Earned Wisdom! For Accomplished Leaders

#9 Forget The Story of You Cannot, Because You Can!

Who’s the good girl and who’s the bad? I was always bad and tried to be good. I just did not fit in with the idea of good although, I was not out in the world doing bad things 24/7. I just questioned authority. I questioned the status quo and at times I felt I could do a better job at my work or in saving the world than others. You too? Cool you’re in the right place!

You may have felt this way, and yet there is a part of you waiting to be proven wrong. Not the mature adult you, but that old part that was conditioned to “girls need to fit in and take care of others first.” Among so many other messages that did not serve you.

The obstacles you place in your way start with you having to be the leader—yes you…if you were like me you were president of all your childhood clubs, you were inventing clubs for people to belong to…you were director and lead actress of all your plays as a little kid and so on….I always had to be in control but who knew then what my trajectory was going to be?

I did.

I marched to my own band. I also saw things from a different perspective, as many female leaders do. The issue only became an issue when I had to get others on my team to get as excited about things, that is when I started to sacrifice myself and say sorry, or worry I was wrong or bad, because someone disagreed with how I did my job or ran my business. Yes, always waiting to be found out but let me apologize in the meantime. 

#8 The Formula for Success Does Not Include Emotional Isolation

Do you believe success requires you to separate yourself from your feelings? I’ve seen it happen time and time again where female leaders and entrepreneurs have trouble connecting with unwanted feelings once they’ve attained a certain level of success for fear of losing what they have worked so hard to build. Instead, these women bury themselves in more projects and compartmentalize their feelings, hoping it will simply pass. Not only is this NOT tied to success, disconnecting from your feelings also creates emotional isolation from others.

In this episode I debunk the myth that you have to stuff your feelings (and simply “put up with things” or pound it out at the gym) rather than acknowledging them and… eek!… speaking up. A successful and effective leader is connected to herself, allowing others to see and know her truth. It takes courage, but I’ve got an exercise to get you started.

#7 Stopping the Vicious Cycle of Competition and Comparison. Yep—You Can be Successful No Matter WTF is Going on.

This podcast came from my observations, my own life and being involved in how women say they support each other, but a lot of the reality (NOT ALL) is there is so much infighting that it makes it impossible to stay consistently on HER team, whoever she is without talking behind her back, after all a nice girl does not disrupt the status quo among women. A good woman lets the hierarchy remain and sucks it in, or spouts it off in ways that end up being beyond her control.

 

This of course is societal in terms of the environment we are raised in, women don’t need to fight men…they need to stop fighting themselves.

 

When you stop focusing on the struggle presented by a situation you have with another or other women and focus on creation, love and growth…..your world changes, but it doesn’t feel innate because of our condition. 

 

The conditioning of a patriarchal society. Now this is not about complaining about that, as I am not about the struggle.

 

It is about starting with how harsh a judge or an asshole you are to yourself. When you are a dick to yourself, and feel your value is only defined by what you achieve, have or are connected to….you have an opportunity to change your entire life and not only become a true support to other women but to stop being victimized by all the bullshit society saddles on women. 

#6 Forget the Story of No, Yes You Can!

You may be successful as a mom or as a doctor or a neuroscientist or even an entrepreneur—anything that has been your north star, but maybe you wanted to embody more or have a different occupation…. somewhere, somehow someone said it was not possible for you. 

 

As young girls we are often given a lot of mixed messages about what is possible, and this is from our home environment, society, teachers, entertainment, peers and so on…ya know…. are you a girly girl or a tom boy situation?

 

At the time, the person who gave you an uninspiring message may have felt threatened or was parroting what their perspective on girls was based on their exposure. It could even have come from someone who failed at what you want and so you were convinced not to do it. You got the idea that unless a path opened up that ensured success in that direction, it was a no-go for you! You needed to either rebel and show everyone you could do it, or conform in many cases to do what was expected. 

 

I mean if the statistic is true that 7 in 10 women want to change their careers or 73% of women…what does it say about the first choice we made? Who’s choice was it?

 

Even in some families girls are given labels—she’s the smart one, she’s the pretty ones and then it is the rock we trip over—what was possible for a sibling from your family’s perspective is not necessarily possible for you. 

#5 I’m Successful, but I Secretly Want to Be Taken Care Of

Some independent, successful, smart women feel something is missing in their lives. No matter how many degrees they have, or how much money they make, there is still a little girl inside wanting someone else to provide for them. They want someone to fill that emptiness inside. If you are one of these intelligent, successful and driven women, this is NOT something you want to admit. It feels weak and shameful. Some of this is biological: men are providers. But is that the whole story?

