Day: August 16, 2021

Female Founders: Chrissy Cabrera of Naturally London On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and…

Female Founders: Chrissy Cabrera of Naturally London On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Be Ready to Pivot. Keep your best ankle-supporting shoes on at all times, because you never know when you may have to pivot. Many founders realized the power of pivoting during the pandemic. However, it is a very important skillset to have at any time. My brand has done a few very strategic, game changing pivots. Don’t be afraid to try something new because it could be the thing that catapults your success.

As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Chrissy Cabrera.

Chrissy Cabrera is a guacamole loving, skincare fanatic, mother of two, who also, happens to be a Certified Aromatherapist and the Mastermind behind Naturally London. She has always had issues with her feet such as arch pain, calluses and dryness. But, these issues became over abundant during her first pregnancy leading to her inspiration to create Naturally London.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

During my first pregnancy, I suffered from severe swelling and pain in my feet. The only thing that brought relief & joy was soaking my feet. The biggest obstacle was I couldn’t stand the smell of tea tree & peppermint, which are most common in footcare. So, I created my own products sans these two ingredients.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

Everyone thinks my name is London when they meet me. I guess I look like a London. It’s actually my daughter’s name. I only saw fit to name by business after my inspiration.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I made a true rookie mistake from excitement. I ordered 3000 .1oz jars for a subscription box partnership. Ummmmm, I actually needed 3000 1oz jars. I still have these jars in my possession to this day.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

There are five people I call my “Consulting Circle of Trust”. One of these five is my business bestie, Shirley. Her business is called Beurre. We met at an expo in 2015 and have shared resources, advice, and guidance ever since that day. It’s very nice to have someone as a sounding board for ideas or to vent out frustrations from obstacles.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?

There are probably lots of women out there who have great ideas for a business. The issue is funding and fear. Depending on the industry, some need some serious capital to create their business. Combine that with the fear of not really knowing what to do and having the guidance/mentorship to do it.

Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?

Our society does not teach or motivate us to be entrepreneurs. We are conditioned to be employees. The first step is to find a way to make entrepreneurship an everyday norm.

This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?

Women should continue to become founders, in order to eradicate the wage gap and empower women to be financially independent. You can be successful at a job, but financial independence occurs when you work for yourself.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?

There are so many myths, but one in particular is that it’s always so glamorous. This may be true for some, but not for me. I do a lot of the grit work, if not all. It means long days and constantly having to “eat what you kill”. Another myth is the belief that, if you own you own business, you are rolling in the dough. Most of us are happy to make enough money to tend to our families’ needs. Last, but not least: success doesn’t happen overnight. It may happen for some that get the glorious opportunity to go viral. However, going viral is unpredictable. The one thing is for sure is consistency yields results. Japanese farmers nurture their bamboo crops for five years without seeing any results. They continue to tend the fields, water them, etc. And then boom! The bamboo shoots up from the ground overnight. It took five years of work for that “overnight” success.

Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?

The simple answer is no. It is very easy to say not everyone is meant to be a founder, just like not everyone is meant to be an Olympic gold medalist. There needs to be an innate drive and resilience that fuels you. Being a founder is not for the faint at heart since there are some serious unknowns and lots of rejection. Many think being a founder is a race, but it is definitely more like a marathon. It’s best to go slow and steady to finish strong and have your team of cheerleaders and water bearers to keep you going along the way.

I previously used an analogy on how founders have to hunt what you eat, skin it, gut it and fry it in the pan. If that doesn’t appeal to you, it may be best to continue shopping at the grocery store for your food, i.e., continue working a “regular job”. And that’s completely fine too.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder?” (Please share a story or example for each.)

