The Female Insight Zone

By The Female Insight Zone & C-Suite RadioBusiness Careers

The Female Insight Zone episodes

March 09, 2018 Frankie Picasso: Embracing Change to Become Unstoppable
Change is scary. It is also an opportunity.
And if we are too busy resisting change, we may end up passing on the opportunities—without even recognizing it.
Frankie Picasso has come to embrace change. After a serious motorcycle accident in 2003, she recreated her life and became a certified coach. Today, Picasso is an international SocialPreneur, talk show host and champion for change. She is the founder of The Good Media Network, a platform to help nonprofits reach a wider audience and connect with potential donors, and a professional artist whose work has been featured in the International Book of Contemporary Artists. Picasso is also the author of Midlife Mojo and No Bull Allowed.
On this episode of The Female Insight Zone, Picasso defines what it means to be a SocialPreneur, explaining how her work makes a positive impact in the world. She discusses her coaching practice and how she helps clients navigate the danger and opportunity that accompanies change. Listen in for Picasso’s insight around the significance of understanding what you value and how to leverage Midlife Mojo as a prescription for change.
Key Interview Takeaways
SocialPreneurs are dedicated to doing good things in the world. Picasso is passionate about having a positive social impact through her work as an artist and as the founder of The Good Media Network.
Change happens best in chaos. Transforming your life involves both danger and opportunity, and Picasso’s coaching practice is about helping people navigate the fear to take advantage of the opportunities.
Understand what you value. Identify the places where your values and your life are not in alignment and you reveal where change is necessary.
Midlife Mojo is a prescription for change. Picasso’s book seeks to help readers identify the underlying automatic commitments that are holding them back, overcome their fears and become UNSTOPPABLE.
Connect with Frankie Picasso
Unstoppable Frankie Picasso
The Good Media Network
Frankie Picasso on Fine Art America

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13 min
February 23, 2018 Melinda Wittstock: Giving Women WINGS
As female entrepreneurs and business leaders, we have a lot to overcome. But the first step is to get out of our own way. Maybe perfectionism is holding you back, or maybe you’re thinking too small. Today’s guest is on a mission to give you WINGS—Women, Innovating, Networking, Growing and Scaling—and turn your small business into an empire.
Melinda Wittstock is a serial entrepreneur, award-winning journalist and content marketer. She has more than 25 years of experience as a host, journalist and executive across the world’s top media brands, and she has launched four successful media, tech and predictive analytics businesses of her own. Wittstock currently serves as the founder and CEO of Verifeed, a predictive social intelligence solution that helps businesses grow their brand and bottom line. She also hosts a podcast on female entrepreneurship called WINGS of Inspired Business to help women develop the confidence, connections and capital they need to achieve.
Wittstock is a passionate advocate for women in business, committed to investing $10M in 100-plus female founded companies in the next ten years. Today she explains the concept of Return on Authenticity, discussing why talking to prospects as human beings leads to a higher return on investment. Wittstock speaks to the idea of building personal relationships at scale through social media marketing and the value in defining your ideal customer before you design a social media marketing campaign. Listen in for her insight around investing in female entrepreneurs and learn how her podcast is inspiring women to grow in business and in life.

Key Interview Takeaways
Speak from the heart, and you will wildly outperform your competitors. Wittstock calls this idea the Return on Authenticity, and it is a much better measure of return than vanity metrics such as likes and followers.
People do business with people. Companies do better when their leadership has a personal brand presence, and social media allows those leaders to build relationships with prospects at scale.
Define your mission and your ideal customer FIRST. Verifeed’s software cannot help you with social media marketing until you know yourself. Once you have identified your ideal client, the platform helps you understand and engage those people over time.
Too many women succeed in silence. Wittstock’s podcast, WINGS of Inspired Business, seeks to affirm and inspire female entrepreneurs and business leaders, exploring the connection between personal and business growth and manifesting the confidence they need to succeed.
Successful women must give back to other female-owned businesses. Wittstock has plans to invest in 100 female-founded and women-run businesses in the next ten years.
Connect with Melinda Wittstock
Melinda Wittstock’s Website
Melinda Wittstock’s Podcast
Melinda Wittstock on LinkedIn
Melinda Wittstock on Facebook
Melinda Wittstock on Twitter
Verifeed
Verifeed on Twitter

