EPISODE SUMMARY
Guest: Pam Sweeten and Kadee Harcrow
The U&I conference was started in Lubbock, TX by Pamela Sweeten who moved to Lubbock from Fresno, CA where she attended an inspirational annual conference for many years. It is a conference that helps fill you up and keep you going all year. When she moved to Lubbock Pam missed the conference so much she found a way to start one here.
Pam enlisted some friends and business contacts to form a board and committees. In this episode she is sharing the microphone with Kadee Harcrow who enthusiastically shares her favorite moments from last year’s conference and what she is most excited about for this year.
Among other things we talk about:
The unique challenges of being women.
Keynote speakers: Laura S. Nieto with South West Airlines, Debbie McGuire first lady of Texas Tech football and Dr. Kathy Rollo with Lubbock ISD.
A Was Variety of breakout sessions for professional and personal development or just for fun.
How a conference that builds up fellowship and personal growth for women brings purpose, hope and health to all in the community.
The time is running out to buy tickets, so do it today!
To find out more about the U&I conference :
Ticket Sales End 09/16/2023 Buy Tickets Here
Email the U&Iconference:
To Contact Kadee Harcrow: https://www.facebook.com/kadee.harcrow
To Contact Pamela Sweeten: https://www.facebook.com/pamela.sweeten
To contact Ruth, go to https://www.blairclinic.com
ruth@blairclinic.com
https://www.facebook.com/rutelin
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome, welcome, welcome to What Pain in the Neck. I am Ruth Elder, your host, and in today's podcast episode, I not only have one, but two guests here in my little studio at the Blair Chiropractic Clinic, and they're my friends and super go-getter women here in Lubbock. Pam Sweeten and Kadee Harcrow, and they are representing a conference. We'll be talking about the conference coming up. If you're listening to this after the first weekend in October, the conference is over, but you can think about next year. So Pam and Kadee, welcome. Hi. Thank you, Pam. You are like the, instigator of this.
Pam: Yes, I am. I'm very much the instigator.
So why don't you tell us, you have this idea and you have started something new here in Lubbock.
P: Yes, ma'am.
And why?
P: Why? Well, I moved here in 2019
From?
P: California. I call it ”Crazyfornia”, so between Fresno and Sacramento and the Central Valley; very much like West Texas. It's an ag region. So moving here wasn't a unfamiliar territory to make that leap. I always say I exported my son in ‘07 and I followed in ‘19. So he came to college and never came back. But moving here, I really missed an event I was part of in Fresno since the 80s. And I would say Lubbock demographics and Fresno, California are very similar. We're both ag regions with D1 schools, Christian colleges, junior colleges. Very much an industry-wide community that just thrives on agriculture.
So there was a conference and you missed it. So tell us about the conference and why it was important enough to duplicate?
P: Well, it was a women's conference, the Central California Women's Conference, and I was part of it from the 80swhen I was a student intern in college. So now you know how old I am. Old, older than dirt, but you know, it just filled my cup. And I always say that it fills my cup and people are like, “what do you mean?” And I go, “well, as women we pour into everyone else. We pour into our spouses or our kids, our siblings, our job, our coworkers, our friends. But who pours into you?” So it wasn't an event that was Christian-based and it wasn't a business conference, but it was multi-generational. I think the first year we had it, we had a daughter, a mother, a grandmother and an aunt that all came together and coming to Lubbock and not having anything that filled my cup, I was missing it.
Yeah I can see that. So this podcast, mostly we talk about different types of suffering and solutions to it, and I wouldn't say it's necessarily suffering, not on the high level, butwouldn't you say there's unique challenges with being a woman? We have dreams, we have goals, things like that. And then we get pregnant. So like for instance, that happened to me and it was my life's desire to be a mother. And it was dreams come true. But there's made some other parts of my life more challenging. And like you said, it's always our job to encourage everybody else. And a lot of times I think as women, we set our children, our husbands, our careers, all of that first. We have to juggle more balls than let's say our -
P: Absolutely. Yeah. And you know, that's funny you say that because in the whole time until 2019 when I moved to Texas, I only missed this conference two years, one year I literally gave birth to my son. So 1989, I missed the conference. And in 1993 I was with my infant daughter in the hospital. So those are the only two conferences out of that time that I ever missed.
So all those years of attending this conference, what did it do for you?
P: You know it would give me, so much energy that would get me through the year.
The whole year.
