I'm going to be real honest with you guys.

My ego was beyond bruised last year, so much so that I didn't even realize the lies I told myself to avoid feeling it.

Back in September, I tried my hand at hosting a solo workshop all about brand clarity. I worked really hard on the content over a period of months so that it would be incredibly thoughtful and valuable to my guests. I was presenting to a group of alumni at a college and later realized that I had relied too heavily on receiving support of the organization to help promote the workshop and get tickets sold. My contact there at the time who set it up is still one of my favorite people in the world, but unfortunately things just didn't work as we had hoped. They did some Insta Stories and sent an email out to their alumni, but it was buried in a long list of events and news. Not great.

It was the day of the workshop and I had sold 3 tickets.

To make things worse, one of the girls was sick. BUT I didn't cancel. I drove my butt downtown and did my very best. I threw my plan of a formal presentation out the window and dove into the content. I focused on providing these two women with a very personalized experience split between each of their budding businesses.

In hindsight, I see that it's important to have these rough experiences to learn how to do things better, but after it was over, I felt exhausted and defeated.

I decided that workshops weren't for me.

I turned my focus to client projects and on growing a team at Written & Styled. So I did that. I put my head down and got to work. I added some wonderful new clients to our roster and some new amazing team members.

So why was I feeling like something was still missing? I couldn't figure it out. I went to workshops, met with intuitive readers, coaches, and even a traditional therapist. Of course, it was more of my "woo" women supporters that opened my eyes. I'm told I have a lot of masculine "doing" energy and need to be more feminine and tune-in to my intuition and "feel" - that still confuses me a bit, but I agree and once I let go and connected to what made me happy, it clicked.

I really missed coaching and working with new entrepreneurs.

Before the workshop last year, I was collaborating with a co-working space in downtown where I provided free 30-min marketing coaching sessions for a day once a month. That was so fun. It was kind of like speed coaching where I helped people get out of their bubble and see things differently. In near every experience, I'd hear how clear they felt about their business and how excited they were to put these new ideas into action. Some turned into clients. From there, I started taking on one-on-one coaching clients and, in fact, this experience was what gave me the idea for the workshop in the first place.

It just goes to show you need to pick your collaborators well.

This brings me to last Saturday where Written & Styled presented and participated in an incredible panel discussion and speed mentoring event in collaboration with Savoir Collab (Founded by Tamalin Srisook of Savoir Agency) "Telling Your Brand Story" at Industrious West Hollywood (the prettiest co-working space ever).

Scroll down to see my list of top 8 takeaways from our event.

Over the course of a short 3 weeks we had to work out all of the details, including the panelists, location, photography, food, promotion, etc. Tamalin has been in event production for over 20 years and I'll tell you, she knows her stuff. She loves supporting women-led businesses and loved my idea for the event right from the start.

Yet, it still takes a village!

Without the awesome support of our panelists and our friends - sending emails, posting on social media and just showing up - it would never have been as successful.

My goal was to help shine a light on brand storytelling from a group of expert storytellers. And no surprise, these women truly rocked it (listed from left to right in the image):

KRISTEN SCHELLENBERG- PHOTOGRAPHER & FOUNDER OF THE ATELIER LA

TASHA OLDHAM- FILMMAKER & FOUNDER OF MY STORY INC

HAELY WHITE- CONTENT CREATOR & CO FOUNDER OF LIKE TOTALLY

TAMALIN SRISOOK - FOUNDER OF SAVOIR AGENCY & SAVOIR COLLAB

ME - ARICA ROSENTHAL - MARKETING STRATEGIST & FOUNDER OF WRITTEN & STYLED

ERIKA HEET- EDITOR IN CHIEF AT INTERIORS MAGAZINE

MEGAN DIZON- CONTENT CREATOR & CO FOUNDER OF LIKE TOTALLY

The concept of "speed mentoring" is all Tamalin. It's awesome because attendees get to listen to a quick 30-min panel (I think we only got through each of our stories and none of the questions I had prepared!) then everyone is broken into small groups to speak with each panelists.

The groups rotated every 15 minutes and then we ended with a little networking, photo ops, along with cupcakes and champagne for our birthday girl panelist, Haely.

8 key takeaways from our event:

1. Partners. Find a collaboration partner that has a true desire to have a good turnout.

2. Description and pricing. Once you have your event concept nailed, make sure to share the description and pricing with a few friends (who love you enough to be honest) to make sure they get it and would want to go. If not, tweak early.

3. Promote early. Begin promoting earlier than you think you need to and get creative about how to spread the word. In the days leading up to our event I had quite a few great suggestions from friends that I wish I had plotted out sooner.

4. Everyone needs to pitch in. Make it clear to those participating in your event that you're going to need their help promoting ahead of time. No matter the budget, it always helps and can make all the difference.

5. You're not annoying. No one ever sees all of your social posts, so don't feel like you're being annoying when you are posting all over the place leading up to your event.

6. IRL Opportunity. Find opportunities for personal connections. We are in front of our screen enough getting talked to, let your guests get involved and help them create relationships with your experts.

7. Photography + Video. Probably goes without saying, but it's so nice to look back on all the hard work you put it. We were lucky enough to have the lovely Stephanie Tusler of TSLR Lifestyle take the gorgeous photos seen in this post. We took a bunch of videos for our Instagram story and shared portions of the event live.

8. End on a high note. Keep the magic alive with thank you emails/notes to your collaborators and guests. Get as personal as you have the capacity for.

The moral of this post is that I encourage everyone to be OK with failing or whatever you consider less than ideal. It teaches us the lessons we need to do better the next time if we are determined enough to try again.