Weber State University’s annual leadership conference, Project Lead, hosted around 150-200 students Feb. 11 through Feb. 13.

The conference was themed “To Aspire,” and students worked on a service project making hygiene kits.

Feb. 12 was a day of seminars. The students were shuffled and sorted into various rooms to participate in learning workshops. Before concluding the conference, all of the participants reconvened in the Student Union Ballrooms to listen to the final keynote speaker, Jennie Taylor, the widow of former North Ogden Mayor Brent Taylor.

The news of her husband’s death came unexpectedly, as he was nearing the end of his deployment. Taylor recounted her experiences of raising their seven children alone while their home underwent major reconstruction.

Taylor spoke about the ever-changing events in life and rediscovering oneself and one’s skills, passions, paths and goals.

“There’s no before and after in life because we’re never really done,” Taylor said. “We celebrate finish lines, even in a marathon. But I’m here to talk today about this personal inventory in life and about how we never really finish.”

Taylor presented an object lesson with a jar, rocks and sand. In this object lesson, the rocks represent the big, important things in life, the sand represents the smaller more flexible things and the jar represents one’s capacities and time management.

If one pours all the sand into the jar first, then places the rocks in, they will run out of space for the big things. But, if one puts the rocks in first, and then pours in the sand, it will fill in the cracks and there will be time and space for all of it. Taylor brought up that some of those big things will come at a time that is unexpected.

“We try to put the big rocks in first, and then we put in the little rocks and then we pour in the sand, but that only works if we’re given all the rocks and sand at the beginning,” Taylor said.

Taylor’s goal was to motivate the audience to get past the idea of a singular finish line, but rather change the perspective of life into an ongoing process of persistent change and utilizing personal inventories to self-reflect.