Underestimated: Stories for Women

Anne Hudson, local Austin on-air personality on 96.7 KISS-FM and KASE101, talks about the challenges she has overcome throughout her career and life and how she pushes through the bad and stays positive.

Jennifer Brazer, Founder and CEO of Complete Controller, talks about her experience starting her business the hard way, the bootstrap way. Listen to real-life experiences where she followed her gut and saved her baby girl's life and how she uses that mentality in everything she does to this day. 

Welcome to Season 2 of Underestimated! In Episode 1 we talk to CEO and Co-Founder of Living Security, Ashley Rose, about running a company with three daughters and a few amazing stories of course. We discuss the journey Ashley took in completing college after having her first daughter, starting her first business, and pivoting her company during Covid. 

Lily Wilker

What: Special Operations Medic working towards PHD

Where: at Fort Bragg, NC

Why: An underestimated Soldier because of her physical size and sex

The military is known for its poor treatment of women in uniform.  We are an organization that values hard charging, barrel chested, red, white, and blue blooded freedom fighting Alpha males.  Staff Sergeant Wilker is one of the most important individuals I have recruited for my Special Operations team.  I met Lily in 2014 at a qualification course.  Prior to this moment I was an under-appreciating, sexist individual that didn’t not think there was a place for women in the military.  This sentiment came from my career as a tanker where women were not allowed in our units.  I thought that women would undermine an organization, especially during combat operations.  We had a young lady at my Combat Outpost (COP) in 2012 in Afghanistan and saw how Soldiers treat women first hand.  For example, when we were attacked by the Taliban all of my guard posts were not manned because my guys went to the woman’s building and tried to “protect” her.  What I didn’t see was that I was completely wrong about women in combat, and that the fault was my own because I didn’t have as tight of a grip on my Soldiers as I thought and that their professional discipline was lacking.  When I was selected to be a member of Special Operations I learned this.  Lily Wilker showed me that a woman that is under 5’ and weighs less than 100lbs could carry a heavier backpack with all of our units ammunition, communication equipment, and food further and longer than myself.  I felt like a fool having this little girl outperform me physically, but then saw her outperform me mentally and emotionally as we were partners through training.  By the end of our training I learned a valuable life lesson that I will never judge a person based on their stereotype, but look at the individual.  I joined a Special Operations Team immediately after graduating the Qualification Course and deployed to Jordan for my first go-around with ISIS.  When I got back it had been a year since I last spoke with Lily, but knew she was a person that I wanted on my team.  I fought tooth and nail upon returning to Fort Bragg to get Lily on my team, and in 2015 she became my medic.  I got to train with her on the team for a year before we all deployed to Lebanon.  After leaving the Special Operations Team I would never deploy again without a woman on my team because Lily taught me that she brings a capability to the team that empowers us to reach greater impacts on the community.  When I deployed to Syria on the greatest fighting force in the world team  and my lesson from Lily had me again fight to get the additional capability on my team, which led to me having two ladies on my team.  Because of the lessons from Lily I was overwhelming successful in Syria to the point that we led the fight that ended with the US winning the war against ISIS.

Lesson Learned:  Women in combat are not a hinderance, but an added capability.  Never assume a women cannot perform until I have tested them.  From my experiences with SSG Wilker I leaned that a tiny girl was capable of outperforming the toughest man (me) physically, and mentally.  She increased the capability of my special operations team to levels I couldn’t have reached without her.  “Alone, and Unafraid.  CAT613”

Courtney Zimmerman

My passion in life is helping others by using my career and personal endeavors I am involved in.

I started my sales career in 2014 doing B2C sales for Colonial Penn and was moved to management due to the feedback from my clients on educating them of the importance of insurance, what different policies cover and help make the best financial decisions to cover the unexpected costs that could happen that the stakeholders saw as important value to coach to my team.

I moved into Tech Sales with SaaS products in 2016 doing B2B sales for multiple start-ups. In 2019 I started my career at Google Cloud selling the full spectrum from the IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS offerings we have.

Why sales and why technology? Sales can give you the chance to help or empower your clients if you are consultative and have a mindset of servitude. Technology can provide a solution invented to solve real life problems to make others life easier, give back time, save money, empower their passions. I want to make an impact and help others by giving them the tools and ideas necessary to live a better life, so working in technology sales was a "no-brainer" decision for the direction in my career.

In my personal life I am a mental health advocate, dog mom of 11 years to my American Eskimo Ellie, an Aunt and cheerleader to Mason and Emma, a little sister and big sister of 5 siblings, outdoor adventurist, theater nerd, comedian, stormchaser, and a writer.

I believe in the power of networking, collaborating, and sharing ideas on any spectrum. Feel free to connect and let's solve some problems!

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RestartCBD CEO
Shayda Torabi- Linkedin

Shayda was trying to recover from an auto-pedestrian accident in Austin when she was first introduced to the health and wellness properties of CBD.

During that time, we encountered the frustration of finding quality organic hemp products from trusted suppliers. And as a family of athletes, living in Texas, we wanted a legal product with Zero THC. Realizing very few pure products existed in this market, we decided to create our own. 

After months of research and making the connections needed to deliver a high caliber product, RESTART CBD was born.

We use a pure CBD isolate in our Signature Product Line (Replenish, Recover, Relax and Repair) derived from organically grown industrial hemp with CO2 extraction, 3rd party lab testing for quality, and organic ingredients.

RESTART CBD is Austin’s first locally handcrafted organic CBD wellness brand founded by two sisters, Shayda and Sydney Torabi. 

Free Guide : 10 Must-Have Habits of Ultra-Confident Women

Want to learn what it takes to go from being a people pleaser to a confident self-lover? Learn the habits of high performing women who put themselves first, and still make a difference in the lives of others.

Hi, I’m Vasavi, Licensed therapist with a dual Masters degrees in Special Education and Social Work.  I’m first-generation Indian-American and grew up in a traditional Hindu household on Long Island, New York. Living and going to school in a predominantly all-White town, I struggled with: figuring out my unique identity, the mental heartache of bullying, and shame from outshining the other students in my class due to my strict upbringing and focus on academics. Back then, I longed for acceptance, and believed that I had to dumb myself down in order to fit in, and be welcomed into social circles.

I’m often asked, “How have you been able to get back up no matter what you’ve gone through?”

I am here to help you heal. When you work with me, I help you uncover YOUR way to get BACK up, no matter what you go through.

I believe that when you know yourself, you can do, be, and have anything you want.  As YOU grow through what you go through, don’t forget to check in with yourself. Keep getting to know you.  In order for me to be in the present, I had to be honest about the evolution of self.  From my own mental health illness, divorce, addiction and RECOVERY, I’ve learned that missteps and wrong turns don’t break my love of self. You have the power to overcome your rock bottom moments successfully, and come out the other side stronger.  I am here to help you heal.  I’ve been there.  Now I am present, I am Vasavi.

Free Guide : 10 Must-Have Habits of Ultra-Confident Women

Larissa Tater is an accomplished leader in the tech industry as a Senior Product Manger.
She has been an amazing mentor in my own journey finding my career path and has proven to always provide sound advice that empowers women to "go for it".

I really enjoyed my conversation with Larissa in this episode as we really focused on the importance of taking risks and finding your own way.
Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in other people's opinions and expectations of you. This is episode is a great reminder to live your life and DON'T BE AFRAID TO TAKE THE RISK.
 
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