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18 min
February 09, 2018 Mary Pat Knight: Transforming Leadership Through EQ
Financial results drive corporations, and this laser focus on achieving monetary goals often means a neglect in the areas of personal development and emotional intelligence. But the fact of the matter is that honing these skills does have a positive impact on the bottom line, as authentic leaders can both create a higher level of engagement among employees and inspire teams to perform at a higher level.
Mary Pat Knight is a sought-after transformation strategist, business coach, and EQ expert. Her training programs help corporate leaders sharpen their emotional intelligence to attain high-level, authentic leadership. As the founder and CEO of Leaders Inspired, Knight employs a transformational process to guide executives through times of change, motivate employee engagement and create healthy teams. She is passionate about helping executives lead from the heart while producing phenomenal business results.
Knight boasts more than 30 years of experience in the areas of executive coaching, operations, strategic planning, marketing and HR. Today she explains the value of dedicating work time to personal development, emotional intelligence and leadership, offering her insight on the bottom-line impact this training can have on businesses. She discusses her experience watching women wear masks to protect themselves in the corporate environment, and how that led to her commitment to the development of authentic leaders. Listen in for Knight’s take on using your voice to be the greater good in the world and making a commitment to your own personal development.

Key Interview Takeaways
Organizations would do well to dedicate time to personal development, emotional intelligence, and leadership. Knight argues that this commitment would not only impact the corporate environment, it would positively effect families, communities and the world at large.
Personal development and emotional intelligence training have a positive bottom-line impact on businesses. Organizations with a commitment to personal leadership create a high level of engagement among employees and retain leaders who inspire teams to perform at a higher level.
Creating a heart-based culture has a positive impact on sales. Knight works with a large heating and air conditioning company that shifted their approach to customer interaction and saw an increase in profits as a result.
Use your voice to be the greater good in the world. It is important for us women to find and then sustain our voices, rather than donning a mask that keeps us small.
We lose when we protect ourselves. Knight experienced a game-changing moment watching her marketing team lose their authenticity in the board room, leading her to a career in HR training and development.
Make a commitment to your own personal development. Knight continues to hone her own emotional intelligence through spiritual communities, heart-felt professional groups, coaching organizations, therapy, books and mentors.
Connect with Mary Pat Knight
Leaders Inspired
Email [email protected]
Resources
EQ Quiz
Nancy Wright on The Female Insight Zone

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17 min
January 26, 2018 Cathy O’Dowd: Climbing Everest, Team Dynamics, and Leadership
“Then I’ve been parachuted in as the token woman who got added at the last minute by the newspaper sponsor to kind of sex up the coverage. So I’m in a desperately awkward position, trying to prove that I’m good enough to be on this mountain. And I was—but I hadn’t come on the team in a way that made that at all clear.”
Cathy O’Dowd was not a fan of sport until she discovered climbing in college. Being on the mountain was a deeply personal challenge—and one that she was good at. One of just two women in the rock climbing club at her university, O’Dowd thrived in the pushy, confident and ambitious environment.
In November of 1995, O’Dowd answered a newspaper ad, and six months later she was part of a highly-publicized expedition to the summit of Mount Everest. Fraught by a failing team dynamic, the climb proved difficult. And when the group got caught in a storm during their descent, their success in reaching the top was overshadowed by an epic failure to protect each other.
The traumatic experience, along with the media firestorm that followed, proved stressful. But it also opened O’Dowd’s life in ways both extraordinary and important, leading her to a 20-year career as an internationally acclaimed motivational speaker and author. The first South African reach the top of Everest and the first woman to climb from both sides, O’Dowd draws on her Himalayan experiences to illustrate themes around leadership, team dynamic, project management and motivation.
Today, O’Dowd is exploring the Pyrenees mountains near her home in Andorra while she launches The Business of Adventure, a project designed to help aspiring adventurers build their brands and secure funding for their projects. On this episode of the Female Insight Zone, she shares the valuable lessons she learned from the team failure of the first Everest expedition, explaining how it proved vital to her personal development and the insight around leadership she gained from the experience. Listen in to learn about her current adventure as an entrepreneur and how she is working to support the next generation of adventurers.

