Voice Lessons Podcast

Stressed? You're not alone. In fact, women in the US are nearly twice as stressed as men. Not only do we register stress events more strongly, we often react both physically and mentally, all while taking care of family responsibilities and working to grow and profit from our businesses. Dr. Eris Huemer Winans is the founder of FACE it, a company that is changing the face of mental health. In this "Lesson On Self-Care", we speak about the ways that women entrepreneurs can deal with stress, and one of the biggest challenges that impact women entrepreneurs who are making change.

• Being NOT OK. OK. And A-OK.
• How to deal with the news and when not watching can make you more stressed.
• What are the top three ways women can take care of their mental health
• People are speaking more openly about their mental health issues
• How to create a state of mind that allows you to look at the world and get through any obstacles
• The strategies that women entrepreneurs can use to move themselves to OK and beyond
• The #1 thing Dr. Eris recommends doing daily to stay in a good state of mind
• How to rewire your brain if you're experiencing "mom guilt"
• Dr. Eris's "Life Lens" and the eight areas she looks at her life to maintain harmony
• Dr. Eris's "Process Communication Model" and the six different personality types that woman leaders fall into
• Why women play smaller
• What to do when other people don't get your vision
• The number one thing that women disruptors can do to take care of their mental health
• What does self-esteem have to do with it?

(6:02) I think that it's very important to filter the time spent watching news, especially if you're anxiety prone, you're super sensitive and you get shaken up with the world events as we all do. Because globally we all feel a sense of anxiety because there is so much unknown in the world right now. We don't know where things are going and because we have all of this conflicting information from politics to the news, we don't always know necessarily what is accurate and not accurate.

(8:35) I think it's so important for us to acknowledge that it is OK to not be OK. It is OK for us just to be OK. It is OK. All of this is OK if I am hurting, if I am anxious, if I am sad, if I am grieving, if I am depressed, if I am any of these things. It's OK. And it's acknowledging the fact that I'm either not OK or just OK that I can then find hope to feeling better, which is an A-OK state of mind.

(10:25) Set boundaries and following through with them instead of not setting boundaries and making them as if they're threats that you don't intend to carry out.

(12:02) We have to rewire our brain. Number one. I'm a mom. I have a six and a half year old and I love to work. I know that I as a parent, I am here to be an example to my child on how I want them to be in the world. So it's how I am living by example. Behaviorally and what my behaviors are, what he sees me doing, what he sees my husband doing, how we communicate, all of these things is how my son is becoming in the world. So I am teaching him how to become by how I am. So that's number one.

(17:10) I think that as women we've overcome, We're the minority. We've come into the world and we have to fight differently. We have to prove ourselves differently. We have to overcome so many obstacles that are different, especially when we're working or putting ourselves out there. Of course we view the world through a different lens than men. I'm just coming from the perspective of a personality type and how we would lead. I think there are so many different women out there that we all lead differently.

(19:25) As a woman, when you are a leader and you are revolutionizing the system and you're putting yourself out there and you're wanting to change the world depending on in what industry or on whatever level. I think the number one thing that I see is women growing into their own strengths, finding their strengths and their self esteem and believing in themselves. And I see that as taking time and experience. So if you have a vision and you want to do something as a leader and changing the world in whichever way you're wanting to, it's like giving yourself time for growth and experience and repetition and all of those things. And once you do that, you build that self esteem because that strength is what shines through.

(22:00) We allow people around us to make us feel bad about our strengths and our desires and our vision and all of these things. So we play smaller and play smaller. We actually put ourselves into insecurity. Like we're trying to fit in this box of maybe what these other women are, how they're living their lives or how we feel like we should be. And we're living too big. So I think that you need to have an intuition, you have to have something within you that wants you to do more. So you need to stay true to that and be honest with yourself. And that takes time and practice.

A stuck person is a powerful person. Flow is natural, so if you're holding yourself in place, imagine how much energy it's taking you to do that. How powerful you must be. Perhaps the most important thing you need to know about being stuck is how powerful your ability to create is. If your current thoughts and actions are getting in your own way of doing that, it's time unstick your stuck. Learn how in this "Lesson On Unsticking the Stuck" with Kim Kuhteubl.

