Always Challenge Yourself – Sara Jones

Sara Jones, COO, co-founder, and partner of Women Tech Council shared powerful messages with students of the University of Utah on how to succeed as a woman in business. She left students with eight tips to keep in mind on how to become a leader in business as a woman, based on some of the struggles she has had to deal with throughout her career.

Own your Story

“If you’re going to invent, it means you’re going to experiment, and if you’re going to experiment, you’re going to fail, and if you’re going to fail, you have to think long-term.” – Jeff Bezos

Sara’s first tip was for students to own their story.

Be a Problem Solver

Her second tip was to be a problem solver. She explained how she learned some hard lessons in corporate, as she transitioned from being a patent attorney at a law firm to moving her career into the corporate world. She said she read a lot of leadership books, which she suggested students do as well. She explained how students need to focus on presenting a solution to a problem to grab people’s attention because everyone is extremely busy. She also suggested to look outside of the current role you are in, and look for not only large opportunities, but small ones as well.

Think Big

Sara suggested that students “think big” and think about the question, “what does success look like to you?” She talked about how excited and stunned she was when she was offered the role as a CEO of a company, when she didn’t believe it was possible.

Orchestrate Alignment

Sara suggested to look for alignment in career and life. She suggested to align your career, family, and organizations around the same culture.

Give Value

Her fifth tip was to “give value.” To think about, when interacting with someone, creating a value exchange, and figuring out how to grow both value for yourself and the other person you are interacting with.

Find Mentors

Sara suggested to find mentors. She told students that when looking for mentorship, think about what the advice is that you need, and find someone that will challenge the way you are thinking.

Enjoy the Journey

Lastly, she gave all of the students a final piece of advice to “enjoy the journey.” Sometimes we get caught up in the little details, we forget the big picture and how far we have come.

Sara was a wonderful speaker, and it was great to hear her messages on leadership and how she has succeeded in her career as a woman.

Nov182017Dec 21 2017

The Power of Forgiveness – Elizabeth Smart

Elizabeth Smart spoke about the power of forgiveness at this year’s Athena Awards in Utah highlighting the successes of women in business.

Her keynote was incredible. She spoke about her horrifying kidnapping when she was just a little girl. Sharing her experiences with grace, she was not afraid to express her feelings and thoughts about the events that occurred.

Traveling the world and meeting other women who have overcome similar experiences and even more difficult trials, she explained how her next book will be highlighting some of the stories of women who have overcome extreme trials and what lessons they have learned through their experiences.

After sharing her story and feelings surrounding her kidnapping, she left the audience with a very valuable piece of advice, “learn to forgive.” She explained how no one told her she ever had to forgive the people that kidnapped her, and no one would have expected her to, but she felt that she had to do it for herself. By learning to forgive, she explained how she is not letting that experience control her. She is able to love fully, enjoy her children, enjoy her life, and not hold on to horrible feelings that would not allow her to experience her life fully with hope and love.

Nov112017Dec 21 2017

Leading in a Crisis – Anne Taylor

Anne Taylor, Managing Partner of Deloitte, visited the University of Utah, David Eccles School of Business to talk to a group of student leaders about leading in a crisis. Throughout her career she has been faced with many crises that she has had to lead her team through; including the terror attacks on 9-11, Hurricane Harvey, and Hurricane Katrina. In each of these crises, she had members of her team that were directly affected, and she had to figure out the best way to lead Deloitte through helping her employees and the community deal with these devastating disasters. She explained how when leading in a crisis, she has observed that everything gets highlighted as far as successes and failures go in someone’s career or personal life, highlighting the importance of always bringing your best self to every project.

“Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.” – Colin Powell

She shared with students a valuable list of lessons she has learned while observing leadership during crisis. Her individual lessons included these action-based tips:

Show Up
Be present and always be striving to do your best.

Be Observant
Realize that no crisis is exactly the same, and you cannot learn by perfectly repeating past processes.

Be Decisive with Imperfect Information
Most times you will not have all of the information you want. Be decisive, prepare, and make a decision.

Look for Opportunities
Most crises create opportunity. Her example of this was stating how during the crisis of Hurricane Harvey, a new Deloitte analyst found an opportunity to showcase his skills by building a dashboard of analytics data on the hurricane using Tableau. He is now a sought-after analyst in the company.

Don’t Work with People you Don’t Respect
Anne stated how students should avoid working with people who don’t hire or promote you. This is valuable piece of advice, and something that sounds like common-knowledge, but many students were not fully aware of this helpful principle until Ann clearly stated this.

