Adam Torres and Rita P. Mitchell discuss The State of the Woman 2024 Conference.
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Show Notes:
The State of the Woman 2024 Conference brings together like minded women. In this episode, Adam Torres and Rita P. Mitchell, President & CEO of Dream Bigger Now TODAY, explore The State of the Woman Conference and what attendees can expect.
About Rita P. Mitchell
Author of Own Your Phenomenal Self: A Guide on Character, Success, and Leadership. Over 40 years of financial services experience. Former EVP of Private Client Services for First Tennessee Bank. Managed Private Banking, Medical Private Banking and Horizon Wealth Advisory for Middle Tennessee. Experience includes successful business ownership; insurance and securities brokerage; banking both consumer and commercial lending with market credit approval authority; financial services sales, executive management, and 30 years of non-profit leadership. Proven success in both sales and leadership along with a strong financial background and is uniquely qualified to provide strategic insights as a member of a corporate board.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest on the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on be our guest to apply. All right. Today, my guest is Rita Mitchell. She’s the president and CEO over at Dream Bigger Now Today.
Rita, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. I’m so excited to be here, Adam. All right, Rita. So fun meet the other side of the equation here, the other co host, I should say, for the State of the Women 2024 conference. I know we had Gail Letts on the show a couple weeks back, I think, so it’s great to finally meet.
Yeah, I’m excited. And thank you for the opportunity to talk about our company and the conference. So, State of the Woman 2024 conference, don’t want to assume that all of our new listeners caught that episode I did with Gail. So, let’s just start off by telling us a little bit more about the conference.
So, the conference is in Nashville. It’s a two day conference. Again, as you said, the State of the Woman 2024, and it’s going to be held at. The hermitage hotel April the 7th through the 9th. We are totally excited about. The lineup of speakers that we’re going to have, but all the speakers are about empowering the women executive women that will be attending the conference to be inspired to do more, be more and achieve more.
And we’ve got 8 powerhouse speakers. I think we’re gonna have 4 workshop. And really and a huge amount of networking, but it’s really about sharing the, our speakers are going to be sharing their leadership journey the lessons that they’ve learned. And their advice they’re going to give advice about what they think you should be doing to have the success that you’re reaching for.
And so that’s it in a nutshell. This is the 2nd conference. the 1st was held several years ago. And of course, code came into play, so we’re, totally excited for it to be in Nashville. And again. We’re going to max out probably at 120 people and so the Hermitage Hotel is a very intimate setting, and so we’re keeping it that, you know, small on purpose so that there really is an opportunity for the women to connect and walk away with relationships they leave and go on to, you know, back to, you know their day to day, why do you think a conference or a convening like this is so important for, you know, women to be able to come together and gather, you know, with these, you know, pretty specific objectives?
Why is that so important? Well, I think as women, you know, we’ve made a lot of progress as it relates to running successful companies. Getting in the C suite, serving on corporate boards but there’s still more work to be done. And you know, to be in a room full of other professionals and executive women, where you can glean from other successful women who are, have, you know, have, like, like journeys, like struggles, and then bring to the forefront, Relevant information on how you create more success or, you know, the alignment with, my company is also living your biggest dream.
So, so to be in a room with those kind of synergies, that kind of talent, and the topics that are going to be discussed. And shared with the women, I think it’s just critical talk to me a little bit about the programming and like, what attendees can expect.
Yeah. And so right now we have. speakers, we may end up having 1 more, but Lisa’s son, who’s a CEO and author of gravitas. And Maggie Palmer, who’s founder of Peps Talker, and she’s a CNBC journalist. They’re going to be doing a session on authentic confidence. Lipman, who’s also a journalist at USA Today, is going to be talking about the power of reinvention.
Again, you know, and that’s the other thing are you happy with your happiness while you’re sitting there? So is there an opportunity for you to reinvent yourself into something else? And, and she’s going to be speaking on that. Allison Grounds, who’s the managing partner at Troutman Pepper emerged.
And of course, it’s going to be talking about how AI and large language models will change the future. And of course, you know, the things that are happening with AI are just crazy. And so, you know, this is, you know, how do you respond to that as a women and a corporate woman or an entrepreneur?
How does that lean into how you do business? And then. Sherry Darchman, who I know personally she’s just a powerhouse. She’s the founder and CEO of Brain Trust. And so Sherry actually started her company with very little. I mean, I’m talking about nothing. And eventually sold it I think the number, and I could be wrong, it’s 30 million is the lowest number.