• The most important thing you need to know about being stuck
• What thoughts and actions are you repeating over again and what are the beliefs that are keeping you there
• A stuck person is a powerful person
• Stuck is a state of mind
• Why we subconsciously get in our own way
• The relationship between beliefs and actions
• The "LIFE MUST TEST ME" belief system
• We blame ourselves to stay stuck
• Too many women are practiced in hiding and not being found or discovered for who they truly are
• Visions for your life demand aligned action
• How being stuck affects your career
• Kim's process to becoming "unstuck"
• It's ok to ask for help
• Burn the bridges that keep you "safe", that keep you from being seen for the woman you are
• How women can lead differently by burning the bridge of the unknown and leaping to the other side

(:40) Perhaps the most important thing you need to know about being stuck is how powerful your ability to create is. But what exactly is it that you're creating and why? What thoughts and actions are you repeating over and over again and what are the beliefs that are keeping you there? Because stuck is a state of mind.

(1:25) My journey to stuck started because I was a how addict. How I thought things should go, how I'd seen other people who I thought were successful doing it, how I thought I was supposed to feel, how life was supposed to look, how I was going to get life right based on my calculated and controlling formula of X and Y and Zed divided by everybody else's experiences that I didn't want to repeat deep into the loop of my life must test me belief system.

(3:50) What I was used to was my familiar spiral of blame. For you, it might feel like you're drowning or overwhelmed or distracted or whatever stuck drug of choice is. I didn't have to move and I didn't have to get tested. I was stubborn. Some part of me AKA the ego part was telling me that stack would give me the time I needed to figure out my way out of stuck all by myself. I was smart. I knew how to get things done, but what I didn't know at the time is that you can't solve a problem from the level of consciousness you use to create it. In other words, if you're at the level of stuck, any solution that you dream up without some kind of pattern interrupts without some kind of help is going to come in from the consciousness of stuck and affirm your stuckness.

(4:25) Too many women are practiced in hiding and not being found or seen…discovered for who they truly are and if you stay in this space of this might happen, you don't have to look at the fact that it isn't. You don't have to acknowledge that your dream might not come true even if this way of being, this way you have to stay put doesn't feel good anymore. They ignore their hearts signal that the dream is not actually one they want anymore or maybe the version of they wanted has changed.

(7:30) Some women get stuck by telling themselves, and this is especially when it comes to relationships. If I don't move or change, if I wait long enough holding the energy of this very specific way of being, this person will love me. In this case, stuck is a form of withholding a skill that many women, especially when you feel voiceless are practiced and it can feel like power to withhold your approval or opinion or favor, especially when it feels like you don't get it. So why would you give it or when you're afraid, afraid of what you might lose by truly being.

(8:10) Another reason that people stay stuck is because they like the way they've been doing things, a lot. They ignore the signals around them that the world has changed, the culture has changed, the expectations for the way we do business has changed, what buyers value and the conversations they have and they places they're going to have those conversations are changing. They pissed off that what used to work, what has always worked, doesn't work any more. They're angry or afraid that time has the nerve to pass.

(10:05) When we were thinking about the products that we would create as a brand, we wanted to create products that we ourselves wanted to use that we couldn't find elsewhere. That was a kind of product that brought purpose and meaning and deeper connection between parent and child and created a really easy to use, approachable routine.

(10:30) If you're telling yourself you don't know what to do, that's only partially truly. Because I do believe that you have all the answers when you ask the right questions. You might not know which questions to ask, or you might be afraid of the answers because those will require change and once you let go and let life, you will probably feel out of control, like you don't have power.

(15:05) Revealing the truth of what you see and using your voice to express it, may be a lie to someone else. If you're an idea woman, working on transforming what was, don't expect people to understand what you know to be true about your work, about what you're discovering, about what you're being guided to assemble from the realm of ideas. You are the creator. Just keep going.

(16:20) I believe my creativity comes through me and once I turn that channel on, it's easy to surrender to the ideas that come to me in the moment. As a writer, I've fallen off of the outline more than once. As a producer and director, I've seen emotions, or opportunities to take the story in a different direction, reveal themselves in the spaces between what is planned and I follow them, always with good results.

While they were on maternity leave together, best friends Kelly Oriard & Callie Christensen created the kind of toys they wanted their children to play with, ones that would help them to become caring, confident, and resilient children. They called them Slumberkins. Now four short years later, they've built a multi-million dollar children's brand based on their experiences as passionate educators and moms. In this episode, we discuss trust and intentional branding with our first-ever duo!

