Heroine

The new season will begin on Thursday, June 18th. It’s going to be a good one! Here’s who we’ll have on the show:
Amy Yeung | Navajo Fashion Designer & Activist
Rana el Kaliouby, PhD | Egyptian-American Computer Scientist
Elise Loehnen | Chief Content Officer at GOOP
Coco & Breezy | Twin Designers & Founders of Coco and Breezy Eyewear
Brit Morin | Founder & CEO of Brit+Co
Randi Zuckerberg | Founder & CEO of Zuckerberg Media
Krista & Lindsay | Hosts of the Almost 30 Podcast
Sophia Amoruso | Founder & CEO of Girlboss
Monica Padman | Actress & Co-host of the Armchair Expert Podcast
Shan Boodram | Sex Educator & Dating Expert
Gretchen Rubin | Bestselling Author & Happiness Expert
Byron Katie | Spiritual Teacher
Martha Beck, PhD | Bestselling Author & Life Coach

How do you design a book cover and icons that encapsulate the message of women breaking their good girl myths to unleash their power? Go behind the scenes as Majo, her editor from HarperOne and design collaborator Vanessa Koch from paladarstudio.com to create the book cover and special icons to her new book Break the Good Girl Myth available NOW for pre-order at goodgirlmyth.com –!

I’ve asked many of you a simple question: Have you thought about striking out on your own and starting your own business (freelance, studio, consulting, coaching, company, startup, etc.) in the future? About 98% of you say yes. So, then comes the follow-up question: Well, how come you haven’t started today?

What do you think is the most common response? While there are many excuses around readiness, and enjoying the stability, prestige, and recognition of your current job, the most common reason you haven’t started: you’re waiting for clarity. Some “I don’t know’s” that are stalling you: I don’t know where to focus, I don’t know which interests to pursue first, I don’t know where or how to begin, I don’t know where my strengths lie, and I don’t know if this can make money.

What are the strategies you’ve used to gain clarity? Here are some I’ve heard:

Journaling

More trainings

Meditation

Vision boarding

Conversations

Retreats

Nothing, just waiting!

Now, these are all lovely and needed strategies, but they’re far, far too passive. Sorry. You need a little fire under your butt. A little pep in your step. A little sprinkle on your latte (too much?).

The good news is there is a method to this ambiguous madness. Designers (inventors, creatives, scientists!) have been using a method for a very long time.

Designers know that clarity doesn’t come from waiting, it comes from making.

What if you could define a project for yourself, and break it into prototypes you can test, in order to get clarity about whether it’s the direction you want, and in order to course-correct from there?

Clarity comes from taking action first. You start with action. And the most powerful action you can take is to make something, throw it at someone, and see how they react.

Now, even prototyping and testing has its fair share of vulnerability involved, doesn’t it? What if people judge you? What if you are the laughing stock of the whole class as you run around naked in that nightmare which has now become real life? That’s why in order to move into this approach, we also need to strengthen our creative confidence muscle (by learning how to manage fear and resistance).

It’s the combination of understanding our resistance (e.g., doing the inner work) with the actual, making and testing of our ideas (e.g., doing the outer work) that will get us results.

I’m really excited to personally invite you to my second pilot of IGNITE – a 12-week program that supports female leaders in defining, testing, and ultimately sharing their creative ideas and gifts with the world while working full-time. You don’t need to quit your day job, take on a huge financial risk, or make a crazy career pivot to design your purpose. By sharing your gifts, you design your unique creative purpose and translate that into actionable steps in your career.