For women who have made it on their own, there is still an insecurity about maintaining success, and feeling like they don’t deserve the success they achieved. Some fear failure or being found out as a phony. So… having a man to fall back on sure would feel more secure, right? Believing we are limited in what we can have, yet lacking in some way if we don’t achieve it, is toxic. Listen to this episode where I talk about the paradox of success and the desire to be taken care of. Why does it still exist, and how can we address it in an honest, empowering way?

WAKEUP STATEMENT (#wakeupstatement)
Waiting for someone else to provide for you can result in a life of walking on eggshells, rather than seeing opportunity outside the illusion.

#4 Asking for Help Doesn’t Make You a Damsel in Distress

Help can be hard to ask for, especially for women. You don’t want to give your power away or appear weak, so you go the other direction and take on way too much. You overcompensate and make sure there is no room for someone else to step in. You create challenges, look busy, break your back—except no one really notices you’re doing it, so you just exhaust yourself. Maybe you feel shame for what you don’t know or what you don’t understand, and having someone explain it would reveal you’re fallible; something you desperately need to keep hidden. But going it alone isolates you from others, which isn’t a good thing when you’re trying to get ahead.

So what’s the alternative? How do you ask for help without appearing like a damsel in distress? That’s what we will explore in this episode. We’ll also look at some of the barriers women face in asking for help and why we feel this way. As with so many challenges we encounter, a lot of it comes down to value and self-worth. If you are confident in who you are and what you bring to the table, asking for help won’t feel like a knock on your abilities. You’ll see it for what it truly is: an act of courage.

WAKEUP STATEMENT (#wakeupstatement)
You can do it alone with the weight of the world, or you can be courageous, be you and engage the village.

#3 Women Are the Future; If We Would Just Get Out of Our Own Way

100 years after women won the right to vote in the U.S., we are still behind much of the world. In the political sphere and elsewhere, we hold ourselves back and dim our light. But why? Is it due to lower levels of encouragement from others? Demanding household obligations? Self-doubt? Waiting for permission? All of these play a role in taking the backseat, along with our judgment of other women. We tend to measure them as brutally as we measure ourselves (which is pretty harsh—am I right?). When we hold ourselves and others to such high standards, it makes it harder to support women in positions of power.

For women to be the future, we need to look at our own lives. Do you treat yourself fairly and have empathy for your mistakes? Do you seek validation from others or give it to yourself? In this episode, we will look at how to stop hindering our progress. Self-doubt is huge for women, but we can work through it by acknowledging its existence and choosing to say “yes” anyway. It is our beliefs and perception, not reality, that holds us back… which means we have the power to change things.

Wakeup Statement (#wakeupstatement)
Whether you are a leader right now or not, where is the ceiling for you? Blast off baby—it’s time to shatter it!

#2 The Voodoo of Being Called Selfish

According to a survey of American women, 1/3 spend 30 minutes per day or less doing nurturing activities for themselves, while 3/4 spend up to 10 hours daily caring for others. Why do we believe we deserve less than the people we care about? Why is taking a bath, reading a book, or any self-care activity considered selfish, and therefore something we need to justify? For a lot of us, it goes back to childhood. You may have been called selfish for something you did, feeling shame and embarrassment, vowing not to put yourself ahead of others again. This led to a life of prioritizing others while you settled for whatever was left. It probably also pushed you into people-pleaser and/or rescuer mode so you would never dare be called selfish again.

When you put yourself last, your unselfish acts can build resentment. You bitch and complain because you’re depleted, but working your ass off in this way will not win you any awards. You also start to believe you don’t deserve what you want. In today’s episode, we’ll look at how selfishness itself is not the problem; it’s our relationship with it. Doing small, selfish acts that feel uncomfortable is how you start to change that relationship. Isn’t it time we stop treating “selfish” like a four-letter word and give ourselves what we need to thrive in this life?

Wakeup Statement (#wakeupstatement)
If you fear being selfish, you will always feel like you do right now.

#1 Women and The Issue With Asking For More Money On The Job

Women are brought up to be good. Most are brought up to take care of others. Did I do a good enough job? Am I okay? This is how a woman has gotten validation for the most part. The idea of putting everyone before you and you come last makes it hard to believe someone else will find value in you. It's a feeling. The feeling of never getting there and needing someone else to say yes. A woman recently said, they offered me the job and I asked for $500.00 more a month; is that okay? What are we settling for when it comes to our fear of asking for MORE? Tune in to find out how to ask for more money on the job or in your business.