Sky High Magazine

04/07/2024

SkyHigh Magazine recently revisited Body By Bellanira to catch up on her entrepreneurial journey.
Bellanira, a single mom herself, opened up about the challenges of balancing business and family life. Despite the pressures, she's committed to providing top-notch services while tending to her children's needs.

Excitingly, Bellanira underwent a rebranding to better reflect her image. She aimed for a more relaxed, elegant vibe with a hint of edge, perfectly captured in her newly redesigned space.

Expanding her offerings, Bellanira now offers traveling services, catering specifically to busy single moms who struggle to find time for self-care amidst their hectic schedules. This addition has elevated her brand to new heights, resonating with her clientele on a personal level.

Rather than aiming to compete with larger brands, Bellanira values building genuine connections with her clients, fostering a sense of family within her business. Beyond physical transformations, she provides a safe space for her clients to open up and share their concerns.

For aspiring entrepreneurs, Bellanira advises perseverance in pursuing their dreams, acknowledging that success doesn't come without challenges. Additionally, she stresses the importance of prioritizing mental health, recognizing the toll that stress can take on business owners

04/07/2024

SkyHigh Magazine has embarked on a journey to reconnect with past featured leaders, starting with Bellanira, the creative force behind Body By Bellanira. We were amazed by her updated brand image and delighted to learn about the expansion of her services. In addition to her existing offerings, Body By Bellanira now provides convenient traveling services, catering to single moms and hardworking individuals by meeting them wherever they are. But that's not all - we're excited to announce a new collaboration between Body By Bellanira and SkyHigh Magazine. Stay tuned for more details on this exciting partnership!

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04/07/2024

Excited to bring you the latest updates from all the entrepreneurs featured in SkyHigh Vol.1 Issue 1! Some are embarking on new journeys, while others are excelling in their industries. Stay tuned as we share their inspiring stories with you!

04/04/2024

At first, confidence was the key to Ryan Bartlett’s success. Then, it was nearly his downfall.

When Bartlett and a couple friends pooled $3,000 to launch men’s apparel brand True Classic in 2019, he’d never sold clothing before. But the idea behind True Classic, affordable shirts built to flatteringly fit the everyman, seemed to resonate with people.

The company brought in more than $26,000 in revenue in just its first month of operations, Bartlett says.
The following year, when it came time to order new inventory for 2021, Bartlett overestimated how many units his business might sell, and requested more clothing than the company could afford to buy. The mistake, he says, nearly put True Classic out of business.

“It was the stupidest decision we ever made, because it took us a good year-and-a-half to dig ourselves out of that hole,” Bartlett tells CNBC Make It.

He and his co-founders — Nick Ventura and Matthew Winnick — spent more than two years trying to fix the problem. They shrank their company’s profit margins, paid vendors more than $1 million extra in interest payments and took money from a financing company in exchange for a percentage of future revenue.

Now, finally, True Classic is once again positioned to compete with direct-to-consumer rivals like Everlane and Vuori, and clothing giants like Nike and Ralph Lauren. The company is on pace to bring in $250 million in 2023 revenue, which would match its total lifetime sales figure in just one year, Bartlett says.

His plan to survive and thrive, he adds: Lean on the lessons he learned from nearly going under.

https://www.skyhighmag.com/news-1/3-friends-pooled-%243%2C000-to-sell-t-shirts—they’ve-brought-in-over-%24250-million-since-2019

04/03/2024

For Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg, self-reflection is serious business.

The 58-year-old kicks off every day with a self-assessment, and he’s a better boss because of it, he said on Tuesday at the Fast Company Innovation Festival 2023. Vestberg started the routine in 2009 after becoming CEO of Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson, and he’s done it “every day” since, he said.

Each morning, Vestberg ranks his mood “from 1 to 10,” he said, helping him get into the “right mood and right energy” to do his job. The numbers gauge whether he’s able to show up to the office as his best self:

https://www.skyhighmag.com/news/verizon’s-ceo-swears-by-a-simple-1-question-morning-routine%3A-it-gets-you-into-the-‘right-mood-and-right-energy’

04/03/2024

One woman is speaking out after she saw that her company was hiring for her current job title at a much higher salary.

Kimberly Nguyen, 25, who works as a user experience writer for Citigroup, applied for the same role on LinkedIn after she noticed that her employer was looking to fill a role with her same job title but with a salary offering $32,000 to $90,000 more than what she is currently making.

She took to Twitter to call out the discrepancy, and her tweet has since garnered 12.8 million views.

https://www.skyhighmag.com/news-2/a-woman-is-going-viral-for-applying-to-her-same-role-—-after-her-company-listed-the-position-for-%2490%2C000-more-than-her-current-salary

She owes her discovery to a new NYC salary transparency law that requires companies to post salary ranges on job postings.