IGNITE IS FOR...
A female, creative professional

A leader such as a manager, lead, director, or executive

Between the ages of 28 - 40

Someone who wants to make a difference and have an impact

An empathic woman who cares deeply for others and the world

Someone who is willing to invest time and money into up-leveling themselves

IT’S NOT FOR...
A founder or entrepreneur already engaged in your creative purpose

A coach

A college or graduate student

Someone who is not working (e.g., unemployed)

Someone who thinks personal growth is too “woo woo”

Someone who isn’t willing to put in the work and take action to design a better life

WHAT WILL WE DO?
Stage 1: Lose Good Girl & Fear Mentality (CLEAR)

In this stage, we clear good girl mentality, fears, and excuses and replace them with new, empowering beliefs that you can carry forward into your life. Inner work and self-discovery is the foundation.

Outcome: A unique Creative Badass Daily Ritual (CBDR) tailored to you so that you can reprogram any negative, fear-based beliefs about sharing your gifts through daily guided meditations, affirmations, and mantras throughout the program.

Stage 2: Design Your Creative Purpose Project (CPP) (DESIGN)

Here we design and define a timeline, three prototypes, and final launch date for a project that is rooted in your creative purpose (what I’ll call your “Creative Purpose Project”) based on the self-discovery above.

Outcome: A CPP Brief which includes a timeline, launch date, and three increasingly challenging prototypes that encapsulate your creative purpose.

Stage 3: Ignite Your Creative Purpose Project (IGNITE)

In this final stage, we test our ideas with real people, get feedback, launch our CPP, and build our creative confidence. We gain clarity from ACTION.

Outcome: New insights from putting your CPP into practice resulting in the formulation of a 12-month Creative Purpose Plan to take beyond the program, including your aspirational Creative Legacy Statement (e.g., “North Star”) you can carry forward.

The 12-week journey

Week 1: Setting Up for Success

Week 2: Identify Fears & Excuses

Week 3: Reprogram Fears & Excuses

Week 4: Define Prototypes & Launch

Week 5: Finalize Your CPP Brief

Week 6: Run Prototype 1

Week 7: Run Prototype 2

Week 8: Run Prototype 3

Week 9: Prototype Analysis & Prep for Final

Week 10: Final Launch

Week 11: Debrief

Week 12: Design 12-Month Career Action Plan

FORMAT
A weekly group coaching call

12 weeks

A curriculum & training with weekly assignments

Communication and mentorship between sessions (e.g., Slack)

For many years, I’ve guided private clients through this journey and am excited to offer it for the first time in a group format.

If you’re curious to learn more and are ready to take action, then sign up for a free Creative Purpose Design Session by heading to my website- Majo.co and clicking Let's Chat (limited spots, available next week only) to experience some of this process.

Let’s go!

Excited to connect with you.

Hi Heroine,

Imagine you worked so hard building a startup you really believed in and then it crashed. Would you keep going until you succeeded or give up?

My guest today is Vanessa Larco who decided to keep going. When regulatory changes killed her startup she fled to Greece for two weeks, to swear off Silicon Valley forever.

That’s when people there assumed, in her sad state, that she was a bride who had been left by a man at the altar – a wake-up call that lead her to stop mopping around and return the world of product and startups, which eventually lead her to receive an unexpected offer to become partner at a top venture capital firm, NEA. In fact, Vanessa is now one of the few female, Latina investors in Silicon Valley, which is a big deal.

Women of color are the fastest-growing sector of the entrepreneurial market but they receive less than 2% of the capital because 99% of venture capitalists are men, particularly white men. There are so many products and services that never have a chance to get off of the ground because of the lack of diversity in this sector, which is why we need smart women like Vanessa on the inside.


HIGHLIGHTED EXCERPT:

Vanessa: I never thought I would be here.

Majo: It sounds like it. Now, Vanessa, I know there are some listeners who might be thinking like “I could’ve never taken that role and would’ve felt like such an impostor”. Did you feel that or like you could learn it?

Vanessa: Every job I’ve had, I’ve had major impostor syndrome and tons of anxiety, to be honest. I look back and realize I figured out a lot of things and there’s a lot of things I didn’t figure it out but I learned a ton in a very short amount of time. I’ve kinda just made peace with the impostor syndrome. I don’t think it ever goes away. I just think that now I’m aware of it and have the confidence in myself to be able to embrace it.

