Elevate Creative Summit | Nashville, TN
I’m a firm believer in investing in yourself and your business. Sometimes this looks like continuing education or retreats to recharge. This year, I’m making it a point for me to improve myself and, in turn, my business, by doing both! I spent the last few days in Nashville, TN attending the Elevate Creative Summit and I couldn’t be more glad that I did.
The Graduate Hotel
It’s no secret that I love traveling and Nashville is one of my favorite places! I was so excited that the dates for this event worked out and I was able to attend. Not only was the summit amazing and worth every penny, the hotel and accommodations were so cool! I stayed at The Graduate in Midtown and it’s something you just have to see and experience for yourself. It epitomizes Nashville charm and features interactive paintings of some of the most well-known Opry stars like Pasty Cline and Dolly Parton. It’s colorful and classy, fun and luxurious, and I can’t recommend it enough! The accommodations were just as enjoyable as the event.
Elevate Topics
There’s always something to learn, a different angle to approach things, and this summit was amazing for continuing education for me. There was a wide range of topics including marketing, monetizing your expertise, branding, business practices and more. We made charcuterie boards, paintings, and hand-lettering and it was just an all around fun experience. I spent two days learning, flexing creative muscles, and being surrounded with a village of women who are also striving for the best versions of themselves and their businesses.
The Power of Community
This was my first time attending this specific summit and it was wonderful to be surrounded with other creative business owners. It’s a beautiful, albeit sometimes challenging, thing to be self-employed. Especially as a mother, working from home has many perks. However, it can get isolating and lonely from time to time. This conference gave me the opportunity to network with other photographers and creatives. I really enjoyed getting to bounce ideas off of them while learning a ton of great info from the speakers.
It’s so important to surround yourself with people who are working towards similar goals. This is something I’ve been doing for a bit through a Round Table Membership with one of the summit speakers, Sabrina Gebhardt. For the last year, I’ve been meeting with Sabrina and a whole group of photographers and creatives via zoom. It was great to finally meet those ladies face-to-face and to get to hang out with them not through a computer. It’s a great community to be involved with and it’s encouraged me a ton in my own business.
If there’s one piece of advice I could give to other photographers or business owners, it’s to constantly set goals for yourself and your business. No one else is going to invest in you or your goals, it’s up to you to make the effort. I promise it pays off in the long run!
