A listener went to their first conference alone. They wanted to meet people. They left without starting a single conversation, and now they wish they had.

Emily says she could have written this Dear Bossy herself. She and Adrienne talk about why almost everyone in that hallway feels the same way, and what to do differently next time.

What they cover:

• Why the people on their laptops between sessions are just as nervous as you are
• What event hosts owe their attendees, and where your own responsibility starts
• The one small commitment that makes you look approachable between sessions
• Treating rejection like practice, and why most groups will welcome you in
• Emily’s first event as a team member, and why the pressure to bring something back to work made her raise her hand every time
• Why Emily has no fear hosting a panel but freezes walking up to a group
• Easy openers: a compliment, someone’s book, a good question from the last session, the speaker’s talk, the catered food
• Deciding before you go what you want out of the trip
• Why in-person connection is the golden ticket right now

Submit your Dear Bossy question here.
Get on the Bunk List for Camp OOO here.

⏱️ Time Chapters
00:00 Welcome and the big meanie story
04:35 Dear Bossy: alone at your first conference
09:15 Put the phone away
14:25 Easy icebreakers for introverts
18:40 Why did you even go?

Camp took a year off. The campers were not thrilled.

But the break gave Adrienne and Emily time to rebuild it from the ground up, and now it is back with a new name and a clear reason to exist.

In this episode, Adrienne and Emily announce Camp Out of Office, a women-only camp for female founders and team leads, happening in Nashville in September 2027. They get into why the best ideas never show up in your session notes, and why stepping away is the fastest way to find out what breaks.

What they cover:

• How a camp job Adrienne once hated taught her the difference between a hard job and the discomfort of being new
• Why events are booming again, and why people are waiting longer than ever to commit (via events expert Julius Solaris)
• Camp as a test run: unplug for a few days and see what actually breaks in the business
• Why the most valuable conversations at any event happen in the in-between moments
• The post-conference whiplash that leaves teams scrambling
• The honest downside: it is summer camp food
• Why camp is women-only this time, and how to get founder spots first through the Bunk List

Get on the Bunk List for first access to founder spots: imgoingtocamp.com

Interested in sponsoring camp? Reach out to Adrienne on Instagram.

Time Chapters
00:00 Summer camp, then and now
06:50 The golden era of events
11:05 Camp Out of Office is back
16:55 The best ideas happen in between
21:35 The Bunk List, founder spots, and Nashville
26:30 The worst part of camp: the food
30:50 Sponsors, and why camp is just for the girlies

Adrienne and Darrell Vesterfelt spent a year and a half trying to get operators into one room together. This fall they finally planned the event. 9 people committed, and they had to cancel it.

Adrienne and Emily walk through the whole decision, from setting the cutoff to sending the refund email, and what happened when the operators who signed up asked to stay connected anyway.

What they cover:

• Why the operator role sits in isolation, with no peers above them, no peers below them, and a founder with a completely different skill set
• Founders put money into their own coaching, masterminds, and peer groups, and usually nothing into their number 2
• The cutoff: why Adrienne wouldn't run the room with fewer than 15 people when 35 were promised
• Sending the refund email, and the response from operators that changed what happened next
• How the free Operators Only Slack community got 15 applications on day 1
• The system everyone on the team follows except the founder
• Why Adrienne would rather be embarrassed than run an event she couldn't deliver on

Send this to your operator: joinoperatorsonly.com

Time Chapters
00:00 Disney princesses and starter marriages
07:40 We cancelled our event
11:50 Why the room didn't fill
16:05 The email nobody wants to send
20:55 15 applications on day 1
27:20 Integrity over embarrassment