Lost my voice, gained my clarity: FinCon 2019 Recap

2020 Update: I am releasing this FinCon 2019 blog post recap exactly a year later, on September 4th, 2020. I switched from blogging to podcasting right after FinCon, and didn’t publish on my blog for several months while I was working on the podcast launch. This draft was sitting in my WordPress, 90% complete, for a whole year.

Since FinCon 2020 was canceled this year due to a global pandemic, I figured it would be a fitting tribute to the amazing experience I had at FinCon in 2019 to finally put this blog post out there. As it turns out, I had drafted not one but three blog posts about FinCon in 2019. The other two were about FinCon Tips for First-Timers and The Anonymous Blogger’s Guide to FinCon. I will be publishing those two articles soon as well (maybe 😂).

For this article, I’ve kept the text as it was written in 2019, and added 2020 Update language as a reflection on how things have changed since this was originally written. In reflection, 2020 has been a truly amazing and life-changing year. While FinCon certainly has some changes to make regarding diversity and inclusion (which I’m looking forward to hearing about in advance of FinCon 2021), I don’t want to understate the positive impact that the 2019 conference had on me and my brand.

This post contains an overview of my experience as a first-timer at FinCon 2019, what I lost and what I gained, things I learned, mistakes I made, my goals for the next FinCon, and a roundup of other attendee’s recap posts.

FinCon 2019, Washington D.C.

Until FinCon, I felt like I had been blogging alone, in a corner, for 3 years. I can’t believe I’ve been blogging about my financial journey for 3 years! This year at FinCon, I realized that I wasn’t alone, and I also discovered that maybe blogging isn’t quite right for me.

At FinCon, I met so many amazing creators who were all passionate about the same thing as me: money and teaching others about it! I made connections in the hallways, in the sessions, and most importantly at meetups. At the Women’s Personal Finance meetup (my favorite event of the conference), I met some bloggers that I know I will definitely be keeping in touch with. And I met like-minded people everywhere – on the bus & in line to the opening party (which was at the Smithsonian, whaaaaat), in the lobby and restaurants of the hotel, and even on line to the bar and on the dance floor at the epic closing party.

2020 Update: I’ve now been blogging for 4 years, but I wanted to keep this consistent with the 2019 writing of the article. I am also still in touch with many of the amazing people I met at FinCon. 

 

My First FinCon

I forgot that I had bought the FinCon ticket. On a whim, after hearing good things about it in a mastermind group, I bought the early bird ticket in late 2018. I put a reminder on my calendar to buy a hotel room by June, and promptly forgot about it. Then I bought my hotel room and forgot about it AGAIN.

In late August, I saw it on my calendar and freaked out. I am a planner by nature, and I had NO IDEA what to expect. So I researched the crap out of it by reading other people’s blog posts on it, joining and asking questions in the FinCon Community facebook group, and doing some general googling about attending a conference. Learn more about my FinCon Tips for First-Timers here (blog post coming soon).

I bought the virtual pass so I wouldn’t stress about missing sessions. My approach was to focus on the meetups and the networking parts of it, and then do sessions if I was in between conversations. All in all I think I attended about 4 or 5 sessions. The rest of the time, I was going to meetups and just chatting with people in the hallways.

There were some things I thought I was definitely going to attend that I didn’t and some things that I was pretty sure I’d skip that I ended up loving. For example, I really wanted to go to the screening of Playing with FIRE. But once I had heard some ‘meh’ reviews from people I respected, I decided I’d rather hang with them than watch a movie I could see at home.

On the other hand, I had never heard of the Plutus Awards before. I have never really been into awards shows like the Emmys or the Oscars, so I figured it would be boring and full of people I didn’t know about. Boy was I wrong! I ended up attending because several of the friends I made at the conference were finalists for awards. Several of them actually won awards that night, and the energy was so exciting. The after party was also super fun.

