One thing I’ve always come to find at a Spark conference, presented by Showit, is motivation. Copious amounts of it actually. All from the beautiful humans I get to share breakout rooms, dinners, experiences, joys, highs, and lows with. It’s not just the speakers but the attendee’s. Other souls who have made their way from all over the country, or the globe, to find truth and meaning within themselves and their business. All in different seasons & assignments of their business journey.

Spark has become the home base for all of us brave enough to start our own business. Those that branch from the norm and choose a non conventional life of working for oneself. The room has become a sounding board for my deepest fears and my highest achievements. A reminder that I’m no longer alone in my hesitancy when doing something for the first time, there have been others before me with the same doubts. In fact there had been most likely 20 or 30 others who have had the same fear inducing thoughts while also taking the plunge roaming these very same rooms.

What’s beautiful about fear and joy is it makes us human. The reminder that we are not as invincible as we appear online. Nor should be pretend to be. I think for the longest time so many of us thought we had to girl boss our way into success, keep doing the reps, no excuses, no sleep, eat, breath, sleep ones business. The reality, most of us became burnt out way too fast and we still haven’t recovered or even forgiven ourselves for not ‘making it’ yet.

Comparison creeps in and starts to whisper pollution to you late at night. Analysis paralysis of all the things we can, have, and should do with our business becomes a repetitive spiral. Worse, still is no actionable momentum comes after these spirals because we’re just overwhelmed with all the ‘what if’s’. These were my own thoughts and experiences. A season of doubt.

Spark has now become a beacon every year when the darkness of doubt has slithered its way into business practices. It’s three days of wave after wave of purification, knowledge, and motivation dripping from every room. Motivation and trust slowly seep into weary souls and breaks down the hard exteriors of doubt and insecurity.

One talk in particular was a wake up call that I am indeed not alone. I am indeed human. I Indeed do need rest. And I am indeed worthy of a successful business.

Chris Mistrick’s Seasons & Assignments talks was one for the books. The amount of mister miyagi wisdom that resonated and hit home this year was not only a testament to another creatives struggle. But a reminder that my own experiences and feeling aren’t even unique. There is a whole creative industry of amazing like minded humans who have stumbled and doubted their way through their own creative ruts. I am not special in my struggle, but I am not alone.

Some of my favorite quotes from Chris’s talk are:

“Become obsessed with how to keep going.”

“Sometimes growth doesn’t look like a lot of progress or movement.”

“There is still life in this dream.”

“No one feels like they are crushing it.”

“Fighting isn’t failing.”

“Some seasons are for fighting, some things you gotta fight for. In the fighting season you don’t just sit back and hope it gets better.”

“Stand in the discomfort.”

“It’s really easy to convince yourself to be fine with the status quo.”

Bar after bar this man was preaching to his literal choir and I was drinking it up. Parched, if you will, for drops of knowledge and inspiration from my predecessors in an industry I had come to know and love. An industry I myself was loosing faith in. Not faith in clients but myself and how to grow, move forward, become better, stay creative, and consistent. Now I know it was never about me. It was a season of business.

A season I would happily go through again will undoubtedly go through again. All to come out the other side better, well rested, sure, and never alone. This is what Spark is and always has been. A beacon begging to her creative children to come home. Rest, stay a while, refuel your soul, find your passion again, soak in the love, then be sent home overflowing with a purpose, passion, new friends, and a deeper understanding that business has seasons and assignments.