Young women from across the county and beyond gathered at the Jasper Community Arts Center and the campus of Vincennes University Jasper for the Annual Young Women Lead Conference.
Women from Greater Jasper, Northeast Dubois, Heritage Hills, Shoals, and other schools gathered to hear from speakers and attend seminars on a lot of topics, including confidence, safety, and budgeting, among many others.
The conference’s theme this year was “Fear Less, Do More”, which means acknowledging fears but being brave enough to accomplish your goals no matter how scary they may be.
The Emcee for the event was Ashlyn Ackerman, a Jasper native who studied architecture and wanted to make her community great. After speaking with the Mayor of Jasper, she decided to move to Louisville and started working with Weyland Ventures. Along with Emceeing the event, she spoke at a Breakout Session about Confidence and how to overcome fear and extrude confidence in fearful situations.
The Keynote Speaker for the day was Michelle Polar. Michele is an entrepreneur, branding strategist, and a fear facer. Michelle decided one day to take the 100 Days social media challenge, where one would do a challenge of their choosing over the course of 100 Days, such as 100 Days Without Makeup. Michelle decided to spend 100 Days facing a different fear every day, which she documented on YouTube.
She said that facing her fears every day completely changed her life.
Whether it would be high diving, dancing in the middle of Time Square, or even something like holding a tarantula, Michelle spent every day doing something different to better herself, catching the attention of national news outlets, CBS, and Buzzfeed, to name a few. This all leads up to facing her final fear, public speaking, which she was able to do with a TEDTalk.
Now that she has spoken with younger generations from all around, she says that if her younger self would have heard about her future self’s experiences, her life would have been completely different.
Now after speaking for over two years, Michele has started a movement called HelloFears, which is a movement inspired by her journey.
Michelle hopes that after speaking with the women that they know that their dreams matter and all you have to do to obtain your dream is to be courageous.
To learn more about Michelle Poler and the HelloFears movement, head to HelloFears.com. To learn more about Young Women Lead, head to YoungWomenLead.com.
