ALT's Greatest Hits

Perhaps you spotted all the buzz on Twitter or Facebook last week about the Altitude Design Summit held in Salt Lake City, Utah (speaking of FB, I finally joined in...come say hi!).  Sure, it's a lot of mixing and mingling, but it's also about giving and receiving useful advice and loads of inspiration.  In case you weren't able to attend, or you were there but missed out on certain panels, I thought I'd share the tips/advice/words of wisdom I gleaned from the conference.  I'm hoping these three points will resonate with you as well:

1.  Brooke Reynolds of Inchmark said during the panel on Work/Life Balance, "Decide which balls to put down and which to juggle.  Not all balls are created equal and some weigh more than others.  And some balls cannot be dropped".  I thought this was a clever way of putting perspective on priority maintenance.  Brooke also advised us to not be reactive by starting our day answering and checking the "gibber gabber" (i.e. email, twitter, facebook, etc.), but to instead be proactive about achieving your goals.  Lots of sage advice from that lady's lips :)

2.  My friend Joslyn of the blog Simple Lovely, shared some thought provoking tips as well (as usual!).  She said, 'when collaborating (and may I add, not just on blogs), be sure you don't "pair off"; meaning, always talk about everything together and be inclusive.  Don't gossip.' And perhaps what is my favorite tidbit from ALT is Joslyn's reminder that there is room for everyone to be successful and that there is no need to be jealous.  Everyone can experience success with grace, honesty, kindness and hard work. 

3. Our closing keynote speaker was Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project--a book I've started to read little by little (it takes time to process each of her points I think).  Gretchen shared loads of wisdom, but I think one of the most interesting points she made was that `happiness is not selfish.  In fact, it will actually make you more selfless.  Studies show that happy people are more concerned about the problems of other people and are more likely to help out.'  Gretchen goes on to say that "one of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself; because we all want to be around happy people!".

I'd love to hear your thoughts too...y'all are always full of great insight yourselves!

image by Justin Hackworth--more images from ALT can be found here.