Tag Archives: entrepreneur

No one has the perfect life and thank heaven for those who are willing to admit that

It all looks so perfect….people’s social media posts with photos of their fabulous trips and their perfectly gorgeous family picture photos where every child is sitting up straight and smiling into the camera. There are photos of people’s beautiful new sports car they just bought, and photos of their perfectly decorated dinner table for the […]

The Key To Success Is Relationships

It has been said that people do business with people they like and trust. I have found that the best way to grow a business is to be authentic with your clients. Be a real person, not a stereotype of what you think they expect from you. Be yourself. Be fun. Be happy. Make them […]

When Someone Believes In You

Nothing is more motivating or inspiring than knowing that someone else believes in you and is willing to put their trust in you. It is one of the greatest feelings on earth. As parents one of the best things we can do for our children is to start when they are very young letting them […]

#FIAMF – Fix It And Move Forward

If you’ve made a mistake, fix it. If you don’t know how to fix it, then learn!  And whatever you do, don’t throw your hands up and act like there is nothing you can do about it, because you can ALWAYS do something about it – there are always choices you can make that will […]

The Common Law of Life

Good Timber   -by Douglas Malloch The tree that never had to fight For sun and sky and air and light, But stood out in the open plain And always got its share of rain, Never became a forest king But lived and died a scrubby thing. The man who never had to toil To […]

Less knowledgeable doesn’t mean less valuable

There is a natural tendency when a person gains deep knowledge of a subject to begin to elevate themselves in their own mind as being “better than” or above other people who they feel are less knowledgeable.  What is too often forgotten is that while one may have great expertise in one area, there are […]

“One you have experienced excellence, you will never again be content with mediocrity”

Dr. Charles H. Malik, former Secretary General of the United Nations, once shared: “I respect all men, and it is from disrespect for none that I say there are no great leaders in the world today. In fact, greatness itself is laughed to scorn. You should not be great today—you should sink yourself into the […]

The Energy That Comes From Doing What You Love

“The only great work is to love what you do.” – Steve Jobs Tonight I was asked to give a keynote speech to a group of entrepreneurs at Startup Ignition, a startup Bootcamp program for entrepreneurs. Truth be told as I was driving down to give my speech I was feeling exhausted from having had […]

The Power of Jimmy Johns

Today I’ve got a fun guest post from my 21 year-old daughter Ashley to share with you called “The Power of Jimmy Johns”: For those of you who don’t know… I have a borderline OBSESSION with Jimmy Johns Gourmet Sandwiches. And when I say obsession… I mean I found 12 Jimmy Johns wrappers in my […]

If we all took the summer off none of us would get behind on work

I love summertime. I love the sun and the water and everything about summertime. The only thing that is hard about summer is that for every week you take off and every trip you go on you have to carry the stress of coming back home and facing all the work that has piled up […]

The words you needed to hear in the moment you needed to hear them

Some days someone sends you the perfect quote at just the right time in your life when you needed it most, or you come across a poem that applies perfectly to a situation you are going through, or you hear just the right song on the radio at just the right moment for you to […]

Overwhelmed and Inadequate: Balancing Work and Family Life

Back when I was single and working full time with two small kids I often found myself feeling overwhelmed and totally inadequate. All these women around me seemed so perfect, with perfect kids and perfectly ironed clothes and homemade bread on their counters. I felt like a complete failure compared to them. My home was […]

Why We Ought To Sweat the Small Stuff!

I’ve had many experiences in life that have reminded me how important it is for all of us to pay attention to every detail of any project we are given to ensure that we always produce quality results. It`s often these small details that can cause a project to succeed or fail. Years ago someone […]

Everything You Can Imagine Is Real

“Everything you can imagine is real.” – Pablo Picasso Did you know that your subconscious brain can’t tell the difference between something real and something imagined? There are no filters in our subconscious to distinguish the difference between the two. That is why visualization is so powerful!  Let me share some examples: A study was […]

How To Be Awesome

For a long time I have wanted to get T-shirts printed up that say W.U.B.A. on them to remind everyone to “Wake Up, Be Awesome”.   I think W.U.B.A. is the perfect mantra to guide our days because we all want to wake up and we should all decide each morning to BE AWESOME that day! […]

Passion is Powerful!

