Recently I had a conversation with some young women who shared feelings of discouragement after they had been told that they needed to accept certain limits on their choices for the future. I was so frustrated because I know firsthand those limits don’t exist and those young women can achieve all of the goals they […]

I was unbelievably tired after returning home late last night from my four day trip to Palm Springs for back to back meetings on philanthropic giving and staying up until 4am writing my blog and attempting to take an initial stab at reading the mounds of emails I missed while I was away. That’s when […]

Each of us will have an opportunity to influence an untold number of people during our lifetime. So the question we must ask ourselves is, “When we have opportunities to influence others how are we going to use them?  What will we do when we are given a moment in the sun?  What impact do […]

This weekend my husband and I have had the privilege of coming together with our friends, Charles and Liz Koch, along with many other absolutely incredible philanthropic leaders as part of The Seminar Network, a group of individuals who have chosen to work together to accomplish some truly amazing things in philanthropy. What makes this […]

Last night after I finished judging a business plan competition down at Utah Valley University my family and I met up at a restaurant to take my Father and Mother-in-law, who had traveled down from Idaho to visit us for the night, out to dinner. We were excited to see them as my father-in-law was […]

Today’s post is written by my son Dalton Anderson:  “My wife and I celebrated our anniversary a bit ago, and we decided to use our Ruth’s Chris Steak House gift card that we had been holding on to since our wedding. My wife made the reservation, asked my sister and bro-in-law to babysit our boy, […]

Several months ago the day after we’d spent time together as a family (with my two kids and their spouses and our grandbaby) my husband said, “I think we are going to be grandparents again.”  “Of course we will be” I replied with certainty given all the incentives I’ve thrown out to bribe my children […]

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is ‘What are you doing for others?’” – Martin Luther King, Jr. Today was a day to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  and it was a day dedicated to empowering individuals and strengthening communities, a day meant to build bridges and create solutions for social […]

Today I learned why it’s really important to make sure you word your prayers right the first time. After spending three days in the hospital with my flu-stricken grandbaby last weekend into Monday, and having the doctors and nurses tell me that there was about a 100% chance I’d end up sick myself I got […]

Tonight I had the privilege of being the very first speaker for this year’s annual Entrepreneurial Leadership Series up at Utah State University (hosted by the Huntsman School of Business) for around 400 students. USU holds a special place in my heart because my grandfather was a graduate there and he later taught there as […]

Before everything in my life went haywire and I ended up at Primary Children’s hospital last Saturday through Monday with my grandbaby (who btw seems to be getting a little better each day thank heavens!), I had the awesome experience of speaking last Friday at Utah State University’s Huntsman School of Business Forum on the […]

Today’s post is a guest post written by Ashley Anderson Hill, daughter of Amy Rees Anderson: An Act of Unprecedented Love Last night and today I had the opportunity to witness an act (more of like a few small millions of acts) of unprecedented love from a grandma to her family. My angel mother taught […]

For the last nine years I haven’t missed a single daily blog post so I didn’t want to skip posting tonight but my post is just going to be a post to explain why it has to be extremely short today. My son and his wife had plans to be out of town for the […]

IT ARRIVED! The first few printed copies of my book, “What Awesome Looks Like: How To Excel In Business & Life” arrived at my house!!! Opening the box and seeing the first few copies of it in print for the first time felt a little surreal. Then when my Mom and Dad showed up to […]

I was doing so many things at once on my computer today that everything started freezing up and the cursor kept doing that little spinning thing that is almost enough to drive a person to lose their mind!  I mean seriously, who needs waterboarding when all it takes to torture someone is to make them […]

I have to say that starting the year off with a great big completed check on one of my big goals from my goal poster feels pretty fantastic! I finished writing my very first book ever and I’m going to be receiving my advanced copy of the book fresh off the presses from the publisher […]

Tonight I went to see our friend Lexi Walker ( http://lexiwalker.net/ )  perform as Dorothy in the play The Wizard of Oz at the amazing Hale Center Theater in Utah (www.hct.org ) . Lexi is an incredibly talented young woman who is also an absolute sweetheart. Lexi first came into the spotlight at the age […]

You told yourself “Life will slow down once we get through the holidays” …then you realize you have been telling yourself that about pretty much everything for years now… “After this event things will slow down”, “Once I finish this project things will slow down”, “As soon as we get through this holiday things will […]

Following a lunch meeting with two business associates that had come in town for a meeting today I offered to drive them both down with me to our next meeting so we wouldn’t have to take two cars. Now before I tell you what happened next, in my defense I have to say that this […]

Have you ever had a daydream about doing something really incredible?  But then you quickly dismiss it because you are almost afraid to admit to wanting it because people might think you were nuts for wanting something that may appear so out of reach?  We’ve all been there… But here’s the thing – what’s would […]

2019…can you believe it?!?!  It’s 2019! And today is the first day of the rest of your life and it’s going to be AWESOME!!! Happy New Year everyone! My family rang in the new year by busting out a bottle of sparkling grape juice only to find it was fermented, which caused my son and […]

For Christmas this year my husband made me THE coolest Wonder Woman sign that he made for me out of steel, which is also super fitting given that it’s our 11 year wedding anniversary tomorrow (December 31st) and the 11th anniversary just happens to be our steel anniversary!  Perfect right?! Then from the scraps of […]

When my children were young we would lay down on our backs on the trampoline outside in our backyard and we would all three look up at the sky together and play a game we called “Sky Castles”. In our game we would take turns building our pretend sky castles by saying what we saw […]

Twas the day after Christmas, and all through the house Nothing would fit me, not even a blouse. The cookies I’d nibbled, the eggnog I’d taste At the holiday parties had gone to my waist. When I got on the scales there arose such a number! When I walked to the store (less a walk […]

Every year at Christmas there is one tradition that is always guaranteed to bring the spirit of Christmas. It’s watching this quick (less than four minutes) scene from the movie Mr. Krueger’s Christmas where actor Jimmy Stewart beautifully portrays a scene where he is there on the night the Savior Jesus Christ was born and […]

I have never been able to plan ahead early enough to get family photos taken and printed out, gather updated addresses for everyone, and then send the photos out to everyone with a nice letter.  Yet I love it when I receive other people’s cards because it’s so fun to see their families grow and […]

Tonight my husband and I were invited to join our friends in their suite at the arena for the Utah Jazz versus Golden State Warriors basketball game. It was a neck and neck game right down to the last minute when the Utah Jazz won the game. As we were heading home from the game […]

“Sometimes it’s the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.” I love that quote from the movie The Imitation Game and I love what the meaning of the quote conveys. To me it stands as a reminder of two things: One:  We should never underestimate people. We should never pre-judge another […]

This morning I was interviewed for by Mary Crafts-Homer for her podcast, Crafting A Meaningful Life. Mary was the founder and CEO of Culinary Crafts, an incredibly successful catering business (she’s done events for many of the rich and famous like Oprah Winfrey, George W. Bush, Sir Elton John, etc), that she grew and recently […]

As this year is close to coming to an end, this is the perfect time to take a look back over this past year and write down key highlights list – sort of a year in review quick summary. Now don’t panic thinking this has to be a big writing project or that it will […]