• The winner of the Bullish Blogging Scholarship was on hand to document the entire experience. Emily Brown provided more than enough memories, stories, and resources from last year to hold me over until November 14th, 2014. Here’s Re-Calculating Your Life Plan At The Bullish Conference, Emily’s very first post, pre-conference, and Blossoming Into A Bad-Ass At BullCon2013, Emily’s final post as our BullCon blogger, where she talks about the importance of planning your life in a supportive (and beachy!) environment.

Emily also wrote summaries of every talk and workshop at BullCon2013, with lots of tips and info for Bullicorns following along at home. Below:

• Conquering Your Schedule Hour by Hour: Laura Vanderkam offered strategies for controlling your schedule, as opposed to letting your schedule control you.
• Pitching To Editors And Beyond: “Go to all the parties and talk to all the people.” Just one of Jennifer Wright’s honest, insightful, and extremely helpful tips on pitching as a writer and in everyday life.
• Planning Your 2014 At #BullCon2013: Bullish goals require bullish planning. Jen’s talk involved a lot of introspective time by the pool – we all took our worksheets and sat in the sun, reviewing the accomplishments of our past year and thinking about what we hoped to accomplish in the year ahead. We might be halfway through 2014 already, but I’d highly recommend downloading the worksheet yourself – it’s available on the Get Bullish store. I like to revisit my original worksheet and update it every few months, to make sure I’m on track with my priorities.
• Negotiating For Your Career And Beyond: Another poolside workshop: Ji Eun (Jamie) Lee talked about the skills necessary for Bullicorns to ask – and get – raises, and then we paired up and practiced beside the pool.
• Time Management IRL: Oh, LOL, this is me! I spoke about managing my time as Jen’s assistant, the publisher of WORN, and as a freelance writer.
• Top Ten Principles of Bullishness: Jen finished the conference with a review of the most important principles for Bullicorns – about your future self, multiple income streams, aggression and entrepreneurship, amongst others. It’s the perfect list of quick pick-me-ups for Bullicorns in need of some picking-up.

And some miscallaenous highlights:

• Bullish Mad Libs: Exactly what it sounds like.
• BullCon2013 Photo Album: Courtesy of BullCon’s official photographer, Julie Lavoie.
• Links from BullCon2013: A round-up within a round-up? Sure, why not. Here’s a list of articles written by our speakers and attendees after the conference, as well as testimonials from attendees and info about the workshops.

Join us at Bullish Conference 2014! Register here.

The post Back To Bullish Conference 2013 appeared first on GetBullish Shop | Blog | Community.

Photos of BullCon2013 by our conference photographer Julie Lavoie are here. But here I’d like to share my personal snapshots from last year’s glorious (and gloriously productive!) trip to Miami.

Packing, and lint-rolling the cat hair from my new purple suitcase.

Three days, three fabulous pairs of shoes.

Miami Airport (“MIA,” which always makes me think “Missing in Action,” which is weird.)

Taxi stand at the airport. Easy peasy.

Shopping and cafes on the famed Lincoln Road.

18th Street Beach Walk, right outside the Surfcomber’s poolside area.

South Beach!

The Surfcomber.

My suite was full of bulls.

Goody bags!

Susan Sontag. Surfbordt.

The bull that inspired it all. (Yes, it’s a cow.)

Lounge by the pool.

The Surfcomber’s pool.

Unicorn horns for all.

The schedule.

Bullish Mad Libs!

The start of my Design Your 2014 workshop, which involved taking these purple clipboards outside by the pool or to the sand.

In case you were worried you were at the wrong conference.

Jennifer Wright teaches us how to pitch!

Ladies making it happen.

Laura Vanderkam!

Bullicorns.

Goody bags.

This is even more awesome when it’s November.

Dinner with the speakers.

Low-key unicorn champagne puzzle party. A few of the more energetic conferencegoers went out dancing, while those of us feeling more sedate chilled out here.

From the gift bags, a message for the ages.

Coming to BullCon2014? Earlybull pricing lasts until July 15. Limited to 40 tickets.

See you in Miami!

The post Jen’s BullCon Photo Diary appeared first on GetBullish Shop | Blog | Community.

Saturday at the Bullish Conference, we opened with BULLISH MAD LIBS. Here is a pic of a few ladies working on them.

And here are some of the best bits from BULLISH MAD LIBS.

Here’s a great title. Maybe I should actually write this:

Argue with this!

Why multiple high heel streams are crucial.

You too can be a synergy unicorn! It’s better than Call of Duty metaphors.

Or:

Hillary and Caitlin signed theirs, so I figured I’d include the whole thing. You always want an entrepreneurial Bullish Conference in your sexy sun hat. Amazeballs.

Next year’s Bullish Conference is scheduled for November 14-16, 2014!

