Master Your Bliss Life

Narrator: 

You’re listening to Master Your Bliss Life. Join Kiera Masters and Lia Bliss as they dive into the magical, mysterious, and mundane elements of life, helping you to master your purpose and find your bliss.

Lia:

Let’s do it. Let’s do it.

Kiera:

Let’s do it. Let’s do it.

Lia:

Do we come up with these topics…

Kiera:

Randomly, last minute?

Lia:

Seconds before the recordings?

Kiera:

Maybe we do.

Lia:

The most authentic experience.

Kiera:

Yes. Not gonna lie.

Lia:

Not gonna lie. Ok, Kiera. We, well first let me ask, ok so we just went on what is your first ever technology conference.

Kiera:

Yes.

Lia:

I have been going to them since I was like 15 years old. So, half my life.

Kiera:

Yeah.

Lia:

I have gone to tech conferences with my family. I’ve worked in booths, I’ve worn the jacket, I’ve had the lanyard, like I got the swag, I totally… this is a world that I am completely comfortable in. I kinda understand the micro ecosystem.

Kiera:

Yeah.

Lia:

Of how it works.

Kiera:

I did not.

Lia:

Yeah. On the flip side, you were just like, “What is this place?” So, we flew down… Well, you flew down I was already there.

Kiera:

I flew down, yeah.

Lia:

In Vegas. We stayed at the Cosmopolitan hotel. And this conference took up two to four floors of their conference rooms/meeting spaces. 

Kiera:

Yeah.

Lia:

It was huge.

Kiera:

It was huge.

Lia:

I want to say 500 people? Or more?

Kiera:

Easy 500, yeah.

Lia:

And a cool 500 attendees plus the vendors. So the booths that are set up for people to walk around and talk to the different companies.

Kiera:

Vendors and sponsors, yeah.

Lia:

And sponsors, yeah. So bigtime tech show. Super fun. Incredible. We had the time of our lives. But, what was your, what did you think going in? Because our boss even was like, “Y’all need to go shopping. You need to make sure that you have a professional wardrobe…

Kiera:

Yeah, the right attire.

Lia:

There’s a gala, you’ll need a gown.” Like, this was no small like, dinky little thing.

Kiera:

All I could think was, “Oh my gosh, this is so serious. I don’t know that much about tech. What are people going to try to talk to me about? And am I going to look like an idiot?”

Lia:

Yeah. Frankly.

Kiera:

Because yes we work with people in the tech industry, but what we do doesn’t…

Lia:

We’re not developers. We aren’t programmers. We’re not AI specialists. We don’t know.

Kiera:

We’re not developers. We don’t know all that.

Lia:

We teach the people who are those people how to sell those products to their customers.

Kiera:

Yes. So I’m thinking this is a big deal. I mean, it was a big deal. But, this is a big deal, it’s going to be super business-y, super professional. I was panicking over the right attire. Yes, he did send you to take me shopping to make sure I had all the correct elements.

Lia:

Slacks, blouses, gowns, shoes.

Kiera:

Yep.

Lia:

Appropriate hairstyle.

Kiera:

All the things. So, I expected it to just be a really serious business-y event, and it was business-y, but it was really not that serious. I mean, it was, but it was on a whole new level. I mean, for one it was in Vegas.

Lia:

It was like, big deal, big companies. And we’re talking about multi-billion dollar tech companies.

Kiera:

Yes.

Lia:

That we are talking to over cocktails.

Kiera:

Over many cocktails.

Lia:

Those nerds can drink. Holy shit.

Kiera:

Everywhere we would go, there was tables, there were tables full of cocktails.

Lia:

Free.

Kiera:

Free.

Lia:

Free cocktails.

Kiera:

Everybody’s just walking by, grabbing cocktails. I mean, we started like, double-fisting all over the place.

Lia:

Oh my God.

Kiera:

And starting at what, 9 AM?

Lia:

Yeah, because, so we got there… the first start of the conference was at noon. So, it was lunch. And they didn’t have any drinks at lunch for the first day.

Kiera:

No the did not.

Lia:

Nope. And then Derek Jeter spoke, and then we went and took a nap, and then Chris Voss spoke. And I fangirled hard about Chris Voss.

Kiera:

She did. And it was really funny. Because Chris Voss came out and he goes, “I’m told that I am the last speaker that’s in between you and drinks.” And he goes, “So we’re done, have a good day. Just kidding”

Lia:

Just kidding. Chris Voss is, he was like the FBI’s top kidnap negotiator guy.