Key Interview Takeaways
The greatest challenge of climbing Everest was navigating a failing team dynamic. O’Dowd was shocked at how badly adult professionals behaved in the situation, sabotaging themselves and the project.
Dealing with the wave of negative publicity in the wake of her Everest experience was very difficult, but O’Dowd counts it as vital to her personal development. Enduring such a public failure made her realize how deeply limiting a life spent avoiding risk can be.
You cannot control the entire narrative. The best you can do is to simply try and do the right thing by your own standards, knowing that the people who love you will believe you.
Personal leadership implies that every person carries a responsibility to the group. It is not enough to identify the failings of the leadership that is in place; you must be willing to take responsibility for your own participation and to step into a temporary leadership role if need be.
The best leaders are flexible, and they take the time to build credibility and trust throughout the process. If you want participants to follow your instructions quickly and without argument in a time of crisis, it is important that you take time early on to establish a consensus-driven team dynamic.
The Business of Adventure acknowledges that funding is necessary to establish a career as a professional adventurer. Beyond the opportunity to connect with the younger generation, O’Dowd’s new project seeks to help aspiring adventurers understand the preparation, planning and financial backing necessary to pursue a safe, successful career in the field—or on the mountain.
Connect with Cathy O’Dowd
Cathy O’Dowd’s Website

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21 min
January 05, 2018 Karen Hough: Corporate Training with an Improv Twist
We’ve all sat through that mind-numbing professional development seminar, the one where a presenter clicks through an uninspiring PowerPoint presentation while you daydream about being absolutely anywhere else. Karen Hough is on a mission to transform that experience, combining the principles of improvisation with neuroscience and psychology to bring fun and meaning to corporate training.
Hough is the founder and CEO of ImprovEdge, an award-winning business training company that is changing the way we learn, employing innovative strategies to help employees think on their feet, come up with side-door solutions and communicate in ways that bring people together. One of the top 1% of women-owned businesses in the US, ImprovEdge boasts a client list that includes NBC Universal, JP Morgan Chase and ESPN.
Before becoming an entrepreneur, Hough enjoyed a successful career in acting. She trained at the legendary Second City in Chicago and went on to appear in 100-plus theatre, film and television productions. Hough is also a bestselling author and the recipient of the 2012 Silver Stevie International Award for Most Innovative Company of the Year.
Today Hough shares her experience with Second City, explaining how the improv abilities she practiced there led to the business she runs today. She offers her take on the current climate around sexual harassment in the workplace and discusses why it is time for women to initiate the conversation, even if it makes people uncomfortable. Hough speaks to the issue of inclusion, sharing the need for parity in the pool of candidates being considered for a position. Listen in for Hough’s insight around using improv to revolutionize corporate training and the need for skills like agility and creativity in our changing world.

Key Interview Takeaways
Improv skills are vital in our changing world. Hough contends that aptitudes for listening, creativity and agility that are honed through improvisation give workers an edge, especially in industries experiencing disruption.
Creating the best team possible means providing women with the full ability to engage. A push for equality in the workplace is not an issue of ‘men vs. women,’ it’s an issue of allowing every person their full input.
The institutions set up to keep women quiet are starting to tumble, thanks to the brave women who have come forward to tell their stories. Recent progress around preventing sexual harassment in business, entertainment and politics is only possible because of women who are willing to stand up and speak out.
Feminism is not about extremism, it’s about equality. Though the word ‘feminist’ seems to carry a negative connotation, the true definition indicates a belief that men and women should be paid the same, have the same right to an education, and be able to do the work they want.
Diversity is not just about hiring people who look different. True inclusion means creating an environment where everyone feels wanted and valued.
Connect with Karen Hough
ImprovEdge
Books by Karen Hough
YES! Deck

