At the beginning of the year I set out a few goals for myself and you might remember one of those being to give back. For several months leading up to the new year, my feelings of gratitude, happiness and love consumed me! I would literally wake up 6 mornings out of 7 happy and feeling extremely thankful for all my blessings… the 7th morning I was still thankful but also most likely a little grumpy from the self-inflicted lack of sleep.
Becoming a Mom has truly changed my outlook and desire to give back. I believe it is extremely important to be compassionate and to share your blessings & successes with others. I knew I wanted to inspire and help others, but I wasn’t completely sure how. Would it be donating time, money, community service, donation drives… I wasn’t exactly sure but I knew I had I to find someway to help others.
When out of the blue…it found me! Kind of funny how those things “just” happen… or do they? In early February, Leslie {one of the professors at Stevenson University} contacted me to come speak to her Fashion & Merchandising writing class about Shoptini. I gladly excepted and had a wonderful morning sharing my styling and blogging experiences with some of their students. Through that experience I felt really good about sharing my time and talents. I started to build a relationship with Stevenson professors and students. Shortly after my guest speaking, SU asked if I would MC their annual end of year fashion show, to which I also gladly accepted. They also asked if I had any internship opportunities available for some of their students. After a little bit of creative thought, I came up with a really cool project for two Stevenson University students that I’ll be sharing with you next week! Following some of our correspondence, Stevenson’s Fashion & Design {FAD} student lead group asked me to speak at their Brunch with Bosses event in April. I, alongside four other influencers, joined the students for an afternoon of experience sharing and Q&A. Through all of these events I was now able to focus on giving back to these students my time, experiences and inspiration.
Fast forward to this past week… the Stevenson University fashion show was only a few days away. Leading into the weekend I had a pretty packed week! I received the script for the show on Tuesday evening and was a little like… woah… that’s A LOT of talking! Spencer says to me “Well, what did you expect?”. I said “Hmmm… I’m not really sure but I guess not that”. I read through the script once Tuesday night and headed to bed a little overwhelmed… but I had a Mother’s Day event the next morning and needed to put the fashion show a side for the moment.
I was feeling intimidated … which is not a feeling I feel often. I am a self-admitted perfectionist and I really wanted to do a phenomenal job for the students, professors and university administration. Wednesday evening, I sat in bed reading the script, I walked around the room reading the script, I stood in front of the mirror with my dress on reading the script … all out loud… over and over and over again.
Speaking in front of an audience is something I am quite familiar with; however I am usually an expert in the content to which I am speaking. Here… I was at a loss… there was NO way I was going to memorize the 12 scene, 5 page script in a just few days. So, I focused on some of the training I have received previously… go slow, take your time, breathe, glance out at the audience but don’t lock eye contact and if you stumble OWN IT!
And that’s just what I did! The adrenaline from all the excitement, talking to the student designers, models and other student staff really helped put me at ease. As they were excited and nervous too, I found myself reassuring them and motivating them to own the evening! Yes, I stumbled but for the most part I did pretty good. I was genuinely excited and honored to host the event and I hope the students and audience could feel my excitement in my delivery.
The year is just getting started and I have high hopes of continuing to work with students and faculty at Stevenson University.
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Thank you April Bly for being my plus one for the evening and capturing these beautiful photos!
