Event helps women network
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NEW ULM -- Around 250 women gathered at the New Ulm Event Center Thursday for the 6th annual women's networking event, "Mingle with a Purpose: Heels and All."
The event is hosted by the New Ulm Area Chamber of Commerce.
The annual networking event has been extremely popular. In past years, the networking event was held at the Best Western Plus, but to accommodate the growing size, it was moved to the Event Center.
Many of the women attending the event were veterans to the Mingle with a Purpose program. Gislason & Hunter had been a top sponsor of the event from the beginning. The firm's Director of Marketing Maureen Gustafson said it was a great program to bring women together once a year. Approximately 80 percent of Gislason & Hunter's staff is women.
This year, the networking event was able to expand its offering. A special rejuvenation station was set up for those in attendance. Staff from the Wellness Collective were on hand to provide relaxation services like hand and chair massages, ear seed acupuncture, reflexology and guided relaxation.
For women seeking adventure a special puzzle room was created by Jennifer Deutz of Escapist Designs. Escapist Designs is a new business established this week. Deutz said she had recently been asked to design multiple escape rooms in a short time and decided to go all in on the business.
This year's keynote speaker was Kristen Brown, an author and action-focused speaker. Brown has spent 15 years in sales and marketing leadership roles, working with big brands and starting her own company. She has worked with Fortune 500 teams to start-ups.
Brown began her speech by asking the audience about how they start the day. Were they upbeat and chipper like a Disney princess or the exact opposite? Brown said how a person behaves in a moment is affected by all the moments that came before and the moments that come after. Moments of stress will affect future moments and create a different attitude.
Through group work, Brown had the audience identify the stressful parts of their lives, as well as the fun parts and passions as a way to re-orient.
Brown dismissed the work/life balance concept as a myth because it places everything in a box that sets people up for failure. She preferred the work/life harmony approach.
Throughout the speech she used the idea of the "happy hour" as an approach for creating harmony. The traditional idea of happy hour is for people to unwind after work.
"The ability to let go allows you to take control," Brown said. During after work social hours, when people unwind, they will likely start talking about the stressors of the day, she said, but after, they will eventually talk about their passions. It is the passions that will energize people and help create social contact.
Thursday was not the end of the networking event. A leadership development workshop will be held from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday at the Best Western Plus. The leadership workshop will also be led by Brown.
She said the event is designed to go deep and help women find their "personal brand or x-factor."
The two-day event is an opportunity for area women to learn from Brown's experience and network with other local women.
The New Ulm Chamber of Commerce began hosting these events after seeing there was a need to network professional women for business, personal and community's benefit.