P: It filled my cup, and I was able to feel like I could pour back into my community whether I was the room mom for my son's kindergarten class. Or I was helping being a 4-H leader or the community club leader. And I lived two hours away from the event. And I would get up, sometimes I would drive down the night before. A few times I literally drove down that morning. So I would leave my house about 4, 4:30 in the morning to get there in time to do what I needed to do, and I would drive home that night, but you're just on a high.
So it made enough of an impact that, after moving to Lubbock and presumably missing it for another maybe couple of years?
P: Yeah. Well then we had 2020. Which I don't wanna count that.
We can just write that year off. We all wanna forget that happened.
P: So, yeah, and you know, I came and I started talking to some women and you know, everyone's like, “oh, that's a neat idea, Pam.” But no one said, “hey, let's do it.” And I even took the idea to a couple of nonprofits and I took it to a business thinking this might be something they wanted to do. And I had the - we had the formula, I knew what worked. And so with the negative feedback, it's like, well, it's not really negative feedback as much as it was, “oh gosh, we don't need one more thing or another event” So I just thought on it and prayed on it, and then I wrangled Kadee to come on board and tried to explain it to her what it was all about. And this is a funny story. I'll let her tell the rest.
So how did that conversation go?
Kadee: So Pam comes to me and she says, “hey, I'm thinking about doing this women's conference.” And I'm thinking, “oh, that sounds fun… kinda… not really.” And she said, “will you help me?” And I said, “sure!” Because that's what I do. And she explained it to me and she explained it to me and she explained it to me. She asked me if I wanted to be on the board and I said, “no.” She said, “what do you wanna do?” I said, “I'll be your cheerleader. I'll do whatever it is you need me to do. I'll cheer you on and I'll support you. And we're friends. And that's what friends do.” And then the day came and busy, busy, busy running around town, picking things up for Pam the day before while we're getting ready and then busy throughout the day. And I introduced a couple of the speakers, three different speakers in their rooms, and I stayed and listened to those speakers. And at the end of the day, high is a good word, and still with me.
Still with you almost a year later?
K: Yes, we’re 11 months.
And that's what I've heard from so many people.
K: It was so good, and I honestly did not understand it. You know, I didn't understand that I was gonna go into, and every room that I went into was meant for me. I went into the action coaching and I learned something that would help me professionally and signed up for some of their classes later and learned a whole lot. I introduced last year the Cooper kids, they did flower arranging. Well, I love flowers. I didn't know how to arrange a flower. I can make a flower arrangement. That's great and great, and it was fun and I took it home with me. That was fabulous. And then my last one was I introduced Tiffany because she was a friend of mine about childhood trauma and getting over childhood trauma, and there weren't very many women in that class. And I think at first we were both disappointed that it wasn't one that everybody rushed to, you know, there were about 10 women in there and it was the right 10 to 12 women. They were able to talk about their own childhood trauma. It was very deep and it was, It was beautiful. It was great.
So it's, that particular one was about going deep and the quality versus quantity.
K: Yes, yes. So, you know, you're gonna - it just organically happened. I was part of, when we named it the U&I, we sat around, there were a group of like-minded women and some men. And we sat around and talked and sent in words. Pam always brought sticky notes and we would write down words that we wanted to hear, you know? And so uplift came around, inspire, came around, I can't even think of any others.
P: Me either.
K: Uh, education, physical fitness, I mean like all these different words came around and uplift and inspire were the two that we all just loved. And then somebody, Ellen said, “you and I.” And we were like, “oh yeah, like you and I, and U&I”. It was really fun
Excellent. So a couple of things I wanna follow up with on that. From a health point of view, which of course is my field, there's more and more studies out on community and mental health, and happiness and stress as it relates to our wellbeing. And so here's a community, we can be refilled and refueled in all of those areas, it sounds like.
P: Well, absolutely, Ruth. And you know, the neat thing is that companies and businesses can look at this as a personal professional development day for their employees and their staff. They can send them to this event, they're gonna get filled up. There's keynote speakers, there's breakout sessions. There’s 5 - I don't know how we ended up with 5, but we've got personal development, professional development and growth, health and wellness, financial, and fun. I always like the fun part. Because that's where those women that are coming or looking at the schedule, there's something for everyone. Whether they wanna learn how to be a better mom or they wanna know how to manage money. We've got one gal coming and doing mom as in money and you know, everyone - I mean, not everyone knows how to budget. So, you know, how do you start or investing? Investing in a - I mean, this market that we're in right now is horrible. But we've got people that are gonna talk about investing in this market, and we've got speakers coming. Christy Lee, who's a nurse practitioner is gonna be bringing this new device, it's a chair for women that - maybe you're dealing with incontinent problems. But you know, there's all kinds of health benefits out there that you can get from it. And it's, it's natural. You're just sitting on a chair that's doing things. It's not another drug that they wanna push on us.
