PHOTO DIARY: Cannes Film Festival 2019

I can hardly believe it’s almost TIFF! It feels like we were just in France for Cannes! After our trip to France, I was so incredibly tired, I’d spent most of May traveling or at conferences. I posted a few photos in this Telus post about our Cannes adventure but I wanted to share more about the experience so I don’t forget anything. It was a really cool experience! From the moment I saw the red carpet and Cannes main building I was in awe. I’ve been watching celebrities grace that carpet my whole adult life! When I picked up my badge, I had this moment of “omg, we’re really doing this!”. I was there in charge of content for The Holy City, a film co-produced by Sean’s company, Occupied VR. I loved walking the streets and people watching. Cannes is full of character with old cobble streets, beautiful beaches, a merry go round on the main strip, huge yachts lining the harbor, and bustling patios lining the sidewalks. I was happy to learn there are multiple Zara stores in case you have a wardrobe emergency and a tuxedo rental place if you need one a hurry. A couple of my fav moments were walking out to paparazzi behind Elton John, walking past Chloë Sevigny, and seeing Tilda Swinton sauntering down the street in a gorgeous muumuu. She was stunning! Each day we walked or took an Uber down to the festival building. In order to get inside, we had to pass security including bag search and badge check. We spent most our time on the first floor of the building in the XR Hub, on the film sales floor, or at the international pavilions. The Holy City premiere was on the 2nd day of our trip so the rest…

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Sassoon Style: A Breakdown on Colour Technique

It’s been years since I’ve had my hair long as it is right now. I can’t remember the last time I was able to put my hair up in a pony, do french braids, or pop in extensions. I love it! It’s so fun to be able to play around with barrettes and accessories to change my look. At the start of summer, I stopped into Sassoon Toronto to brighten up my blonde and trim my little bob. LET’S COLOUR In this post, I’m breaking down some of the different colour options you can get at Sassoon and what they mean. I use to do all-over colour (blonde) but in effort to grow my hair longer and healthier, I’ve switched to highlights. They’re BALAYAGE This popular technique is pretty low maintenance if you’re looking for a look that doesn’t need a lot of upkeep. At Sassoon, they mix freehand painting with foiled highlights meaning you can have a natural sun-kissed look or something more dramatic. Commitment: 2-3 Months Great For: Creating soft, sun-kissed hair that is natural-looking, wearable, versatile View this post on Instagram A post shared by SASSOON TORONTO (@sassoontoronto) on Jul 6, 2019 at 4:33am PDT TWO TONE I love this look and it is VERY Sassoon. This technique uses darker tones underneath laters of lighter colors to create depth and tone. It’s a bit more of a commitment than balayage but so stylish! It really accentuates a haircut like this one I had a couple of years ago. Commitment: 6-8 Weeks Great For: Adding depth and tone to an amazing cut FACE FRAMING Face frames blend into your natural colour accentuating your face and can be a variety of colours. This helps to illuminate your look and brighten your face without a big commitment. Commitment: 2-3 Months…

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Video: Increasing Opportunity Through Personal Branding

Last month I had a great time speaking at LinkedIn Local Toronto at The Centre for Social Innovation (CSI). I was the opening keynote where I spoke a little bit about my career and how building my personal brand helped create opportunity. In this video, you’ll hear 3 examples where my personal brand helped me get booked for jobs. Excuse the audio, I was using a handheld mic and this is recorded on my iPhone. I will note that Sean wanted to shoot on a camera with a lav mic but I insisted on using the phone. Next time I will let the pro handle it! Thanks, Bobby & the LinkedIn Local team for having me! Looking for a speaker or host for your upcoming event? Send me an email or contact my speaker agent at The National Speakers Bureau.

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Live from the Lake, It’s Vacation!

