Erica Dias-18th Table of 20

Today I am sharing my recap on a networking event I attended about 2 weeks ago. I got invited to the 18th “Erica’s Table of 20.” I blogged about the 17th event here. Erica is one the brains behind The B Firm a public relation firm here in Atlanta and also owner of the vintage fashion store, Vintage and More. Erica is a California native who moved to Atlanta a few years ago and started the table of 20 along with her sister Ashley Jernigan as a platform for women and men to share their stories, motivate and inspire one another. These events usually have a guest speaker, someone prominent in the local community address the group.

The event was held in the McEnvoy room at Neiman Marcus cafe in Atlanta. She had two speakers at this event address the group of business men and women. The first speaker was the founder of the non-profit organization Tiffany Brown of The Young Belle Project, Inc and the other speaker was Actress and Educator, Shelah Marie.

Tiffany Brown started her non-for-profit organization in 2013 out of the need to contribute to her community and leave her mark. Her mission is to sow as many positive seeds in young girls throughout the community so that eventually they will blossom into future leaders of their generation. She went into details on how she started and runs her organization and also gave nuggets on how she tackles it all, being a mom of two who home-schools her son and runs a successful organization. She stressed the importance of having a good support system to be effective in business. One remark by Tiffany that stuck to me, was when she said “steer them and give them a different perspective” that summarizes her work, which I find incredible.

Shelah Marie is a fierce feminista, actress, playwright and an online personality. You can read her impressive resume here. She spoke to the group about her background and her message was on meditation and spirituality. She touched on her journey from depression and how meditation played a big part in her healing process. She stressed how growing up we are never taught emotions at home or in school but it is one thing we deal with daily. One nugget I took from her speech was how we shouldn’t limit ourselves to just saying our affirmations, but how we should feel them and have a clear reason why we want something in our lives.