Interesting.
P: So, you know, it's kind of neat to see those kinds of things and those kinds of speakers. And the neat thing about this year's event is we had, last year we went and we asked people to come talk. And this year we did an application process and we had twice as many applications as we had time slots.
So who should come to this conference and why?
P: Whether you're 18 or you're 88, there's gonna be something for you. Whether you're a college student or you're in your career for 20 years.
And you mentioned that in your committee you had mostly women and some men. Do you have to be a woman to come?
P: No. We've got actually a man that's coming that's a speaker, so we're kind of excited about that. And you don't have to be a woman. We will make sure you have a restroom. It might be on the other side of the building.
K: It’ll be the one without the line.
P: But, um, yeah, so there's spaces for vendors to have a table. There's still sponsorship opportunities. There's still tickets available. Ticket sales end on September 16th. The website, we wanna encourage people to go look at the different speakers that are there. You can get your girlfriends together you can buy a table together. It's just gonna be a fabulous day.
So why don't you tell us what the website is? I will link it and just show notes as well. But if people are driving or something like that and they have a good memory, just why don't you say it?
P: It's U the letter U, the word And the letter I conference.com. So UandIconference.com.
Great.
K: So one of the things that I loved that Pam didn't touch on is there were a lot of ladies that I knew. I knew who they were. I'd seen them at chamber events, I'd seen them just out. And I knew them, but we left as friends.
So you came as acquaintances and left as friends?
K: Yes. Yes. There were a lot of young girls when I say young I'm thinking early 30s, that came by themselves that they gravitated to each other. One of them is speaking this year. So she was so touched that she's - it's Anna Johnson with West Texas Charcuterie, and she's gonna be teaching us how to make a charcuterie board
Fun. Is that in the fun category?
K: That's in the fun or family, fitness. I don't know. It could be all those things. Just the fellowship of having women laugh and cry and it just is fun. So much fun.
So if you don't know if this is for you, it's for you.
K: It's for you.
Yep. I'm going this year.
K:Good.
I didn't make it last year and this year I was hesitating because I'm coming off a professional conference. And I'm arriving back in Lubbock the day before, and I'll have taken a couple of days the previous week for a professional conference, so I've been kind of on the fence.
K: But you're worth it.
Yeah. Okay, so this one's about me.
K: Yes. Yes. You're worth it.
Kadee, when you came in. You were looking through the speakers? What are you excited about in this this year?
K: The hard part is picking. I totally wanna do Anna's charcuterie board because 1. she's cute as can be, and she's a lot of fun.
Kadee: Christy Lee, I love her.
And she's doing what?
K: Kinda that it's okay to take care of you is what I understand. She does a little Botox, and I'll admit to having Christy do a little Botox for me. But she does some things and we oftentimes feel guilty for taking care of ourselves. And that's kind of where she is. I think Ellen investing, I really - where's that one? Kerri Schoonvelt. I really want to to hear her. She's a neat girl here in town and she's overcome some trauma and tragic events and I wanna hear what she's done. You know, I, I don't know if there's a woman out there that hasn't had some trauma or something tragic happen, but, if you are that one woman, good for you and hang on, it's coming for you. And then Elevate Your Energy with Lacey Pruett. I could use some of that in my life. If you know me, you're probably like, “no, no, no, no.” But yes, I do. I do need some energy. So, you know, there's just a lot of fun things going - Rory Sheppard is back again with Action Coaching, and they're fantastic. I'm excited about it all.
Pam, why don't you tell us about the keynote speakers.
P: Sure. We've got three amazing ones. Laura Nieto works -she's a Texas Tech alum and she works for Southwest Airlines. She started running marathons at 40 and she's run 16 marathons on four continents.
Wow.
P: So that's kind of fun.
K: She doesn't look much older than 40.
P: No, she doesn't. But she's going to be really fun just to share her journey and her path and you know, at 40 she wanted to do something for herself. She's got a family and, you know, her and I, we had a great conversation and just really, really exciting.