Can we talk about passion for just a minute? I am not talking about passion in the romantic sense; I’m talking the “I am so excited to get up this morning and conquer the world today” kind of passion. There are very few things more powerful than a person who is passionate about accomplishing something. […]

The Countdown to WONDER WOMAN has begun! Why You Too Should Be Excited About That.

Look I am not even going to try and hide my excitement here – and anyone that knows me well won’t be surprised when I say that I am SO EXCITED for the Wonder Woman movie premier! So excited, in fact, that me and my friend Jacki (who I became immediate BFF’s with when we […]

Stop waiting for Someday – Just Do It!

“Conditions are never perfect. ‘Someday’ is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. If it’s important to you and you want to do it ‘eventually’, just do it and correct the course along the way.” –Tim Ferris Everyone has dreams for their future – the wishes they want to make […]

Accomplish Your Vision And Create The Legacy Your Heart Desires

For part of last week I attended a summit where we discussed philanthropic leadership in Higher Education where Donors from across the country gathered together to talk about lessons we have learned regarding charitable giving to Universities and to share successful programs that have been established at different Universities and how we can all work […]

“Attitude is the difference between and Ordeal and an Adventure”

I am a person who likes to have a plan so I know what needs to get done and when I need to do it. Having a plan in place is great and it definitely allows me to get much more accomplished. But when something happens to make a plan go sideways, well that is […]

How To Achieve More Than The American Dream (Forbes Article)

“The essence of America – that which really unites us – is not ethnicity, or nationality, or religion – it is an idea – and what an idea it is: That you can come from humble circumstances and do great things.” – Condoleeza Rice The American Dream Awards is an event put on by the […]

Convincing your mind its possible starts when you visualize it as if it has already happened

“What we can or cannot do, what we consider possible or impossible, is rarely a function of our true capability. It is more likely a function of our beliefs about who we are.” – Anthony Robbins Our minds are powerful things. They can convince we are strong and capable or they can convince us we are […]

Organizing Your Thoughts And Making Room For The Amazing

Just the word “organize” is stressful because it makes me immediately think of all the piles of things that are waiting for me to organize them. And try as I want to, every new day brings in more and more piles of additional emails, additional documents, additional letters, additional phone calls, etc.. all of which […]

We don’t know until we’ve tried

“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Insist on yourself; never imitate. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as […]

Take A Personal Inventory of How You Are Spending Your Time

Time is something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. I suppose that’s been driven by my going through several life changing events recently, like the death of a relative, and my children getting in a serious car accident, and a parent who has been extremely ill, and several other things of that nature that […]

Be Relentlessly Focused On The Smallest Details

“To create something exceptional, your mindset must be relentlessly focused on the smallest detail.” –Giorgio Armani There is something incredible about creating.  I don’t know exactly how to describe the feeling, but when you are in the process of creating something there is an excitement and an energy that is so amazing to get caught […]

Think BIG!

From the time I was young I have had an inability to think small. I don’t really know why I am like that, I just always have been. In college when friends wanted me to sell $10.00 lipsticks I immediately thought, “Why sell just $10 of something when for the same effort I could sell […]

What one successful entrepreneur said was the most important advice he could give me as I began my entrepreneurial journey

Yesterday afternoon someone I love dearly passed away.  He was Marion D. Woods to others, but he was Uncle Buzz to me and Buzz Woods to his good friends. He had been fighting cancer but unfortunately his body wasn’t able to fight it any longer and he passed away surrounded by his wife and children. […]

Happiness is finding out you have a three day weekend ahead!

Since mid-December I have been traveling non-stop. First to Idaho, then to Hawaii, then to Washington DC, then to California, and then to Cabo San Lucas…each trip coming back to Utah for a few days in between and then heading right back out again on the next trip. I feel like I have literally lived […]

Learn from yesterday, live for today, look to tomorrow, rest this afternoon.

Remember when we were kids and the thing we hated most in the world was nap time?? Remember trying to negotiate with your parents to get out of it? Repeatedly yelling, “BUT I’M NOT TIRED!!!” Then you hit adulthood and all you can think of is that you really wish those childhood nap days you […]