• Developing a product that brings purpose and meaning
• What are Slumberkins and how are they interactive for parent and child to deepen the bond of connection together?
• Sometimes passion is more important than a business background.
• Learning to scale your business.
• How Kelly and Callie's sports background helped translate to their business mentality and the concept of failure.
• Creating a strong brand from the beginning.
• Having a strong, emotional foundation will serve a lot of people during this moment.
• Children need emotional wellness building blocks at an early age.
• Transitioning a side hustle to a mission-based brand.
• The importance of engaging with your customers and your community.
• Millennials are the therapy generation.
• What happened when the duo went on Shark Tank.
• The Jim Henson Company and Slumberkins.
• "Fake it till you make it."
• Storytelling is key when starting a business, especially an online one.
• Listening to and responding to consumer needs.
• Building a team and community within your business structure.
• Navigating relationships as friends and as business partners.
• Being Co-CEOs.
• Communicating your mission to a team to implement and excute.
• Women lead by leaning into intuition and being mindful on their growth and the growth of others.

(4:33) It was four and a half years ago now that we on maternity leave. And it was just us getting out, doing things, going on walks like we normally do. And we had this kind of creative moment of inspiration of talking about the children that we both worked with in the schools and then also looking at our newborn babies and feeling this moment of inspiration around what kind of interventions could be done before kids get to school in the world of emotional wellness that we were trying to support and work with on a daily basis with our students.

(6:30) ​W​e turned that $200 worth of fabric to sell at a local holiday craft fair. And we turned that into about $700. And then we just opened our first bank account and then just went from there.

(6:41) Despite not having any business background, we were so passionate about the idea and thought, why not us? Why couldn't we do it? Look around, look at the people on Instagram that are selling and people that are doing thing. We have the background, we have this idea, let's do it. Why not us?

(8:25) I had tried to pitch the storylines to publishing houses and book agents and just received polite, "no, thank you". It was like, Oh man, but this needs to live on. And so even then when we both went back to work part time as educators, we still kept it going and which was a very intense looking back. I don't know how we did it.

(9:30) So we're kind of used to this ride of entrepreneurship through our experience in sports as well of just, there's no failure really. You're just learning constantly for this big win in the future. And I really think it translated to the mentality that we brought to the business.

(10:05) When we were thinking about the products that we would create as a brand, we wanted to create products that we ourselves wanted to use that we couldn't find elsewhere. That was a kind of product that brought purpose and meaning and deeper connection between parent and child and created a really easy to use, approachable routine.

(10:30) Saying we are an intentional brand, it's so much different than what you see. People have asked us, "aren't you afraid of someone like Mattel or Hasbro knocking you off?" And we're like, "I mean, they can try, but they're not like moms and educators that are fueling everything they have into this product.

(12:10) Slumberkins is really about helping parents take that a step further to doing something for their children that maybe they didn't hear explicitly out loud. And helping guide that whether they're doing that internal work themselves or not, the messages are coming through for children. We think that that's something really unique that nobody is doing at this point

(13:40) And then behind the scenes, we left our positions as educators when we got word that we were going to film Shark Tank. So that was another thing where it catapulted us into taking the business more seriously. It was the reason we took the time to really develop a brand platform, a big vision, really think bigger for the brand. And as soon as we were all in on that, it just, even having those own goals for ourselves, it helped us redefine what our goal was for the business.

(15:18) We're in a co-production with the Jim Henson company to develop a preschool series based on our characters and Kelly and I are co-executive producers on the show. It's definitely a pinch-me moment. Every time I say it, I can't stop smiling about it. I know. It's so exciting.

(17:10) Telling the story around the brand has been key for us. We bootstrapped the company to over 1.5 million before we took in any sort of outside funding.

(21:59) We had this real history of trust in each other and how we showed up for each other.

(25:06) Being questioned about being Co-CEOs was the thing that I think pushed us into having those harder conversations and diving into our self-work. And I'll say, I love your platform, ,of finding your voice just because there have been so many times where Kelly, has had to shove me into stepping into myself and finding my own voice in our journey.

​(26:50) It's this concept of trust and shared power and making the implicit explicit, right? So we're trying to do that with our product. We're trying to do that for families. And if we as co-CEOs are not able to show up, to share power, to be explicit about what we're being triggered by or what's going on a little bit below the surface with each other and with what's going on in our lives, then we're not walking the walk of what we're trying, trying to do in the world.