Kiera:

Yes.

Lia:

And now he teaches business people how to use negotiation tactics for sales, which is fascinating.

Kiera:

Yes. It’s critical.

Lia:

He was great. Yeah, that was the first day.

Kiera:

Drinks on drinks on drinks on drinks.

Lia:

We checked into the hotel at 10 o’clock?

Kiera:

Yeah.

Lia:

And there were people in the hotel bar that we definitely knew were at the same conference as us.

Kiera:

Yep.

Lia:

And they’re just, nobody sits at the bar and gets a drink of water.

Kiera:

Tossing them back.

Lia:

So there was libations galore.

Kiera:

Yes.

Lia:

Which was astounding. Because one of the conferences I have been to were hosted by my parents or companies where my parents were the Chief Marketing Officers of, and it was a lot more of a professional setting. A lot more of a professional setting. No drinking, that’s wasn’t a huge focus. But, yeah.

Kiera:

Yeah, this was…

Lia:

It was a lot.

Kiera:

It was a lot. It was exhausting, but also such a good time.

Lia:

Also, one thing in particular, now when we say nerds, we are also those nerds.

Kiera:

Yes.

Lia:

We are also the nerds that can drink, and we had a great time with the nerds. And honestly, most of them are sales guys, and so they were relatively very, very charming. Most of them incredibly kind. But, it was men. There was, we had a Women In Tech Breakfast.

Kiera:

Brunch. Oh yeah, breakfast.

Lia:

On the second day. It was at 7:30 in the morning. It was freaking breakfast.

Kiera:

Yeah. Breakfast.

Lia:

After all those drinks they’re like, “Wake up early, ladies.” We hate you guys, but it’s…

Kiera:

Yeah.

Lia:

We made it. We made it.

Kiera:

We did.

Lia:

And it was great. It was an awesome breakfast. We talked a lot about like, the struggles that women have in a male-dominated industry, what it takes to kind of stand up and advocate for yourself as a woman. So incredibly, incredibly valuable.

Kiera:

Yes. But there were probably 70-80 women?

Lia:

Women.

Kiera:

Out of the…

Lia:

600?

Kiera:

6-700 people attending.

Lia:

Yeah, ten to one ratio. Easy.

Kiera:

Yes. Easy.

Lia:

We spoke to zero women. I think we talked to two girls at, one at one booth and one at the other.

Kiera:

And then the women at the table. But that’s…

Lia:

Yeah.

Kiera:

… it for the women at breakfast. The Women In Tech Breakfast.

Lia:

It was almost like you had to hunt down other women.

Kiera:

Yeah.

Lia:

They were hard to find. Just dudes.

Kiera:

Yeah. But you were running into dudes left and right.

Lia:

Dudes. Sea of dudes. And out of 600 men, and let’s say we talked to 200 of them. Only two were blatantly awful. The one guy. The one guy, he apparently had attended The Women In Tech Breakfast.

Kiera:

Yes.

Lia:

And he, I sort of got, he sprang out of the ground.

Kiera:

He came out of nowhere.

Lia:

He came out of nowhere. And was like, “Hi.”

Kiera:

I like turned around and was like…

Lia:

“Hello.” He’s like, “Hi ladies. So, wanted to get your take…” And this was like after lunch. He was like, “I wanted to get your take on that stuff from this morning.” We’re both just like, “uhhhh.”

Kiera:

“What?”

Lia:

“I’m sorry, what?” He’s like, “Yeah, I went to the breakfast.” And then proceeded to bash any of the concepts that were brought up. Basically saying, “Well, if I as a male make somebody feel uncomfortable, I don’t care. They need to have tougher skin.” And it’s like, Oh, well, maybe you’re the problem.

Kiera:

O-kaaaayyy. Yeah.

Lia:

It didn’t help that he was…

Kiera:

Looking us up and down.

Lia:

Oh my God. I have like

Kiera:
Like, not even hiding it.

Lia:

Not even hiding it. Just fully, full body scans for five straight minutes, both of us.

Kiera:
Yes. Oh, ten, easy.

Lia:

Insane. He also looked like a hobbit. Like an over spray-tanned hobbit. And so, it was not well-received. And frankly –

Kiera:

No, it was not.

Lia:

Even if it was Derek fricken Jeter it wouldn’t have been well received.

Kiera:

No. Well…

Lia:

Duuuude.

Kiera:

It was very uncomfortable. At one point we both kind of, we, it happened in unison. Like our energy was on-point together. Cuz we both just kind of one step back, crossed our arms, and folded our arms in front of us and just… Okayyy.

