One aspect of a liberal arts education is to attend inspirational talks given by successful individuals.

This past Tuesday, the Gustavus Women in Leadership, commonly known as GWIL, had the privilege of hosting Nancy Dahl, author of the book, Grounded: Leading Your Life With Intention.

“It’s a book all about living your life with intention, and we just figured it was a really cool opportunity to have her here…she’s super successful in every aspect of her life, so we wanted to bring in a ‘woman of leadership in’ to talk to us,” Senior, Shaefer Rupar said.

This book was just recently released in November 2017.

Nancy is a close friend of Associate Professor in Management and Economics, Kathy Tunheim, as they have known ever since college.

It is a coincidence that Tunheim ended up teaching at Dahl’s alma mater.

“I got to go to the Galleria Book Signing in Edina when she kicked it off and there were so many Gusties there, and it was really an honor to see her,” Tunheim said.

While Kathy was attending Gustavus, Nancy was pursuing a bachelor’s degree by majoring in Communications and Business while minoring in Psychology and Speech.

During her time at Gustavus, she was active in Student Senate and the Campus Activities Board.

She graduated in 1983.

In addition, she earned her MBA at the University of St. Thomas, and graduated from The University of Minnesota Executive Program.

There were various ambitious students who were eager to learn more about Nancy Dahl’s journey, wanting to know about the insight she would share.

“I think she’ll give a lot of perspective from her own life events, and let everyone know that it’s okay, wherever you are in your life, to just find yourself, and how to be the best person, and how to grow. We had a Q&A before this, and she talked about transition periods, and how as a senior, we are moving onto our next phase, and just knowing that whatever it is, it’s gonna be okay, and you’re gonna get through it,” Senior Ann Ladwig said.

Tunheim gave a lengthy introduction describing Nancy’s many accomplished throughout her extensive career.

During her lifetime, she has worked for five industries whose sales span from $20 million to $750 million.

This includes overseeing 20,000 employees, 7 manufacturing plants, 200 field offices, and 700 retail operations in North America.

She is also apart of many corporate and non-profit board of directors.

Right now, she has spent her time mentoring others by being a business advisor.

She has even been featured on the cover of Minnesota Business Magazine, and has received distinguished honors from Gustavus for her work.

“She has earned numerous professional certifications including advanced board fellowship certificate, and the National Association of Corporate Directors,” Tunheim said.

Dahl began her lecture by describing how it is a person’s job to lead their life.

She wants to encourage people by making decisions that are beneficial to them.

If they miss out on that, then they will lose control on how to lead their life.

They need to make their own life choices, and should not let anybody make those choices for them.

She also emphasized how there are times when people are going to experience failure, and that is perfectly acceptable.

Life is a process of trial and error, so it is important to try again.

“Life is the ultimate experience model…it doesn’t come with an operator’s manual because everybody makes mistakes…I have very few things that I did the first time that went really well,” Dahl said.

Because we are all unique, individuals must know what makes them different, and to use that as an advantage to live a prosperous life.

The skills that people will need to move forward are curiosity, initiative, intellectual agility, conceptuality, and wonder.

These skills can be used to manage conflicts proactively, instead of leaving them unintended.

“In those skills what you’re going to see is personal learning is at its core. How are you a personal learner for life…how are you everyday, learning something to be able to move your goals forward?”

She finished off her point by addressing how this is a complicated world, and how there will be obstacles that threaten the human experience.

Because we live in a fast-paced world, people must be able to slow down to give themselves a break.

It is also crucial for people to ask questions about issues that do not get addressed, so they can understand the scope of a whole story.

As technology has progressed, personal life has been connected to work life, so there are no boundaries anymore.

“If you’re designed to be different but you live in a world like this, it doesn’t set you up to win, to really give you the environment you need, unless you know how to protect yourself. You gotta advocate for what you need to be successful in. Some people never learn to do this, and they just burn out…I would advocate for you to always make sure that you’re doing the work to know you are,” Dahl said.