Women, Leadership, and Self-Worth

Hi, welcome. I’m Kris Plachy. This is Leadership Is Feminine, a podcast for female entrepreneurs who are learning all the things about team operations and CEO-ing, and being a woman all at the same time. Right? Hi. So, I’m so glad that you’re here. I have a lot on my mind, and so a lot of times for podcasts I start with a title, like I have this really clear idea of what I wanna talk about and this time I have sort of more concepts I wanna talk about and we’ll figure out what we’ll call it when I’m done.

So first of all, I am on the heels of just finishing CEO Immersion, which is the first time we did that. It was last week. We had CEOs and their operations managers, directors, varying different types of titles come together for three full days and honestly, evenings as well. That was how we designed it and it was very, very intense. A lot to cover. I’m sure we could spend five days, honestly, doing what we did. I don’t know if I could get the rest of you to believe me that you need five days, but it really was that kind of a workshop. It was a working experience and there were some things that happened that we expected. So we, we got everybody on the same platform to design and upload and create all their own internal operations systems for their teams.

So hiring, firing, job descriptions, job postings, processes they want team members to follow, their team book, accountability structures, performance reviews. We really covered a lot. I think we could have done a deeper dive on a lot of it. We created a knowledge base that we then shared with our clients so they have access to what we have, and then they can go in and duplicate those processes, but tweak them, you know, to their own sort of needs, et cetera, for their business.

So from that perspective, it kind of all went exactly as we thought it would. What we didn’t expect, which might surprise you that we didn’t expect it, was how important it was to have the founder there with their operator talking about leadership practices, leadership philosophies, how we think about how we hold people accountable, how we think about people not performing, what we tolerate from people.

The conversation was so wonderful and what I honestly felt so good about, because the CEOs that were in the room have all been working with us for quite some time, but the operators that were there have never had any development when it comes to leading. And it made me realize if you are the founder of a business and you don’t have an operator who’s managed people, you’re at a deficit, you’re, you’re handicapped. And that’s not their fault. And so this is, you know, it’s kind of one of those things again, like I’m sure you’re listening, thinking, ‘Duh, Kris Plachy’, and yet at the same time, it’s kind of ‘not duh’. Because I think we’re so focused on so many other things that to watch the operators in the room, you know, the ops folks and have these ahas and like, ‘Oh, that’s so good’, to realize that they need a lot of support if we wanna get you as the CEO founder to the place where I know you wanna go.

And so I think you can imagine that our brains, Michelle and I, we just exploded with like, okay. Holy moly, this is gonna be fun. So you can be sure we’re gonna do another immersion, has to be in person, you guys, and now we’re gonna do follow up support with them for three months. So that’s gonna be fun too.

But, If you were running a business and you have, you know, a person who is like your right hand, and that person can be very good at processes, but if that person doesn’t know how to manage people and have a complimenting philosophy to you, that’s a problem for you . And if it isn’t presenting yet, it will because you need them to be able to execute on the way that you want your team managed, right, without that knowing that similar knowing that you guys have, that’s an issue. So it was so powerful and I just have to tell you, there’s just something that happens when we’re in a room together and um, it was super cool cuz it was a group experience.

Everybody had their own table, each pair, and that’s how I would do it again. We were all together, but they were having their own unique experience and each of the people, each of the pairs that was there really went in different directions because they had different needs of where they were. So this is a tremendous learning experience. I’m sharing this with you because if you’re running a business and you’re listening to this, I think that at some point you’re gonna have to do something like this, whether you do it with me or not. The value was ridiculous. One of the pairs like really redesigned her business, which was super cool. One of our other pairs sort of realized they have gaps massive gaps that they have to fill. So really cool discovery, high level strategy, and so valuable to get out of your building, out of your space, out of your wherever, and get into another environment where that’s everything we’re doing. It’s like my client, Deborah calls it the tedious time, right? Like we just did the stuff that you’ve been dreading and we got it done. So that’s one thing I wanted to talk about.

The second thing I wanna talk about is you and your growth and your investment in yourself. I read this quote this morning and I’m, I’m sad, I don’t know who the quote was from, so forgive me that. And I’m also not gonna remember it verbatim, so there’s that. But basically the quote was, you know, women are half the population of the world, but we birth the entire population of the world. And I, I don’t know what that struck me, because I work with women and I work with confident women. Powerful women accomplished women. . And I also see those same women struggle with value, worthiness, intimidation, insecurity, and of course we all do. We’re human. That’s normal. And yet, I don’t think women appreciate how incredibly important we are. We live in a world that doesn’t want us to believe in how powerful we are.

