My UpLift Live Notes: The People Who Made It Unforgettable

HEADS UP: this is going to take you longer than a minute to read. It took me over 3 mos to write it. But there are marketing and LinkedIn tips sprinkled throughout.

Earlier this year, I spoke at my first* international conference: UpLift Live. During the conference, I jotted down notes about a few names I wanted to shout out on LinkedIn. It was a perfect tie-in to the topic of my LinkedIn strategy talk: Mastering Coopetition and PIE (aka: I'm here today because I found John Espirian's data interesting).

Truth be told: I brought the post-it note on stage with me, foolishly thinking I could weave them into my talk -- impromptu! -- the day of the event. After all, I was the last speaker of the day. Here's the post-it note, by the way:

At the end of my talk on a pie-themed slide deck, I encouraged the audience to "Post Your UpLift Live Photos on LinkedIn, today, tomorrow, in 2 weeks, in 3 months.... or whenever! Just TAG us, using the @ sign."

You know the expression,

"The cobbler's children have no shoes."

Well, this applies to many of us who are self-employed, including professional speakers who SPECIALIZE in LinkedIn, and who encourage their audience EVERY EVENT to share their event photos on LinkedIn.

I meant to post them later that day, but we went to a group dinner that night.

And then next day, my son and I went to London.

And the following day, we returned to the states.

And I meant to post the following week. OR sometime the following month (April 2026).

And well, here we are today: Wednesday, July 1, 2026, and I am FINALLY getting around to sharing my photos with you.

Which brings me to another favorite expression:

Better late than never.

A cousin of:

DONE is better than PERFECT.

With that said, here's my notes.

"Gus, Jeremy, John + team"

_{Photo from John Espirian's post. Click to visit his post, and give it a comment.}

As the subtitle of my slide indicated, I wouldn't have been on stage if it weren't for John Espirian. I've been connected with John since November 20, 2017, not too long after my exit from corporate. And right around the time I started to really lean into learning and teaching LinkedIn.

SIDEBAR: Today, while searching for a photo of John, Jeremy & Gus, I made a connection with Jacqui Patton, who is also in the USA and attended the conference. Proof that "better late than never" is true!

I hadn't met Jeremy Freeman or Gus Bhandal until arriving in the UK for the conference (there was a pre-event networking happy hour the night prior). Here's one photo from that night:

Left-to-Right: my son Joshua Meller, Nigel Cliffe, Jeremy Freeman, Sarah Burgess, anyone know the two women in the back row?, Melanie Goodman, and Tony Restell (also a 2026 UpLift Live speaker).

All I can say is that Jeremy and Gus are just as delightful, warm, and welcoming as John and other speakers had described them to be. This photo perfectly captures their playful personalities, and they were each wearing their brand colors. (Keep in mind, this was at the end of March!)

"Sarah Burgess, Judy Rafferty, Jo Edge"

For the life of me, I can't recall** why I put a bracket around their three names. So I'll just describe a bit about each.

Sarah Burgess (connect on LinkedIn, tell her Brenda sent you): I connected with Sarah on January 21, 2021, and met her in person at the pre-event networking, but we really had a chance to chat at breakfast, the morning of the conference. As I'm writing this blog, I'm realizing I *still* haven't exported all the photos off my phone to my Google Drive, so it's taking a bit longer to write this and upload photos than I anticipated. But totally WORTH it! During my breakfast chat with Sarah, I learned several things, including:

1. Sarah and I both love pink hair.
2. Sarah is a LinkedIn coach who specializes in helping people in career transition / job seeking. Since I no longer specialize in this area, I'm going to refer clients to her. You can learn more about Sarah's services here.
3. Weetabix. We don't have it here in the US, so I brought home a pouch. It's still sitting in our kitchen, but appears it doesn't expire until November. Seems a bit like shredded wheat. 💡 LinkedIn Tip: Packaged foods like this from hotels make for an interesting souvenir — and great social media content. (I gotta say though, that I thought "biscuits" were cookies, so I'm a bit disappointed.... 🤣🤣🤣)

Judy Rafferty. I met her at the end of breakfast on conference day, and connected a few days afterward. I loved her bright, positive personality which was matched only by her pink hair (yes, it was a theme!). Judy is a copywriter, LinkedIn Marketer, and Content Strategist. Connect on LinkedIn and tell her Brenda sent you.

Left-to-Right in photo: Brenda Meller (me!), Judy Rafferty, Jo Edge, and Sarah Burgess. If you look closely, you can see our pink hair. 🩷

Jo Edge. Jo and I connected on LinkedIn back in 2022, when she reached out to me as a fellow member of Espresso+ (John Espirian's LinkedIn membership community) and was seeking a US partner for a client project. I wasn't a fit for her needs, but it was nice to be considered. Connect with Jo on LinkedIn and tell her Brenda sent you.

"Marianne"

It might surprise you to know that I'm an introvert at heart, or maybe you already knew this. And if you're an introvert, you might relate to this. When I go to events like these where I know I'll see a bunch of people I am connected with, I'm always worried that:

1. I'll forget your name, but I will remember your face.
2. We will have had a LinkedIn DM exchange and I've forgotten about it, and I can't place you at all.
3. Everyone will be in conversations with others, and I won't find anyone I know to speak with. So I'll go find coffee.
4. All of the above will make me appear rude or snobby, when in fact I'm just nervous.

