A few days ago, I went to Ideas Fest and I can genuinely say it was one of the best experiences I've had in a very long time. Imagine a field full of brilliant entrepreneurs, business owners, speakers, creators and some very familiar faces, all coming together to share ideas, stories and experiences. There was an incredible energy about the place. I met fascinating new people, spent time with old friends, bumped into some of my celebrity friends, listened to brilliant conversations on stage and came home with that wonderful feeling you get when you've been somewhere that has made you think bigger. I absolutely loved it. But before I tell you what I took away from it, let me tell you a funny story. Because the universe was definitely trying to tell me something.

The day before Ideas Fest, there were works happening near my house and I lost my internet. For almost 24 hours. If you run a business online, you'll understand the mild horror of this. No emails. No Zoom. I drove to a nearby cafe, parking lot and supermarket to hotspot off my phone but nothing! Had to reschedule a podcast, one client and one other zoom only to finally purchase 24hrs WiFi from one company that somehow had a two bar signal so I could carry on my afternoon session with another wonderful client. The people pleaser in me was definitely activated!

The next morning, I packed my things, headed off to Ideas Fest and was glad normal digital life would resume. It didn't. There was no internet there either! Seriously you couldn't make it up and this was causing huge issues. We actually needed the internet. The Ideas Fest map and schedule were online. So you had hundreds of entrepreneurs desperately trying to download a map so they could work out where the speakers they wanted to see actually were. People were wandering around looking for that magical patch of signal. “Do you know where this talk is?” “No. Do you?” “No.” Brilliant. Hundreds of entrepreneurs had travelled to a festival dedicated to ideas… and nobody had any idea where they were going.

And do you know what? It turned out to be one of the best things about it. Because we wandered. We explored. We bumped into people we might never have otherwise met. I randomly found some of my celebrity friends where they normally would have been surrounded by 100's of people wanting to speak to them, but nobody knew where anyone was. So instead, we got a chance to have a proper chat. And somewhere amongst all those accidental conversations, I realised something. We had lost the signal, but somehow found the connection.

It got me thinking about how obsessed we have become with signal. Where's the Wi-Fi? Have I got 5G? Has my message sent? Where is everyone? What am I missing? We have LinkedIn connections, Instagram followers, WhatsApp groups and thousands of names sitting in our phones. We have probably never been more connected technologically. But are we actually more connected? Because you can have five bars of signal and still feel completely alone. And you can have absolutely no signal, bump into someone around a corner and have a conversation that stays with you for years.

There were some fantastic talks at Ideas Fest too. One of my favourites was watching Simon Alexander Ong, who I'm lucky enough to know, interview Sir Richard Harpin, founder of HomeServe. What stayed with me wasn't simply the success they talked about. It was the people behind it. Mentors. Coaches. People they had learned from. People who challenged them, advised them or helped open a door. We love the idea of the self-made entrepreneur, but the more successful people I meet, the more I get that no one really does it alone. In fact, something I find fascinating at that level is that there often seems to be less competition and more generosity. People make introductions. They mentor. They share what they know. They genuinely want to help create other great leaders. But there is something you have to be prepared to do. Ask.

Richard told a brilliant story. There was someone he admired and really wanted as a mentor, but despite trying to connect with him, he simply couldn't get a response. He kept trying. Then, through a rather funny series of events, he somehow ended up speaking to him on the phone out of hours. The man told Richard he admired his persistence and said that if he was ever in the area, they should meet.

He wasn't. Not even remotely. Which meant he now had the small matter of getting himself on a plane. And he did. I loved that story. Because when we look at somebody successful, we tend to see the result. We don't see the asking. The unanswered messages. The persistence. The risk of looking slightly ridiculous. Or the moment somebody gives you the tiniest opening and you decide you are going to do whatever it takes to walk through it.

And Simon Alexander Ong often says you can increase the surface luck area (I paraphrase). So go to the event. Start the conversation. Ask for the introduction. Find the mentor. Hire the coach. Follow up. Say yes. Put yourself in rooms where things can happen. Because opportunity has a much harder time finding you if you never put yourself in its path.

And perhaps all of this landed particularly strongly for me because of my own story. I grew up as an Ambassador's daughter. I was used to rooms full of important people. But being surrounded isn't the same as being connected. I think that becomes particularly important the more successful you become. The higher you climb, the more people you may have around you. Employees. Clients. Investors. Audiences. Contacts. People who know your name. Yet sometimes it becomes harder to say: “I don't know.” “I'm struggling.” “Can you help me?” We can become brilliantly connected professionally while becoming increasingly disconnected emotionally.

Perhaps that's why I loved hearing incredibly successful people talk so openly about mentors and coaches. Asking for help doesn't mean you're less capable. It might simply mean you're serious about where you're going. And equally, when you reach a certain point, connection becomes about what you give too. Who can you mentor? Who can you introduce? Whose name can you mention in a room they're not yet in? Whose door could you open?

Ideas Fest gave me plenty of ideas. But one of the biggest came from something that technically went wrong. Nobody could download the map. Nobody really knew where anyone was. So we wandered. We bumped into each other. We talked. We connected. We allowed chance back into the room. And maybe the universe knew exactly what it was doing when it switched my internet off twice in two days.