(28:20) Women do lead differently. And we very much fall in the idea of leaning into intuition, being very mindful and focused on our teams emotional wellness growth, our emotional wellness and growth and how that is connected directly to the work that they produce. Now in our case, it all connects together cause that's what our product is about.

Shannon Watts was a stay-at-home mom folding laundry when she heard the news of the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. It was at that moment that Shannon decided to get off the sidelines and encourage other women to join her, starting the largest grassroots movement in the country, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. Shannon and her army of mothers (and others) have bravely gone up against the gun lobby, proving that when you "fight like a mother" you can do anything you set your mind to. In this "Lesson on Doubling Down", we talk about the business of building a movement.

• How and why Shannon started Mom's Demand Action (MDA).

• How the organization dealt with the rapid growth of the movement. *As of 2018, Moms Demand Action had 761 local groups and 6 million supporters.

• Every mom is already a multi-tasking organizer.

• Movements are like startups.

• The three things MDA focuses on that they believe will save the most lives.

• Stand Your Ground is a gun law that is rooted in racism.

• Gun violence affects everyone.

• Dealing with criticism.

• Using your losses to fuel motivation.

• How to create a revolution in our current system and doubling down instead of backing down.

• A major moment with Starbucks and Howard Schultz when Shannon trusted her gut.

• How women lead differently in activism and political efforts.

• Women lead with their maternal strengths.

• Women are a political asset but they are scared to jump in.

• Shannon's spiritual practice.

• How women with big visions can take the first step.

(5:01) I think that​ was a​ moment in America when so many people wanted to get involved in 2018 and we tripled in size as an organization​ and k have kept growing ever since. And we're actually larger now than the NRA.

(5:25) We have over 375,000 donors now. And so that has enabled us to outspend the NRA in the last two election cycles.

(7:30) I've been really focused myself on Ahmaud Arbery the last few days and the stand your ground laws that have made it possible for private citizens to be vigilantes. And I'm curious if those laws will come into focus for you guys at all. And if you know the statistics on keeping people safe by focusing on repealing those. Yes. So I mean, we're still learning all the facts, but it sounds like one of the three DA's who the case was passed on to before arrests were made, was somehow claiming that, citizens arrest laws, open carry laws and even stand your ground laws, made these two white men within their rights to pursue and shoot Ahmaud Arbery. And you know, these laws are rooted in racism, especially stand your ground. We know they disproportionately impact people of color and too often they're used by white people to shoot and kill and ask questions later. So we fight these laws everywhere they come up and we work to roll them back where we can.

(9:00) ​The ​bigger picture​ is that ​too much gun violence in this country impacts people of color, particularly black men and boys. And you really cannot talk about gun violence without talking about the systemic racism that causes it.

(10:45) I think it's incumbent on our organization to involve all white women, Republican and Democrat alike to speak out and to get off the sidelines and to not just care about the school shootings and the mass shootings, which frankly are only about 1% of the gun violence in this country, but to care about the gun suicides and the gun homicides that happen in rural America and in city centers. And that's what we've done. We have been very committed to diversity, equality, and inclusion efforts internally as an organization and externally. And it is incumbent upon us to continue to learn and to listen and to hold up the work that others have done for decades.

(11:06) Black women have been putting their literal bodies on street corners to stop bullets where they live and, and really their work has been invisible for too long. And so it is on our organization to make sure that that's always a priority.

(11:30) You don't get involved in social activism in this country, not expecting to lose or if you do, you're going to be sorely disappointed. I always say, this is a marathon, not a sprint. And incremental change has become sort of a dirty word. This idea of something being incremental that somehow if it's not an overnight revolution, it's not worth doing. And you know, if you spend any working on activism on the ground, you very quickly realize the system is not set up for an overnight revolution.

(12:09) How do you create a revolution in our system? You do it by showing up for years and years and years, like drips on a rock and you do the heavy lifting, the unglamorous work of activism. And I think women in particular are cut out for that.

(12:34) It's almost always women who are willing to stay the course and they play the long game and we lose a lot, but we win more than we lose. But if we, if we gave up every time we lost, we wouldn't have gotten this far. And so you have to come to see failure as feedback. It's not fatal. It's just a stepping stone and you have to look at how much you won when you failed, and then use that information to point you in the direction of winning.

(16:10) Women worry that if we don't know enough, we can't just jump in. And I don't think men have that same gating factor. Women feel like they have to cross all the T's and dot all the I's and know everything and be perfect and not fail. And men just don't have that same concern about jumping in. I say in my book Fight Like a Mother, if you don't use motherhood as a tool for you, it will be used against you.