04/01/2024

, a Central Texas native whose entrepreneurial journey embodies resilience, creativity, and ambition. Raised in Cedar Creek with a background in his father’s business, Wesley’s vision for , a platform blending creativity and commerce, took shape inspired by Austin’s vibrant culture. Facing post-COVID challenges and personal struggles, Wesley persevered, attracting industry giants like Microsoft and Meta to Unleashed. Looking forward, he envisions Unleashed as a hub for innovation and inclusivity, aiming to make Dallas a center of LGBTQ excellence. Wesley’s story exemplifies the power of determination and serves as an inspiration for others to unleash their potential in entrepreneurship and beyond.

For full article go to Skyhighmag.com

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02/29/2024

Growing up, I was social and outgoing, but I was never fond of putting on a show, even in smaller settings. In my high school years, I hosted several online and offline events that improved my public speaking skills.

Shortly after moving to the Netherlands, I got a speaker slot at a TEDx event happening at the University of Groningen. Funny enough, I'm a first-year student at the university myself, so the pressure from age discrimination was definitely on. Plus, my family and friends were in the audience, making it infinitely harder.

I could not mess this up. After endless practice, I learned more from this singular experience than from all my past speeches combined.

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02/27/2024

Papi Chulo, a local Cumbia band from Texas, as they share their passion for music, overcoming obstacles, and their vision for the future. Discover how this eclectic group of musicians turned their love for Latin beats into a dynamic fusion of sounds that’s captivating audiences everywhere. Read the full story of resilience, creativity, and the power of music at SkyHighmag.com!

02/26/2024

Every few years, researchers administer IQ tests to a sample of test subjects, take the median score, and declare that to be the new “100,” the score that means you’re of perfectly average intelligence. This begs the question: Why do they need to update the average score? Simply put, we’ve been getting smarter. Every time the test is re-administered, the median score has almost always gone up. In fact, if we were to administer today’s IQ tests to people from 100 years ago, they’d score somewhere around a 70; researchers estimate that our IQ scores jump about 3 points every decade. This is called the Flynn effect, named after the researcher who discovered it.

There are several proposed reasons for the Flynn effect. It could be that more people are attending school than they were before or that we do a better job of teaching students the skills directly related to IQ tests. These may be true, but there is one domain that has unquestionably increased our smarts: euthenics.

Where eugenics deals with improving humanity by selectively breeding allegedly “superior” groups of people — an idea that would ultimately sow considerable discord and decidedly not improve humanity’s condition — euthenics focuses on improving humanity by improving our environment. Here are three examples of how tweaking our environment can make us smarter.

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02/25/2024

Dr. James is a leading ophthalmologist at a major medical clinic. Passionate about medicine, he wanted to hire someone to run the business operations of his practice. He carefully reviewed over 200 resumes and conducted background checks, finally deciding to hire Mike, a highly credentialed MBA who seemed to check off all the boxes Dr. James was looking for in the new hire.

But within weeks, Dr. James realized that he’d made a big hiring mistake. Despite a stellar performance in the interview, Mike disrupted the office within his first month on the job. He communicated with the staff mostly by email or spreadsheet assignments, and when he attended meetings he seemed absorbed with his smartphone and would roll his eyes when the staff didn’t understand certain accounting or finance terms.

“During the interview, I was wowed by Mike’s credentials and financial knowledge. He was supremely confident and came from a great school,” Dr. James told us after the fact. He then lamented, “I saw only one side of Mike, and completely missed the side we ended up seeing every day at the office.”

It took Dr. James over a year to rid himself of the wrong hire. Worse, it made him question his own judgment. In fact, almost all of the leaders we’ve talked to admit that they too have made a bad hire at some point during their careers. And it has cost them dearly in time, money, and mental anguish.

First impressions can sometimes set dangerous traps that lead you straight to a disastrous hire. How can you get beyond superficial impressions and discover the substance in the 30 minutes or so you have with an interviewee?

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02/24/2024

How do you define a valuable employee? Is it experience or maybe work ethic? Do you see competence in a specific area as the be-all and end-all of determining employee value?

What about soft skills? Do they hold the same value when interviewing for a rock star engineer or strategist position? Well, they should.

While technical skills and other hard skills defined in the job description matter, it's an employee's people skills and a whole host of other personal attributes that are crucial for long-term success.

Most companies undervalue soft skills or the impact people development will have on an organization. They assume the hard stuff holds more weight and makes the business go around. In turn, when difficult personalities and egos emerge, when sudden change and uncertainty takes place, and when conflict seems inevitable, it's the employees with the natural ability to communicate and respond to crisis who hold the most value.

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02/23/2024

For much of the pandemic, the biggest challenge facing businesses was getting workers through the door. Now, with employment levels similar to where they were before the Covid-19 pandemic began, the focus for companies is shifting to retention. But the old way of thinking about retention just doesn't work anymore.

