something wrong it doesn’t mean like I
spilled my coffee I got a ticket but the
kind of wrong where everybody asks you
are you absolutely crazy
maybe they start feeling sorry for you
later and be like can you believe she
did that
hmm little pity she’ll never get it back
and that’s what makes it feel wrong all
these decisions when people actually
tell us that they’re wrong
so I actually named the title of this
talk wrong the first time called it
authentically stormy and TEDx called
rightfully so and said you know we need
more of a theme and I was instantly
reminded of a phrase that my mom told me
growing up and that was do something
even if it’s wrong and so doing it wrong
seemed appropriate but why does the
title matter because I had a moment of
panic and it’s because titles and
impressions happen quickly they make
quick assumptions and I know this
because my name is stormy I mean how
many times have you met someone and you
say what’s your name it’s a guy with
three first names sounds like a serial
killer happens we do this so preparing
for my talk I actually looked up the
meaning of my name for the first time in
49 years and it turns out it actually
means something super aggressive and
it’s described with like violent
outbursts and dark clouds strong winds
and I thought geez a lot of things made
sense no wonder every time I met someone
we started a conversation you born on a
stormy night no I wasn’t sad your given
name yeah I took my parents seven days
to name me hmm oh it’s popular among
strippers
I hadn’t heard no no
are my parents hippies well they’re not
hippies they were blue-collar workers
from Chicago and growing up they had
friends that were blue-collar workers
and no one I was around went to college
and on the weekends they’d have some
beers maybe smoke some cigarettes play
some pool watch football on Sunday what
they really taught us kids was about the
ethic and the meaning of hard work and
that if we worked hard it could happen
for us now we didn’t have to be a doctor
you’d be a dog groomer but make sure
your dog looks so good every day you
don’t have to be a landscape you don’t
have to be a professor you can be a
landscaper but make sure that your lawns
are the most manicured on the block so
this blue-collar Chicago Polish family
moves to Utah in 1973 and I didn’t know
it at the time but my parents kind of
felt like outcasts and they were never
really able to create that support
system not social circle that they had
had before for me I jumped right in and
I didn’t feel the pressure of that
social circle maybe titles till I was
about nine years old and it came to me
in the form of religion so should tell
you about my family or box of chocolates
when it comes to religion we were all
encouraged to find her own so out of a
family of six we have two catholics
methodist protestant in a mormon that’s
true story and about nine years old all
of my friends and their families started
asking me if I was going to get baptized
can you get baptized and I explained the
box of chocolates family and they kind
of made me feel like that was wrong and
I began a search started going to all
the churches finding where my organized
religion could be then I got told that
if I didn’t she was right I wasn’t gonna
go to heaven now as a child that’s what
I heard as a child that was extremely
traumatizing to me I had never heard
such a thing by eleven years old I had
outward Reap outwardly proclaimed
that organized religion wasn’t for me
found spirituality otherwise but it just
wasn’t for me and when I told my family
they were fine with it
and when I told my friends and their
families I kind of felt like I’ve done
something wrong
going into my teenage years everything
was wrong because I was a dramatic mess
and nothing ever went right and once I
broke up with my boyfriend well I’ll be
honest he broke up with me and my mom I
was in my room crying and crying and my
mom comes in she put up with that for
just a couple hours and she’d come in
ripped the blankets off and say story
get up and do something even if it’s
wrong huh
so me and the boyfriend got back
together and I did something I did
something wrong 17 years old I got
pregnant and it was wrong she let me
know it was wrong but what am I supposed
to what could we do you have three
options at that point you can get an
abortion and we could talk about the
rights and wrongs without all-day
adoption which really wasn’t right for
me or having the baby you’re gonna ruin
your life things are gonna get hard
you’re never gonna do what you want to
do things just got harder but I was in
love and at 17 years old I had a baby
and got married
now those next three years of big years
right you go from 17 to 20 those are big
adult years and I had figured some
things out one figured out this wasn’t
the love of my life – I knew I didn’t
want to have an only child so I walk
into my 20s with these amazing titles
I’m divorced single mom I’m pregnant
I’m on welfare Omaha I’m quite a catch
and I’m a hot mess so what am I going to
do I went to the Community College and
shortly thereafter my dad gets sick and
he gets really sick and when a few very
few this was the man in my life I could
count on by the way the guy that always
came and got me
and within just a few months he passes
away while that was my first real
experience with losing someone I loved I
do think we’re equipped innately to deal
with the death of our parents it’s just
a cycle of life something that’s
supposed to happened but what happened
next just 17 months later my very best
friend
my big sister partner in crime a writer
died gets killed tragically in a car
accident she dies instantly I learned
about that but had no idea that the
universe could come and punch you so
hard you didn’t know if you could stand
up again and that’s where I found myself
and so did my family you know in 18
months we have lost 33 percent
I hope made us a family and it hurt we
all went trying to figure it out what we
were gonna do and I went to work that
hard work kicked in and I got this great
job it was amazing job but I found that
I could go there every day and for eight
to ten hours a day I could dig in and
nobody cared if I whose daughter single
mom or any of those things and I dig in
and I get lost there now it turned out
to be one of the very best jobs of my
life we had a great relationship I
learned a ton about business
organization and office structure and
office politics back in the 1990’s
as a secretary for my boss who I liked
his birthday was coming up I say to him
what do you want for your birthday and
he tells me and I’m like and I can’t
tell you what he said because we’ll keep
it PG now he didn’t get exactly what he
wanted but he did get exactly what he
asked for when I placed this head on his
desk you can still buy this at Pier one
it’s not a stock online but you can
still get this – desk so reestablish
some boundaries we had a little chuckle
and we went on to work together for a
few years
my 20s were full of grabbing as many