Okay. So interesting, application for me. When I was 40, I decided either I need to start to run marathons or I'll become a fitness instructor/personal trainer. I needed a challenge and I decided to be a fitness instructor/personal trainer. Instead, I decided it probably requires about the same amount of physical work and attention. And then I decided, okay, I wanted to incorporate the learning that came with learning the theory of training and all different aspects of training and not just running. Also, I was able to make that into a side hustle.
P: NIce
K: I love it.
So at 40, I got my certification to be a group fitness instructor first, and then a personal trainer, and then I wanted to complete the Insanity Challenge by the time I was 40. Do you know what that is? No. It sounds
Kadee: insane. Yeah, it
Ruth: was insane. Insanity is a very high intensity fitness program. Some of it seems a little insane, but I did it so I, it was six days a week for 60 days. And I got the t-shirt, I, I earned it and I felt the best that I've ever done. And I felt like, okay, now that I've done this, [00:17:00] there's nothing I can't do.
Ruth: Yes. And at that time, you could only do insanity through a home fitness program. Yeah, I know
Kadee: exactly what you're talking about. I tried
Ruth: it too. Yeah. Uh, with.
Kadee: Yes. Shaun T. Yes. Okay. I thought that sounded familiar. Yes. But then it
Ruth: came, then it became available at the gym. Mm-hmm. And I just decided I want to be in the first group of insanity instructors.
Ruth: I wanna be the first one in my town. To offer an insanity class, and I enrolled in the class and did it, and for a summer, I taught insanity at 6:00 AM in the park, even on 4th of July, we had 75 people come and do insanity twice a week, and it was fun anyway. I love it that that derailed us, but that's what I did instead of running a marathon.
Pam: But you, you poured into yourself and that's what this whole conference is about Yes. Is pouring into yourself. Yeah. But
Ruth: what's interesting, and, and maybe that's kind of the moral of the [00:18:00] story. I had this goal and I was doing that for me, but because I was doing that for me, it, it overflowed and then poured into somebody else.
Ruth: Somebody else. I, yes. I was able to offer this through the Y M C A in my town. The Y M C A kind of backed me up and. I think probably several hundred took my insanity class that summer just because I was doing something that was motivating to me. Yeah.
Pam: I love it. Well, and that's what this whole conference is about, Ruth, and you know, our speakers, we've got Debbie McGuire coming, which she's gonna be amazing.
Pam: We all know her husband, Joey McGuire, the head football coach at Texas Tech got tech. Yeah. Wreck 'em. Let's go. Guns up? Well, we could start the radar power chant. That's usually how he does it. Okay. Yeah. Anyways, that's gonna be fun. But you know, we're, we're just really excited that she's gonna join us this year and, you know, all these women, the neat thing about these speakers is everyone is donating their time, talent, and energy to come do [00:19:00] this for the Lubbock community.
Pam: Last year we had women from Amarillo, Wichita Falls, Hobbes. So, you know, we're hoping that this becomes a regional event where if you're two hours away, Come on out. There's a place for you and you're gonna meet new friends. You're gonna meet new people. We've got speakers coming from Georgia and California, Colorado, Dallas area.
Pam: So we're just really excited to be able to bring in these amazing women. That are gonna pour into the women of this region. Yeah. And there's a third keynote speaker. Yeah. We've got Lubbock ISDs, Dr. Kathy Rollo. Yeah. And she's gonna share her journey and her story. So you're gonna, is someone I really look up to.
Pam: Yeah. You're gonna start the morning, you're gonna have two breakout sessions before lunch. You're gonna have your lunch, two breakout sessions in the afternoon and finish your day. Mm-hmm. And it's really just a work day. The first speaker starts at 8:00 AM the last one finishes at five. So for all of you employers that are listening, This is for your office staff.
Pam: This is for your front [00:20:00] end, your back end, whatever end you need to pour into, because when they're filled up, they give more back in their communities. Trickle down. Yep. That's what it's all about. Yep. Mm-hmm. Kadee's got another speaker
Kadee: here. I have a speaker here. There's a, A girl Summer Lee. Her session says, how to navigate life after a toxic relationship and cultivate a new self-image.
Kadee: What I really like about that is that speaks directly to me. I changed. Totally reinvented myself at 45. Wow. I was, I was an x-ray tech for more than 20 years. I was married for 23 when I was blindsided by my ex-husband, and all of a sudden there I was a single mom and trying to figure out what to do next.
