something that will make a difference in their life and maybe even
make a shift in their life happen.”
She told the audience that one of her main goals is to help
women “uncage” their dreams.
“Most people’s dreams live in a cage,” she said. “I love to help
people break through that, get out of the cage and live life fully
alive. We have to have the courage to leave the cage.”
Brown also emphasized the importance of changing up life
from time to time.
“Stir your life up a little bit,” she said. “Don’t just walk in the
same-old, same-old. Think about what you can do differently to
create a different outcome.”
Throughout her speech, Brown kept her audience
enthusiastically engaged by encouraging attendees to cheer
excitedly, shout out their dreams and culminating in bringing a
volunteer to the stage to break a wooden chopstick with nothing
but a piece of paper while the audience cheered her on.
Brown told the audience the chopstick exercise was meant to
symbolize the need for people to overcome the obstacles before
them to achieve their goals.
“When you have a dream in your heart, you have to walk
through and break through an obstacle that comes in your path,”
she said.
She added that it’s also important to be able to encourage
others.
“When you can cheer people on and you can raise people up,
it’s so cool, I love it,” she said.
Before ending with a poem
from one of her books, Brown told the audience that
each one of them makes a difference.
“I believe that every person in this room makes a
difference in some way, shape or form,” she said. “I don’t care how
young or how old you are.”
Brown said she was happy to see how the event brought so
many women together.
“There’s so many wonderful women here tonight,” she said.
“The best thing about it is women coming together, there’s always
great energy, lots of enthusiasm and there will be an impact made
before the night is over. It’s great when we can share the power to
believe that the best is in our future and the best will happen to all
of us.”
n By Rob Nielsen
Thank
The Her Voice staff would like
to thank all of the women
that attended our 10th
Annual Celebrate Women
event. We also really
enjoyed and greatly appreciated Melanie Brown being
there as our featured speaker. Thank you also goes to
all the vendors that were there and a special thank
you to our three major sponsors, Yankton Hy-Vee,
Yankton Medical Clinic and First Dakota National Bank.
See you all next year!
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HERVOICE MAY/JUNE 2014 v 19