titles as I could I was assistant to the
President on a radio personality it was
a promotions director director of
meetings and events and I was just
gathering them all up all in and in 2001
find myself in Vegas first startup
September 11th happens the startup
doesn’t find it myself moving back in
with my mom with my kid for the second
time and now I was trying to figure out
what I was gonna do with my life
as we all were after that I thought I’m
gonna do something different but first
I’m gonna go live with my mom for a few
weeks and figure it out so I have about
10 weeks of money I get to my mom’s and
I’m thinking so blessed to have this
time to hang out with my mom and kid
stay home every day and just watch TV
and stuff and for a couple weeks that’s
what I did every day every single day we
were just hanging out and watching TV so
I did what I always did I got up I went
to a temp agency said put me to work
what do you got lady says oh my gosh
we’ve got something in ecommerce I’m
like what’s ecommerce she goes I’m not
sure but it’s a dot-com and it’s here in
Utah and I think you’ll love it they’re
really cool so I went in and got the job
and I find myself sitting in this office
where this new industry is emerging and
it’s so exciting I kind of had no idea
what was going on but I placed an order
and I get it and I loved that experience
I hadn’t even gotten out of my chair get
it to my doorstep open it up it’s like
my birthday and a light bulb goes off
and I get it we could revolutionize the
way people shop this is fantastic
so I that was about all I knew about
e-commerce turned out nobody else knew
anything either because we were building
it as we went and for the first time in
my life I found myself as qualified as
everyone else and as confident as anyone
else to raise my hand
2003 I raised my hand because I wanted
to ask the world a question I wanted to
know have you discovered the secret of
the Big O I know what you thought that’s
what made it so wrong but the idea the
question was a national branding
campaign that I wanted to pitch and
share with the world
one male executive came up to me and he
said you know I told my wife about your
campaign idea
the first thing she thought of was
orgasm and I was like congratulations my
who knew but I pitched it to the CEO he
liked it I pitched it to the board they
liked it and the next thing you know I’m
producing and writing a national
television campaign on a shoestring
Brett budget and it hits the airwaves
and it goes well and the company goes
starts hitting triple digit revenue
growth and I get named VP of branding
for what’s now a 500 million dollar
public company that’s a big title but I
was still looking at all the other
departments that were growing so I
raised my hand again
can I take customer service and bring it
in-house I’d like to switch the way
retail customer service works they say
ok and I bring all of the agents
in-house and I change the name from
customer service to customer care
because titles matter and the industry
followed they changed their names too
and then we started winning all of these
awards and we were being recognized as
one of the greatest call centers in
America and I raised my hand in 2007 and
said can I take the marketing department
I have some ideas and they said yes and
those were the years that we entered
profitability so things are going right
I’m on fire things are going so right
and in 2013 it would felt like a blink
of an eye I found myself as president of
a 1.5 billion dollar company whoa
but things were going right it’s like we
were named to Forbes top 100 most
trustworthy companies in 2014
amazing I grew female executive
leadership from 7% to 33% in just a
couple years that was right and it felt
right and I was winning awards – things
were going right for me I was recognized
by the National Retail Federation power
player award I want to Utah women’s tech
council award and I was literally
sitting the pinnacle of my career I was
on the top of the world and then I quit
and everybody said what’s wrong with you
crazy and I’m asking myself am I happy
is this what life looks like is this the
success of my one life because you see
real life had kept happening my boys had
moved out bought homes came an
empty-nester my mom passed away managed
to work through all that came a
grandmother a Lala and all of a sudden
those titles had so much more weight
than the titles I was working for so
hard due to a hand I was dealt in my 20s
so was I crazy I don’t know they got in
my head though they did the first two
interviews I took were for to be the
president of an e-commerce company how
crazy is that it was like too soon too
soon now when I went to those that same
group of people and said I know what I
want to do I want to go into the
cannabis industry they used words like
career suicide you’ll never become you
could be in jail it’s not even legal
where you live but this time I didn’t
listen to them I actually got an
apartment in Denver I didn’t know
anybody there
got a job and a 90 thousand square foot
grow a couple dispensaries and I found
myself so passionate I was so happy to
get up every day and learn about this
plant and I became confident and proud
that I could take the title cannabis
advocate wear it right on my chest and
set up privately supporting it for all
those years I did so in the past
eighteen months since I’ve joined
cannabis I’ve gotten on a few boards of
some great companies up-and-coming
companies and then in December I was
named on the board of the oldest brand
in cannabis definitely the biggest and
for sure my favorite I’m on the director
of the board of high times right it
feels right so could it be wrong is that
wrong I’ve had an awful lot of time
these past 20 months to sit and reflect
on my life my decisions my self I
actually wrote down all of those pivotal
moments in time that I made a decision
that was wrong or that someone told me
was wrong and it turns out when I look
at that list those are some of the
greatest moments of my life maybe
they’re wrong but it made me wonder if
everybody made a list if we all made a
list and you’re wrong list is what the
thing said people said that’s crazy but
you did it anyway and then you’re right
list is all the times you did what was
expected people accept it from you they
wanted you to do safer out go with the
grain there anything on that right list
where you just go dang it what if what
if I just got to do something so wrong
and you just feel like you still want to
be so wrong how do you do you move that
there I can tell you my what if what if
we all quit expecting titles so we can
make impressions and long-lasting
assumptions about people we start
looking at them just for their self and
we never pass judgment you never had to
worry about it would we all run around
freely and confidently doing whatever we
wanted and more importantly would we
walk around believing we could be
whatever we want it to be even if it’s
wrong thank you
[Applause] [Music]