My Athena story…
The Fabulous Lynne Copp
It was the day of the Athena International Conference in London. Athena members, guests and speakers were filing into the hotel. Squeals of delight and the cacophony of women networking, making connections, seeing old customers, suppliers and members filled the air.
As a speaker, I love these times, I love listening to the anticipation of the day, the excitement, wonder and hope that the day may bring new insights, inspiration, and of course business! Like good school girls we politely entered the conference room – a complete explosion of Athena pink wowed every one of us! A celebration of a day of joy, laughter and collaboration; I, like everyone else, felt energised and proud to be a part of something very special – Athena!
Speakers danced onto the stage all day long, strong memories in particular of the wonderful Jo King, who inspired us all to dance Burlesque! What a hoot!
As the afternoon rolled on, it moved closer and closer to the time that I would deliver my closing keynote to the audience who are in fact my target customer. I needed to end the day on a complete high, inspire these women as best I could, no, better than that, touch the very essence of who they are and what they could become. Sylvia announced me, and so I too danced onto the stage to my chosen tune.
The energy began to ignite me; I was where I was meant to be, on stage, communicating and inspiring others. As part of my talk, i spoke to them about Dancing ‘Round the Handbags – a book that I was writing and so wanted to get published. The presentation went down well, I had rapturous applause, and amazing feedback from everyone. I had inspired, it felt good.
In the audience, was an old contact of mine from the PSA (Professional Speakers’ Association), and an Athena member, Mindy Gibbens-Klein. After my presentation, she complimented me and said “Lynne, we need to talk about your book, it’s about time it was published!” I agreed, but knew that self publishing my book with Ecademy Press was not going to be on the cards for me financially. Times were tough, spending on me was not a luxury I could afford. I also knew that publishing the book was imperative for long term success, so I was in a catch 22 – couldn’t afford to do it, couldn’t afford not to. I dreamed of it being in print!
A few months later, in fact March, I was attending another conference in London, and Mindy just happened to be there. “I’m glad I saw you,” she said, “i was very impressed by your presentation at the Athena conference, and want to make a proposal to you. No promises, but, every year the Board of Ecademy Press look at the potential of 12 new authors. We review their work, and then choose one of the 12 to invest in. That means we pay all the costs associated with publishing your book. Would you be interested in being considered as one of the 12?” I thought about it for one nano-second and said “yes!”. “get a proposal to me, with marketing plan by this Friday, and I will put it forward. No promises!” she hailed back at me as she disappeared into a taxi.”
I was speechless and motionless! Needless to say, I got the proposal to her, and six weeks later had a call to say that my work had been selected! Yaaaay!
In between times, another Athena member suggested that I might want to look at The Brit Writers’ Awards, which I did, and submitted my work for assessment. BWA received about 72000 entries for the awards, and I must admit, I didn’t hold out much hope.
However, on a cold October night, exactly a year after the Athena conference, my work picked up the award for Brit Writer of the Year for non-fiction!
If I hadn’t joined Athena, if I hadn’t agreed to speak at conference, if I hadn’t spoken to Mindy, if I hadn’t taken advice from Athena member Dr Lynda Shaw, if I hadn’t done any of it, then I wouldn’t have an award winning book, a book that reached number 1 on the Amazon list for assertiveness. And today, as I type this on the train, I wouldn’t be on my way to present the closing keynote at Google Expo, where my book has been bought as a gift for every woman attending.
Do not under-estimate the power of networking. Opportunities do not come labelled, but if you don’t get out there, take some risks and grab every one, you are not dancing your best life!
Lynne Copp
Award-winning author, speaker and Athena Advocate
http://dancingroundthehandbags.wordpress.com
