Meet Carrie Davenport CMP, CEM, CSEP

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Carrie Davenport CMP, CEM, CSEP a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Carrie, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
My purpose actually found me. Let me explain. Let’s go back to 2014. I had worked as a meetings & event professional for about 10 years at that point. I had joined many organizations in search of my “tribe” and while I was finding a network, I wasn’t truly finding connection. I had also observed the lack of female leadership at the top of major organizations. After a tough experience regarding sexual harassment in 2014 within the events industry, I decided to talk to several organizations about their policies protecting women (and men) and many didn’t even want to have a discussion regarding sexual harassment. They truly didn’t want to touch the topic. I felt at that point, women needed a better voice. I searched to find a group that provided a voice for women and when I didn’t find what I needed (or only found groups that celebrated women one day a year) I decided it was time to bring together strong female voices and started the Association for Women in Events officially as a 501(c)3 organization in 2015. It quickly grew to over 2,000 members and launched many initiatives within the hospitality industry to include the Events Industry Sexual Harassment Task Force which was my legacy committee in the organization.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
When I call myself a serial entrepreneur, it is because I have so many initiatives I want to launch and HAVE launched over the past 18 years! In 2019 I launched A Woman With Drive, my coaching, mentorship, and leadership blog that ties together my love of golf to the leadership game for women. Along with my partner, I’ve launched two online e-commerce stores, thebrideshop.co and pickleball-express.com! Both are passion projects. Both are more fun than work and are helping me reach some personal future wealth goals and security.

In 2023 I am rebranding AWWD (awomanwithdrive.com) to be CEO.Carrie (currently my Insta handle!) to truly envelope all of my organizations under one umbrella. I will be launching “Face It Till You Make It” (aka Face It!) — and will be launching leadership courses, merch, an activity journal and hopefully will be publishing my book in 2024 around how I used the term “Face it till you make it” instead of “Fake it till you make it” to truly remove imposter syndrome, get “unstuck” and reach my goals in both my professional and personal life!

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I always describe myself a resilient, tenacious, and as a chameleon.

I’ve become resilient through my work over time. I’ve heard “no” more times than I can count! I’ve been told my ideas were bad, I’ve been told I couldn’t succeed –yet here I am. I am resilient, and so is my ability to adapt and change (hence the Chameleon!). There’s nothing I love more that a good strategic re-brand. Sometimes things don’t work, and it is easy to get down on ourselves or give us. As a leader I remind people that it is OK to fail, it is OK to pivot and rebrand yourself and move to the next BEST version of YOU!

Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?
I live for this question! I am so often asked “How do you do it all”? Well – I have a lot of thoughts on this, because I am one of those people that needs to be moving 24/7. I DO accomplish a lot. However, I want to be clear in saying that my strategy isn’t ‘one size fits all’ and not everyone has the capacity I have for focus. I think people (especially women) too often beat ourselves up for this. I struggle when people tell me there is only one way to do something. We are all uniquely different, and my way may not be your way.

But I will say this – When I feel overwhelmed, list making and tackling projects small upward to large helps me. Bite sized pieces always work well when I feel like I cannot tackle the big things in my head. Even if I can get an expense report completed, or quickly write responses back to an interview request, or even just load the dishwasher — then great! Those are now out of my head and freeing up the mental space I need. I also think there is something to be said about physical chaos and mental chaos being linked. When my space is clean and clear, so is my head.

When I truly cannot move forward, I give myself 30 minutes. To nap, to read, to scroll on the phone. To give myself a mental reset. I also am a big proponent of the “walk around the block”. When I am stuck, when I feel unmotivated, cranky, tired, irritated–it is time to MOVE my body. Even when I don’t want to. It normally changes my perspective without really doing anything else.

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