The ROCKSTAR Mom

From Resilient To Revolutionary: Top Takeaways From the Inspire Conference

• Megan Caldwell • Episode 5

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In today's episode Megan unpacks ten powerful takeaways from the Inspire conference that help you move from resilience—getting through—to revolutionary -- growth that feels aligned, energizing, and real. 

From a simple pause that changes your day to a bold reframe of change versus evolution, this conversation offers practical tools and encouraging stories you can use right away.

We start with the power of intention and reflection, then jump into a connection exercise that flips ego on its head: make others look good. You’ll hear why fun, joy, and play are not extras but engines for creativity and staying power. 

We explore authenticity as an act of rebellion against perfectionism and people-pleasing, and we challenge the old “stay in your lane” rule with a call to build your own highway and define your terms.

If you’re craving clarity, courage, and a more honest way to grow at work and at home, this episode is your nudge to act. 

Check out more about the Women to Women Network here: https://www.wtownetwork.com/

Please be sure to Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a lift, and leave a quick review to help more Rockstar Moms find our podcast!

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SPEAKER_00:

You are listening to the Rockstar Mom, a podcast for high achievers who are ready to get off of autopilot and live a life with more intention, peace of mind, and happiness. This is a space to expand, dig deep, get clear, and take action towards living your most authentic, aligned life. I'm Megan Caldwell. As a mom of three, two-time burnout survivor, and empowerment coach and speaker, I've cracked the code on what it actually takes to thrive at work and home, ditch perfectionism and people pleasing, get your schedule under control, and live with more ease. So you've got more time and energy to do the things you love without the mom guilt. It's time to get out of your head and into action. Now is the time to live your most rock star life. Let's go. This was not something I had planned to speak about, but sometimes life gives us those sparks and gives us those ideas. And today I'm so excited to share with you some of my key takeaways from a recent conference that I attended. This past weekend, I got back from the Inspire conference, which is the yearly conference for the women to women networking group that I've been a part of here in the Pacific Northwest for the last several years. And I was originally asked to be a panelist at this conference to share some of my story, as the theme of this conference was from resilient to revolutionary. Now, this whole concept of resilience is something you'll hear me talk about time and again because that is something that I help women with. How do we move from just survival into true strength and true resilience? So no matter what life throws at us, we have the power, we have the confidence, we have the knowledge, we have the energy to move through and to move through with grace. So I was really honored when I was invited to speak on this panel. But I got so much out of this conference, not just from being a speaker, but from also being an attendee. And I wanted to share with you my top takeaways, as I can almost guarantee that one of these takeaways might be something that impacts your life, that gives you an alternate perspective that you can use today to take that next step forward when it comes to living your best life and figuring out and working towards that best version of you. So, as I shared, the theme of this year's conference was from resilient to revolutionary. So, resilience, the way that it was described at the start of the conference was being able to get through. All right, again, having the skills, having the know-how, and being able to move through whatever life throws at you. Whereas this whole concept of revolutionary is often thought of as some type of dramatic or sudden or big change. And so oftentimes we get so caught up in the day-to-day hustle that we don't allow space for these revolutionary changes, for these big leaps, for these things that truly take us to the next level, whether that be in career, whether that be in depth of relationship, whether that be in just really truly feeling good. So before I dive into these top takeaways, I just want to be remind each of you, and remind myself, I guess, just the power of surrounding yourself with amazing individuals, amazing women. You've heard me say before, you are like the top five people that you spend your time with. So when we get ourselves in those rooms of people doing incredible things, whether it be an actual in-person live event such as this conference I attended, or whether it be you stepping into a space like this podcast where you are surrounding yourself with amazing individuals who can help you move that dial forward, it can just be so powerful. And as a lifelong learner myself, when I go into conferences or go into new situations, I always show up with curiosity. What can I take away from this? How can I grow? And so I'm super excited to share with you these top 10 takeaways. So the first one is one you may hear me say time and again, but it is just the power of pause. Our MC Davina for the event started by inviting us to take a moment and to start with an intention. Anytime we take that time to pause to set out an intention, we are more likely to move in the direction that we set that intention for, right? Because where your focus goes, your energy is going to flow. So she also provided for us a question as we were setting out for our intention. That question was, what made you more resilient in 2025? So again, this conference was held