Anne Taylor is an incredible leader and power-woman, who is a mother and a highly respected individual. We are grateful to have listened to her powerful messages.

Nov112017Dec 21 2017

The Formidable Female: Words Create our World – Lyn Christian

Lyn Christian, the founder and coach of SoulSalt Inc., gave an excellent presentation about emotional intelligence at the Women and Business Conference in Salt Lake City. “The words we use create our world,” she stated. Then put the word “formidable” in bold letters up on her presentation slide, and asked the audience to think about what that word means to them.

She challenged the audience to strive to be “formidable females,” and to create our own truth using our words and conversations to drive change.

“To get to the next level of greatness depends on the quality of the culture, which depends on the quality of the relationships, which depends on the quality of the conversations. Everything happens through conversations!” – Judith Glaser

Her presentation then went over speaking about the six parts of the brain to give us a better understanding of our thoughts and feelings:

The primitive brain: the fight or flight part of our brains
The limbic brain: the emotional and historical part of our brain, located toward the back
The neocortex: the part of our brain that helps us find problems and solve problems
The prefrontal cortex: the eye inside our brain, the part of our brain that is our minds eye, it is transparent, collaborative, empathetic, helps us discover, and is the wisest. It releases oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin.
This is the part of our brain that we spend the most time in
The gut brain: the back of our brain that is not the smartest, it releases cortisol and is responsible for our feelings of stress

She then explained about how when we think about our heart, and we think about love coming from the heart, we are actually thinking about receptors in the prefrontal cortex and the gut. Getting a better understanding of the brain helps us to be able to evaluate our feelings and thoughts and learn to channel them for good.

At the end of her presentation, she left the audience with one question:

What is driving you?

Do you want to learn more about conversational intelligence? Check out these books:

Emotional Intelligence 2.0 – Travis Bradberry
Play – Stuart Brown

Nov32017Dec 21 2017

Designing Your Future – Donna Morris

Donna Morris, EVP of Customer and Employee Experience at Adobe, spoke to the Utah community about designing your future at the Women Tech Council’s annual holiday social.

The Women Tech Council focuses on supporting women in technology through leadership, networking, and mentoring opportunities.

Donna Morris is a true advocate for working women and a leader in technology innovation. To help women enterimg the workforce and looking to advance their careers, she shared five valuable tips for driving a successful future and career:

Identify and Maximize your Strengths

She explained how as women, we should focus on identifying the things we are extremely good at, and maximize on those areas, using our s strengths to our advantage.

Create a Long-Term Plan

Donna explained how men are much more likely to have a plan when entering the workforce, where they have career goals and personal goals they want to meet; whereas women are much less likely to define a plan, and more likely to go with the flow. She explained how it is critical to identify a plan and work towards it.

Build a Network

Networking is another important way to create opportunities in the community to grow professionally.

Take Risks

Look for opportunities, and be willing to take risks. Men are much more likely to feel they are qualified for a position than women, when both might have the same background and skills.

Never Stop Learning

Donna explained, how in today’s connected world, it is critical to always be learning and growing. Technology is changing daily, and in order to keep up with demands, it is important to always bettering yourself.

It was truly inspiring to hear from such an incredible woman that continues to inspire working women and women in STEM everywhere to reach for their dreams.

Jul232016

Headshot for Miss Utah USA 2016

My headshot for Miss Utah USA 2016 where I won Miss Photogenic Utah USA 2016.

Jul232016

Faux Utah Wedding Photoshoot

A faux Utah wedding photoshoot wearing Maggie Sottero.

Jan62016Sep 15 2016

5 Things You Should Know about Hair Painting/Balayage

Hair painting and balayage highlights, where do I begin? They are the new hair coloring style that I am obsessed with, so let me share with you my hair painting wisdom.

Little did I know, when I found her on Instagram, all of my favorite hair photos of her clients were using a “hair painting” technique, something I have seen a ton but I never knew the name for the style. Thank you Britny for your amazing hair painting, and for sharing your balayage highlighting wisdom!
I wanted to share with you an intro to hair painting, and some things you should know about the technique before you decide to get it done on your hair!

Hair Painting

What is Hair Painting?

Hair painting, or balayage highlights, is a sun-kissed natural looking hair color technique with softer, less noticeable regrowth lines. Think of the look as someone getting highlights by sitting and laying out in the sun.

Misconception:

As Britny explained, a lot of people are nervous about hair painting because they are used to having their hair in a bunch of foil.

What are the Costs?

The initial cost of hair painting is more expensive than foil because there is a very specific technique that goes into it, but in the long run you do not have to get your hair done as much.