The post Best of Bullish Mad Libs appeared first on GetBullish Shop | Blog | Community.

What should women be like if they are not mothers, daughters, cheerleaders, supermodels, or manic pixie dream girls? We are consistently told that we can’t have it all, and we can’t be everything. What then can we be? For me, Jen Dziura’s idea of a gentlewoman/Bullicorn is as good a model as any. Rather than advocating for one career or lifestyle choice, Jen provides practical strategies for achievement of one’s own ambitions. In this model, the answer to the question implied above is to be the most badass version of you.

The Bullish Conference provided a venue to work on this goal in a supportive (and beachy!) environment. Attendees bonded over a basic understanding of shared values. How refreshing to discuss feminist thought or multiple income streams without having to explain or apologize for your opinions! It seemed that everyone was excited about new ideas and new ventures, and the group repeatedly burst out clapping when someone shared a professional accomplishment. Besides your mother, who else would be thrilled by your book plan?

For me, conversations with other attendees teased out interests and plans that had been germinating deep in my brain for some time. Through workshops and conversations I developed a plan for my next year, and started some advance planning for the next five years. I also learned skills in negotiation, pitching, and time management, which will come in handy when I ask for a promotion, propose an article to a nationally distributed magazine, and train for a half marathon, all of which are on my plan.

Sharing personal and professional successes and trials with a like-minded group of peers makes the everyday struggle against the patriarchy more manageable. Explaining your fabulous, far-fetched business idea to a supportive audience makes it seem attainable. Hearing from women who are realizing their dreams through a combination of moxy, time management, and bullish aggression inspires you to do the same. The Bullish Conference gave me the tools and support to wrestle my ambitions into actionable goals. Did it change my life? It’s a bit early to say, but my 2014 is looking pretty good.

Emily is the winner of the Bullish Blogger Scholarship. For her very first Bullish post, click here. Follow Emily at @ebrowndowntown on Twitter.

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After a breakfast on the veranda, Jennifer Wright kicked off the day, explaining How to Sell Yourself Without Selling Out. She explains that the essence of pitching is about getting people to like you. Most of the time, this process takes a few months, but pitching speeds up the process, and there are certain ways to make a good impression.

There are certain elements of a pitch. Although it can be written, oral, or over the phone, it should be highly tailored. Prospective writers should pitch their ideas to appropriate publications, and match those publications levels of formality; i.e. don’t pitch a blog with a formal business letter. Also, it is helpful to remember that your pitch will be read by an actual person. Make sure you are pitching to the right person, and even try to play to their interests. If you’ve met them before, mention it; there’s a chance they will see you again, and a potential awkward social interaction can be quite motivating.

On your end, you must believe in your ideas, and be able to sell them. Make sure to justify how your story relates to your audience, and justify your credentials. Credentials may not be a long list of articles in various publications, but could be your specialty knowledge of a subject, or your lifelong residence in a city. Additionally, prospective writers can increase their chances of successful pitches by attending every networking event ever. Go to all the parties and talk to all the people.

Once your pitch has been accepted, write your article to the best of your ability and turn it in on time. Following these simple, obvious rules will put you ahead of the pack. Borrowing the ethic of show business, the show must go on, and the article must be written, even if your sources have dried up. Jennifer suggests you write to the best of your ability, noting that “done is better than perfect.”

Emily is the winner of the Bullish Blogger Scholarship. For her very first Bullish post, click here. Follow Emily at @ebrowndowntown on Twitter.

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Haley is the publisher of WORN Fashion Journal, as well as a freelance writer and virtual assistant. Altogether these responsibilities add up to 60 hours of work per week, more or less. What makes this demanding schedule possible (besides a lot of passion) is a slew of helpful tools and inspiring authors. A few of her favorites are:

Evernote: Haley notes, “Each day I find a new way to use this, which makes me love it even more.” Evernote functions as a to-do list and repository, with the added benefit of keeping all the resources for a project in one place.

FreshBooks: Cloud accounting that keeps track of expenses, invoices, and taxes.

DropBox: Storage in the cloud, so you can access your projects at any time.

TurboScan: Turns pictures into jpegs, making it easier to send them by email. This is particularly great for receipts.

Right Inbox: Working until 2:00am on a Wednesday? This app lets you send that email at a later date.

TimeWarp: Kicks you off of your favorite internet timesuck.

Haley’s list of inspiring authors include: Jen Dzuira, Laura Vanderkam, Adam Grant, David Allen, and the folks at Lifehacker.

In closing, Haley shared two snippets of advice with Bullicorns. First, be your own assistant. No one will look after your time unless you do. Second, paraphrasing Woody Allen, Haley compared her work to a shark; it has to keep moving forward.

Emily is the winner of the Bullish Blogger Scholarship. For her very first Bullish post, click here. Follow Emily at @ebrowndowntown on Twitter.

