Author Archives: Amy Rees Anderson

Be a Bridge Builder

The Bridge Builder   (by Will Allen Dromgoole) An old man, going a lone highway, Came at the evening cold and gray To a chasm vast and deep and wide Through which was flowing a swollen tide. The old man crossed in the twilight dim; The rapids held no fears for him. But he turned when […]

“Hi Ho Silver, Away!”

This past weekend I was able to go with my husband and our daughter to Disney in Los Angeles to see the World Premier of the movie The Lone Ranger starring Johnny Depp as Tonto and Armie Hammer as the Lone Ranger.  For those who are not aware, a good majority of the film was […]

Go The Extra Mile!

I am a HUGE fan of people who go the extra mile in life! Too often these days you see people who seem content to just do the very minimum required to get by. I don`t think I will ever understand that mentality. I grew up in a home where both my parents were going […]

Finding Your Zen

By the time I finish a long day of work my mind is pretty shot and my A.D.D. meds have started to wear off for the day – inevitably there always comes a point each evening where that combination leads to no chance of my being able to sit still and focus.  Tonight I had […]

Make It Happen

“Good things happen to those who wait. Greater things happen to those who get off their butt and do anything to make it happen.”   – Unknown Making it happen takes work!  And loads of it!  There is just no two ways about it.  If you truly want something in your life you can’t just sit […]

Coping In A Toxic Work Environment (Forbes Article)

Recently, I had the occasion to observe a group of employees who were working in a toxic work environment.  I witnessed the decline of self-esteem in each one of them as they endured month after month of poor leadership and dysfunction in their workplace.   I was truly amazed at the change to the countenance of […]

The Joy of Summer Vacays!

For those who do not have teenagers at home, the word Vacay means Vacation (according to my teen daughter anyway).  I am still trying to learn the revised English language used by teens today  – Deets means details, Deec means decent, Cray-cray means crazy, Tots means totally, and vacay means vacation.  Spending last week at […]

“Today Was Good. Today Was Fun. Tomorrow is Another One”

In the brilliant words of Dr. Seuss:  “Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.” As we head into a fabulous summer weekend I wanted to remind everyone to not let a single moment get away from you.  Life is short and there is so much to do and enjoy!  Make this weekend […]

Taming the Desktop Monsters

For those of you who have ever seen my offices, you can attest that my office is often times a disaster, with stacks and stacks of papers and piles of post-its everywhere you look. Just looking at my desk in the mornings gets my stress level rising. There is no feeling of peace when your […]

Motivation, Inspiration, and Determination

“To succeed you need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you, something to inspire you”  – Tony Dorsett Being self-motivated is critically important.  Far too often people sit back waiting for someone else to give them a reason to get up and get going.  If you want to make something of […]

Have a Breathtaking Day!

Breathtaking – what a great word!  It’s the best word I can think of when I drive up the road toward my home, set into the side of a beautiful mountain in Utah.  The weather is amazing, the trees are green, the flowers are blooming and all I can think is…breathtaking! We don’t take enough […]

The People Who Encourage and Inspire Us

There are people in all of our lives that lift us up when we are down or help us through when times are tough. There are people in our lives who make us laugh and smile and make us feel better about ourselves. There are people in our lives that tell us we can do […]

Have Something To Look Forward To!

“People who say that life is not worthwhile are really saying that they themselves have no personal goals which are worthwhile. Get yourself a goal worth working for. Better still, get yourself a project. Always have something ahead of you to “look forward to“, to work for and hope for.” (Maxwell Malz).  I don’t know […]

The Magic Of A Smile

My day started out on a great note.  I was getting things done this morning and feeling a good sense of accomplishment.  But by the time 10:00pm rolled around and I was just pulling into my garage from a very long and frustrating day, I was feeling grumpy and stressed out.  As I came in […]

Nothing Is More Expensive Than A Cheap Lawyer (Forbes Article)

One of the biggest mistakes I made early on as an entrepreneur was hiring cheap lawyers or not using an expensive lawyer nearly enough, thinking I was saving money for my business. But over the years, the school of hard knocks taught me just how expensive cheap legal help can be. I don’t recall ever […]