Earlier in the pandemic, the struggle to hire affected almost every industry. Business was booming in goods-related industries as consumers leaned heavily on ecommerce and delivery services. But in-person workers were confronting the risk of a deadly disease in the workplace, as well as requirements for personal protective equipment and vaccination. As a result, labor supply didn't always meet demand. And when the economy outside the home finally opened up again, millions of workers in service-related industries had moved on or left the labor force altogether.

Nowadays, the labor market as a whole is as tight as it was before the pandemic. The unemployment rate is exceptionally low again, and the share of adults with jobs is almost the same as it was in 2019. Workers have been able to pick and choose; the rate at which they quit their jobs peaked in April 2022 and is still higher than at any time on record before the pandemic. In our recent State of Hospitality Staffing report, almost half of survey respondents said they had lost 25% or more of their staff to churn in 2022.

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02/23/2024

PHOENIX – As layoffs and cost cuts roil Wall Street, from retail and shipping to tech and media, embattled online used car sales giant Carvana says its own restructuring is in the rear view.

Carvana over the last 18 months aggressively restructured its operations and debt amid bankruptcy concerns to pivot from growth to cost-cutting. They were crucial moves for the company and its largest shareholders, including CEO and Chairman Ernie Garcia III and his father, Ernie Garcia II. The two control 88% of Carvana through special voting shares.

The efforts thus far have been successful, propelling Carvana’s stock last year from less than $5 per share to more than $55 to begin 2024 – marking a significant turnaround for the company, but still a far cry from the stock’s all-time high of more than $370 per share reached during the coronavirus pandemic in 2021. Shares closed Thursday at $42.53.

“We have every intention of continuing to make progress and don’t expect to return to a situation like that,” the younger Garcia told CNBC about the company’s dire circumstances. “I think the pressure of the last two years caused us to really focus on the most important things.”

The Tempe, Arizona-based company has taken $1.1 billion of annualized expenses out of the business; reduced headcounts by more than 4,000 people; and launched a new proprietary “Carli” software platform for end-to-end processing of vehicle reconditioning as well as other “AI,” or machine learning, systems for pricing and sales. The systems replaced previous processes that involved manually inputting data into separate systems or spreadsheets.

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02/22/2024

Warner Music Group cut 600 jobs

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02/21/2024

In the bustling world of entrepreneurship, the dynamic duo and stand as pillars of resilience, showcasing the transformative power of unwavering support through the highs and lows of building dreams. ☁️❤️

Cheers to this powerful couple 🥂

02/21/2024

Every day, employees make decisions about whether they are willing to go the extra mile in ways that contribute to their organization’s success. These are important decisions because research shows that when employees are willing to go beyond their formal roles by helping out coworkers, volunteering to take on special assignments, introducing new ideas and work practices, attending non-mandatory meetings, putting in extra hours to complete important projects, and so forth, their companies are more efficient and effective. As a result, a critical task for successful managers is to motivate their employees to engage in these extra-role behaviors, which researchers refer to as “citizenship behaviors.”

Although the benefits of citizenship behavior for organizational performance are clear, the implications for employees are more equivocal. On the one hand, many employees perform acts of citizenship because they feel committed to and connected to their peers, supervisors, and organizations. Being a good organizational citizen can also be personally and professionally rewarding because it makes work more meaningful and invigorating and contributes to better performance evaluations. On the other hand, some studies have also shown that employees sometimes feel pressured to be good organizational citizens and may only do so in order to enhance their image. Moreover, going the extra mile can deplete employees’ resources, contributing to stress, work-family conflict, and citizenship fatigue. Recent research further suggests that employees who feel pressured to engage in citizenship may start feeling entitled to act out by engaging in deviant behaviors. Further, while employee citizenship is often associated with positive feelings, it can also impede employees’ ability to get their jobs done, which can undermine their well-being.

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02/21/2024

Discover the captivating journey of D’Andra and Jeremy , the entrepreneurial power couple redefining success and resilience! 🚀

D’Andra’s creative roots and Jeremy’s lens as a photojournalist formed the perfect synergy for their ventures. 📸 Their story is a testament to the beauty of unexpected connections and the transformative power of love in both personal and professional spheres.

Facing challenges head-on, they triumphed over hurdles in business ownership and the demanding nature of Jeremy’s photojournalism career. 💪 Their brands, and Ultimate Living, stand out through innovation, transparency, and a commitment to wellness.

💼 Balancing entrepreneurship and personal life, D’Andra and Jeremy emphasize the importance of setting boundaries, prioritizing mental health, and embracing failure as a stepping stone to success. 🧘‍♂️ Their advice inspires aspiring entrepreneurs to pursue passions ardently and stay connected to their purpose.

☁️ As they envision a future of growth and impact, their story ignites the entrepreneurial spirit within us all. 💫 Dive into their inspiring journey and join them in shaping a world where dreams know no bounds!

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