(17:59) This is just about restoring the responsibilities that go along with gun rights. We're not anti second amendment, we're not anti gun. Many of our volunteers are gun owners or their partners are gun owners. This is simply about replacing the responsibilities that the NRA has eroded for decades.

(19:53) You talk about staying put as a seismic act, which I thought was really beautiful and that women go in and they knit and they breastfeed. And we've had this come up in conversations a number of times where women breastfeeding becomes an act of anarchy in some way.

(20:52) And I am just so amazed by how organized women are and how industrious they are and how entrepreneurial and creative and innovative,​ ​the ideas they've come up with​ ​have been just spectacular over the last eight years. And it's, it's why we are where we are.

(23:20) I had to decide, am I going to back down or am I going to double down? And I decided the ladder, I decided that I was not going to be silenced or threatened if I lost my kids. I had nothing left to lose and it really has become like white noise. I simply do not care.

(26:28) If you're passionate about something, you will be good at it and you will find a way to bring your time and your talents. It doesn't have to be starting a national organization. There are many different ways to get involved in different things. But if you do want to start an organization, if it's in your neighborhood, your community, in your state, in the country, you can do it to.

Eight-year-old Bellen Woodard is the only African-American girl in her third-grade class in a Virginia school. After a moment coloring made her feel unimportant, she had an idea to change the conversation by giving the "skin-color" crayon a new meaning. This idea has evolved into a movement and business called "More than Peach" that is giving people across the country a way to talk about identity, race, and inclusion and inspiring girls, and women, to use their voice for change.

• What adults get wrong about little girls.

• What happened in Bellen's classroom and how she changed an uncomfortable conversation?

• What is the "More than Peach" project?

• Why Bellen isn't afraid to speak up.

• What are Bellen's Palette Packets?

• How Bellen has helped 2000 classrooms with her multi-cultural kits.

• What it means for Bellen to be inducted into the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.

• Bellen's advice from her mom.

• How Bellen dealt with a first grader teasing her about her hair.

• What makes an idea shift and turn into a movement?

• How girls can lead at any age

(3:04) Every time we would color in school, they always ask for the skin color crayon and we all just knew that, oh the skin color crayon is crayon language for the peach crayon, not really thinking about what we were doing.

(4:00) And then when I told my mom about this, she said: "how about you give them the brown crayon next time?" And I said, "I don't want to do that. Instead, I want to ask what color they want as it could be a number of any colors." And that's what I did. And then everyone started actually telling me, "I want the peach crayon or I want the brown crayon."

(5:14) I want kids to feel like they can be kids and not feel excluded and have the best options. And how I'm doing that is I have my pallet packets, which include multicultural items and my very own, "More than Peach" crayons coming in June. I actually deliver them to schools and now I'm donating to senior centers because they can't see their families due to COVID-19, because they're more at risk. Everyone should be able to color.

(5:30) My big goal is to get this not just around the country but maybe even around the world so people can know that they have their own skin color and it's okay if the peach one or brown one doesn't actually match you and if it doesn't, you can actually say something.

(7:02) We went into the Virginia Museum of History & Culture Museum and they decided to put one of my palette packets on display and a More than Peach tee shirt to be at the museum forever and ever. And that's really good because when I'm older, maybe people can start doing their own More than Peach project, making sure other people know that there's a skin color for everyone.

(8:58) I need younger kids to stop asking for the skin color crayon, always assuming to get the peach crayon and actually telling them I want this... I actually want the peach crayon.

(10:34) Be you. You are brilliant, be brilliant. And just know that if you want something to change, you should be the change and don't just hold it in for a long time. If it really bothers you, then make sure you say something because people may not think it's weird. They may actually think about it and say, you're right. I could imagine having the same hardship.

(13:19) Maybe God made my hair crazy because I'm also all over the place, my hair is also all over the place. And how many of you will actually have matching personalities with their hair?

After a flash of inspiration, Deborah Alma bought a vintage ambulance on eBay and became "The Emergency Poet". Another flash several years later and she bought a shop, founding the world's first "Poetry Pharmacy", a tea, performance, and consultation space where Alma prescribes handpicked poems to her patients. In this episode, we take an inside look at the healing, intimate power that poetry has, and how it connects people to the spiritual part of themselves. You'll learn that being on the outside of normal can be the best part of how you share your voice and operate your business, allowing some decisions to be made purely on moments of playful creativity.

