All three Sassy Ladies, Michelle, Miriam and Wendy attended the Women’s Summit at Bryant University on March 16^th. It was the 10^th Annual Summit with almost 1000 participants!

We LOVED Tory Johnson, the CEO of Women for Hire (www.womenforhire.com)!  She gave such great advice like:
- “trust your intuition” when you are in an employment situation that isn’t serving you.
- “Dare to challenge yourself”- figure out a way to push yourself outside your comfort zone.
- “Cultivate Relationships” with women/people who are smarter………more risk takers, etc. (Tory started her businesses with twin toddlers at home!) AND
- “Toot Your Own Horn” was advice she used to get her where she is today!

There were many great sessions on Affinity Groups in Business, Feng Shui for your business etc. Alfre Woodard, award winning actress did a moving presentation as a key note speaker at lunch. The picture is Alfre on the big screen---the person standing who looks like a red dot in the picture is Sassy Miriam asking some smart and sassy questions!

A good time was had by all. We highly recommend you come to the event next year!

We recently interviewed Tara Gross-Steeves from Create Your Life, Inc. on the topic of dreaming about starting a business.  We just released the podcast of Tara's full interview, so you can learn more about her upcoming Dream Party this spring!  Here's a snippet from our interview with this dreamer-in-action:

Wendy: ...Tara we wanted to connect with you today to get some insight for women who have a dream, an idea, or may want to start a business. What would you say to women about following their dreams and ideas about business?

Tara: Wendy, I am a strong advocate for more and more women starting businesses and working for themselves because self-employment is an opportunity to constantly evolve, design and create your life. There’s so much information out there now about how to begin a business, which is wonderful. But sorting through it all to find what works for you can become totally overwhelming.

I’ve seen people become so preoccupied with whether or not they were doing it the “right” way or the “best” way, that they don’t take the time to design their business around the life they want. This is SO CRITICAL. Starting a business is such an opportunity to deepen your relationship with yourself and to take the time to get really clear on questions like:

• How will you know when you’ve achieved success?

On January 5, 2007, an Economic Summit was held to engage business and civic leaders in clarifying issues and recommending solutions regarding taxes and budget, health care, regulations, and education and workforce development.

RI Governor Carcieri spoke as well as the new Lieutenant Governor Elizabeth Roberts. Ms. Roberts has a great history of working with women in small business. She is a former member of the Board of the Providence Center for Women and Enterprise.