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The 20th Annual Texas Conference for Women: Inspiration, empowerment and tangible results

"Fear has no place in your success equation."

AUSTIN, Texas — “Fear has no place in your success equation,” said Morgan Stanley Vice Chairman and Managing Director Carla Harris from the stage at the Texas Conference for Women. She went on to add, “Failure always brings you a gift. That gift is called experience.”

Harris was one of the many inspiring speakers at the 20th Annual Texas Conference for Women. This year’s conference featured soccer superstar Megan Rapinoe, Golden Globe-winning actress Tracee Ellis Ross and New York Times best-selling author Elizabeth Gilbert.

“Just because you don't experience something personally doesn't mean that it's not happening. It's everybody's responsibility to do everything they can to make it better because we all live in this world. We all live in this community together," Rapinoe said to the crowd. “Much like with a team, when everyone is happy and healthy and feeling appreciated and respected, then I feel like everyone thrives even more.”

Gilbert expressed her joy for speaking by saying, “The greatest joy in my life is talking to rooms filled with women. There’s nothing that I consider to be a bigger honor and these conferences for women give me that opportunity to literally get to speak intimately to 10,000 women at the same time and it’s something that I take with tremendous reverence, and I bring the very best that I have here.”

RELATED: Texas Conference for Women kicks off with inaugural opening ceremony Wednesday

The author also spoke to KVUE about the capital city, “Austin is Austin. It’s the greatest and I always love coming here. It’s a place that makes me smile because it just has a spirit to it that is very particularly its own and somehow and despite the fact that, what, 90,000 people a minute move here, it’s seeming to hold onto that in a stubborn really creative way, which I think is awesome.”

The event also included breakout sessions, exhibitors and networking opportunities. While attendees are getting inspired and empowered, there is a more tangible impact to the conference as well.

RELATED: Texas Conference for Women partners with KVUE

“Harvard recently released a study on our conference and what they found is that attendees of our conference were twice as likely to receive a promotion in the year that followed attending the conference,” said president of the board for the Texas Conference for Women Carla Pineyro Sublett. 

She went on to add attendees were also three times more likely to see an increase in their pay.

RELATED: Here are the best ways to get to the 2019 Texas Conference for Women

The final speaker to the event, actor and activist Ross, spoke about where her confidence came from and how she is and was set on achieving her goals.

“I’ve realized that the fastest way to get where I want to go is by honoring where I am,” she said.

Since its first year, the Texas Conference for Women has had more than 100,000 participants. This year’s event sold out with 7,500 tickets in minutes.

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