2020 Update: I haven’t used my virtual pass at all, and it’s a year later. It was worth it to lower my FOMO while at my first conference, but I won’t go out of my way to purchase it again. I also still have not watched Playing with FIRE, though I plan to eventually. 

Blogger to Podcaster

I have been dreaming of launching a podcast for 2 years now. I decided to make that the focus of this FinCon – learning how to podcast, networking with established podcasters, and meeting people to interview on my podcast.

When people asked me why I wanted to podcast, my response was often “Well, I have a lot of experience talking, so… I think I’m qualified.”

Then they started asking me what my podcast was going to be about. In fact, having to answer this question dozens of times is what really helped me refine the purpose of my podcast. I came in with a name and a rough idea, and I left with a specific vision of what my podcast would look like, and some knowledge to help me launch.

I write about personal finance and lifestyle design for women. I wanted to create a podcast for women. But what I realized as I started to talk about my podcast more, was that I wanted to create a podcast that was BY women and FOR women. And that meant I was only going to interview female podcast guests. That epiphany was HUGE, and highly important to the clarity that followed around the direction my brand was heading.

2020 Update: I launched Find Your Freedom podcast on January 31, 2020. Nearly all of my podcast guests in 2020 were women I met at FinCon. Additionally, I’ve moved to podcasting as my primary type of content.

Encouraging Signs

I’m not usually into “signs from the universe” or whatever, but I did really feel like I got two signs at FinCon this year.

The first was that I placed two pins on my FinCon badge lanyard. One said “blogger” and one said “podcaster.” On day two, the blogger pin had fallen off. I went to the pin table to get another one and there were none left. Guess I’m 100% in on this podcasting thing.

The second sign was this little card holder on the back of my phone. It had my employer’s logo on it, so I covered it with my blog’s logo (since I’m anonymous). By day 3, the cardholder that I’d had for almost a year had ripped down the side and was very soon going to not hold anything. That day, I stopped by the FINRA booth and they had some cardholder swag. So I grabbed one, ripped off my employer’s cardholder, and replaced it with a finance cardholder.

I’ve been thinking about when I might leave my job for a while now. Going to FinCon and talking to so many people about their experiences has really been a catalyst. I am going to aggressively pursue a reduced hours schedule. And I am now planning to leave my company by 2021.

2020 Update: I decided about a month after FinCon that I was actually going to quit my job in January 2020. I quit and launched my podcast and money coaching business in 2020. 

 

Things I gained & things I lost

I gained brand clarity, a new community, business confidence, podcasting knowledge, and new friends. FinCon was immensely helpful for me to gain more clarity on my brand. I realized that I needed to niche down my audience, and that I wanted to move away from talking specifically about student loan payoff to start talking more about lifestyle design. I also gained a new community of like minded money nerds. By having the opportunity to talk with so many other financial people about my brand, I was able to gain a whole lot more business confidence.

The sessions I attended and the people I talked to taught me so much about podcasting, something I had not known how to do prior to the conference. Finally, and most importantly, I made new friends. This was extra amazing because I showed up at FinCon knowing exactly zero people. It was so wonderful to meet A Purple Life, Financial Mechanic, Ms. Mod from Modest Millionaires, Jessica from The Fioneers, and Emma Leigh Geiser, to name a few of the awesome people I met at FinCon.

2020 Update: I have become better friends with several people I met at FinCon throughout the last year, including Moriah Chace, Michelle from Frugality and Freedom, Sunitha Rao, and Angela from Tread Lightly Retire Early, again to name just a few.

The first thing I lost was my voice. I spent so much time talking, like 12 hours a day, and most of that was at a high volume because hundreds of people talking on one area gets LOUD. I could hardly squeak out words by the end of FinCon. I still remember J Money asking me if my voice normally sounded like that (meaning super raspy) 😂 If you want to hear what I sounded like, you can listen to my very first podcast episode which was recorded live at FinCon!

2020 Update: My voice was so raspy for most of FinCon that almost all of the people I met who later listened to my podcast were surprised to hear what my normal speaking voice sounds like.