Have you ever felt like the deck was totally stacked against you and it just made you more determined to succeed? This is one of the main themes for my guest Cathy Heller. She gets really real and vulnerable so grab your favorite tea and settle in.

Her story so clearly shows the heroine’s journey from the dark hopelessness of being told she couldn’t succeed, that her sister was the talented one. The only time her parents paid attention to her was to complain about each other. Even after having been dropped by two record labels she refused to give up. 

Instead, she was scrappy and figured out how to create contacts with the people choosing music for television, movies, and advertisements. In her twenties, she managed to build a business making multi-six-figures a year and ended up running an online school to help other creatives do the same. 

She wrote an incredible book that comes out November 12th so make sure to snag a copy of Don’t Keep Your Day Job which talks about designing a way to contribute to the world that is personal and relevant to YOU. 

Her perspective of purpose being the opposite of depression has helped thousands understand that as humans, we are happiest when we are contributing to other people.

HIGHLIGHTED EXCERPT

Cathy: What I did have was a cautionary tale. I had two parents who were miserable and a mom who didn't want to be here anymore with 911 calls and suicide hotline calls from her. So that was the driving force of “Oh I will not put my dreams on the back burner because it doesn't work. And I will not be invisible anymore or else I will be broken forever. So I have to do this. My life depends on it”.

Majo: So, you decide to move to Las Angeles to pursue a career in music. And at this point are you writing your own songs?

Cathy: Not really, maybe a couple, like I started right around then. I came out here and started to ask questions like “How do you get a record deal?” and I thought that was the only way to make a living was to get a record deal. I just started trying to figure out how to do it. My husband says I have the will of a small country like if I'm going to do something I commit. I ended up getting a record deal at Interscope and it was amazing. I remember being like “OMG! I’m here.” I was actually sitting with Lady Gaga at Sunset Sounds, which is a recording studio. She was recording Paparazzi and I had just gotten signed. I couldn't believe it; they were asking me like what kind of coffee I wanted and I was like “Wow, I'm the next person to record a record.” And then I got dropped from the label about three months later.

Happy Halloween witches! We’re continuing with female archetypes (and stereotypes!) in old fairy and folk tales. We started with this series last season with the Queen and Princess Archetypes (make sure to check them out if you haven't already for context) and this is the last part of that series.

Today, on the witch’s new year – Samhain, we are going to look at the witch and the hermit archetypes. They’re more connected than you might think.

The witch needs very little introduction. She is in practically every fairy tale by the Grimm Brothers. She’s cruel, conniving, solitary and sometimes, connected to the evilest forces in the world. And in 1692, life imitated art in a big way. An entire community of settlers in Salem, Massachusetts decided that witches were real, and needed to be killed.

But where did this idea come from?

I caught up with my friend Becca Piastrelli to learn a bit more about how witches got the reputation they have today. Becca is the host of the Belonging Podcast and she and I have been circling on the new moon for years now.

"It’s a campaign that’s happened for centuries, many generations from basically the rise of Christianity and capitalism in Europe that specifically targeted women who were healers, and midwives and really powerful beings in the community. Ones that people respected and looked up to, maybe they even owned land. And it wasn’t just women, sometimes it was queer men or two-spirit or genderfluid folk. Anyone who didn’t fit the patriarchal paradigm.

There was a very calculated campaign to turn the people against them in their earth ways. This is known as the burning time which in many ways is still happening today. Where you hear the term witch hunt in media or popular culture or even see how it’s displayed in media. It’s really something that has been embedded in our ancestral memory for many many generations. "


As Christianity grew across Europe, the Church demonized these women and connected them to dangerous, evil forces. It was classic scapegoating. Talking to Becca got me thinking about scapegoating, and I realized, there’s a good reason for men to fear us. Women are connected to the Goddess...and to childbirth...and men are not.

