Well, hi, and welcome back to the Well-Resourced Woman, this special podcast series

that I'm hosting as a part of my Leadership is Feminine podcast. So if you are

here, I'm thrilled you found me in this little special spot that we've curated. And

today I wanna talk to you about one of the resources that I know a Well -Resourced

Woman leverages that I didn't really ever think about in the way that I now think

about it until I had recently been at a retreat and I had to do a writing prompt.

And I wrote this whole article blog, whatever you want to call it,

about when I was really young and I, my parents got divorced. And the very short

of the long, because if you're a podcast listener, you've heard me talk about this,

is that my mom and dad got divorced when I was pretty young. I was seven and my

mom had been working. She had worked off and on. She went to college. She got her

degree at Cornell in nutrition and home economics.

And so she had been the dietitian at University of Michigan when my dad was at

school there. And so she had worked prior to my parents splitting up.

But in 1976, '77, women still didn't have a lot of opportunities for things.

She couldn't get a credit card. She had to have a friend give her some money and

yada, yada, yada, a lot of extenuating circumstances. But nonetheless,

she and I moved into a two bedroom apartment and she knew she had to work full

time because my dad was not at the time providing any spousal support or alimony.

Again, 70s. I just don't think, by the way, as a side note,

I don't think women realize today how difficult it was as a woman.

just 40, 50 years ago to suddenly find themselves single. And the resources we now

have available to us, the ability for a personal agency that we now have,

my mom didn't have. And so on those days where you're feeling a little bit like

people are getting a little wily in this feminism movement and all the feminists,

Can we remember that it really was feminists who secured even your freedom to do

most of what you do today? Especially if you're a business owner, get alone, buy a

building, have a business without a man co -signing it. Anyway, I'm not going to go

too far down that rabbit hole. But nonetheless, my mom had to figure it out. She

got this apartment. I don't know who signed the lease for the apartment because I

don't think she could have by herself. I have to ask her that. She hired a woman,

a young woman. She was 18 to come and live with us. She was a student, so I

would have someone who would take care of me. So in exchange for rent and room and

board, this woman did that. So my mom didn't have to pay her. She was lovely. She

was an Ecuador. She's still a dear friend of the family. But my mom was able to

get a job and she was able to get a job at a leadership level. And the reason

that she was able to do that is A, she had a little bit of experience, but B,

she knew how to lead people. She knew how to corral the hearts and the minds and

the hands of other people to get work done.

And when you can lead, you can come into an organization, you can come into a

level of whatever that is and achieve more, get paid more, have more influence,

have more responsibility. But because she was able to do that, she was able to

secure a salary on a position that was how we were able to survive and live and

be fed and have clothes in a life. And so it wasn't until recently that I kind of

put that together that I was, I inherently understand the value of being able to

lead other people because I lived the experience of a daughter of a mother who

could do that.

And so when I started working and I, even when I was younger, and I would just watch women

abdicate their, their, their voice. So to me, that's what leadership is, is that I get a voice. I get to,

I get to claim space that I want to have in the room. Whether you like what I

have to say or not, doesn't matter to me. I get to have space. And I realized

even at a young age, there were so many young women who didn't want to do that,

didn't know how to do that, and didn't trust themselves to do that. And so the

next podcast I'll do will be on personal agency because these two go very closely

hand in hand, but leadership, knowing how to stand in your feet in your body with

your voice to achieve something through other people is a superpower.

And if you are running a company right now and you consistently abdicate your voice,

you consistently insult yourself in your own head about how terrible you are at

leading people. You consistently talk about how you wish you just didn't have to do

the stupid people part. You consistently

insult your beliefs about how people should respond,

the expectations that you should be able to hold. If you are constantly in this

swirl of self -doubt about how well you can stand in front of others and have a

voice, then this is your investment right now because a well -resourced woman

knows her leadership voice. She knows what her values are.

She knows what her expectations are. She knows what her vision is.