The second thing I lost was my fear. I had previously been so afraid to talk to people in my “real life” (like friends, family and coworkers) about my blog, because it was highly personal to me, I was very open and vulnerable on it, and I felt like most people wouldn’t understand. I didn’t even tell my boyfriend about it until I had been blogging for over a year and a half! However, at FinCon, I met my people. They understood why someone would want to write about money, and share the private financial details of their life online for everyone to see. By talking to literally hundreds of people face-to-face about my blog, my brand, and my future business, I lost my fear!

 

Things I learned

1. Don’t overschedule

The beauty is in the spontaneity.

You can build this big, beautiful schedule to optimize your time at FinCon, but then you won’t stick to it anyway. Like I said, I’m a planner, and I didn’t stick to my schedule at all!

One of the best unscheduled activities I did was walk around D.C. and see some monuments, landmarks, and museums with my new FinCon friends A Purple Life, The Fioneers, Four Pillar Freedom, Financial Mechanic, and Moriah Chace. See photos above!

 

2. Arrive a day early

If I could do it again, I’d arrive at FinCon the day before the conference started. I chose to drive down the day of the conference because I didn’t want to use vacation days or buy another hotel night. However, I think the extra time and expense would be worth it to come down a day early. I was bummed that I missed the bloggers meetup, and I felt really thrown into the fray because I arrived and immediately jumped into the conference. I also had to wait in a huge check-in line for at least half an hour to 45 minutes on the first day, when I would have preferred to be meeting people.

 

3. Don’t expect to sleep (or debrief)

Silly me, I thought I would get 6 to 8 hours of sleep per night. It turned out to be more like 5 to 6 hours of sleep each night. And you know what, it was SO worth it.

I also for some reason thought I was going to be able to debrief my experiences daily, like write down notes and reminders to follow up. NOPE. I ended up doing all that today, a week after I got back.

I did manage to make a spreadsheet of people’s contact information I had collected over lunch one day, but that’s about it.

4. LobbyCon is real!

LobbyCon is the gathering of people that happens in the hotel lobby after the day’s scheduled events are over. It was honestly one of my favorite parts of the entire conference. I met as many people during LobbyCon as I did during the actual conference events. It was more laid back than the conference’s daytime events, people were even sipping beers while chatting. I made a lot of great connections during LobbyCon, and was also able to deepen some of my relationships with people I’d met earlier at the conference once we met up in the lobby after hours.

 

 

5. It was a great idea to bring my own food

Weirdly enough the hotel didn’t automatically provide a refrigerator or microwave. After requesting one at check-in and being told they didn’t have any left, they magically showed up outside our room on the first day. On my way to the hotel, I had stopped at Walmart to grab some microwave-ready meals like bags of frozen rice and vegetables. I also grabbed some easy foods like bags of salad mix, nuts and granola bars.

Not only did this save me a lot of money because I didn’t have to buy expensive hotel food, but it also saved me time. If I wanted to eat something, I just had to run up to my room, pop it in the microwave for 3 minutes and then carry it around with me while I networked with people. Yes, I ended up being the weird (ahem, memorable) girl with a bag of rice and veggies and a bamboo fork, but it worked for me.

I also learned that if I don’t prep food or schedule time for meals with other people, I won’t take the time to eat. Next year I’ll have a crew to hang out and eat with so that should help me remember to take time for refueling!

 

6. Everyone has been hanging out on Twitter this whole time

After the 3rd person asked me at the Women’s Personal Finance meetup “are you on Twitter?” I had to say “Why does everyone keep asking me about Twitter?!” Apparently it’s the place to be. My mistake was only using Twitter to share my posts, but not interacting with anyone (or even learning how to use the platform, as my new twitter friends quickly found out). Now I’m joining the ranks of the #PFTwitter crew! Financial Pilgrimage even helped me grow my twitter following while at the Plutus Awards after-party (read his recap here).

