Teens
Two Women Living Their Message Through Film:
The Empowerment Project
“What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?” That is the question filmmakers Sarah Moshman and Dana Michelle Cook set out to answer through interviews with women leaders across the United States. Their interviews turned into 34 days of footage and became The Empowerment Project: Ordinary Women Doing Extraordinary Things, a film that…
Read MoreRemembering Maria Shriver’s Women’s Conference at our Heart of Leadership Launch
Heart of Leadership launched our inaugural Speaker Series Panel yesterday! We opened the evening sharing how and why Heart of Leadership was created. In doing so, I went back to one of my initial clear moment of inspiration – Maria Shriver’s 2010 Women’s Conference, a coming together of the trailblazers of our generation: Oprah, Michelle…
Read MoreWhy I Choose To Lean In
During my freshman year of high school, after trying to reason with my physics teacher when he said that boys were better than girls in science, I went to the headmaster to request that he be reprimanded. I have been passionate about women and girls in leadership ever since I was young. Like Sheryl Sandberg,…
Read MoreTweens, Beauty & Instagram
Parents frequently ask me if Instagram is okay for teens/tweens. Please read this mom’s powerful blog on its downside AND potential. http://www.suburbabble.com/post/46865510969/beauty-is-only-skin-deep-but-instagram-goes-all-the My concern with Instagram and all of the other photo-face-fabulous-or-not obsessions we have these days goes for adults as well as teens. Through them, we learn to measure our worth in “Likes” –…
Read MoreWhy It’s Important to Share Your Story
I just wrapped up a full day of powerful middle school assemblies – after each one, lines of students waited to talk. Some shared encouragement, hope, and thanks for the message; others told tearful stories about being bullied; and others shared their secret pain manifested in being the bully, cutting, eating disorders, depression, and thoughts…
Read MoreMove Over, Miss Perfect
Do you have an internal Miss or Mister Perfect that critiques your choices and desires more harshly than most of your friends or family members ever would? Does she like to whisper sweet nothings to you about what others might think or whether you’ll measure up? Or is she constantly on call to evaluate career…
Read MoreWhat the heck is going on?
Note: A version of this post published in the Huffington Post on 9/26/12: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephanie-armstrong/bulimia_b_1914788.html In the past week, Katie Couric spoke about her past battle with bulimia in an interview with young star and current center of the eating disorder conversation, Demi Lovato, and Lady Gaga has engaged conversation about her struggle with anorexia and…
Read MoreThe Words that Made My Week
As class came to a close this afternoon, the girls I work with were discussing an issue one of them was having at school. I listened and spoke into the truth of who those girls are. In unison, they started telling me that I am going to be such a great mom and my family…
Read MoreDon’t Settle
Coming off two days of speaking to 5000 middle and high school students about owning their worth and a month that included a magical trip overseas to make a difference with teens in the Marianas Islands, becoming an entrepreneur, and launching my first programs, all I can think is: Don’t settle. For so long, I…
Read MoreI Choose Love in Schools Overseas
I’ve just returned from a trip half way around the world where I spoke with 3000 elementary through high school students on making a difference and choosing love. Watch this video for an account of this incredible journey. For the millions of people all over the world who suffer in silence everyday from their perceived…
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