You’ve reached the Career Grease Northeast Book Tour Headquarters. Check back here for updates and reflections on my travels to each tour stop.
Boston Reflections 9/20
I had an easy flight into Boston. No issues and no delays. These trips have been the only time where I’ve regretted holding out on getting a smartphone. Luckily, I found the connecting bus that got me to the train station by following signs, and I rode the T over to the neighborhood where I’d be speaking. As usual, I found a really nice park near my venue. I enjoyed the beautiful day, got some food, and reviewed my speech.
Jeff, Manny, and Shelly graciously got me set up at the Multicultural Arts Center. We ran into some tech issues with the projector, but mostly worked through them. Jeff was very patient with troubleshooting the technology, and I was glad that I’d arrived early to get things sorted.
The Boston crowd were generally very prompt in their arrival. They were a wonderful, friendly audience. I appreciated that they laughed at my jokes. 🙂 I was also so delighted to see an old friend from high school in the audience. And my friend Rachael also came out to help introduce me and generally support me through the night. She also hosted me overnight at her place in the Cambridge area. Thank you Rachael!
Overall this tour has been a wonderful, new experience for me. I have to say that I get the nicest crowds at my events. I really enjoyed meeting everyone. I hope my presentation helped to kick some careers into gear. Thank you to everyone who came out and to those of you who have been cheering me on along the way!
New York City Reflections 9/15
I spent most of yesterday re-charging after my trip to Philly the day before. I think all the new experiences wore me out.
Today I’m much less tired at day end after traveling to New York. The Amtrak train scenery was familiar. I knew the drill of what to pack and when to leave. And I’d booked my ticket for much earlier in the day, which meant I had a bunch more downtime between arriving and giving my talk.
I arrived around lunchtime and sat, ate, and people watched at a nice park outside of Penn Station. (That was after I verified that Madison Square Garden is not, in fact, a garden.) I reviewed my speech there, at a Starbucks by my venue, and at the venue later in the day. Mostly I stared into space or read a book. It turned out to be a semi-day off as I waited for the evening and my event.
Once I deemed it late enough in the day to crash my venue, I grabbed some dinner and headed over. Corvin helped me get everything set. Again, no issues. The room and the staff were awesome. (There were projection screens in triplicate!) We got everything ready and folks started arriving.
I’d missed my weekly coaching team meeting due to my travels, but happily one of my awesome team members, Sara, was able to make it out to the event. (She’s based in NY.) It was so fun to see one another in person after working together virtually. Her first comment, “You’re so tall!” Sara brought a great energy to the event and helped welcome everyone in. She also filled in as photographer, gave a warm introduction, and answered audience questions at the end. Thank you for all your help Sara!
We had an excellent, participative crowd. I felt like I hit my groove with giving the in-person version of my speech, which was exhilarating. (I haven’t looked at my feedback forms yet though. I know there are always things to improve.) I had fun chatting with folks after the event again. It’s always awesome to hear that my presentation hit home for the attendees.
Sara walked me back to the train station and filled me in on the team meeting I missed. Thank you Deborah and Julia for the well wishes! All in all, it was a lovely day. And I’m also happy to be heading back home. 🙂
Next stop Boston!
Philadelphia Reflections 9/13
Today was the most abnormal working day I’ve had. It included a couple of firsts. Most of the time I’m working from home or out speaking or coaching in my local community. Today I expanded my reach a bit by venturing up to Philadelphia.
It was my first time on an Amtrak train, and I stumbled upon a cafe car on the way up, which gave me plenty of room to spread out my lunch and speech notes. I enjoyed eavesdropping on all the business conversations of other road warriors in between reviewing my speech, and it was fun to stare out the window too.
Once I got to Philadelphia I had my first experience with the L without incident. I walked around for a bit, picked up some dinner, and then went to my venue, the National Liberty Museum. It’s a beautiful site. We got everything set up. (Thankfully, things were pretty much ready to go when I got here.) The staff were very helpful and accommodating. Once everything was in order, including changing out of my travel clothes, I popped outside to a local park and ate my dinner to enjoy the evening and scenery.
Around 6:00 an awesome crowd began filling in, and soon thereafter we kicked things off. I’d most recently been practicing my speech with virtual audiences, which are a bit of a different animal to in-person audiences. I definitely need to make some tweaks for future in-person audiences, but I felt that we picked up steam together as we went along. I appreciated the crowd’s engagement and loved connecting with so many great folks after the event.
I want to give a shout out to Christina who introduced me, Christine who served as impromptu photographer, Lisa for overseeing my rental, and Jim who set up my technology.
Next stop New York!
Here We Go 9/12
I’m going on a book tour over this week and next to share the message of my book, Career Grease: How to Get Unstuck and Pivot Your Career! It’s not every week that I go on a book tour, so I plan on sharing my unusual out-of-the-ordinary workweeks you here at “Northeast Book Tour Headquarters”.
Before heading out the door, I want to give a huge shout-out to my behind-the-scenes support team here at Cardy Career Coaching. This is the first out-of-state book tour we’ve arranged, which is code for “we didn’t totally know what we were doing”, but, thankfully, my team has been game to go forth and do whatever it took to make this tour happen.
They have tirelessly worked on this project for going on six months (without complaint!). They spent hours researching, created and maintained numerous spreadsheets, sent in the range of thousands of emails, researched and vetted venues, oversaw our attendee registration experience, and kept an eye on all the (many) details of our events to give our attendees a great experience.
Most people’s response to my heading out on tour is, “That’s exciting!” While I am looking forward to the tour itself, I think the truly exciting part is what we’re capable of creating with collaboration, planning, guts, and follow-through, all things my team has demonstrated over these last few months.
Thank you Lindsay and Kelly for all your work and care on this project. You’ve done an amazing job, and I’m so grateful for your high-quality work, your upbeat attitudes, and your overall support.
With that said, I can’t wait to hit the road and share my message with our attendees. First stop, Philadelphia!
Tickets are still available, and we have a special discount code that you can find here: www.cardycareercoaching.com/northeast-speaking-tour-community-discount-code.
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