2020 Update: I had approximately 4 followers before FinCon 2019, and 14 followers after. A year later, I have over 1000 twitter followers, and it’s one of the main ways I stay in contact with my finance friends!

 

Bonus: Brands Don’t Want to Sponsor Your Podcast if it doesn’t exist yet

Weird. 😜 I didn’t have super high hopes for this, but I guess I acted like I did and went ahead and printed 30 copies of my media kit. I handed out exactly 1 media kit. ONE.

I did get an email about an affiliate partnership though, which is really promising.

2020 Update: I did not end up partnering with that particular company. And thinking back, I printed so many media kits because I had absolutely no idea what to expect or what to do with myself and I wanted to be prepared. Next year I won’t bring any media kits, I’ll just have a QR code (which I did have in 2019) that links to google drive just in the unlikely case someone asks for it. 

 

Mistakes I made

1. Didn’t bring enough cough drops.

No – one bag is not enough. I am too stubborn to stop talking even when I practically have no voice left. As you can imagine, this puts more strain on already damaged vocal cords. I had to work from home the day after the conference because I couldn’t speak above a whisper.

Next FinCon I am bringing one bag of cough drops per day, I am going to use them even when my voice doesn’t hurt, I’m also packing Throat Coat tea and maybe I’ll try to talk to people less (unlikely) or in quieter settings (more likely).

 

2. I forgot I was anonymous (& that other people were too)

When you’re talking to people face-to-face, it’s different than typing to them behind your screen using your blog name. When I ordered my ticket a year earlier, I forgot that I was semi-anonymous, and so my badge said my whole name! I remedied this with a bit of tape over my last name and a sticker of my logo on my name tag, and I introduced myself as Becky TwentyFree.

A bigger problem was that I kept forgetting that other people were anonymous too! That means you need to be more careful about taking pictures and tagging people on social media. Once, I took a selfie with someone kind of by surprise (hey, smile!) and he told me right after that he was actually anonymous! I learned my lesson and from there on I tried to ask before taking pictures with anyone.

Check out my post about being anonymous at FinCon for more tips (blog post coming soon).

 

3. Brought too many business casual clothes/shoes

This year I wanted to be “on-brand” (which I wasn’t actually clear on beforehand) so I brought nice work shirts, pants, and flats and stuff. I ended up wearing sneakers the whole time and my feet STILL hurt every night.

Let’s be real – next year I will be living in T-shirts, jeans, and sneakers. Plus, FinCon is a great place to pick up free T-shirts to wear. I got 2 this year and one of them is so soft I can see myself wearing it constantly.

 

4. Scheduled my podcast booth for the last day of the conference

I had a strategy, but it went awry. My thought was “I’m going to record a podcast at FinCon, but I don’t know who I want to interview, so if I wait until the last day, I’ll have given myself the most time to meet people and find a guest.”

That part of the strategy worked out great! I met A Purple Life at the Women’s Personal Finance meetup and we hit it off. I knew immediately that I wanted to interview her during my podcasting session, and when I asked her she said yes! When we went to record the podcast, Financial Mechanic was there as well and joined in on the interview.

The problem was, I could hardly talk. My voice broke every other word and was so scratchy and raspy that I was afraid that no one listening would be able to understand me. After we recorded, I knew the content of the podcast was going to be amazing, but I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to release it as one of my first episodes because my voice was so bad.

Next year I’ll have the benefit of knowing a lot of people who will be attending (unlike this year when I knew literally no one), so I can schedule my podcast booth on the first day and plan ahead of time who my guest will be.

2020 Update: My plan for 2021 is to try to grab a video and a podcast booth spot. Last year I was completely unsure what I was doing, I didn’t have a Youtube channel (or a podcast for that matter), and I didn’t know anyone. I was also late to see the sign-up sheet so there were limited spots left for podcasters and no spots left for video booths. This is pretty much a note-to-self for when I’m preparing for FinCon next year.