Kadee: What I did next was I changed careers and moved towns and just really worked on me and doing what I wanted to do. It was the first opportunity I'd ever had to do. What? I wanted to do without being told that. Mm-hmm. I couldn't do it, you know, and, and there I was middle aged at 45 right. [00:21:00] Doing these things.
Kadee: And so, you know, I can't wait to hear what she has to say. And I, I know that there is somebody, there's more than just me out there like this. There's other women out here that are looking for a change and looking for somebody that will hug them and push them and say, let's go. Yeah. So I'll hold your hand and do this
Ruth: with you.
Ruth: Yeah. So I think, uh, actually a common denominator in what have, have happened in a lot of my interviews is people have come to a fork in the road and just decided I'm going to find a solution. Mm-hmm. So maybe you're in a similar situation to what you're talking about, and maybe you've haven't even come to decide what you need to do.
Ruth: You just need, I need more in my life. So maybe this conference Yes. Is a good healing and motivator. Mm-hmm. And. Catalyst to decide what's best for me and where do I go from here? Is that fair
Kadee: to say? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And that's what's so great about it is you know, you can kind of get stuck in a rutt where you're talking about people, you know, [00:22:00] so and so does this, and, oh, can you believe she did that well?
Kadee: That is not what this is. These are our women that wanna lift up other women. Mm-hmm. Sophia Rodriguez is one of the speakers and she's doing something on how to find your niche. I've known Sophia for a long time. She is beautiful. She's beautiful inside. She's beautiful out. She's a girl's girl. She is the kind of person that I look up to, even though she's much younger than I am.
Kadee: You know, at 55, I'm going to grab some energy from these young girls. Yes. And learn from them. Learn how to do a little social media. It's really, really good. Yeah. You know, you gotta surround your yourself with like-minded
Ruth: people. Yeah. And like-minded people who uplift and inspire you. Yes. I like that. Yes.
Ruth: We
Pam: all need that. And it's for all women. Yes. You know, it's whether you're 18 or you're 98, We want you to feel like you can come, whether you're a stay-at-home mom or you own a business, it's for you too. Mm-hmm. Yes. You know, whether, I mean, we all have things, we all have challenges, but [00:23:00] we as women, we don't put ourselves first.
Pam: Men don't think twice about spending a day on the golf course. Mm-hmm. And how many times do we as women or moms or wives or sisters give ourselves eight hours to do something for us? Yeah. Just
Kadee: like I told you, you are worthy of spending a day. On yourself and getting refueled so that you can go back out and fight all those battles that we have to fill.
Kadee: Mm-hmm. Fight.
Ruth: Okay? So we, you go to the website and
Pam: sign up. Go to the website, buy your ticket, sign up, you can sponsor,
Ruth: and you have to buy, buy the ticket. Buy September
Pam: 16th,
Ruth: and if you miss it,
Pam: If you miss it Hmm. You can send an email. Okay. To info@uiconference.com. Okay. And that's on the website as well.
Pam: You can also go sign up just to get updates. We're hoping that each of our speakers this year will do a blog post for us for the website Great. Going into the next year. Mm-hmm. So maybe not necessarily what they spoke about, but they'll do a blog post and we'll be sharing those on our [00:24:00] website as well.
Pam: So we're, we're looking at things to give back to the ladies all year long. So follow us on social media. Everything's the U N I conference on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, LinkedIn. Mm-hmm. So, you know, go find us, follow us, share it with your girlfriends. Get your table. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Get your,
Kadee: get your, yeah.
Kadee: There is a table. You can buy a table, which is the way to do it if you want to make sure that you sit with your girlfriends. Yep. All right. Yep. Great. They're gonna be good. Good snacks, good food, you know, I'm all about the food. Okay.
Ruth: Yeah. Okay. Is there any question that you wish I had asked that you want to answer?
Kadee: I'm so excited you're gonna come. Okay. Me too.
Pam: Alright. It's gonna be a great day. Yeah. Okay.
Kadee: Grab
Ruth: a girlfriend. Yes. Come on. Yes, and when we uplift and inspire each other, the whole community is wins and is healthier and better off. Well, you
Pam: know you're gonna change your household, you're gonna change your neighborhood.
Pam: Yes. You know, if we change a thousand women in West Texas, watch out. Yeah. [00:25:00]
Kadee: Coming
Ruth: for you. Right. Way to end.