It all seems silly, but I share this with you, because I'm guessing someone reading this can relate. Which brings me to Marianne. She was on the planning team for UpLift Live, and she and I chatted at the pre-event networking. My son and I had just arrived from Paris, completely exhausted and starving, so we grabbed a table in the back of the room and some food.

I had a delicious burger, and Joshua had an amazingly good pizza. Food in the UK is SOOOO good, FYI.

After dinner, I chatted with Marianne Avery, who bought a copy of my book and I gave her an autograph. At least that's how I am remembering it, because I didn't bring any books with me, and there's Marianne holding my book with her pen in it in this photo. I'm hoping she reads this to confirm.

After we chatted, Marianne showed me a new photo technique involving the ".5" setting on your phone. Here's a sample of the technique in action. Pretty cool!

By the way, Marianne is also a LinkedIn coach and LinkedIn trainer. She has similar offerings, but I'd encourage you to connect with Marianne because she might be a better fit for your needs. Plus, I believe she volunteered her time to help out at this conference, and she deserves to get an additional client or two as a thank you! And I have an "abundance" mentality -- there's more than enough work to go around for all of us. Connect with Marianne on LinkedIn and tell her Brenda sent you.

"Liv"

The next name on my post-it note was Liv (hoping this is the right name!). I met Liv on the morning of the conference. We were both walking from the hotel to the conference venue, just a quick walk across the street. Liv attended the conference the previous year, and knew the walking route.

I remembered "Liv" because her hair color and look reminded me a bit of "Liv Tyler" (the actress and daughter of Steven Tyler). But as of today, I can't find a LinkedIn connection named "Liv" so perhaps I'm mistaken. I'm hoping someone reads this and can help to correctly identify her, and drop her LinkedIn URL here.

I love this photo, because it captured that "pre-conference glow" for both of us -- as speaker and attendee. If you look closely, you'll get a glimpse of my pink undercut, and my "stage" lipstick.

💡 Speaker Marketing Tip: A public speaking coach once told us ladies to wear brighter, darker lipstick when speaking on stage, because it makes your lips pop better in photos -- and on video.

"Ella / Andy (pen)"

There are so many great things about UpLift Live, including the WhatsApp group that was created for conference attendees. Some of us were in the room, and others were joining virtually. At the beginning of the day, we were chatting in WhatsApp sharing the Wifi network and code for the in-room event. I had also reached out to ask if anyone had an extra pen, because I forgot to bring one to autograph my books with. I have a signature magenta pink sharpie pen that I use to autograph my books.

I love the pens so much that I bought a whole box of them. Which is a great idea, except that I left the whole box in my desk in the USA. And there I was, in the UK, holding copies of my book that I was planning to give away and autograph that day.

So I went into the WhatsApp and asked if anyone had a sharpie I could borrow. Within minutes, Ella Orr (another one of the many fabulously helpful conference planning team members) found me with a really cool sharpie. I mean REALLY cool. So cool I was hoping I would get to keep it, but it felt super fancy. I even took a photo of the pen so I'd remember the brand and style. Here it is:

Later, Ella told me she got it from Andy Gray. Andy was the artist who was sketching illustrations of the talks of each speaker from throughout the day. If you've seen me on a Zoom call, it's the poster that appears behind me on my office wall.

If you look really close in the bottom left of this photo, you'll see Andy sketching as I was delivering my talk on the big stage.

I did return the pen to Andy, and I've been singing his praises ever since for the coolest illustration. Connect with him on LinkedIn and tell him Brenda sent you. And book him for your event. Your speakers and audience will love you for it.

Also, Ella is a LinkedIn strategist and such a sweetheart for helping me that day. You should connect with her on LinkedIn and tell her Brenda sent you.

"Livestreamers -- Annette"

In addition to the nearly 200 people in the live audience, there were also dozens who joined us virtually. I have to give a shout out to one in particular: Annette Richmond. I'm a huge fan / friend of Annette's and vice versa. She was one of the first people who texted me after my talk and told me about how the chat was blowing up, and I have to say it was great having that immediate feedback and support. Annette is my video coach. You should connect with Annette on LinkedIn, and tell her Brenda sent you. Ask about her video bootcamp, too!

"Phill Agnew"

I probably could (and will) do a separate blog about all of the UpLift LIVE speakers. I can't recall why I only wrote Phill's name on my post-it that day. My guess is one of two reasons.

1. Because my son recognized his name. Here's Joshua looking Phill up on social media, during his talk.
   
   
   
2. Because I was running out of room on the post-it note. 🤣🤣🤣
   
   

So that's all for now. There will probably be at least 3 more blogs I'm going to publish about UpLift Live. I'm listing the ideas here so I'll remember them later.

1. A blog about my experience bringing my son with me over to the UK, and our adventures together on stage (oh yes I did!) and the memories we made while travelling.
2. A blog about the UpLift LIVE speakers.
3. A blog about others I met in person at the conference.

💡Marketing Tip: Telling your readers about upcoming blog topics is a great way to build in accountability for yourself, and to keep your audience coming back. Hope you found this helpful!

* First. And ready for the next international conference. Learn more here.

** It was because we took a photo together at breakfast. I have no idea what my symbol on the post-it meant. Maybe the booth?? 🤣🤣🤣