• What is "emergency poetry" and how did Deborah turn her creative passion into a career?

• Why we turn to poetry at times of crisis or at heightened states of emotion.

• How poetry taught Deborah the power of listening.

• The intimate nature of poetry and how it can serve as an extension of yourself, allowing you to become more open.

• How being mixed race/mixed class informed Deborah's work and the importance of combatting situations of prejudice.

• Why what Deborah values most about herself is invisible to others.

• The journey from creative to businesswoman.

• The struggles of taking yourself seriously as a creative business owner and the boundaries that should be addressed.

• Why some creatives want to give away their work for free.

• Do you have to be ruthless to be good at business?

• The collegiate way that women lead and why they work with you instead of for you.

(1:25) About eight years ago, I suddenly bought a vintage ambulance on eBay. All of my friends saying, no, do it. It wasn't an idea to have a business particularly. It was just a kind of a piece of art, I suppose. A kind of creative idea to go and do poetry prescriptions.

(7:14) And it's got all the original ironmongers shelves, sort of mid Victorian shelves. And I was peering through the dusty windows at these shelves and the mahogany counter and an old tale. And it was a bit like the emergency poet thing. I just had this kind of flash of inspiration.

(7:24) The flash of the inspiration, is that the same place where the poems come from for you? Yes. It's the kind of free, almost childlike, playful part of me that hasn't died. I just indulge it all the time. It's the same place I think.

(9:28) I think what happens here as well as the States is that school can put you off to poetry. People pick poetry apart in the classroom and it destroys it. It destroys that kind of immediate and intimate response.

(12:22) I realized how sharing a poem could take them in their head to somewhere positive. So I learned that, I learned that people like being listened to really carefully. I learned that people like you to ask unexpected questions. They like to talk about themselves.

(12:33) There's a process…this question and then this question, so that they don't go off into unsafe territory. It's always about them. It's always about positive parts of themselves. Then it kind of comes to a resolution and at that point I asked them what they'd like a poem for whether it's work stress or anxiety or they're bullied at work or whatever it is, and it's right at the end. So we don't dwell on the thing too much. The poem should answer that.

(15:10) It's such a personal relationship. That that very intimate relationship, yourself, your emotions in that text, whether it's fictional or a poem.

(21:34) For me because it's not seen as well. It's part of me that's really important and that I love and I'm not in touch with it. It's not addressed most of the time. So it was really nice to be able to write about it actually. There's a line in one of the poems from when I was little and we put bells around our ankles, my mum and me and my sister and we'd dance, Indian dancing and I grew up with the films and it goes right through me. But it's not seen.

(18:19) I think there's something that women do that's very different. It's more about working together, worrying about the people, how people feel when they work with you, that they work with you and not for you. That kind of collegiate way of doing things. I can be a bit of a softie. I want to give things away all the time.

Led by a calling that she couldn't ignore, Payton McGriff, founder of Style Her Empowered (SHE) has made it her mission to keep girls in school. Her company, which started as a project in undergrad, is now an award-winning startup with a scrappy team on three continents, in four cities and across many time zones. In this "Lesson in Courage" we discuss how she assembled it, why she believes it's important for every woman to use their voice, and why recalibrating her personal values has been key to her success.

• School uniforms have been shown to be one of the most cost-effective ways to keep girls in school around the world.
• What the day in the life of a schoolgirl in Togo, Africa looks like and the obstacles girls there face towards education.
• How Payton came into her first round of seed funding to open her doors.
• Why and how SHE creates uniforms that "grow".
• Creating a zero-waste process.
• Why it's good to rely on creative input from others when developing a product.
• Why fighting for your cause and standing behind what your beliefs will drive your ideas to the fullest.
• Assembling an A-Team dynamic that empowers everyone.
• *KPMG women's leadership study found that 80% - 86% of women report that when they see more women in leadership, they are encouraged and they can get there themselves.
• Finding your voice through adversity and articulating your values.
• How to create thoughtful, circular systems to expand your impact even further.
• Creating a holistic space for women through courageous pursuits that resemble the natural cycles of our environment.
• Solving problems based on listening.
• Women lead from a place of empathy and community because we often feel excluded.

(7:54) About six months after we provided our first group of girls with new school uniforms, we had 65 girls sponsored and the majority of them had grown out of their school uniform just months into the school year. So we wanted to create a well-tailored dignified uniform that could grow up with these girls and didn't become a repeat barrier to their education.