So how must it have felt - to be a respected, practicing healer and midwife one day - and called an evil witch - the next? That is why I believe when we meet witches in fairy tales, they are often alone. They live in solitude, in the forest - remember, that’s where the medicines were - scheming, angry and isolated. Basically, the happy midwife becomes a resentful hermit.

Have you ever felt like a hermit, Heroine, all alone? The Hermit isn’t all bad - not at all. The bright side of the hermit is that she’s also a mystic. She goes into the forest for some much needed alone time - to reconnect with her spiritual side. She goes there to tend to the parts of herself that are precious, and need protection.

But the dark side of the Hermit is avoidance and fear. Keeping people out because they might hurt you. It starts as a punishment for those who have wronged you, but ends up mostly, hurting you.

I believe this split - between connected, centered, community-surrounded healer, and betrayed, mystical, and isolated witch - must be healed in each of us.

Just think - have you ever been passive-aggressive? Have you said something underhanded, but in a nice way, and not understood why you did it? That has to do with the complicated origins of the witch. She wants to fully express herself - thorns and all - but she knows that patriarchy will cast her out and make her quiet if she does.

Well, I want to reclaim the witch archetype within each of us, as so many others have been doing and continue to do today. A witch is creative, she’s complicated, and she’s been to the depths. So whether you’re cooking a large meal and it feels like you’re listening to your grandma tell you a recipe, or you’re listening to your intuition fully, and without judgment, I want you to lean in...to the witch. Hard. Whether you’re a modern witch, with a coven and a spellbook, or just witch-curious, it’s all good.


So what about you, Heroine? Do you identify with the witch?

A big thank you to Meg Rose who helped score this special Samhain episode!

Hi Heroine,

One of the things I’ve been thinking about lately is how the practice of astrology could help me step up as a leader. How could it help me broaden my impact and align with my purpose? And that’s a huge part of what my guest Debra Silverman opens up by applying astrology in a practical way to our lives. Debra holds an M.A. from Antioch University in Clinical Psychology and trained for her mental health credentials at Harvard University.

What’s super interesting about astrology is that for thousands of years it was primarily practiced by men but in recent times, we’ve all seen the shift – women practice it far more than men – and Debra has been a driving force in training women to combine both their analytical and intuitive gifts in order to become astrologists. It’s really inspiring to see how she shifted from private practice as a psychologist for over 40 years to building a scalable business and school online that certifies thousands of mostly women. In other words, she’s kicking ass. In this episode, you’re going to learn about the Saturn return (if you don’t know what that is, you’ll so find out) and how much it affects you and your destiny, even if you don’t recognize it at the time.

HIGHLIGHTED EXCERPT

Debra: Don’t underestimate- I wish someone would have told me that if you have a passion, whatever it may be, something that you really pour yourself into- that does come into a reaping cycle eventually.

Majo: I want to talk to you about that transition that you made. You were doing private practice as a clinical psychologist and an astrologer for multiple decades.

Debra: That’s right, 38 years.

Majo: And then you shifted to scaling and in large part because we’re in a special time as well with all the technology and tools. With so much of your business online, tell me a little more about the shift and how that happened. I hear the energetics of it but I'm curious was there particular characters or moments?

Debra: Fate showed up and introduced me to Destinee Berman who I now have a meeting with every Monday morning. It’s karmic- fate has a file for each of us and if you open it you can see the destiny lines. So she opened mine and said “Have you ever heard of an online school?” and I didn’t know what she was talking about. She then helped me do a “skinny launch”- just my email list and in that first class there were 40 women and now it’s grown to thousands.

Hi Heroine,

Today’s podcast episode is a minisode, where I share the three elements you need to become creative badass like the women who come onto the show.