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21 min
December 15, 2017 Dr. Helen Turnbull: Getting Past the ‘Illusion of Inclusion’
A lot of us are well-intentioned and don’t believe that we are biased toward others in any way. But it is naïve—delusional, even—to think that we don’t harbor unconscious bias. In fact, the issue of inclusion is an incredibly complex one, and until we recognize those complications and actively pursue change, the ‘illusion of inclusion’ will persist.
Dr. Helen Turbull’s interest in diversity and inclusion was ignited after her move from Scotland to the US, where issues of race are front and center. At a National Training Laboratories Conference, Dr. Turnbull was inspired by a teacher who suggested that nothing would change until the dominant culture stepped up to become true advocates. Dr. Turnbull saw this as a call-to-action, and pursued research around stereotype threat, covering and internalized oppression across cultures.
Now Dr. Turnbull is a world-recognized thought leader in global inclusion and diversity. She has more than 25 years of experience assisting businesses in enhancing organizational capabilities and creating an inclusive environment. She has worked with a number of blue chip clients around the world, including Texas Instruments, JP Morgan Chase, and Citigroup Europe. In May of 2013, Dr. Turnbull spoke at TEDx on ‘The Illusion of Inclusion,’ and she regularly keynotes of the topic of embedding an inclusive workplace culture in Australia, Asia, Europe, the UK, and the US.
Today, Dr. Turnbull explains the ‘illusion of inclusion,’ exploring the complexity of the issue and why organizations must embrace diversity initiatives as part of an ongoing process. She discusses the immutable forces at play, including the dynamics of the dominant culture, the impact of unconscious bias, and the degrees of differences within groups, as well as the permeable forces—affinity bias, assimilation and political correctness. Listen in to understand how Dr. Turnbull works with companies to get past the illusion of inclusion and make long-term commitments to ensure that all employees are valued and involved.

Key Interview Takeaways
Nothing will change until the dominant culture steps up to become advocates for true inclusion. Until we begin to understand the complexity of the issue and actively pursue change together, challenges around diversity will persist.
For diversity initiatives to work, organizations must be in it for the long haul. Dr. Turnbull argues that a two-hour workshop is not the solution. A company must embrace inclusion as part of an ongoing process.
Inclusion is much more complex than people realize. The dynamics of the dominant culture, unconscious bias, and the degrees of differences within groups are all at play.
Reframe political correctness as ‘polite consideration.’ Recognize your own affinity bias and consciously work to develop a curiosity about others’ stories.
Companies hire for diversity, but manage for similarity. Many organizations have a diverse workforce, yet the assimilation model entrenched in workplace culture requires employees to minimize themselves in order to fit in.
Connect with Dr. Helen Turnbull
Human Facets
Email [email protected]
Resources
The Illusion of Inclusion: Global Inclusion, Unconscious Bias, and the Bottom Line by Helen Turnbull
Dr. Turnbull’s TED Talk: Inclusion, Exclusion, Illusion and Collusion

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19 min
December 01, 2017 Lisa Marie Platske: Design Your Destiny
Women in male-dominated industries like tech, finance and law enforcement may feel like it’s unacceptable to reveal any vulnerability at work. This leads to compartmentalization, having a ‘work self’ that’s different from the real person on the inside. But this simply isn’t working. Not only does this approach make us seem unapproachable, it leads to burnout and perpetuates the myth that we have to behave a certain way in order to lead.
Lisa Marie Platske had a ten-year career as a Federal law enforcement officer, where she was one of the fastest-promoted women in the US Customs Service. But the road to authentic leadership was not easy for Platske: At a leadership training course, she was informed—in front of the class—that she had scored a zero on an interpersonal skills inventory. This painful moment forced her to get clear about who she was and what she valued and led her to ‘design her own destiny,’ becoming an authentic, vulnerable feminine leader.
Platske leveraged the skills she honed designing curriculum and teaching leadership development at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center to create Upside Thinking, an international leadership training and consulting company. An award-winning leadership expert and high-energy speaker, Platske has coached multi-million-dollar entrepreneurs, startups, seasoned executives and non-profit leaders in 20-plus global industries. Simply put, she creates effective leaders.
Today, Platske shares her journey from Federal law enforcement to entrepreneurship, exposing the not-so-glamorous side of her job with US Customs. She explains how a willingness to explore what wasn’t working in her approach to leadership led her to find a new, more authentic way of showing up at work. Listen in and give yourself permission to be vulnerable, designing your own destiny as an authentic leader!

