Last week, I attended the 10th Annual Women’s Week Leadership Conference in San Diego. The conference caps off a week of events sponsored by the North San Diego Business Chamber designed to inspire, empower and connect women of all ages and professions in honor of Women’s History Month.
Over the weekend, I reviewed my notes and selected a few quotes that resonated with me.
1. Dr. Jennifer Eberhardt, Professor of Psychology at Stanford and author of Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do. Dr. Eberhardt earned a Ph.D. from Harvard, and is the recipient of many prestigious awards, including a 2014 MacArthur genius award. She has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and was named one of Foreign Policy’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers. She is widely considered one of the world’s leading experts on racial bias.
You don’t have to be a bigot to have bias. Our brains are wired to reserve our precious cognitive resources for people who are “like us”. Otherwise, we see people as belonging to a category, not as individuals.
2. Gretchen Rubin, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun, is one of today’s most influential and thought-provoking observers of human nature. She’s known for her ability to distill and convey complex ideas with humor and clarity in a way that’s accessible to a wide audience. Gretchen shared insights from her latest book Outer Order Inner Calm: Declutter & Organize To Make More Room For Happiness.
When you get more control over the stuff in your life, you reduce the visual noise in your environment and get more control in general.
3. Rosemary Watson is an accomplished voiceover actress/producer, comedy writer and impersonator, host/MC, and singer. Her YouTube videos caught the eye of Carol Burnett who hand selected Rosemary to perform at the Mark Twain Prize for Humor honoring the legend.
What price do you have to pay to stay where you are? Give yourself permission to go bold.
4. ISHE is a Creative Visionary, Artist, Speaker, Facilitator and Author/Illustrator of an award-winning children’s book entitled Sol The Super Hairo, a story celebrating the glory of natural beauty for children. She is also is the co-author of I AM, a multigenerational book of self-validating affirmations. ISHE has dedicated over 20 years to empowering diverse audiences through the arts.
Her purpose is to inspire women to fearlessly and fiercely embrace their creativity, authenticity and inner beauty.
Be seen as I see you. You are my reflection, not my competition.
5. Guen Garrido’s good news was that she was the first person in her family to graduate from college. Her bad news was that her 2007 graduation from UCLA coincided with the Great Recession, and she was carrying $48,000 in student debt. Her $13 an hour job as a preschool teacher was barely enough to make ends meet. By 2014, Garrido’s debt had grown to $68,600. Her father’s sudden illness awoke her to the fact that she needed to take responsibility for her financial state, so that she could take care of her family. Three years and three months later, the San Diego-based millennial had paid off every cent.
Deal with your debt now so that you’re not always paying for the past.
6. Faith Jennings is the Senior Director of Communications for Northrop Grumman who has dedicated her career to delivering business results for multiple organizations – from Fortune 500 corporations to technology start-ups – by transforming their communications strategies and operations across an increasingly digital landscape.
You didn’t magically appear in this room. Show up as the valued team member that we already know you can be.
These are just a few of the women who showed up at the Women’s Week Leadership Conference to share their stories of with humor, compassion, power, and grit.
Question: If you attended an event honoring Women’s History Month this year, what messages resonated with you?
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