 

5. My SD card didn’t work for the podcast recording

I was someone who never recorded a podcast before, and this was abundantly clear when I showed up to record my first podcast. I met the legend Steve Stewart (who still so kindly helps me with podcasting tips to this day), and he helped me figure out what the heck I was doing. My SD card didn’t work for the podcast recording, and I was afraid to let Steve format it in case it had videos on it. He kindly let me use his personal SD card, and sent me the recording over Dropbox. While I didn’t make a great first impression, I got to know Steve better than if everything had worked perfectly! Next time, I am bringing a fresh, new SD card of normal size (not micro) that will only be for the podcast.

 

 

Goals for next FinCon

I’m just going to put this out into the universe to 1. keep me accountable and 2. see what happens. It will be cool to look back next year and see if I achieved either or both of my goals:

 

1. Win a Plutus Award for my podcast: Find Your Freedom

You know when people talk about their BHAGs – their Big Hairy Audacious Goals? This is one of them for me. It sounds RIDICULOUS for me to say that I want to win a Plutus award (much less get nominated for one) next year for a podcast that doesn’t even exist yet.

2020 Update: I’m reading this now and laughing because it seems like this might actually come true! Find Your Freedom is a finalist for the Best New Personal Finance Podcast category in the 11th Annual Plutus Awards. 

 

2. Have a brand worth pitching (and partnering with) at the Pro Networking mixers in 2020

This year, when I bought my ticket during FinCon, I went for a pro-pass. Why? Because I want to invest more into my brand and business next year, and I think that this will be a great motivator. Also, because I asked my partner “should I get the basic or the pro pass” and he said “pro pass” without missing a beat, and without knowing what the pro-pass was.

Believing in me like I should believe in myself and my business. After I did all the cost-benefit explaining, he just said “You want this to be your business. Get the Pro Pass. It’s only $150 more.” That’s what I love about him. He sees the value in investing in me. He also reminds me to spend in alignment with my priorities and goals. And to him, it’s “only $150.” That is an abundance mindset if I’ve ever seen one.

My brand will change a lot between now and next FinCon. I will be rebranding as a millennial money expert, I will be doing money coaching, I will be launching a podcast, and my brand will not revolve around my blog anymore. My goal is to have a brand worth pitching to potential partners/affiliates/sponsors at the FinCon 2020 pro-networking event.

2020 Update: Well my brand has evolved exactly as I predicted it would – the rebrand, money coaching, podcast and moving away from the blog all happened. While I won’t be able to pitch sponsors at FinCon this year, I feel I would have some success getting podcast sponsorships given my download numbers. Next year, my odds of partnering with brands will be even higher because I’ll have even more time to grow.

 

Bonus: Get one-on-one time with one of my personal finance heroes

Not going to name names, but I have a few people in mind. I hope to build relationships with these people over the next year, and then feel comfortable enough/familiar enough with them to invite them (and have them accept) an invite to a meal or one-on-one meeting.

2020 Update: To be honest, I completely forgot about this goal. I haven’t made any effort towards building these relationships so it definitely wouldn’t have happened in 2020. But now I have a renewed interest in making it happen in 2021!

 

Other FinCon 2019 Recap Posts

I’ve rounded up some FinCon 2019 recaps and blog posts written by the people I met at the conference in 2019. Many of the below were first-timers in 2019!

• A Purple Life: The Ultimate FinCon Bootcamp: Sleep, Sprint, Yell, Fast!
• Modest Millionaires: My First FinCon Experience : Thoughts and Emotions, So Many Emotions!
• Financial Pilgrimage: FinCon 2019 Recap: My Week as Mr. Burrito Bowl’s Publicist
• Tread Lightly Retire Early: The Best Community Of Money Nerds: FinCon 2019 Recap
• The FI Old Guys: Taking Walks at Fincon19
• Dollar Revolution: The Ultimate FinCon 2019 Recap Roundup
• Frugality and Freedom: FinCon for Foreigners – A Guide for Non-US Attendees
• Josh Overmeyer: FinCon is Like a College Reunion

SAVE for later on PINTEREST!