Woman of the Week – Toni Eberhardt

My Name: Toni J. Eberhardt

My Current Job/Company: PetSmart Corporation; Senior Manager, Public Relations & Social Media

My Birthday: January 18, 1969

My Work: Marketing & communications professional with a current focus on consumer public relations and social media in the retail space.

My Passion: A healthy lifestyle, which for me, means supporting my personal health through eating well and staying active doing the things I love (travel, reading, movies, working out) and surrounding myself with what I love most- my family, close friends and pets.

My Family: Lee, my two stepchildren, Tessa and Evan, my Mom and my pets, Toby (dog), Kirby, Reilly and Luigi (our three cats)

My Heroes: I have two heroes with one being my Mom, Rita Eberhardt. She is a strong, intelligent woman who has overcome amazing obstacles in life to create a stable, rich life for herself and for me as her daughter.

My other hero is the “great communicator,” President Ronald Reagan. As a leader, he demonstrated exceptional poise and an ability to consistently keep his eye on the bigger picture and collaborate to bring opposing forces together to achieve that vision willingly and enthusiastically. His ability to communicate with the unparalleled balance of empathy, humility, confidence and conviction in any forum- one to one with world leaders or to an audience of millions as Commander-in-Chief- enabled him to change history and inspire the visionary in each of us.

My Escape: Travel. Going to a new place and introducing one’s self to new cultures and views is the great escape and greatest opportunity to put life into perspective and grow spiritually, emotionally and intellectually.

My Pet Peeve: I am a communications professional- improper grammar, of course!

My Indulgence: Spa trips- a facial and a massage are on the “must do” list each month and body wraps quarterly. I mark each off my ”to do” list without fail.

My Roots: I am a Phoenician through and through, having turned down multiple career opportunities that included moves to places such as Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco and Chicago to stay in Scottsdale, Arizona. I love to travel and explore new places but I always smile proudly when the wheels hit the ground and the pilot welcomes us to Phoenix.

My Future: TBD. I have learned the hard way to focus on today to build a foundation that will lend itself to creating more opportunities, personally and professionally, than I could imagine for tomorrow. I have an interest in becoming an author as well as pursuing public affairs and/or public office. Most of all, my biggest interest is in learning more about me each day.

My Love(s): Lee Weiss. I waited a very long time to meet the love of my life but I got lucky over two years ago and met him, and he came with an incredible bonus – two children providing me the opportunity to experience having children and helping two young people grow in confidence and curiosity for life.

My Movie: “Something’s Gotta Give” ……. Just when I thought I had life figured out and had no need for a relationship, a man stepped in and showed me how much more of myself I could know if I was willing to share my heart.

My Quote on Life: “Smile. It’s makes people wonder what you’ve been up to!”

My Accessory: Toby, my dog. She’s not a purse dog, either! She is a German Shepherd who has been an amazing addition to my life. I adopted her from a rescue organization that was at a PetSmart store nearly 6 years ago (before I worked for PetSmart).

My Advice to Young Women: Get to know yourself, stand on your own two feet and don’t worry about how old you are and the proverbial “clock” ticking. Learn something new about yourself each day, and life will open more doors than you could plan with amazing people for you to choose.

How I Balance it All: Balance: A work in progress. Less than two years ago, I was single and all was balanced. Now, I work full-time and have a family, and I am still working to find that balance between taking care of me, work and my family. The key is holding myself accountable for the right things and not holding myself to standards that are unreasonable or unnecessary. Practically speaking, using my Outlook calendar to block out time for what is most important relative to work, my family and me has been the best way to drive balance. I don’t have a work calendar and a personal calendar. There is only one me so there can only be one calendar.