(8:38) We worked at the university that I graduated from with students to try to get the first prototype working that expands and we tried it on our girls in Togo and it just wasn't something they liked. So we honestly tabled the idea for quite a while because we didn't want to impose a product that our girls were not interested in. And then it was about a year later, we looked back at the uniforms and realized there was still some potential there.

(9:00) And after about a year and a half of failed attempts at creating a dress that can expand, we came up with the Xi uniform and it grows six sizes a foot in length. And because we know that environmental impacts impact women and girls at a much greater rate, we wanted to create a product that was really truly sustainable and circular and thought about the full process

(12:22) There have been moments of burnout during the journey that I think every startup encounters, but it all comes back to just the incredible people that we work with and serve in Togo.

(15:53) When I stepped off that ledge into SHE, I had to really meet some incredible people that could help me select the metrics I measured my life by very intentionally. Because I think that is all of the training that you don't get in entrepreneurship classes or programs or competitions.

(17:50) I think the fact that we started with something tangible, like a uniform, felt actionable and that was, ever-evolving and wanting to do more, perhaps there is more courage associated with it.

(18:34) It's really how you bridge that gap between the first year and really proving your concept.

(19:09) There's this quote I love that says talent is equally distributed. Opportunity is not. And so it was just apparent to me that I am someone who really has benefited from a ton of privilege in my life. And so that is on me to start to dismantle the systems that I have benefited from and to start to really redistribute opportunity in an equitable way. Because if I, someone who's benefiting from privilege, am not doing it, nobody's going to and we have to be a huge part of that conversation.

(22:58) I think there's absolutely a such thing as feminine leadership. I think it's very much community-based and from a source of empathy and values. I think the conversations that I have with women leaders are very much centered around all stakeholders so that it's not just your customers, it's your employees. There's just a real thoughtfulness and a real care in feminine leadership. And I think that's because we have experienced a system that's not working for us all of the time.

(20:42) Having a strong conviction for the problem and a truly deep passion for wanting to solve it I think is always been a successful first step for me.

(24:05) It's to create a circular system where girls have access to education and skills training and adult women who've never been able to access the classroom, have access now to education and employment development. So it's these two pieces really serving each other and expanding the impact and doing that all in a way that benefits the environment and creates thoughtful circular systems.

Erica Mackey is a mom on a mission. In this "Lesson on Self-Assurance", the CEO, and Co-Founder talks founding MyVillage—a company training an army of women entrepreneurs to run their own businesses--raising six million from impact investors and her solutions for the broken, messy problem of childcare in America. If you're a mom who was told to get on the childcare waitlist while you were still pregnant, this episode is for you.

• Why the average American mom can't '"stay-at-home".
• What is My Village? Why/how was it founded?
• What do being humble and "being the rock" have to do with it?
• How role models like Finland's Sanna Marin, New Zealand's Jacinda Arden, and Senator Tammy Duckworth are changing the conversation.
• Obstacles that women face as working mothers around an unconscious bias.
• Creating a really powerful on-the-ground community that supports each other.
• "Why are women expected to work like they don't have children and mother like they don't work?"
• Why aren't childcare providers able to be written off in the same way that other employees are?
• How Erica's confidence and passion attracted investors to her business.
• Women raise on 2.8% of venture capital. How did Mackey raise 250 million and 6 million for her ventures?
• What is an Impact Investor?
• Do women lead differently?
• #LESSONUP:

  (8:03) We're using a lot of principles that are out there around child centered, child led, play-based programming. But we are doing it in a way that we really help people thrive in their first six to 12 months of running a home based business.

  (12:54) We're seeing so many more women right in this moment, I think of Jacinda Arden who brings her baby to the UN general assembly for the first time ever. Who's out there breastfeeding. Finland's female prime minister who's the youngest female prime minister in the world and she posts selfies breastfeeding. And then Tammy Duckworth, she got caught on her zoom call saying " you're going potty mommy will be there in a second." She told it to the whole democratic caucus, which I thought was hilarious and I personally, I love this.

  (14:49) That boundary between personal and professional as you start framing it, you can't be the best and exclude the other side.

  (15:52) We're still having this conversation in the United States, strangely about women who work and should women be allowed to work where you should be at home with your children. And there's still this kind of unconscious bias and this push-pull a lot of the times still between moms who work and moms who don't about what is best for children.