in October. We're nearing the end of the year. Many of us are business owners. And the question was, what made you more resilient in 2025? Gifting us that power of pause, that time and space to just reflect. It reminded me of the power of reflection. It allowed me to think back to what were those things that allowed me to feel more resilient. Often it is the challenges that allow us to build that strength and build that resilience. The next two takeaways came from our amazing MC, Karen. Karen did an open connect, an opening connection activity for us. And she gave us one thing. She said, In this activity, I want you to make the others around you look good. Take a moment to just bring that in. How often do we get caught in our own heads, get caught in our own ego that we just kind of spin? What are people gonna think? Is what I'm wearing appropriate? As we she brought us into this first connection activity, which truly was to allow us to connect with the other people in the room. And I only knew about three or four people of the couple hundred going into it. So I was like, okay, let's connect some, make others look good. And I said, okay, but how do we do that? So she led us through an activity, an RPS game. Those that don't know what RPS is, it's rock, paper, scissors. So you started by finding a partner and you did three rounds of rock, paper, scissors. Rock, paper, scissors, shoot. After three rounds, there was a winner. That winner would then go find another winner. And the goal of the non-winner, if you will, was to be the hype up girl of the winner. So as you moved from partner to partner, and eventually we kind of tailored down to there being one winner in this room of a couple hundred women. As the group of quote, winners got smaller, the hype girls got greater. And this was just so powerful to hear the noise and the energy really lift in the room. As our main focus was cheering each other on. What a powerful lesson. Just the power in lifting up and rising others. This is what I stand for. When we care for ourselves, when we can step outside of ourselves and lift others up, it makes us feel good. How can you today maybe make somebody else look good? The second piece with this activity, which is takeaway number three, is just the power of fun. Fun and joy and play are so imperative to our happiness, to our fulfillment, to our lifelong success. And oftentimes they get thrown on the back burner. So the way that Karen presented this activity for us, it had to be fun, right? We're hyping each other up, but it was just a reminder of the power of joy and the power of play and the power of getting a little bit silly. Our first keynote speaker of the day was Jen. And Jen had such a fascinating story that she shared with us as she went from somebody who really struggled with body image and eating disorders and exercise bulimia to owning and operating two fitness studios in the Boise area. It really was a way that she was able to step out of some of those insecurities and challenges and into a space with more confidence and really be able to share her gift. The lesson I got from Jen was the power of truly being your most authentic self. The world conditions us to be certain ways. And oftentimes for women, it's towards perfectionism. It's towards making ourselves smaller, literally physically, but also again, not speaking up in the room. How do we pull out that inner power to show up as your most authentic self? And Jen's quote, which I loved so much, which I hope that you're able to take in, is that the biggest act of rebellion is showing up exactly as you are. I'm gonna say that again, my friends. The biggest act of rebellion is showing up exactly as you are. My friends, when we step into our true power, when we are able to show up most confidently, oftentimes it is going against the way that again, our society, our upbringing, our culture has conditioned us, which is to, if you will, sit down and shut up, play small, don't speak up, put other people's needs first, climb the ranks rather than tune into our true selves, our true desires. So I just found this lesson from Jen just so powerful. And I hope you take that to heart is how can you show up as your most authentic self? It is gonna feel uncomfortable, it is gonna be pushing against the norms. But let me tell you, I know from my own experience and the hundreds of women that I've coached, is when we step into our most authentic self, we find more happiness, we find more fulfillment, we find more peace. The next lesson came from our amazing Em Civina again. And she used this analogy about how oftentimes in life we are taught to stay in our own lane, kind of similar to what I was just saying, is that we have been taught to go by sort of certain norms, to do the things, to check the boxes, to graduate with high grades, to get into the college, to get the best job, to find the partner, to have the family, to have the big house, to have the car, and to stay in your own lane and just keep checking those boxes and doing it. And Davina said, heck no. Let's create a highway and charge for the tolls on it. All right, this is truly the power of stepping into your own power. You are the creator of your life. This analogy that Davina shared really reminded me of Abby Wombach's book, Wolfpack: How to Come Together, Unleash Her Power, and Change the Game. For those that don't know Abby, she was a professional soccer player, one of the best women soccer players probably of all time. And I love the simplicity of her book, which each chapter is kind of one of these life lessons. It really is about, again, unleashing your power and changing the game. The game has told us, check the boxes, stay in the lane, do the things that you think you, quote, should be doing. But I loved, again, Davina's analogy is don't stay in your own