You Don’t Have to Know What It Means Yet

By Tricia Scott

I came home from Ideas Fest feeling a bit like I’d been water-cannoned.

Not literally, thankfully.

More in the “my brain has been hit at high pressure from seventeen different directions and I now need to lie down for a while” sense.

It started with a five-hour-plus drive south, several coffee stops and a Spotify playlist we’d built before leaving that contained absolutely everything imaginable. 80's and 90's Nostalgia. Empowerment. Power Ballads. Heavy metal. And of course, The Female CEO Playlist. 

By the time we arrived at our B&B just down the road from Champneys, we were already halfway through a musical identity crisis.

I was there thanks to Ideas By Her, a partnership between Ideas Fest and Starling Bank which gave 250 women building businesses fully funded passes to this year’s festival. Which, incidentally, is exactly the kind of putting-your-money-where-your-mouth-is support for female founders that I LOVE to see.

And then Ideas Fest properly began.

Two days. Six thousand business leaders and entrepreneurs.

The founders behind businesses including Lush, YO! Sushi and Octopus Energy on the stages. Simon Squibb’s Dreamland. Daniel Priestley talking marketing. Authors, founders, DJs, rock bands, dancing, networking, speed conversations, ideas everywhere.

And, because apparently normal networking is no longer enough, bejewelling knickers.

Yes. Really.

We met Sarah McDermott, author of Chaos: The Art of Resilience, and at her stall you could sit down and decorate pants with sequins, glitter and paint. Which sounds ridiculous. It was ridiculous. And it was glorious.

Some of the best conversations of the whole event happened over rhinestones.

That was Ideas Fest in a nutshell. Business everywhere (even in the queue for the loo).

Sometimes the value is in the question

At one point I found myself asking Frank Bruno a question (as you do) about something I see a lot with female founders.

How do we actually stay in the moment of success instead of immediately getting back in the metaphorical gym and chasing the next thing?

He started with “wey aye man lass” because, obviously, the Geordie accent had announced itself before I had. Then he said something that really stood out to me.

It’s easier to celebrate when millions of people are celebrating with you.

I think there’s something profound in that.

Maybe success is easier to feel when somebody else helps you hold it for a minute. Maybe that’s one of the things community is actually for. Not only encouragement when things are difficult. But witnesses when things go well.

Later, I spent time with the team at HelpBnk, asking about how they’d built a model that helps people at no cost while still creating a sustainable, sponsored business around it.

Naturally, I also asked about their collaborations, partnerships and brand sponsorships.

And then something interesting happened. Multiple women in the tent started coming up to me asking about The Female CEO.

And that’s the bit you can’t always plan for.

You go into a room looking for answers and sometimes the value is in the questions you ask out loud.

Let the silt settle

By the time we drove home, we were knackered, overstimulated and carrying what felt like several hundred new thoughts. And this is usually the point where the temptation kicks in. Right. What does all this mean? What am I doing with it? What changes now?

Immediately.

Because inside an entrepreneurial brain we cannot simply have an experience. We need an implementation plan like, yesterday.

But not this time. Some things need to settle.

Panning for gold works because you don’t grab everything in the pan and declare it treasure.

You scoop it up.

Move it around.

Let the water and silt fall away.

And watch for what remains.

And that’s what I’m doing this week.

I’m not forcing every conversation into a strategy or turning every scribbled note into a project. I’m paying attention to what keeps coming back. The ideas I’m still thinking about. The conversations I keep mentioning. The questions that still have a bit of glitter on them after the noise has gone.

Because that’s usually where the gold is.

So if you’ve recently been somewhere, heard something or had one of those conversations that left your head fizzing, maybe you don’t need to work it all out yet.

Let it settle. See what remains.

Then follow that.

I’m very excited to see what’s still in my pan by the end of this week.

I’ll let you know what I find.

I believe in you (always).

👉🏼If you want to receive a Biz Love Letter directly to your inbox every week in 2026, I email our Hello CEO mailing list every Monday. To join, head to The Homepage and sign up! 

 Tricia Scott is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Female CEO — a global platform, magazine, and community dedicated to helping women build confident, aligned, powerful businesses.

A startup mentor and multi-company director, she’s spent the past decade helping women move from overwhelmed and isolated to empowered and intentional.

Most days, she’s juggling her MacBook, her next big idea, and a very necessary caffeine supply. Connect with her at thefemaleceo.com.