  (17:34) I think in the world that we're in now where unemployment is going to be a major issue and flexibility around employment and trying to make all of the puzzle pieces work in a way that don't. It's going to have to be at the forefront and the political conversation.

  (19:00) I built that business over seven years. I was COO and built a thousand person team. We raised about 250 million over the course while I was there to scale the business and at the point that I moved back to the States, we were selling about 10,000 houses a month.

  (19:53) Focus on solving important problems. And I think that's where a lot of my confidence as an entrepreneur comes from and how you present the opportunity, how you work your way through your network to get to the right conversations at the right time.

  (20:42) Having a strong conviction to the problem and a true deep passion for wanting solve it I think is always been a successful first step for me.

  (21:27) I was very specific about picking impact investors for our initial round. Impact investors are really mission-aligned, so they're looking for a double, triple bottom line business. Some of them are environment, profit, people-focused. Some of them are just people profit-focused, so they want a return. But they really understand that the best impact that can be made in a society is usually in a really complex system.

  (23:20) It's more of a place of leading from self-assurance. If I have doubt about the direction, it's anchored in a place where I'm sure we will get to a solution on the other side.

  (26:24) Feminine leadership will often will make you much more successful in the connection and coming from a good place, coming from a place of support, which then I think as long as you're delivering the directness, on the other axis at the same time where you're really able to not get hung up by worrying so much about people, how it's going to land, and where it's coming from. A true, honest place. I think that women, in general, are much better at getting that balance.

  (28:59) This is about creating an army of small female entrepreneurs that are going to change the world but just really tackle the childcare crisis on their own.

When it comes to doing business, hitting the million-dollar mark is an elusive one. In this A Lesson On Power, Ali Brown, one of the most recognized entrepreneur coaches in the world talks about the obstacles women face in reaching it and how they can step into their value, their purpose and build wealth on their own terms.

TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE: How Ali found her calling and why she questioned it. Why the million-dollar mark is elusive and why women stop themselves from reaching it. Obstacles that women face in earning more money. Finding the magic in your business plan. What does AI have to do with it? What Ali thinks about feminine leadership. Why corporations are cultivating leadership skills most women innately possess. Differences between men and women when it comes to earning money. The pressure on women to be everyone to everything. How to embrace the potential in this unplanned-for time and how not to give in to panic.

Wendy Pabich, scientist, author, and self-proclaimed "water woman" joins Kim in a riveting discussion about how the natural, spiritual and world of science meet, and why understanding water as a woman's issue is important for women leaders. What can the study of water teach us about our own minds, behaviors, and values?

• Water as "the great integrator, a connector, an agent of transformation".
• The feminine nature of water.
• Why women leaders are more holistic thinkers.
• Cultivating a practice of creativity.
• What does it mean to be a "water woman"?
• Water is a feminist issue.
• What is the diamond/water paradox?
• How women lead and problem-solve differently.
• What is an aquifer and why are they in trouble?
• How can we reduce our water footprint?

(4:30) When you cultivate a practice of creativity, I think it helps you look at the world differently.

(9:02) Water is a women's issue for women around the globe. That lack of water is a tremendous burden. Women collectively spend hundreds of millions of hours each day gathering water for domestic use. …It's dubbed the universal solvent for instability to dissolve more substances than any other compounds. So it, and it because it receives these compounds easily and again, from that feminine perspective, women are built to receive.

(15:04) Women that are empowered and embodied have a way of moving about and functioning in the world that's holistic and generative and creative. And we're able to integrate from all sorts of sensory input and emotion and imagery and use all these those in conjunction with our intellect to come up with really sort of holistic, creative, resilient solutions.

(19:58) …an even bigger issue is our water footprint. The idea of a water footprint is it's the water embedded in all the goods and products that we consume in our lives every day.

(21:05) The diamond water paradox the idea that water is about the most precious resource we could have in our lives. You can live a couple of days without water. And yet we dramatically drastically undervalue it in the marketplace because we feel like it's a free resource.

(27:02) Is there a length of time that this takes, as an example we're seeing right now because everybody is stuck in their homes in Italy, dolphins reappearing in the Venice canals because there's not very much pollution. Is there a quantifiable time that this takes to allow the earth to heal, to recharge, to do this? Can we do it fast enough?

Join Kim on Instagram Live at 12 pm PT every Wednesday to chat about the episode.

More in-depth show notes and shareables available at voicelessonspodcast.com.