guy who made me feel a bit inferior with the way he talked about how he was up late the night before working on his company when I knew I was up late playing beer-pong. It was inspiring in a sort of I-need-to-get-my-shit-together sort of way. On our way in, I found some good friends of mine from Nanaimo who had caught the ferry that I was supposed to meet up with. I parted ways with Chris and me and my group found our seats.
The speakers at the summit were amazing. Each successful business owner/entrepreneur who spoke did so in such a confident and self-assuring way. They were all very humble and made me realize that they were all regular people with passions to make a difference in the world. They all had massive failures, they all had massive successes, and they all represented something different. I sat through the 8-hour summit (with breaks to stretch and walk-around of course) absorbing as much information as I possibly could. My friends and I cracked jokes and discussed topics of interest during the less engaging moments, but overall I took the day in with nothing but love for the moment.
I looked around at all the faces who had attended, and a simple thought burned in the back of my brain, quickly launching itself to the front of my mind: I am still so young. I looked at the faces of 40-year-olds who were twice my age, and even those who were only a mere 5 years older than me. In that moment I realized how short this life is, how quickly it can be taken away, and how quickly it can pass us by. In that moment I decided that I would quit sinking my time into useless activities such as mindless Facebook scrolling and lazy Netflix binges. I am only 20 now, but I have my whole life ahead of me. I can do anything in these next 10 years and no matter what I mess-up, I can still make a great life for myself and others.
I feel absolutely blessed to have had the opportunity to attend the Real Talk Summit because it made me realize where my priorities are. Happiness trumps everything. I am leading a life of happiness and excitement. I am going to work hard to achieve my goals and dreams, because I will not go into my grave with regrets about "what if I quit that job to pursue what I love", or "I wonder where I would be if I pushed on for another two, five, ten years." That is not how I will go out. I am writing this first blog post not for an audience but for myself. I am writing this post so that I can look back in times of discontent or unhappiness and see that I just need to push through. I need to continue my efforts and I will not quit. This is my life and I will not waste it on unimportant things. I will lead a great life, and I will continue, everyday, my journey to be the best human that I possibly can.
Thank you so much if you read this post. It is my first attempt at a blog so I hope to perfect my writing and voice over these next few posts while I figure things out. This is the first step of the journey and I have many more to go.