lane. Get a little bit uncomfortable and create the freaking highway. Go after your dreams. And again, this lesson is all about stepping into your power. One of my favorite speakers of the day was Amy Washburn. And Amy recently released a book. Her book, which she actually launched on the day that she stepped on the stage in front of these hundreds of women, is called The Evolutionary Mindset: Stop Changing and Start Evolving. Two main takeaways that I took from Amy. One is this concept of change versus evolution, and I'll get into this in just a second. And the second is owning your own development. I've been a behavior change specialist. I've been a coach for many, many years. And oftentimes we talk about change and the power of change, but also the challenge of change. And I loved her differing perspective on this. She started by sharing a stat that 84% of the time, when we're going for transformation, transformation doesn't stick. And she believes this is because oftentimes we are going for change versus true evolution. All right. Her quote is we are built to evolve, not change. Change, she says, is something that we anticipate. We're either in it or it's after it. It is, in sense, a result. So again, change is like we either are anticipating that we're changing, we're in the change, or we've already changed. Versus this power of evolution is it's not just a single change, but it is evolving as a person. It is constant change. It is really stepping into who you are wanting to be and who you're looking to become. She talks so much about the power of reflection, which I've already touched on today, in helping us truly evolve. And what she broke down in some of her frameworks is exactly what I teach in our Rockstar Life Group and I the work that I do with my clients. When we get so in tune with our values, our beliefs, our thoughts, our emotions, and how all of these different things intersect, it allows us to evolve into the person we're becoming. Again, when we don't have clarity on kind of some of those quote, basic things, it's hard to change because again, our brains are wired to keep us safe, which means doing the same things over and over again, even if we know it's not what we want or not what's going to serve us. She also talked about kind of this concept of emotional stamina, is how comfortable are you with discomfort? Think about that. How comfortable are you with discomfort? And how do we build up our emotional stamina that will allow us to evolve and change over time? And a lot of that, again, comes back to the power of reflection and understanding the stories we tell ourselves and learning to shift those. So, again, this whole concept of change versus evolution, I just loved it so much. The second big thing that she said towards the end of her talk was about owning your own development. Heck to the yes. I 100% stand for this. As a coach who oftentimes walks alongside women, my goal is to never coach a woman for years on end or decades or the rest of your life. All right, it is to empower you to have the skills and know-how and the self-belief so you can own your own development and you can continue to evolve. No one will ever be more committed than yourself to change and to growth and to evolution. But in order to really own it, we must make space for it. We've got to slow down a little bit so we can truly step into owning ourselves, owning our own lives, owning our own power. Karen, who served not only as kind of our connection master for the event, she's the one who led that amazing game of RPS, she also moderated the panel that I sat on. She presented to us this whole thought of yes and. I love the word and. It is allowing us for expansion and for growth and to get curious. The way that she described this yes and concept is that you can accept where you're at and you can can continue to build. I think oftentimes we forget this whole concept of acceptance, right? We just have this desire for change or this desire for something different or this inner knowing that we're called for something more. But we don't accept that where we are right now is exactly where we need to be. And we can make those changes. We can step into our power. And this whole lesson is just such a reminder for me of the power of curiosity. So I invite you to go into today, as Karen invited us to at this conference, with the mindset of yes, and when something doesn't go your way, say, yep, this is how it is. And what can I do about it? When maybe a colleague says something that kind of agitates you, maybe you say yes, and here's how I feel about it. Such a powerful takeaway here. Our last keynoter of the day was Amy Bice-Jackson. Amy was is also an author of the book, The Commodity of Connection. And she gets real raw and authentic about her story. She lost a daughter at the age of two. Such tragedy, but also how that helped her learn some of the biggest life lessons and now teaches and inspires others from her story. Again, her book is called The Commodity of Connection. And I just love this this whole concept that connection is actually our most valuable resource. She shares the definition of connection from Brene Brown, which is it is the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued, when they give and receive without judgment, and when they derive sustenance and strength from relationship. Connection, my friend, is so powerful. And one of the key takeaways from Amy is to speak the unspeakable. One of the ways that we can gain more connection, which I hear time and time again from women, is they just they want deeper connection with their kids, with their partners, with themselves, is to speak the unspeakable. And what this means is to share the raw, share the real. Amy shared her story of loss that created emotion that allowed us to feel connected to her. What