Can I Do it Myself?

As Britny was doing my hair, I realized how easy it would have been for someone with little experience to make this look come out extremely bad. Hair painting is not something that you should do on your own. Not everyone knows how to hair paint and it takes a lot of training and mastering techniques to do it correctly.

Where do I find a Stylist that Specializes in Hair Painting/Balayage?

Britny suggested that people always find a hairdresser on Instagram. This way you can look at their portfolio and what they have done. And this fits perfectly with where I found her to do my hair… on Instagram! Instagram is really a great tool to find someone that fits your style.

I hope you enjoyed this quick hair painting guide! Feel free to add your thoughts/tips/comments below!

Jan62016Sep 15 2016

7 Makeup Tricks from Miss Utah Teen USA 2013

This blog is a compilation of some great makeup tricks that most pageant girls will agree on, but that many women might not know about right off the bat.

Chloe Bennett (Miss Utah Teen USA 2013), was gracious enough to come and give me and amazing makeover and some awesome tips for creating the most photogenic makeup look for my pageant headshots.

Here are 7 makeup tricks that you will LOVE! Perfect for creating a great portrait shot or for pageant headshots!

(1) Highlight Under the Eyes

For this trick, use a light color foundation, concealer, or highlighter to highlight right under your eyes in almost an upside down triangle towards the bottom of your nose. The Perfect Face carries a great concealer/highlighter for under the eye contouring.

(2) Highlight Down the Nose

Another great trick using the same highlighter or foundation, is to highlight down the bridge of your nose in a light foundation color. This will bring out a great outline of your nose, and if you use a darker color on the sides, can create the illusion that your nose is very small!

(3) Use a Drop of Blue Eyeshadow on your Waterline

For this trick, grab a bright blue or green eyeshadow color, and put a dab of it right under your iris on your waterline. This will bring out the color in your eyes and make it more pronounced.

(4) Put Eyeliner on your Top Waterline

One trick that really makes your eyes look flawless is to add eyeliner to your top waterline, in whatever color you are lining your eyes with. When Chloe did my makeup, she used black eyeliner, and added this to my top waterline as well. This makes a more dramatic look.

(5) Get Luscious Lips with Angelia Layton’s Lipstick Trick

One of my favorite ways to do my lips is in Angelia Layton’s Soft Glam video. She lines her lips with a dark liner, then does an ombre effect with a lighter liner in the middle, then puts lip stain on top of the combination, adds some lipstick and some lip gloss, and creates the most perfect lips for headshots.

(6) Set Your Eyeshadow

Another trick I learned from Chloe was to set your eyeshadow first, before you do your eye makeup. If you use an eyeshadow primer, and then a powder over the top of it, it will help the eyeshadow to last longer and to not move from its position on your eyes.

(7) Do Your Foundation After your Eyeshadow

To get a flawless foundation look, try applying your foundation after you finish your eyeshadow. This way, if you accidentally mess up on your eyeshadow and it goes out of bounds from where you want it to be, or you get eyeshadow powder below your eyes, you can easily clean up the look by putting foundation over the blemishes.

Thank you Chloe for an amazing makeover, I had so much fun! And thanks for your awesome tips as well!

Sep72015Sep 15 2016

The 12 Best Long Lasting Lip Stains

Lip stains are some of my favorite products for doing my lips. Couple a great lip stain with a beautiful colored lipstick on top, and you have a great solution to keeping your lips looking great all day long.

Here are some of my favorite lip stains, feel free to add yours in the comments below!

Yves Saint Laurent Glossy Stain (this one most people absolutely rave about, so I could stop the list right here and tell you to go BUY IT! They don’t try your lips and have a beautiful selection of colors. Out of this whole list, I would recommend this one as the best.)
Sephora’s Lip Cream Stains
Beaute Liqui-Gel Stains (you could go with one of their summer colors: Fluoron or Neon!)
Guerlain Rouge G (this one is moisturizing and long-lasting)
Jordana Twist n Shine Balm Crayon (a drugstore brand, so it will be cheaper, and you should try the Terra Crave, this becomes a rosy coral shade)
Le Metier de Beaute Color Core Stain
L’Orael’s Glam Shine Stains (if you want a drugstore brand, this one gets great)
Benefit Poisetint Cheek and Lip Stain
NYC Smooch Proof Liquid Lip Stain (with a Doe Foot Applicator)
Revlon Kissable Stain/Balm
Vincent Longo Lip and Cheek Gel Stain
Too Faced Liquified Long Wear Lippies

And that concludes my list! Feel free to add if you feel I missed anything in the comments below!