Meet Kimberly Tanimoto | Micro-event planner, Pharmacist, and Yoga Instructor

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kimberly Tanimoto and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kimberly, how has your work-life balance changed over time?
I actually used to have a horrible work life balance.

I am a pharmacist as well, and at my old job I was working 50+ hours a week, not including being on call about 15 days every single month.

It was torture. I was only sleeping about 2-3 hours a night and my family life was struggling, but one day I woke up and I finally decided to quit my job and start something new.

I think work life balance is SO important. Your corporate 9-5 employer doesn’t really care about you like your family and friends do. I feel like our society has a huge burnout problem right now because they aren’t allowing themselves to have that work life balance that they need.

Of course everyone needs to work, but we all need to find a way to step back a tiny bit from our careers and focus more on our families, friends, and our own mental health.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I feel like I wear a million different hats!

I am a registered pharmacist with an MBA, and I am also an event planner and even a yoga instructor.

I feel like I have come a very long way in life. I grew up in New Hampshire and we did not have a lot of money growing up. The town was super small, and my high school graduating class had only about 80 kids in it. I ended up enlisting in the Air Force after graduating high school and served 4 years before medically discharging with a back injury. I have lived all over the country, and finally settled in the Southwest. I absolutely love the desert and do not miss living in the snow at all!

What I think sets me apart is I really try to put my heart and soul into everything that I do. I don’t like to do anything carelessly, because then, what’s the point? I also love to learn new things. You will constantly find me researching what I can do next or how I can tweak certain projects to get the perfect look. And I am also a perfectionist! I definitely have a type A personality and I will go above and beyond to make your event perfect. Attention to detail is so important, and I think the small details are what really sets your event apart and makes it more luxurious and special. I am really not a fan of the cookie cutter events where every single event is exactly the same. I want your event to be unique to you!

I have definitely faced a lot of challenges in life, like most people, but the most important thing is to keep going. Give yourself that time to grieve the loss, but then pick yourself back up and continue on. It is super cliche to say, but the old saying that when one door closes another one will open is SO true.

Be it a relationship ending, a death, losing your job, moving, whatever the challenge is, in that moment it always feels like the end of the world. It will feel like you will never recover or move on, but you will. Humans are extremely resilient creatures, or there wouldn’t be so many of us running around!!

There have been countless times in my life that I thought I would never recover from, and I did, and I am a much stronger person now because of it all.

It is also so incredibly important to surround yourself with good people and to pick the right partner. Those are the people who will help you get through those challenges as well.

My business is very new still, we haven’t even hit our one year mark yet, so I am sure there will be many challenges and failures along the way. But, I love what I do and I want to spread that joy to others as well and that is what will keep me motivated!

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
There are SO many different things to do in Vegas!

I think something epic to do would be to do a helicopter tour of the strip or of the Hoover Dam.

My favorite hotels are the Aria, the Venetian/Palazzo or the Cosmo

Almost anything food wise on the strip will be amazing! I don’t think I have ever had a bad meal there. CUT at the Palazzo is really good if you are looking for a steakhouse or the Golden Steer if you want an old school style steakhouse

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I would like to shoutout to my husband Eli. Without him I don’t know if I would have had the guts to quit my corporate pharmacist job and start something new!

He believes in all of my crazy dreams, no matter how big they are.

Website: northstarpicnicandevents.com

Instagram: @northstarpicnicandevents

Image Credits
Haley Nord Photography