Lia:

I was like, we are not comfy here.

Kiera:

Yeah, not comfortable. And what did he do? Took a little step forward.

Lia:

So that was the worst experience. The second worst was someone man-splained how business cards work? So that was fun. That was fun for us.

Kiera:

Yeah.

Lia:

That was a good moment. But it’s fine. It’s fine. Out of 600, and 200 that we interacted with, there was only two that couldn’t really read the room.

Kiera:

Those are good odds. We were talking to a guy in the hallway at one point and he was like, “How do you guys do it? Like how? The sea of men. Like how?”

Lia:

Yeah, and we are young looking, blonde, and bubbly. We were standing in line for, it was one of the… I feel like it was only cocktail parties.

Kiera:

Yeah.

Lia:

It was on the back florette, and it was just… we were… I’m Gabby, you’re Rachel, or vice versa. It was the two of us VS. like eight katrillion men, and all we did was have cocktail parties. It was insane. I will chase this high forever. But one guy turns around. He’s got to be pushing like seven feet. He was so tall.

Kiera:

Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Lia:

He turns around and is like, “Oh hey.” And then we’re like, “H-hello.”

Kiera:

Hello.

Lia:

Hello. And he’s taken aback, and he’s like, “You guys look really happy to be here.” Yeah bra, we are really happy to be here. Because…

Kiera:

We were both so exhausted, so we were both like, “Well, at least we’re doing really good at keeping the smile on our faces.”

Lia:

Oh yeah. Right? It was a good time. But the reason that we felt so good about it, and were so successful, was because… and this is really like, business strategy. I don’t know if I can turn this into a full life strategy. But, in business strategy, as you go to network, we have one simple rule. And whenever we network, Kiera what’s our rule? Take a deep breath.

Kiera:

Sorry. I was going to put it on mute so I can cough.

Lia:

No. It’s not allowed.

Kiera:

No, um. Everywhere we go, everywhere we go to network, our goal is to make five new best friends.

Lia:

Five new best friends. It’s not about who can we pitch, who can we talk to, where can we get more business, what’s our goals here? The goal is to make five new best friends.

Kiera:

Five new best friends.

Lia:

Whenever we go to network.  We walked away with 20 new best friends. Some of them stronger than others.

Kiera:

22.

Lia:

22 best friends.

Kiera:

Actually, no. We have more than that. It was 22 companies.

Lia:

Oh yeah, 22 companies.

Kiera:
We got like 30 new best friends. We just killed it.

Lia:

30 new best friends over two and a half days.

Kiera:

We killed it.

Lia:

And it was awesome. But we did the work. We put in the work to network before. And my first year working in tech, I remember I had a client who her whole job was networking. She worked for a company that, it really was, she was a connector. She needed to connect as many people as possible. So she networked constantly. Like five lunch dates a day kind of networking.

Kiera:

Whew. Yeah. That’s a lot.

Lia:

But she said, “You kinda have to do the work first. You can’t just walk into a room blind.” So what we did, was we, after we registered, we got a list of the attendees. Because they do share that information. We didn’t have to super stalk. That was just given to us. Then, we used our FBI skills to get on LinkedIn – our platform of choice. And to professionally look up each of these individuals.

Kiera:

Yep.

Lia:

And begin engaging with their content. If you want to make an impression on somebody, you comment on something they posted. I don’t care what platform you’re on. LinkedIn, Instagram, Tik Tok, Twitter, whatever.

Kiera:

You’re going to catch that person’s attention.

Lia:

You’re gonna catch their attention because let me tell you, every time I have posted a video I get, you know like, the 12 dudes that I have no idea who they are that like all send just like, heart eyes and rose emojis.

Kiera:

Right. Yes. I know.

Lia:

Just normal Instagram life. But then, if someone were to comment something more than like four words, and it not just be “You’re beautiful. Let’s get married.” That’s going to jump out. And that’s just Instagram. On LinkedIn, these people are posting company updates, they’re posting all sorts of things. And you comment and validate them and tell them that their content is good? And what they have to say is interesting and important? We had a incident where this worked so well, Kiera’s fame…

Kiera:

So famous.

Lia:

Preceeded her. We’re sitting at table at dinner, so it’s the gala. We are in gowns. We are dripping in jewels.

Kiera:

Looking beautiful.

Lia:

We were looking beautiful. So much that I think that there was an increased percentage of chiropractic profit made after that dinner because the snapping of necks.

