This year’s Women’s Fresh Perspectives Conference brought 250 women within the fresh produce and floral industry together to inspire, educate, and encourage each of us to OWN IT – our role at work, in our homes, and in relationships with others. Up 50 attendees from last year, this year’s group of women included 47% returning guests and 53% newcomers, creating invaluable opportunity to see old friends and network with new faces. 

This year’s conference was full of inspiring speakers – all encouraging us to own our potential, pitfalls, commitments, and values. Here are our key takeaways from the conference:

We need to pause.

Juliet Funt, CEO of WhiteSpace at Work, opened the conference with a bang by getting down to one of the biggest struggles we face in the workplace – the need to pause. Even further, Juliet analyzed the costs associated with wasted time and unproductivity at work and the results were astonishing. When surveyed, people noted that unproductive meetings and emails were their biggest areas of wasted time. Imagine each of your employees wastes 1-2 hours a day (5-10 hours a week) with distractions and unnecessary emails and meetings – multiply their hourly rate by 52 weeks in the year, and you’ll be as blown away as we were at the loss. In many cases, getting more efficient by pausing and being thoughtful in the workplace leads to more productive and strategic time spent on the things that matter which saves the company money. One of Juliet’s immediate next steps for us was to challenge us to think of ONE thing that the company could get rid of to make room for white space – an unnecessary meeting, reports that don’t get read, etc. She also encouraged a re-evaluation of our email expectations to start noting when we need responses by in our subject line instead of fueling our cultural expectation that every email needs immediate attention. One way to do this is to note response expectations in subject lines beginning with NYR (need your response) followed by a time stamp like EOB or ASAP allows your employees and colleagues to prioritize work and pause for the things that truly need their attention that moment.

Lead with kindness and love.

Allison Massari delivered a powerful closing speech, walking us through her personal testimony of surviving a nearly-fatal car crash that burned 50% of her body. Throughout her story, the love and kindness from others literally saved her life – everyone from the man who pulled her out of her engulfed vehicle, to the nurses who supported her, to the strangers who smiled or held the door for her. Allison’s heartbreaking story gave every one of us perspective into the struggles and challenges we face, and our opportunity to show love and kindness through those challenges in order to overcome them. There’s power in the way we look at our circumstances and treat others, and this moving speech was a much needed reminder that there is so much good that can come from the seemingly impossible things we face each day if we just change our perspective.
 

Find a mentor…now.

One of our favorite educators and speakers, Dr. Stacy Blake-Beard, reminded us about the importance of mentorships and the impact that they have on our professional and personal development. Her guidance around finding and becoming a great mentor, based on her research and discovery of best practices, inspired our group to take the next steps, including actively participating in the Center for Growing Talent by PMA’s Mentoring Initiative. The biggest takeaway? Find someone who you look up to based on shared values and skills that you want to develop in, and ASK!
 

Connecting in circles leads to open collaboration.

We learned that Cathy Burns absolutely despises tables, which created a “fish bowl” atmosphere with panelists in the center, and open seating in a circle around. One chair remained empty amongst the panel in order to offer open-ended guest participation to ask questions, give feedback, and comment on topics that ranged everywhere from work/life balance, to presenting ideas, to overcoming age barriers. This informal, more personal posture created an atmosphere that was welcoming, open, and engaging, leading to several “aha” moments from our peers.
 

5 seconds could change everything.

Mel Robbins opened the last day of the conference with a simple but powerful concept – 5 seconds can change your life. Our friend, Karen Caplan, wrote beautifully about Mel’s speech on the 5 second rule and its neurological effects on the brain. The gist is this – if you don’t act within 5 seconds, your brain will back away from a thought completely as a defense mechanism. We aren’t wired to do things that are new or uncomfortable. Think about the times you wanted to start a new workout regimen or speak up in a meeting – your gut is telling you it needs to be done, but a new routine or habit won’t form unless you literally train your brain to act. When we count backwards “5-4-3-2-1-GO” and take action immediately, your brain begins to physically change to make space for new habits to form. It sounds too simple to be true, but the science behind this concept is real and there are thousands of success stories from people who took this “silly concept” and made significant changes as a result.
 

Were you at Women’s Fresh Perspectives Conference? We’d love your thoughts from the show, and any questions you may have! Leave a comment below or Tweet us at @thecoreblog!