The post Time Management IRL appeared first on GetBullish Shop | Blog | Community.

Guest post by #BullCon13 blogger Emily Brown

Think you’re busy? Laura Vanderkam is on to you. The writer of 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think and What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, studies the disconnect between how we think we spend our time, and how we actually do.

At the Bullish Conference, Laura presented the workshop “168 Hours: Making Work and Life Work, 24-7.” She shared what she has learned about how people manage their time, and how Bullicorns can conquer their schedules.

To begin, Laura shared statistics. People underestimate sleep, overestimate workweeks, lose track of time, and underestimate leisure time. Keeping a time log can show the actual ways that time is spent. As Laura says, “Eventually, time is filled with something. What it is filled with is up to us.” Time logs function like food diaries, creating a visual record of the hours of the day.

In order to prioritize their time, Laura had the group answer the question, “What you would like to spend more time doing?” Answers ranged from sitting by the fire, swimming, having guests over, to actually doing work (not busy work). Keeping a list of the things you want to do can help remind you to accomplish them, and can even help to identify core competencies.

Strategies to Conquer Your Schedule:

• Play offense with your time. Defense is necessary, but not enough to win. Block out the things you want to prioritize first.
• Use all 168 hours. Think of 168 hours, not 24; things don’t have to happen everyday, add them in one to three times per week. Another tip is to use your mornings.
• Ignore, minimize, outsource. Cut out or set time limits on unpleasant tasks, or pay someone else to do them!

Emily is the winner of the Bullish Blogger Scholarship. For her very first Bullish post, click here. Follow Emily at @ebrowndowntown on Twitter.

The post Conquering Your Schedule Hour by Hour appeared first on GetBullish Shop | Blog | Community.

Extreme advanced planning. Planning in advance requires a different part of your brain than planning for the near future.

Deliberate choices. If you don’t have a design for the year, you end up filling your time with mid-range requests. It’s better to make a deliberate choice not to do something, than to do everything.

Make room for priorities and major projects. In a way, advance planning is like loading the dishwasher; the largest projects, like the largest pots, must go in first.

Dismiss guilt for goals and activities that are not priorities. Stand by your choices.

Fun, meaning, whimsy, and modern omnipotence. Today, with the internet and a modest sum of money, you can create your own social movement or fabulous party. Make room for fun.

After taking a six page survey, the participants reviewed their 2013s, then their values, then discussed how their values aligned with their 2014 goals. To provide that extra real life application, the Bullicorns used calendars to map out their 2014s. One noted that working backward from a goal provided good perspective, while another participant left her typical yearly conference schedule blank to see what that change would look like.

Jen suggested taking this survey and hashing it out into a one index card plan during the long plane ride from Miami, and left with the words, live well, be a badass, and enjoy 2014.

Emily is the winner of the Bullish Blogger Scholarship. For her very first Bullish post, click here. Follow Emily at @ebrowndowntown on Twitter.

The post Planning Your 2014 at #BullCon2013 appeared first on GetBullish Shop | Blog | Community.

Jamie’s workshop is divided into two parts, with a presentation at the beginning, and an interactive mock negotiation in the second half. Her presentation presents a framework for successful negotiation. One of her core tenants is the importance of genuine confidence. Would-be negotiators must believe in their abilities, and be able to quantify their value to the other side.

They also must know how much they are worth. Jamie recommends extensive market research, and tapping into your extended network for feedback. Ultimately, successful negotiation lies in understanding the needs of the other side. Jamie points out that women often have a heightened capacity for listening, allowing them to tune into the exact needs of their companies and clients.

After the workshop, one participant explained that she did not think she had anything to negotiate—however, during the mock negotiation, she realized she could apply these lessons to her upcoming apartment move. As the saying goes, everything is a negotiation, and fierce bargaining skills can have an impact on every aspect of your life.

Emily is the winner of the Bullish Blogger Scholarship. For her very first Bullish post, click here. Follow Emily at @ebrowndowntown on Twitter.

Jamie Lee is a speaker at Bullish Conference 2013, happening this weekend. For more information on her workshop, click here. Follow her on Twitter here.

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Here are some reasons I love Kimpton Hotels and specifically the Surfcomber. I’m not getting sponsored to say this — part of the way the conference came to be was that I was bouncing around a couple of different Kimptons, thinking, “Well, this is a gentlewomanly way to live.”

I don’t even do yoga, but I respect this idea:

Kimpton is LGBT-friendly. Perhaps more than friendly. Perhaps LGBT-fabulous.

This is totally a thing and you can go to it.

New York is currently blasting me with freezing rain, so I really can’t get to BullCon too soon. I made an outfit out of a pencil skirt and a Badgley Mischka one-piece maillot, and that outfit cannot come out of my suitcase too hastily.

Looking forward to meeting some of you in Miami!

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