Kiera:

Of necks.

Lia:

Oh my God. Just <sound effects>. We could not go anywhere without… that’s a different story. My ego was so fed. Oh my God.

Kiera:

Well it was so funny because the first night we didn’t believe it. We had somebody tell us that. We were like, no it’s not like that, whatever.

Lia:

It’s not that bad.

Kiera:

And then the second night we were in our dresses at the gala. I walked out, went to the bathroom and came back in and was like, Oohh. And I think you were walking behind me at one point and you saw it. And I was walking behind you and I saw it, and I was like Okay. Ok, it’s happening.

Lia:

Ok, it’s happening. Yeah, I’m going to chase this high for the whole year. Can’t wait till next year. But, we’re sitting at this table talking to a couple of gentlemen, and then a guy across the table… these were tables of like 10. And so it’s a pretty big table. Guy across the table kinda gets Kiera’s attention. We’d never spoken to this man during the entire conference. And he says… Kiera, what did he say?

Kiera:

“Um, I know you. I know your name. My boss has been talking about you. She said she thought she saw you here, but she said that you’ve been commenting on her content on LinkedIn.”

Lia:

“And so I wanted to talk to her but I didn’t get the opportunity to.”

Kiera:

Yeah, she didn’t get the opportunity. She had to leave early, so I will reach out to her.

Lia:

But…

Kiera:

It works.

Lia:

It works. And so networking, how to have your fame precede you, how to steal the show. My dad wrote a book many, many years ago when he was doing…

Kiera:

Many moons.

Lia:

Many moons ago when he was doing trade shows, conferences, this is all B.C. – before COVID. And it’s called Stealing The Show: How to Stand Out In a Crowd. How to steal the show. And Lord knows, we dang stole that show.

Kiera:

We did.

Lia:

We’re very proud of ourselves. It was very exciting. But it only goes to show that as a woman in a male dominant field, you do not have to be quiet.

Kiera:

Nope.

Lia:

And you do not have to be masculine to be valued.

Kiera:

Nope, we were very feminine.

Lia:

We were giggly. I mean, not to the point where it was annoying, but we laughed easily, we dressed in dresses, we spoke to men with authority as a woman. Oh man. The number of times that I went into like a death match verbal sparring…

Kiera:

Oh yeah, it was great to sit back and watch.

Lia:

With a dude. Oh my God, this one guy timed it.

Kiera:

Yep. He was great. He was being super great.

Lia:

And he was our conference boyfriend. We loved him.

Kiera:

For the weekend.

Lia:

We loved him. We borrowed him as our date.

Kiera:
Yeah, he timed her. He said Ok 30 seconds. He pulled out his phone and started his timer.

Lia:

He was dripping in confidence.

Kiera:

Yes.

Lia:

Just disgusting. And hot.

Kiera:

Yes. Lia nailed it.

Lia:

It was like…

Kiera:

Well, she went a little bit over. He was like, 30 seconds is up, but now I’m very intrigued and I’d really like to know more so continue.

Lia:

I would like you to keep going. I felt like I was rapping that verse from Look At Me Now. I was like <sound effects of speed talking>.

Kiera:

Oh, she was… I was watching her and like, Oooooh. She was…

Lia:

I didn’t breathe.

Kiera:

I think you took two breaths.

Lia:

It was incredible. It was incredible. But, to be feminine but also be powerful.

Kiera:

Yes. And come with confidence.

Lia:

And do the legwork. Do the groundwork. Understand who you want to influence. Understand where in your industry you fit and fill. And make it happy. Make it good. So we would like to ask you, dear listener, dear hot girl as you’re walking… I have a lot of guys that tell me they listen, so for the men out there… share this with your bestie.

Kiera:

Yes. Share away.

Lia:

Share this with your bestie. If you’ve got a girl in your life who needs just… I was talking to a friend of mine on Saturday, and she was like, “I love this podcast because I feel like I’m just hanging out with my friends.

Kiera:

Yeah.

Lia:

And that’s what we’re trying to do.

Kiera:

Exactly.

Lia:

Just hanging out with your friends.

Kiera:

Just have a conversation.

Lia:

Share this with your bestie. We can all be friends together. We’re going to go back to work.

Kiera:

Yep.

Lia:

And do all that follow up from that conference. But we love you long time. We’ll see you real soon.

Kiera:

Yep, see ya.

Narrator: 

You have been listening to Master Your Bliss Life. Make sure to check out the show notes for any relevant links and follow Kiera and Lia on Instagram and LinkedIn.