This is, it’s sort of all, you know when you, I don’t know, in the movie, sometimes you watch people have all these things come into their brain all at once, right? It’s sort of this collective wisdom, and that’s what struck me in that very moment was, oh, wait a minute. The amount of authority and power that women could have if we chose to is beyond measure. That’s why we’ve spent centuries being minimized, literally beaten, hurt. Like, when you really think about women birth, everyone on this planet, and yet women don’t have a voice in so many parts of this world. What? What is happening? I don’t know what, that just was an awakening for me.

And so, you know, I can’t change the entire world, but I will do my best with y’all listening. And I have two things to say. First of all, if that’s you and you’re listening to this and you feel small and unseen and, and you feel like you’ve been disempowered, whether that’s personally or I even watch very successful women feel helpless in their own company.

You do not have to feel that way, but you need support and you need to get support from other women who get it and who will love you through that, not shame you in it or compete with you in it, or all the other crap that we know is out there. So that’s number one. I know that you’re there. I see you and I know that all of us have some level of wound that we’re healing, and a lot of us choose our own businesses to sort of be the healing of that. But in many ways we’re still stuck.

And the second thing I wanna say is, if you are one of the women who are part of this team that knows and believes that women need more support, I also want you to know, right, we’re not alone. There’s a lot of us and there’s a lot of women who have built successful businesses and find themselves kind of on the other side of that with a little bit of lostness. And this is, this is why I created the SAGE CEO program because the women who are in my SAGE program are incredibly successful and still continue to be. They’ve, reached these levels of success, and yet there’s this sort of restlessness or kind of an unsettledness to that. And I think part of that is because as women, we aren’t taught really how to understand ourselves and know ourselves and find value in ourselves just alone without needing to prove our value.

And I also think it’s part of the journey of being a successful business operator and founder is that discovery of who you are through that business. And then once the business doesn’t need you anymore, who are you? And so I’ve completely retooled our Sage CEO program to suit women like you in 2023. It’s a six month program. You can go to chrisplachy.com/sageinfo.

I’m meeting with people personally, you have to meet with me. And then we’re sending out invitations. I’m really excited about it, but mostly what I wanna share, that’s one offer, right? That’s one option. I run a mastermind called the Sage ceo. I’m a little reluctant to use the word mastermind simply because there’s patriarchy in it, you know what I mean? We’re gonna do a little, some retreats. We’re gonna do some meetups. It’s really the only place you’re gonna get private coaching with me, Voxer access, et cetera. Private coaching seems to be getting harder and harder to find, so if that’s something you’re interested in, go there.

But my point really is don’t white knuckle anymore. Find your people. Get connected. There’s so many women, like when I do Hawaii retreats, all the women talk about how they’re lonely. There aren’t other women like them where they are, which is why they love this experience so much. Right? So, and what we do, what I do, isn’t for everybody, and that’s okay too.

But find your people because women are so, we have so much more agency and authority than we are giving ourselves credit for, even really successful women. So I just want this to be your invitation as you think about 2023 and what you want for yourself. There are so many ways to leverage and connect with and tap into the collective wisdom of other gorgeous, beautiful women in their minds that I hope that you will extend yourself because the best gift you can give yourself and your business, and your people who love you is your own self growth, your own self understanding, your own self forgiveness, your own empowerment. There’s nothing more important than the people who you love having a mom or a wife or a partner, or a sister or a daughter who is safe with herself.

And so I just beg you to take care of yourself because I just see too many of us dismissing how amazing we are, and I don’t wanna see that anymore. But just the hurdle of you believing that that $5,000 or that $10,000 or whatever it is, that you are worth it. That hurdle alone is, it’s silly when I know that you would spend that money on other things.

So just really, really just take, I hope you take that to heart. Love on yourself, Mama. What do you need? Because we are half the world, but we birth the entire world . That’s my new favorite thing and I’m gonna say it all the time. So, all right. I’m so glad you tuned in. We’ll have to figure out a title for this podcast cuz I don’t know what it should be, but mostly it was my musings after such an incredible week with immersion. And then, just how important I think who we. And what we do and why we’re here. I think it’s so important that we all remember that. So, have a wonderful, wonderful day.

Hey, entrepreneur, you started that gorgeous business of yours to do some really good in the world. You probably didn’t start your business to manage people. But here you are having to figure out how to manage people to get work done, and maybe it’s not going so well. So head on over to chrisplachy.com/howtoceo, and let’s talk about how we can help you learn how to lead, manage, hire, fire, and all the things so that you can build a team that expands on your amazing dream.