This is one of at least three posts I have planned about the Sell More Books Show Summit 2019. At some point, I want to do my standard recap with my biggest takeaway from each session. Then, I have another in Drafts about the importance of networking, even and especially for introverts. Maybe one about branding too. Here, I’m going to touch a bit on goal setting.

The last official event of the weekend was another networking hour with drinks provided by one of the sponsors. I had to drive, so I skipped the drinks for this one, but I did accept the cookies host Jim Kukral was trying to get rid of!

By this time, I was pretty wiped out, so I spent most of the time talking to people I had already met who happened to wander by about our goals now that we had all that information percolating inside of us. One of those people to walk by was host Zach Bohannon, who I had just barely gotten the guts to talk to the day before because I wanted to introduce myself as a patron of his and J. Thorn‘s podcast, The Career Author.

I ended up telling Zach about one of my goals: to someday be worthy of speaking at an event like this. Zach very sweetly said something to the effect of, “Good thing you know an event organizer now!” Which I only took halfway seriously, but hey! It’s possible! Then, we called J. over, so I could get a Career Author pic. Voilà!

Someone else stopped by to talk to Zach, which gave me an opportunity to tell J. about my goal as well. As a long-time educator and speaker, he loved it, but then he said something I thought was really profound (possibly slightly paraphrased due to memory, or lack thereof).

Why not say you’re worthy now?

He went on to suggest that I start looking for speaking gigs now, such as at libraries, which I have done in the past, but it was a good reminder. I have something to say now. I have done cool stuff that is worth talking about; and even if I don’t have a hundred people listening, it’s good practice for if and when I do.

And deeper than that, isn’t that just really amazing advice for life? J. most likely meant it to encourage me to practice up on my public speaking, but wow. It hit me on a real visceral level too. As in, I felt like I should’ve written him a check for a therapy sesh or something.

So, to be cheesy (I am from Wisconsin after all *exaggerated stage wink*), I’ll end with this. You’re worthy now of achieving your dreams. So am I.