Vanessa M. Patrick is Associate Dean for Research, Executive Director of Doctoral Programs, and Bauer Professor of Marketing at the C.T. Bauer School of Business, the University of Houston. Her award-winning research focuses on the strategies to achieve personal mastery and inspire everyday excellence in oneself and others, and she is a pioneer in the study of everyday consumer aesthetics. Dr. Patrick is author of The Power of Saying No: The New Science of How to Say No That Puts You in Charge of Your Life; she has been published widely in top-tier academic journals in psychology, marketing, and management; and her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, Los Angeles Times, Businessweek, Fast Company, Forbes, Huffington Post, and The Washington Post. She is President-Elect of the Society for Consumer Psychology. Dr. Patrick earned a PhD in business from the University of Southern California. She can be reached at vpatrick@bauer.uh.edu.