Beyond Beauty

 I had the honor and oppotunity to be interviewed by a hot new publication in Atlanta, who's beautiful founder and publisher are equally as hot.  PaperGlass Media is the new online magazine where fashion, and style meets leadership and empowerment.  The brain child of Maryan Aiken, Founder of PaperGlass, has taken branding to another level. 
Read my speech and full interview at www.paperglassmedia.com 

Read my full Beyond Beauty Speech below as given May 23, 2017 :
 
I was 35 when I decided to leave my career in banking and go find myself. Well maybe not find myself more than go into hiding from my blackberry that had been my conjoined twin for the last 5 years. I was over worked, undervalued, underpaid, under fed and under loved. More importantly while I was still passionate about people I wasn’t passionate about my job any longer.

So just 5 years from turning 40 and I am about to do the unthinkable!!! Cash out my 401K, my savings and retirement and travel across country. Who does that unless you live with your parents or have a rich spouse to support you? Along my travels I discovered a teahouse in Chicago and danced in the dark at Buckingham Fountain, I went to a Burlesque show in Denver, and joined a stranger for lunch. I went to the Empire State Building like Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr in the movie An Affair to Remember, had lunch at Chelsea Market and made a curious visit to the famous Museum of Sex on 5th Ave. I ate a cream cheese Danish in front of Tiffany’s just to say I had breakfast there. I rode the train in Montreal and every sign was in French and I walked their cobblestone streets in the middle of a hot day in July. I ate the best Canadian cuisine and listened to the most beautiful jazz. I went to Dallas because of course everything is bigger in Texas, I went to Orlando to see New Edition perform, and ended my rendezvous in the heartland for some Kansas City BBQ and to take a nap in the gazebo under the Kansas sky. I agree with Dorothy “There’s No Place Like Home”

The only thing that I would allow to interrupt these 7 months of beautiful madness was community service and my volunteerism at United Way. Almost every day when I wasn’t traveling I would go to United Way set up my personal laptop and try and figure how to create a better life for everyone living here in metro Atlanta. Beyond beauty to me is the interactions and experiences you have with people, and my goal is to try to be as good to them as they have been to me.

I won’t bore you with the details, but I will quote the late great Prince!!

"Paint a perfect picture Bring to life a vision in one’s mind The beautiful ones Always smash the picture Always everytime"
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During that 7 months of chaotic bliss I stopped trying to meet everyone’s expectations I took the pressure off myself to bring to life a perfect vision and I just lived….. Simply and authentically.
Beyond Beauty is the most imperfect interpretation of myself.
So when I start to create this perfect picture I SMASH it, because true beauty is about discovery.

An unearthing..... A breakthrough & SELF Innovation

-Kat Taylor