Strong Women, Powerful Choices – Rita Wilkins, Andra Douglas

Lifestyle design expert and interior designer Rita S. “The Downsizing Designer” Wilkins designed a life she loves by moving from a 5,000-square-foot home to a 687-square-foot apartment. She calls it "fearlessly living with 95% less" so she could have it all! Rita's TEDx talk, “Downsize Your Life: Why Less is More,” shared the profound impact of her decision. In 35+ years of experience, Rita has designed hundreds of interiors from kitchens and baths, to corporate penthouses and Supreme Court Justice Chambers.www.designservicesltd.com

Can a good Southern girl play tackle football? No one knows better what it's like for a woman to break into a traditionally male sport than Andra Douglas. A national champion athlete in rugby and women's tackle football, she was the owner of the New York Sharks Women's Pro Football team for 19 years and is the founder of the Fins Up! Foundation for Female Athletes, a non-profit to benefit at-risk teens. Andra is also a professional artist and served as a Vice President/Creative Director at Time Warner for  years. Today, she lives with her parrot, 'Pie' in New York’s Greenwich Village where she creates mixed-media artwork. Her new book, BLACK & BLUE, is a powerful novel about fortitude and determination, a coming-of-age story for a new generation of women, loosely based on Andra's own story of how she overcame countless personal and financial sacrifices to achieve her dream of playing football. www.andradouglasart.com