I think it’s, it’s either 30 million or 60 million, but she sold it. Maybe five years or so ago, and then created Braintrust, where this new company, she’s creating millionaires, and so it’s women focused, and she’s helping women get to million dollars in bottom line revenue, so she’s going to be talking about the power of money, so she walks the talk, she did that, and the Braintrust is all about that Pat Shea, who’s partner with Shea Advisory Services Pat and I have known each other for a lot of, at least 15, 20 years.
We’ve served on a lot of boards together, non profits, and then she’s going to be talking about, she’s the key lunch the, one of the keynote speakers for the luncheon the first day, and she’s going to be talking about being giftful, which is a completely different way to think about philanthropy, right?
And then we have Kelly Richmond Pope. She’s the author of whom he wants. She’s a professor at the call University. And she’s going to be talking about stories of deception. And so you can see the, the quality of the speakers. And you know, you’ve got diversity of speakers. It’s diversity of content.
And hopefully these topics are going to hit. Everybody’s going to be able to benefit from listening to these speakers share their stories. Yeah, and when I think about like this, this programming and everything that you and and Gail and obviously your whole teams have put together, like what are, what are some of the takeaways?
Obviously, whenever anybody goes to a conference like this, everybody’s going to have a different experience, whether it’s the people they meet or otherwise, but what are some things that you hope that the attendees get when they walk away from this conference? Well, you know, the, I always say, if you can walk away with one or two to do things that you’re going to change that’s done it, and you know, not just go to the conference, it was great, it was fun, it was good food, it was, you know, but what are you going to, what are you going to do differently today?
When you get back to your office or to your company. So we want them to walk away with one idea, at least, you know two, three, but definitely everybody walk away with something they’re going to do differently to enhance. What it is they’re doing and then I think the other thing that is just as important that you walk away with at least 1 new relationship that you’re going to make an effort to nurture and grow.
Right? Are you looking at your notes? That’s literally my only two goals when I go to any conference. It’s like, I got to go away. You’re looking at my notes over here. I got, I need to learn just one thing. There’s going to be thousands, but can I do what? Take one thing that’s like, what’s that one thing?
And who’s that one person cut you off? But I’m like, how’d you take my notes? Well, conferences and I’m, I’m old. And so I’ve been doing conference a long time, you know, in the beginning, you normally get, Oh, let me get, let me get your card. Give me a card. You got, you got 50 cards. And then they get put on a pile somewhere, and you really didn’t make one relationship.
And by the time you get around to it, the people don’t even remember who you were. I mean, you know, and so when you go in with intent, then, right, then you narrow that scope down. Okay, my goal is to get one or two relationships. Who am I connecting with? Who, who, who is this person that I could really, Okay.
I would love for them to be in my network. I would love to pick their brain. I would love to know more about their business and their company. I would love to know more about their journey. Well, when you go on with intent, then you’re looking for that, not getting a bunch of business cards that get in the sack somewhere, right?
And then the same thing, all the notes that you take when you have intentionality. To me, when you have intentionality okay. And all this stuff I’m doing. What, what is the, what is the one thing, the two things that I’m going to do next week? What am I going to do with all this information? Because we’re, you know, we’re processing information all the time.
I mean, you know, there’s, we got, we have fires, we have crises, we have new stuff, we got projects, we have this. But, but when you have intentionality, then, okay, now it gets into, and I’m a firm believer on the urgent, non urgent, you know, the seven habits of highly effective people. Not urgent, important, not important.
And so when you make this urgent and important, then it gets done. And so that’s really what we’re hoping people will do. And that you’re inspired, right? So you had a great time, but you are inspired to do the next thing. So those are the 3 things I would say that we’re wanting women to walk away with.
Yeah, that’s amazing. I love it. How does dream bigger now today play into this? Like, how does this work into your overall mission? Yeah, so dream bigger now today is about living your best life by living your biggest dreams. Right? And and so how we do that I mean, we’re authors, authors, authors, we’ve written 3 books, we do.
Workshops, seminars, key speaking consulting, all of that, but at the end of the day, it’s really about helping people to harness their individual power to achieve their, their, live their biggest life, and we believe that the way you live your biggest life is really live your biggest dream, because that, that is really what makes you happy.
So, this aligns totally Hey. With what we’re hoping the conference delivers to people, right? So that you are inspired, and this is the tagline of the conference. So, the fate of the women 2024, be inspired to do more, be more, achieve more. That totally lines to our company Dream Bigger Now today. So it’s about action.