I had to look up what day it was, Wednesday! The last week has been so nice. A great mix of perfect weather, bathing suits, casual clothes, no makeup, naps, and sitting. It’s just the two of us up here and we’re on day 6 of 12. I’ve spent less time on my computer than I thought I would and more time making things in the kitchen, driving the boat, and reading by the lake. We got a couple of new small appliances recently and this week I made ice cream, hummus, and buttercream frosting in the food processor. Sean is really into cooking meats with the sous vide. I didn’t understand it at first but then he made me a sous vide steak and I fell in love. I even look online for the best home sous vide to get him for his birthday so he would cook me sous vide meals more often! He’s used it quite a few times and I’m always really happy when I see him pull out the machine. Have had lots of fun with cottage friends, wakeboarding, surfing, and sunset drinks on the dock. This is the all-star lake surfing team, a double wakeboarding mother-daughter team, Sean’s first wake surf, and Scott surfing behind the boat. I have wakeboarded but tbh, I’m most happy in the boat and being the photog. Tomorrow is Sean’s birthday and I’ve been giving him one present each day since we arrived. Today I’m decorating a bit and then will attempt to make a magical birthday cake! Yesterday I made a cute HBD stencil and painted the walkway. I haven’t used this stuff before so I really hope it comes off lol. The pressure washer should do it. ? Reminding you today to take time for yourself, create…

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Create Better Days

I’ve been going through old hard drives up at the cottage and wow, I’ve taken a lot of photos. There are multiple drives with hundreds of folders and nothing is organized properly. Many people would be stressed TF out by this but I’m really trying to take inspiration from my chaos. I’m finding so many things, texting old photos to friends, making notes, and making a new list of old ideas. Each morning here, I get up, make coffee, some type of snack, and sit down at my computer in the kitchen overlooking the lake. I’m often wearing big noise-canceling headphones with nothing playing, I like silence or muffled sound when I’m trying to concentrate. Searching my drives is an endless adventure of, what could this be?! Folder names go from date_nameofclient to ‘iPhone2014 dump’ or ‘new folder4’, it’ a mess! I love having all my memories in photos and videos, it’s so easy to forget the daily details of life. One of the things I’ve really noticed is just how many selfies I take in relation to how many get posted. There are a lot of deleted selfies. Yesterday, after putting the boat in the water I came back and was feeling cute. Grabbed my tripod and set it up outside, snapped a bunch of photos with my remote and voila, the ones you see here. To be honest, I looked at so many of them, hitting delete and not feeling happy with how I looked. Yes, it was early morning no makeup, but how I felt before the photos (cute) vs how I felt after the photos (not cute) didn’t match up. This happens all the time but I’m trying to not be so hard on myself. Today, looking back, of course, there were some bad ones, it…

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It’s My Blog and I Can Blog If I Want To

Yesterday I wrote a blog about my new speaker and I seriously considered not reviewing the product here because it wasn’t sponsored and would people be thinking, “is this sponsored“? But, in all honesty, I jus really liked the thing. I like a lot of things. I hardly post sponsored stuff and sometimes my blog is about bike riding on a sunny day or speaking at an event. I used to blog about everything I liked, I’ve blogged for over 10 years. There are thousands of blog posts here about nothing in particular other than a thought or a feeling. Almost gone are the days of people blogging because they love blogging or just want to get their thoughts onto the blog. But really, those are the blogs I love the most. The old blogs. The diary blogs. The blogs that tell a story and make you have feelings or brighten your day. I want to bring back the blog, the writing, the thoughts, and all the feelings. Today is a new day, a new month, an opportunity to make a change. Mercury is longer in retrograde and Leo Season is upon us. You’re in charge here. Blog Goals for August 2019: Write Something Every Single Day I’m putting myself up for a challenge to write something new each day for the whole month of August. I love to write and the last few weeks months I have been in a bit of a slump. I needed to take some time to relax my brain and body. To find that place inside where creativity comes from and open the door. It took some time, but I managed to crack that door and I’m making my way in. I’ve packed up years of hard drives and developed all my disposable cameras.…

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