Key Interview Takeaways
‘Design your destiny’ by getting clear on who you are and what you stand for. Platske had an eye-opening experience at a leadership training course, scoring a zero on an interpersonal skills inventory. That led her to look at what wasn’t working and become a different kind of leader based on her values.
Effective leaders are curious and vulnerable. Platske realized that her social introversion made people perceive her as unapproachable, so she made a change by getting curious about her co-workers and sharing more about who she was as a person.
People value authenticity. Women in male-dominated industries tend to compartmentalize and be tough, effectively cutting off that ‘real’ part of themselves. Platske argues that vulnerable feminine leadership is healthier and more effective.
Connect with Lisa Marie Platske
Upside Thinking
Design Your Destiny Live
Email [email protected]

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19 min
November 10, 2017 Christine Kloser: Transformational Authorship
The vast majority of us have talked about writing a book. Problem is, the vast majority of us never make time to sit down and get the words on the page. Christine Kloser got immersed in publishing when her husband decided to write a book involving interviews with Major League Baseball players. She pored over Dan Poynter’s Self-Publishing Manual, learning the nuts and bolts of putting a book together to assist her husband in becoming a published author.
At the same time, Kloser was involved in the leadership of the Network for Empowering Women Entrepreneurs, and she often heard members talk about becoming authors—yet fail to take action. She decided to apply her knowledge of the writing process and help these women get published: Kloser offered to compile the book if each woman would agree to write one chapter. That book, entitled Inspiration to Realization, made the 2005 Entrepreneur Magazine’s list of top reads for women, and soon other women were begging Kloser for help in writing a book of their own.
Inspired to create a company that would help people write transformational books, Kloser designed the Get Your Book Done process. Ten years later, she has trained 70,000 writers in more than 125 countries, serving as a master facilitator and trainer in the area of excavating your message and writing books that positively impact the world. She is an international speaker and the author of 13 books herself, including best-sellers and award-winners such as Conscious Entrepreneurs, The Freedom Formula, and Pebbles in the Pond. Today she describes the first steps in becoming a transformational author, the structure of her Get Your Book Done process, and why it’s important to write without editing.
Key Interview Takeaways
The first step in writing a transformational book is to ask yourself what transformation you want for yourself, your reader, your business, and the world. Kloser recommends defining the change you want as a result of your book and writing for your ideal reader.
Kloser’s firm affords aspiring writers the opportunity to build the necessary foundation, develop an appropriate outline, and design a plan to sit down and write. Her online course, coaching practice and writing retreats guide clients through this eight-module process.
You don’t necessarily have to be a writer to be an author. If you have a message and you are willing to practice, you can write a book.
Give yourself permission to write an SFD. Kloser compares the writing process to that of a potter at the wheel: The writer’s ‘shitty first draft’ is like the initial messy clump of clay. Once you get the words on the page, they can be shaped into something beautiful.
Connect with Christine Kloser

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19 min
October 20, 2017 Kristi Faulkner: Promoting Gender Equality with Consumer Awareness
Many of us were moved by the 2017 Audi Super Bowl commercial featuring a girl racing a boxcar, while the inspiring voice over touted the company’s commitment to gender equality. But as a consumer, how would you know whether the company really supports women’s empowerment? Where could you go to find out about their policies around family leave or how many women serve on the board?
Veteran creative director Kristi Faulkner teamed up with journalist Amy Cross to design the Gender Fair mark, a designation to boost consumer awareness of companies that truly support gender equality. (Spoiler Alert: Audi isn’t one of them.) They are passionate about creating a shift in the marketplace, rewarding businesses that believe in and champion women employees, investors and clients, and inspiring business lacking the logo to make a change for the better.
In addition to serving as founding partner of Gender Fair, Faulkner is the president of Womenkind, an agency that helps clients engage women as consumers via enhanced marketing messages that demonstrate a respect for women. During her 20-year career as an award-winning creative director at the most highly-regarded advertising agencies on Madison Avenue, Faulkner recognized a disconnect: The vast majority of products target women, yet women represent only 3% of the creative directors in the industry. She co-founded Womenkind to change the way advertisers address women, and she continues to conceive and produce multi-media, multi-channel campaigns for blue-chip clients on a global stage.
Today, Faulkner explains the metrics Gender Fair uses to rate companies, how she came to partner with Amy Cross on the project, and the trend for consumers to demonstrate preference based on shared social values. Listen in and learn how to use your purchasing power for good, supporting only those companies with a commitment to gender equality!