It’s about what can you do today. And so that’s how that aligns. And, you know, just as a background for me, I retired say, almost six years ago now, after 40 years in financial services and I retired as executive vice president and managed private banking and for an 80 billion regional bank.
And that’s where Gail and I met, and we worked on a lot of women programs together at our company together, which is. You know, why we’re connected, but in my 40 years, you know, I was an entrepreneur and, you know, and I made the decision that in my last, you know, 10 or 15 years, how did I want to work?
Don’t work for somebody else. I want to keep working somebody else. So do I want to double down on me and myself? And I made that decision and so that’s, you know, we talk about 1 of the topics that I’ve mentioned was the power of reinvention. Do we have is there someone in the room? Who really wants to start their own company or do something else, right?
And so and in my 40 years, I’ve also mentored a lot of, a lot of folks. I have 40 years of financial services, 30 plus years of nonprofit leadership. I’ve mentored a lot of women and I’ve been mentored by executives. So I know the value of what a conference like this can have on someone’s trajectory.
And, you know, we always assume that when women are really successful, They got it together, right? I got this. I’m an executive here. I’m EVP here. I have my company here. I’m really successful. But that doesn’t mean that even though you’re, you have success, do you have joy? Are you happy with your happiness?
Right? It’s one of our, are you happy with your happiness? So that’s how the alignment of our company aligns with, hopefully, the takeaways for the women that are going to participate in the conference. Yeah, it’s going to be great. And I feel like, how, how much fun, like, how excited are you to be back in person after the COVID thing, this, that?
I know. How amazing is it to be in that room with that energy? Are you excited? I know. And we’re going to do some fun things too. So you’ll have all these topics, but and it’s the 1st night, the 1st day, the full day, you know, we’re going to have things to do in Nashville. So, you know, of course, there’ll be shopping, there’ll be, there’ll be 1, there’ll be food.
So, so then my daughter and I are actually leading a session. After breakfast on affirmation for today, what do you need to hear from yourself today? So I am I can, I will. Okay. So, so there will be some powerful, not just the speakers, but there’ll be some powerful. Other things and workshops that I haven’t mentioned, which will give people the opportunity to really.
You know, you get outside of just sitting, you know, listening to somebody speak, but really some interactive things that you can do that will be fun and will also give you some thought leadership, some inspiration. So, so, you know, that’s that it will be fun. It will be fun. And, I would say this, that, again, I mentioned that I think the most that we could have is 120 people and really, I think we’re leaning toward kind of wanting 100, we’ll see, but we’re halfway, you know, we’re halfway full.
And so if there’s anybody who’s listening to this who. If anybody has an interest, I would encourage them to look, you know, go to the website, register, and we’ve got, you know, we’ve got great hotel rates. The Hermitage Hotel is a five star hotel in the middle of downtown Nashville. It’s a historic hotel.
And so, it’s just going to be, it’s going to be first class. It’s going to be great speakers. It’s going to be a lot of fun. And I think people will walk away with some real relationships and knowledge to take back. That’s wonderful. And Rita, that being said, if somebody wants to attend or learn more about Dream Bigger Now today, how do they do that?
What’s the website? What’s the, what’s the The website is they can go to the website, and I would, I would recommend that it’s dreambiggernow. today. Same thing, not anything complicated. And if you go to our website, you know, everything is there as well. And you can follow, you know, we, we are on Instagram and tick tock and LinkedIn and all that’s on the website too.
But the website is where I would go. We, we start out with a very short video on what is Dream Bigger Now, and it kind of tees up what, what the company is about. And from there, you can navigate around. So, yeah, I would do that. And obviously, if they want to look more at the conference, you would go to stateofthewoman.
com. So if you’re interested in registration or even sponsorship, you should go to stateofthewoman. com. So. streamfigurenow. today and stateofthewoman. com. Perfect. And for the audience, we’ll put that, all that information in the show notes so that you can just click on the links and head right on over. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t hit the subscribe button yet, hey, this is your invitation.
Hit that subscribe button. We have many more mission based. Individuals coming up on the line and we don’t want you to miss a thing. Rita, thank you so much for coming on the show. We’re so excited and thrilled to be helping you get the word out about the conference and all the great work that you’re doing.
So thanks again for coming out. Well, thank you, Adam. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk to your listeners.