These elements will be helpful to each and every one of you. But I especially want to invite you to read closely if you are a creative female professional who is a leader at her company, what I mean is you’re in a senior or lead creative role, a manager, director, or executive. As you go into your work day after day, you’ve been asking yourself a few questions such as “Is this all there is?” “What’s next? What’s beyond this?” and “Am I making the most out of my potential?” and my favorite, “Could I start my own fill-in-the-blank” whether that’s a conference, a podcast, a book, a business...

Even though you’re kicking ass at work, and you have a ton of responsibility, and you’re achieving and hitting milestones, deep down you feel like something is missing, something key, and you can’t put your finger on it. Of course, you have a ton of ideas of your own...brilliant ideas, and thoughts, and opinions, but you find yourself keeping them under wraps, to yourself, hidden...stowed away.

Far too many women with incredibly creative ideas and skills aren’t tapping into them and putting them out into the world, whether it’s their art or creative problem-solving. And it’s painful– on a soul level – to be unexpressed.

Think about it. What is the cost to you when you hold back your gifts and leave so much of your potential untapped? It’s a steep price.

Funny story I’ve been sharing recently, I used to have to wear sunglasses at my 9-to-5! Yes, I wore sunglasses inside because I was far too sensitive and creative to be put in a cage. As a little girl, I was creative and for many years completely suppressed that part of myself because I became a “good girl” and studied what I thought would be the safe path and what my parents wanted me to do. After a lot of soul searching, I was able to start a six-figure business, launch a podcast where I interview award-winning artists and authors, and land a publishing deal with a top publisher and write a book...I would not have been able to do all that if I was still being a good girl. I made bold, professional moves towards my mission that would change my life and impact other people too.

But here’s the thing, like the heroine’s journey, this does not happen overnight. It takes steps. And I want to share with you the three things that women need in order to start on this journey towards owning themselves as creative badasses.

Ready?

The first is you have to clear. What do I mean by clear? You have to clear out all the negative blocks, fears, and excuses that are getting in the way of sharing your gifts. The one that most just drives me crazy is “It’s not the right time to share my gifts.” Newsflash! If you’re waiting to feel ready, you’ll wait until your deathbed. You have to do the inner work to reprogram your mind to success.

The second is you have to design. We do not discover our creative purpose, we actively design it. You need to define a creative purpose project that feels scary enough but not paralyzing. It needs to be something that is going to grow and stretch your creative confidence. This project is the physical embodiment of an idea that you have.

The third is you have to ignite. You need to put that project out into the world, in front of people, learn to withstand judgment and feedback, not take it personally and move forward. Practice being seen and heard- this works through quick prototyping and sharing with people you trust.

By having these three building blocks: the inner work, the design and the igniting through active prototyping and learning, you are going to be so much closer to being a creative badass than ever before.

I’m designing a new program that blends the inner work of self-discovery with the outer work of taking action in the direction of our true, creative purpose. It’s the culmination of multiple years of coaching women. For many years, I’ve guided private clients through this journey and am excited to offer it in a new group format.

So, I’m looking for six to ten brave women who want to begin designing and living their creative purpose, and who are curious about working through this process with me.

If that’s you, you can sign up for a session (if there are any left) by heading to Majo.co andclicking on “Let’s Chat” in the navigation at the top of the page.

*Please read carefully: This program is designed for women who are working full-time as employees at a company and are in a leadership position. It’s not a program for women who are already independent and already entrepreneurs. It’s not a program for women who are job-seeking or in-between jobs. I may offer something for creative entrepreneurs in the future, but that’s not my focus at the moment. So please do not sign up for a session if you are not working at a 9-to-5.

Whether that’s you or not, you can still take the first step to becoming a creative badass right now, by taking a free quiz on the homepage of my website, Majo.co, that is going to help you identify your unique, feminine, creative power and give you one practical action step to channel this power in a way that elevates your leadership.

Not only are you going to learn about your creative strength, but based on that new insight, I’m going to give you a recommendation to take action right now. The action step will depend on your unique result, so this quiz will personalize a recommendation specifically for you.