Key Interview Takeaways
Gender Fair inspires consumers to support companies advancing gender equality. Businesses that demonstrate a real commitment to women in areas such as employee benefits, advertising, philanthropic initiatives and partnerships with women-owned vendors receive the Gender Fair mark—similar to the Organic or Fair Trade designations.
Of the 200 companies evaluated by Gender Fair, only 15% have earned the Gender Fair designation. Companies are rated based on the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles, and you can look up any company by sector through the Gender Fair website or smartphone app.
Consumers build brand loyalty with companies that share their values in a meaningful way. 85% of Americans have a positive view of companies that support causes they care about, and 79% would switch from one brand to another if the company shared their social values.
Womenkind is an advertising agency focused on bringing respect to women. Women in America make 85% of the purchasing decisions, yet 97% of creative directors are men. Faulkner points out that women buy more computers, cars and beer than men, yet female characters in commercials for these products are generally either sexualized or ignored.
Put your money where your mouth is. Both Gender Fair and Womenkind promote a shift in consumerism by way of awareness. Women have a great deal of purchasing power, and where we choose to spend our money makes a difference.
Connect with Kristi Faulkner
Gender Fair
Gender Fair on Twitter
Womenkind

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18 min
September 22, 2017 Natalie Franke: Empowering the Creative Community to Rise Together
There may not be anything wrong with a little healthy competition, but at the end of day, human beings are social creatures with a need to connect and build community. Natalie Franke is on a mission to transform the way creative entrepreneurs see each other, moving away from a model of rivalry and opposition to one of collaboration for the common good.
Raised by a single mother, Natalie Franke started photographing weddings in high school to earn supplemental income. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Visual Studies, she built a photography business from the ground up and celebrated a great deal of success. But Franke was lonely, and she realized that the only people who would understand exactly what she was going through were her competitors.
A self-proclaimed neuroscience nerd, Franke had been introduced to the discipline as part of the visual arts program in college, and she understood that the human brain was wired for connection and collaboration. She created Rising Tide to foster a spirit of community over competition with other creative entrepreneurs, starting small with coffee meetups in Annapolis. By 2015, the organization had grown to 12 cities along the eastern seaboard, and today it encompasses a community of 70,000 creative entrepreneurs—84% of whom are women—in 400 local chapters all over the world. On this episode of The Female Insight Zone, she shares the role neuroscience plays in how she thinks about business, the achievements of the Rising Tide community, and the speak up, stand up philosophy that fuels inclusiveness in the organization.

Key Interview Takeaways
Humans are wired to be social creatures. The female brain, in particular, is equipped for collaboration, having four times more connections between the hemispheres.
Small business owners may compete on a financial level, but it is mutually beneficial to collaborate for the common good. The Rising Tide Society was founded to allow entrepreneurs to connect and innovate, rather than just compete.
Rising Tide has built a network that transcends business. In addition to providing entrepreneurs with the tools they need to rise, the community has evolved into a support system that galvanizes in times of need.
Rising Tide grew from a desire to change the way small business owners see each other. Franke was lonely, and she realized that only her competitors would understand the struggles she faced as an entrepreneur. She conceived of Rising Tide in an effort to shift the perspective from a lens of scarcity to one of camaraderie.
To promote inclusion, elevate the voices that are often overlooked. Rising Tide makes it a point to ensure that its lineups reflect the beauty and diversity of the community.
Connect with Natalie Franke
Rising Tide Society
Natalie on Instagram
Natalie on Facebook
Natalie on Twitter
nataliefranke.com
Email [email protected]
Resources
The Buying Brain: Secrets for Selling to the Subconscious Mind by AK Pradeep

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16 min

About The Female Insight Zone

From the publisher's feed

The Female Insight Zone is a 30-minute podcast sharing insights from women who have made an indelible mark in business and the path they took to soar. In each episode, host Maribeth Kuzmeski…