Being in the right place at the right time….

An unexpected email from my spam folder led us to attend the International Economic Forum of the Americas (IEFA) World Strategic Forum. It was my first time at this event, and I had no idea who we would meet or what to expect from this next adventure. However, the first lesson was quickly learned: sometime all you have to do is be present, be open to learn and be in the right room at the right time.

Being in a room full of people I didn’t know for the first time in a long time was both exciting and terrifying. I sat listening to the first session as they talked about:

• 2021 being the year of private investments while in 2022 it was the public markets that were buying the largest funds.
• Emergent technologies like cryptocurrency, solar energy and carbon capturing were not going away and were sound investments.
• and that as labor markets were softening, the data has not picked up lodging indicators (rising shelter costs) and that wages were not increasing fast enough.

The next speaker talked about business travel and the impacts of the pandemic. He shared that more that 25% of business travel hours were now being flown on private planes and how there is currently a 2-year backlog to purchase a private plane.

On and on, each speaker, panel and plenary shared insights and information that could fill multiple notebooks. How could anyone capture it all?!

Throughout the day, we met presidents, executive directors, senior advisors, and other government leaders. Each shared ideas in areas that touched the work we were doing. Some validated our work, while others introduced new points of view.

The real lesson in all of this was that despite our traveling challenges, we showed up. We had re-arranged schedules to attend. We ate dinner in a hotel room without spoons at 11 p.m. and pushed forward when traffic delayed our attendance. We showed up, made the right contacts, and learned many lessons along the way. ?My “gift of gab” had opened doors, we had pivoted, and we had connected with all the right contacts. .