Archive for July, 2010

Last night 43 women and 1 man gathered at the Trumbull Kitchen  in downtown Hartford CT to discuss the topic of personal branding – what is it, why is it important and how to develop and leverage yours.

The event was hosted by an amazing woman by the name of Tricia Brunton who founded The Females’ Center of Excellence and Leadership, Inc. (Xcel) in 2002 when she was a student at Northeastern University. A full time employee for Hamilton Sunstrand (a UTC company) with an expertise in all things financial, Tricia makes time to operate this non-profit organization to help women and girls grow, develop and excel in their career and lives.

Tricia is particularly passionate about mentoring. She has a Mentoring Program that unites female professionals and students based on any career and educational path. The aim of the Mentoring Program is to provide female students (mentees) with support that will assist them to achieve their educational and professional goals. Mentors also have an opportunity to get involved in the community and mold the leaders of tomorrow.

Tricia had invited me and image consultant Mallory Mason to be the panelists and to provide our insights and professional advice on personal branding. Mallory and I had worked together professionally on a new venture called Power Up Your Professional Image – an event based company that helps career-minded women get a stronger edge in the workplace and marketplace by polishing their image and confidence and building their skills and network.

Some of the questions that Tricia asked us included:

1. What is a personal brand and how to you create one?
2. What is the best way to identify your personal brand?
3. How do you define yourself to a potential employer or client?
4. As an employee, should I represent myself or my company?
5. how do I share my personal story without being too personal?
6. What is the best way to personify my ideals/values?
7. Does my dream job help with defining my personal brand?

What ensued was 60-minutes of lively interaction with the audience on the topic of personal branding and other aspects of career and image management. Below are some of the golden nuggets of wisdom and advice on the topic:

8 Great Ideas to Help Develop Your Personal Brand Read the rest of this entry »

I just completed the third day of convention of the Soroptimist International of the Americas. If you aren’t familiar with the Soroptimist organization, it is a non-profit, volunteer women service organization dedicated to improving the lives of women and girls in local communities and around the world. There are close to 95,000 Soroptimist women around the world and over 1,500 of them attended the 41st biennial convention in San Francisco this past weekend.

As the delegate from my on club Soroptimist International of Farmington Valley, I attended the conference to learn more about the critical issues affecting women and girls as well the many projects that Soroptimists around the world are implementing to help bring relief, support, hope and resource to help women live their dreams.

(it was great to be back in San Francisco again, having lived there the first five years of my career. Those were FUN days!)

I have written blog posts following each day of the convention sharing the insights and inspirations that I gained. I have posted these complete blog articles on my web site www.BestforWomenSelfDefense.com, which shares information about the  Soroptimist organization

Please consider joining me in the very cool group of women who are changing the world for good. Join us and get involved – click here to find out how.

Highlights from the 41st Biennial Convention of Soroptimist International of the Americas.

Day #1: Update on the escalating social nightmare of human trafficking and sexual slavery that is plaguing every community in the world, including the USA. Read what investigative journalist and author Victor Malarek had to say about this horrific problem and his ideas to tackle it with a demand side solution.

• Read my blog post entitled The World’s Oldest Oppression – prostitution.
• You can also learn more about the issue of human trafficking at http://www.soroptimist.org/trafficking/trafficking.html

Day #2 of the convention presented uplifting stories of remarkable women and girls living the dreams and helping other women, children and communities rise out of misery into hope and opportunity. I was simply wow’d by the story of 12-year old kid CEO Talia Lehman, founder of www.RandomKid.org, who was awarded the Soroptimist Violet Richardson Award for her volunteer leadership and community service.

• Read about Talia’s remarkable philosophy, story and accomplishments in my blog post entitled “The Power of Anyone.” Talia has proven that anyone and everyone has the power of make tremendous POSITIVE changes in our world if they believe they can.

Day #3 offered the perfect finale of inspiration with motivational speaker and leadership genius Cynthia D’Amour and her lazy leader model. With her bright red hair and commanding stage presence, Cynthia engaged a very large audience with her wisdom and golden nuggets for how to create a surplus of volunteers by creating a powerful and positive Soroptimist experience for our volunteer members. Cynthia’s wisdom and insights are captured in her book The Lazy Leaders Guide to Creating Outrageous Results. You can also follow Cynthia’s teachings on her cool blog and webinar series (all FREE!) at http://www.chapterleadersplayground.org/

Cynthia shared her favorite definition of leadership which I found intriguing:

“The ultimate expression of leadership is in bringing others with us.” – Cynthia D’Amour, PeoplePower Unlimited, Inc.