Listen, I know you’re tired of not feeling like you’re making the most out of your potential. And I know you don’t want to end up on your deathbed looking back, regretting your career choices. We spend 8 (or more) hours of our day working, and that work should feel meaningfully creative and abundant, and if it isn’t, you’re wasting precious time and precious life force.

It should matter to you to feel ALIVE. It matters to the world that you feel ALIVE. The world needs women’s perspectives, voices, and above all, creativity. If you don’t become creatively alive and share your gifts, we’re going to hear from the same people again and again...we’re NOT going to see progress, we’re going to see an imbalance of power, and contributions skewed towards those who talk the loudest and uphold an illusion of separation – separation with ourselves, the planet, and each other.

We don’t need or want more of that. We’re in a special time in the world, and we need more women like you activated. Not tomorrow. But today.

So head over to my website, Majo.co, and click Let’s Chat in the navigation bar, and/or take the quiz on the homepage to discover your creative, feminine, power.

Have you ever felt like you would like to take the leap into entrepreneurship but you imagined that it might be a lonely place? I speak to a lot of women who want to strike out on their own but feel the desire to be a part of a team as well. Ashley Sumner is helping solve this tension by providing an online and in-person community for female entrepreneurs with her friend Gianna Wurzl.

The daughter of parents who both ran their own businesses, Ashley learned very early on the benefits of creating something you’re passionate about. She went to NYU for theatre before realizing what she really loved was connecting people. After working as a romantic matchmaker and later, community builder at companies such as Neuehouse, she met Gianna who had the other half of her idea for Quilt. Now, they bring women together in small groups of 8-10 in homes where they can work, learn, and grow together while exploring the concept of women supporting women.

HIGHLIGHTED EXCERPT

Majo: So it’s more of a mindset shift than an expertise conversation. So it’s like “Hey guys, we all don’t know what we’re doing and that’s okay because we can figure it out together.

Ashley: Totally. We learn from stories. So we can get ten women in a room who all have a different story around money but when you hear someone’s story where maybe they’ve gotten themselves out of debt and how they did it. They’re by no means a financial expert but oftentimes those experts have a really hard time coming down to where people are and translating and understanding. So I think we often learn the most from someone who just completed a step right above us or right below us. A billionaire has no idea how to tell you to save five dollars on a cup of coffee. So, yeah, peer to peer.

Majo: Peer to peer. I love that.

Discover your creative, feminine power with my free online quiz at http://majo.co

Have you ever felt like you were in a costume, caged in a life that just isn’t you? In this week’s podcast for the first time in Heroine history my editor, Anne Hoffman, flips the tables and interviews me. It quickly gets raw and real as we dig deep.

We talk about everything from loving rubrics in school to how I felt like I was wearing a costume when I worked an outwardly perfect cubicle job at a research organization in D.C. It was so much fun to walk through all the threads that led me to step into my creative purpose as a podcaster, writer, and women’s leadership coach.

Highlighted Excerpt

Anne: I think your story reflects this story that when you’re twenty or thirty you can’t really write anything because you haven’t lived enough and in your forties is when you write. I know you’re in your thirties but it’s like you did so much living and there’s a way in which, when it happening, you’re like “where is this going”. There are all these disparate experiences but look where it got you. It all sort of culminates in your book.

Majo: Creativity is built from inputs. you’re literally taking all these threads from your life and mashing them together to create new things. It’s interesting to take all the threads of who we are and weave them into something.

You want to discover your creative purpose? You design it. It’s about looking back …that’s how we live creative purpose, it’s not sitting around and waiting and feeling chronically “not ready yet”…it’s by active design and engagement, and that’s the creative process.  You create your life as much as you create a poem, a short story, a film, a podcast episode…

Anne: I think for me and for a lot of other women you are the example of having the confidence to synthesize your experience into art or something greater than the experiences.

Discover your creative, feminine power with my free online quiz at http://majo.co