She has confidence in the invitations she extends to other people to come into her

kingdom. She doesn't settle. She doesn't tolerate.

Because I believe we were crafted to be leaders. I don't think that there's just,

you know, some women are better at it than others. I really do believe that women

were crafted to be leaders because women were built to be mothers.

Now, not all women are biological mothers and that's fine. I don't think the two

are required at all. I just think you're built for it,

that's all.

And because of that, that means that we have this innate knowing of how to guide,

Nurture, mentor, listen.

I don't think that skill, that part of who we are, that innate -ness is necessarily

something we have to build.

I, well, let me say that differently. I don't think it's a skill you have to go

get. I think you have it, you just have to nurture it. You have to develop it. It

needs to be developed in you, and it's developed through your self -discovery, your

own knowledge of yourself.

I actually think the opposite is more true. I think that all of us innately have

very strong leadership skill, but the world, the cultures we live in,

the society we're in, the religions that many of us practice, teach it out of you.

They teach you not to believe it, not to trust it, that you aren't meant for it,

that men are meant for it,

that men are meant to be leaders and women are not. And then in fact, women who

are leaders are unattractive, are unfeminine,

are antithetical to what womenhood is,

which you have to understand is a lie. And how do we know that?

Like, how do I know that so deeply, right? Could we just look at modern society

and find evidence that maybe I'm wrong, sure. But let's go back a few thousand

years where we know that women were actually regarded as the leaders,

as the inspirers, as the holy spiritual guides of communities,

the matriarch.

Now, I'm not suggesting that the world should just stop having men be in leadership

and women should take-- that isn't my mission. My mission is simply to help you

thrive in your voice as a woman. I don't need the men to be squashed.

I don't know why so many men and women think women should be squashed.

I don't get it.

Everybody can have a leadership voice. And then here's the best news, especially when

it comes to corporate space, company space, business space,

people, IE team members, they'll choose who they want to work for.

That's the whole reason we interview. They will choose.

So the best news is the better you get at being who you are, having your voice,

knowing your values, knowing your invitations that you're going to extend to people,

standing firmly in who you are as a leader. The best news ever is you just get

more delicious people who want to come work with you because they feel that

alignment with you. Sure, when you first started your business and you were just

trying to get people to come work and help you, like, you didn't know what you

were doing. And that's why you ended up with lots of people that work out.

Of course, but that's not because you're bad as a leader.

That's because the world did not show you, teach you, give you permission for show

you, give you pathways for how, how to lead as you authentically,

genuinely with confidence and competence and courage.

I should have never ever succeeded. Honestly, if I, if, If you look at how I was

as a new manager leader in the company that I worked in, I should have never

succeeded. I was a train wreck,

emotional, insecure,

mad, all the time, so frustrated, so boggled by people.

I was so inept. I should have never succeeded.

Too sensitive.

And it's honestly by the grace of the fact that there just wasn't a lot of

training that I had to figure it out. And the only way I knew how to figure it

out was to do it the way that I knew how to do it. And then I got rewarded with

some success. And that's all we need, right? It's just a little bit that says do

it this way and you do it that way and it works maybe

I'll try that again so this is what I want for you. I want you to understand that

I teach people how to become better as leaders has as woman women who stand in

their voice as a leader how to how to conduct yourself how to make decisions, how

to bring people into the team, how to let people go from the team, when to say

yes, when to say no. What is the best way for you? This is what I spend every

day of my life doing. And I do it because this to me is a core to your joy

and your freedom as a woman who is living on this planet, to feel capable of

achieving what you want is freedom.

And you don't have to look like him or her to do it. You can be you, but we

have to first acknowledge that a lot of you listening to this don't know what that

is. You don't trust your voice as a leader.

You doubt yourself every day as a leader.

You don't even think yourself as a leader. You're the business owner.

Surprise! You're in front. You're the leader.

So a well-resourced woman…she understands who she is as a leader.

And if that's work you need to do, then I'm so glad we've met. I'll talk to you on the next

episode.