Julia Roberts

The best career advice I've received is learning to advocate for yourself. I think that's something I often struggled with early on, and I think especially for women, sometimes women have a hard time learning to advocate for themselves. It's something I'm still working on, but that's probably the advice I've gotten recently that has really stuck with me.

I would say come with an open mind. Everyone has different perspectives and different experiences, so I think it's really important to be an open ear and listen. Some people might be sharing experiences that you've never heard of, and you can find ways to help them. As much as we do surveys and go out and ask people questions, we don't always know what's going on, so I think it's just important to be open-minded and always be willing to listen to others.

I think one of the biggest challenges at the Chamber is that people don't realize how great of a resource the Chamber can be. The Chamber is such a great resource for businesses of all sizes, but getting that message across is difficult. On the opportunities side, I see it as getting people to realize what a great resource the Chamber is and how we're here to advocate on behalf of businesses. Even if people aren't necessarily members - yes, we are a membership organization - we're here to support the business climate as a whole and just make our city great here in Fort Worth and be an advocate.

I think I would say being the voice for people that can't always speak up would be something that I value the most about this position and what we do. Not everyone can always get involved or feel that their voice can be heard, so I think that's something I value most. That value also reflects personally - sometimes people don't always want to speak up in their personal lives, so I think just being that bigger voice is a value that translates in my professional role and personal life as well.