This week, I was invited to attend and speak at an incredible event with my absolute favorite group of people – Women in Title. I’ve been looking forward to this event literally all year, and I was not disappointed.
On Tuesday, a group of 25 of us changed into hiking gear, piled onto a shuttle bus, and were dropped off at a hiking trail. As we waited in the bus to leave the hotel, a woman next to me is on the phone with a client and she says, “Yes, I understand, I’ll get the settlement statement over to you today.” Pause. “Correct, once you receive the settlement statement.” Pause. “Which you will be receiving today.” At this point everyone on the bus engages in a simultaneous groan. We’ve all been there.
As I shared some of my experiences managing multiple generations, there were more collective groans and sympathetic laughter, because they’ve been there before, too.
Last night before dinner, a group of women were discussing how incredibly supportive their husbands are of their careers. We smiled in unison, because we know we’re lucky too.
As a remarkable coach discussed her views on the difference between the proving mindset and the improving mindset, we all shook our heads together. She talked to us about balance and how mistakes were just course corrections. How we need to train our minds to run on a different engine that doesn’t demand perfection. We all took a breath and a beat, realizing she’s describing all of us. We understand that pressure all too well.
After dinner, in the hotel’s game room, a mother confided her uncertainty balancing motherhood with her career, and what that looks like now that her children are in adulthood. The women around me nod with deep empathy. We all know things we sacrificed to get where we are.
On another bus shuttle, I overhear someone casually drop that she’s a part time judge. When we force her to stop her story to tell us more, she demurs that she wasn’t elected, “just” appointed. We look at her with incredulity. But then again, we’ve all downplayed ourselves and struggle to accept compliments for our achievements.
Before it’s time for me to present, I feel that familiar pit of anxiety in my stomach and shift around uncomfortably, worrying my message won’t be relatable. Instead I calm myself down by reminding myself that if I’m going to talk about authenticity, I have no choice but to practice what I preach, and show up authentically in this very moment. The photographer I met the day before is leaning against the back wall with me, He responds to my nervousness with a brief glance at me and a nod of his head, saying, “You’re going to crush it.” And together, because of all those women, I did crush it.
During an intimate one-on-one lunch, I stare misty-eyed across the table at an insanely accomplished, radiant, intelligent woman who really seems to have it all. Separated by a few generations and states, we so easily see ourselves in each other. Our life experiences are vastly different. But we speak the same language.
Panting and struggling on an uphill, root-latticed trail, lagging in the back of the group, I listen to two women share experiences as young mothers from number of naps to Disney vacations to sparkly rocks from the trail they’re going to bring home. I can’t, but they clearly can relate to each other.
After a discussion on AI in the title industry, a woman asks how to work through the thought process of how leverage AI feels like cheating, like we didn’t put the work in to deserve the final product. We watched wide-eyed as our own matching fears were discussed. We understood that feeling of having to “earn” everything we have.
During another lunch, we stare transfixed at the author presenting to us, holding up a wooden bird and then a block of wood, challenging us to embrace that we are imaginative and creative people. The way to carve a bird out of the block of wood is to chip away everything that’s not bird. I look around at the room and see everyone’s minds working overtime. We are all imagining how much more we can create if we just chip away at what’s not what we want to be working towards.
I spun around a sunlit room in the beautiful mountains, highlighted by the women dressed in all white, glasses of champagne in hand. I notice on each of their wrists the Mantra bracelets we were gifted upon arrival. They reflect in the light like shiny armor, giving us permission to respond to the message inscribed on each cuff, “She believed she could, so she did.” It didn’t feel like one of those corny cliché sayings you see on coffee mugs anymore. We have believed and achieved, too.
I wish there was a magic formula to creating events where so much authentic connection can occur. It doesn’t exist though. The organizers put together an agenda, choose a location, craft experiences, and then just cross their fingers, hoping for the best.
“Fill Your Cup” isn’t just a corny cliché that would (very appropriately) be inscribed on a Home Goods coffee mug. It’s the best way to describe being in an environment that energizes, inspires, and excites collectively an entire group. It describes an environment where people didn’t want to or care to check their phones and work emails. They didn’t need to take breaks in their rooms where they could decompress from the constant stress of being “on” all the time, like most networking events. They could walk into any room, and expect a smiling face to welcome them, even if they didn’t know a single soul there.
After my presentation, I thanked the organizers not only for inviting me to this event, but for investing in me and my success, giving me the opportunity to present, and providing a copy of my book to every attendee. I disclosed that my early years in title were isolating and lonely. How I could never have imagined the comradery that exists in our industry and how it could provide me with a network of women, each equally incredible, authentic, hardworking, and kind, all willing and ready to pour into everyone coming up behind them. Because once you get your cup filled, you can start pouring it back into others.