The Wisdom of Lessons Others Have Learned

As I was looking through some old files tonight I came across a document that contained life lessons that were shared from different people – the document doesn’t show the names of the people that shared these so I can’t list them for you, but the lessons shared were awesome lessons and very inspiring to […]

The Strength of Our Young People

Last Friday our charity, The IPOP Foundation (In Pursuit of Perfection) www.ipop.org held a business competition with the students of Alta High School.  Students were challenged to submit an idea for a new mobile app.  We had hundreds of students participate in the competition.  They had the option to submit an idea alone or in […]

I LOVE IT WHEN A PLAN COMES TOGETHER!

Ah yes, the famous words of Hannibal on the A-Team. There is little in life that is better than when a plan comes together, especially when the plan itself turns out to be far larger and expansive then any plan you had pictured in your own mind 🙂 Throughout the years of my life I […]

Love Advice From the True Experts!

Tonight I took a group of teenage girls on a service project to go to an assisted living center to visit with a group of adorable, lovely Grandmas.  We sat the group of our 16 and 17 year old girls in a circle with group of Grandmas, all of which were widows.  We asked the […]

Successful Business Communication: It Starts at the Beginning (Forbes Article)

A while back I was able to attend a seminar by Dr. John Lund on communication where he gave some amazing advice on how to better communicate with others. His input was simple and easy to follow, yet powerful. The best quote of the entire event was this: “Don`t communicate to be understood; rather, communicate […]

“Loved By All Who Knew Him/Her”

Over the past several years there have been many of us who have dealt with tragedy and loss: with everything from illness, to injuries, to the loss of loved ones. Some have shared their losses openly with those around us, such as I did with the death of my best friend Steve Gasser a few […]

In Memory of Those Who Have Given All

This weekend we celebrate Memorial Day in the U.S.  It’s the day we remember those men and women who died serving in the military.   It’s also become a day to honor all of those who were near and dear to our hearts that have passed on.   People place flowers on graves and flags on graves […]

Choose What Kind of Day You Will Have

“I’ve learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances.” -Martha Washington I very much believe that statement to be true.  Our attitude about things is such a major determination of our happiness level in life.  And we control our attitude by controlling […]

Take Opportunities to Put Yourself Out There!

For those of you have followed my blogs the last few years you know that every now and then, when we are really lucky, my teenage daughter Ashley will write a guest blog for us, which tend to be everyone’s favorite blogs (especially mine).   Today I had to give the keynote speech at an early morning […]

It’s Not What Others Think, It’s What God Knows

I learned long ago that if we try to judge ourselves by what others think, we will inevitably find ourselves constantly disappointed and sad, because it is literally impossible to please everyone.  Not only that, but you have to realize that other people will never have all the facts of every detail of your life […]

Love It While You Live It

So it is not very often that I would write about a quote from a sitcom as being a great life lesson, but this particular quote was so good that I haven’t been able to get it off my mind, so I figured I had better write about it today.  It was a quote from […]

“You Are More Than What You Have Become”

Yesterday I wrote my Forbes article on moving past your mistakes in life and I used a quote from the movie the Lion King.  There is another quote from that movie that I can’t help but share today because I think it is so powerful. There is a part of the movie where we hear […]

People CAN Change Their Past – Put Mistakes Behind You. (Forbes Article)

People often think they can’t change their past, but I disagree. Perhaps we can’t change every mistake in our past, but we have to remember that the past is a moving target. Every day that goes by us becomes a part of our past history. Whatever we do today will become a part of our […]

The Importance of Paying Attention to our “Todays”

Living in the moment is not always easy to do. It seems that we all have a tendency to focus our thoughts on our past mistakes and feel discouraged about them, or we focus our thoughts on a future that we wait to someday have. It seems that we rarely focus on our todays, our […]

“A good definition of family”

As I mentioned yesterday we were able to Skype with our son Dalton and it was the happiest day ever. Today Dalton sent an email to our family and his friends and in that letter he shared something that was worth sharing – in fact he even mentions in his email that someone should quote […]