are some of those pieces of yourself, your authentic self, that maybe you can start to share? I know from my own personal experience, when I started sharing of losing my brother to suicide, it opened up conversation. It allowed others to feel connected to me and me to feel connected to others to know that we're not alone. When I share the story about my house fire, all right, again, it's speaking the unspeakable. Can you imagine that happening to you? Probably not. But as we share these hearts and we share these truths, it allows us to show the real us. She also said something along the lines of don't try to prove yourself, just be yourself. And this really, my friend, is what I stand for, which is stepping into your own power, stepping into your most authentic self. And when we do so, we can feel more deeply connected to everyone around us, right? Whether it be those that we are seeking deeper connection for, or whether it be the cashier at the checkout line, I always like to share that I do my very best to show up authentically. So when the cashier asks me, How are you today? My answer is rarely good or fine, which are some of those common answers. But I have been known to respond as, I'm awesome today, which sparks connection and spark sparks conversation. Or I remember one time in particular where I said, you know, it's been a hard day. And it created connection when the cashier responded back to me. Yeah, you know, I'm probably only at a like a six out of 10 today. Connection is something that so many of us crave. And one of the ways that we can gain more of that is to not by trying to prove ourselves, but just being ourselves, speaking some of those unspeakable. And one other small tip from Amy was to talk to yourself more than you listen to yourself. That is how we can get to know ourselves even better, is being aware of and shifting and changing the thoughts we're thinking, the words that we're saying to ourselves, rather than just listening to those same thoughts on repeat all day. I call this the pattern interrupt is when you can catch yourself and you're speaking to yourself in a way that maybe does not serve you. How can you talk to yourself in a better way? That is going to help you create better connection with yourself. This last takeaway from the Inspire conference that I want to share with you was from my experience of speaking on the panel. Now, as I was getting ready to speak on this panel, yes, they prepared us with questions up front. I read through them and I said, okay, I've got this. Like, I really just need to share my story. I just need to share my own experience. There isn't, aren't bullet points or specific quotes that I need to share or prepare for. But really, if I can just show up authentically as myself, I know I have something to offer. But here's the thing: going into it, I was met with an amazing panel of unbelievable individuals who are doing really, really good work in the world. And almost immediately, imposter syndrome set in. I said, but what do I have to share? I don't know. They've got doctor in front of their name and they've got big followings. And is what I wore appropriate for this? As I was able to pause and reflect, going back to my very first kind of takeaway here. I recognized that I have the power, and you have the power too, my friend, to own your own story. Each of us are on our own journeys. Each of us are so unique in our own ways, our own lived experiences, our own thoughts and beliefs. And we each have so much magic. So that's my last takeaway that I want to share with you is that we don't have to have the perfect quote to share or the perfect outfit that we're wearing. We don't have to have the accolades behind our name that maybe somebody else does. You are on your own journey, my friend, and you are exactly where you need to be right now. And I invite you to truly own each piece of your story because everything that led up to where you are today as you are listening to this podcast matters. Yes, the awards and the successes and the things you're proud of, but also the hard, also the setbacks, also the unbelievable things that maybe you wouldn't have ever imagined that you could have gone through. Truth be told, you've made it through every single day successfully. You're still here. And so I invite you to truly continue to tap into yourself, own your own story, and know that you have everything that you need within you to take those steps forward to living your best life, living your most rockstar life. Well, my friend, I guess I had more than just a couple key takeaways from the Inspire conference with the Women to Women Network, but I hope that you can walk away with at least one golden nugget, one aha here, one perspective shift of something that you can take into your day today to allow you to take that next step forward. That's what we are about here on the Rockstar Mom. So, my friend, as you go into today, remember you are amazing, you are loved, you are unique, and you are exactly the person that you are meant to be. And you can continue striving for that next version of yourself. Until next time, enjoy. Love to you, cheering you on always. Thank you so much for tuning into the Rockstar Mom podcast. If today's episode resonated with you, here's how we can keep this momentum going. First, be sure to subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode. Next, I'd be so grateful if you took a moment to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. Your feedback helps us reach even more women who are ready to live more intentional, fun-filled lives. Lastly, please share your insights on social media and be sure to tag me at Megan Caldwell PDX so we can connect and inspire other rock stars to live their best lives too. Again, I am so glad that you are here, and I'll see you next time.