Gather yourself a team. Even though many of us are solopreneurs, it is important to have yourself a team. You will need a team to go the distance. My team started out with three people I trusted to discuss my ideals with, in order to be my sounding board. From there I expanded to my graphic designer, seasonal helpers, social media manager and brand ambassador manager. Eventually, you will need to delegate so you can keep your business pushing forward.
Condition yourself to rejection. Most people will say no to you. No means no and is not personal simply move on to the next opportunity. It doesn’t define you and it may be a blessing in disguise.
Strengthen your inner salesperson. I struggle in this arena and wish I knew the importance of strengthening my sales muscles before diving into entrepreneurship.
Be Ready to Pivot. Keep your best ankle-supporting shoes on at all times, because you never know when you may have to pivot. Many founders realized the power of pivoting during the pandemic. However, it is a very important skillset to have at any time. My brand has done a few very strategic, game changing pivots. Don’t be afraid to try something new because it could be the thing that catapults your success.
Trust your gut. If you decide to talk to others about your ideas, obstacles, choices you are opening yourself up to their advice. At the end of the day, your business is your baby and only you know what is best. Sometimes you will have to go against the advice of those you value and trust, because your gut is telling you to do something else. Trust yourself. The beautiful thing is you took a chance on you and worse case scenario: you have to pivot. (See #4)

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

My years spent in the military taught me so much and one of the things is to always have a component of volunteering or giving back. This is a core value I still live by and I have two charities I work closely with to do our part. One is Soles4Souls, the other is Walk A Mile in Her Shoes. Also, I do mentorship for inspiring entrepreneurs by giving some key tips and strategies to help them on their journey.

I think it’s very important to combine efforts/missions when choosing our partnerships. We are proud of our partnership with Grove Collaborative taking a stance against plastic. Naturally London has our plastic stance as we continue with our plastic less initiative. Currently, we have 11 out of 15 products plastic free.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

Our culture and society must eradicate the rape culture embedded in everyday norms. I think it’s very disheartening that being raped has become a normal status or “right of passage” for so many women. The ‘Me Too’ movement was so uniting, but at the same time heartbreaking. The story line needs to drastically change. It’s 2021, it really needs to stop. Like now.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

There are some really good ones that popped into my head. But, I instantly thought of Tracee Ellis Ross because she’s the distant cousin we all need to have in our lives. I am certain breakfast or lunch with her would result in laughing so hard I’d actually pee myself. She seems so authentic with an infectious energy that makes you feel accepted with her smile.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Female Founders: Chrissy Cabrera of Naturally London On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Founders: Maxine Bishko Of Lattice Gems On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as…

Female Founders: Maxine Bishko Of Lattice Gems On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Find time to play: Yep, all work and no play makes “Jack” a dull boy. For the soul to constantly be nourished, it has to be replenished. Driving my passion is one thing, but being drained and burnt out is also a thing. Having experienced that over the years has made me realise that having fun is essential to personal growth. It could be as simple as watching television to unwind, or getting out there with friends and having conversations. Spending time with other people and doing leisure activities reduces stress and also boosts the brain functionality — and can encourage the flow of ideas through conversation

As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Maxine Bishko.

Maxine Bishko is a female entrepreneur who moved halfway across the world from Singapore to Hawaii in the midst of the Covid pandemic, building a community of women through the love of crystals, empowerment, and self-love. The founder of Lattice Gems, she has single-handedly nurtured and grown her community by personally curating and connecting crystals of the highest quality to women all around the world. In a time where the world has been shaken and mental health has been suffering, Maxine has created quirky and fun stories for every single one of her crystals and gems in the way she perceives them to foster empowerment and positivity within her community.

I am born and bred in one of the smallest countries in the world, Singapore. And thanks to my animal-loving family, there was never a time I lived without family pets — from dogs to cats and even quails, we raised them all as part of our family. One day, 14 years ago, before the boom of e-commerce, a friend asked me, “What if you delivered pet food like pizza delivery to all the many households who have pets?” I was only 20 years old, juggling a part-time job and full-time Bachelor’s degree in college, but that idea excited me. I love pushing my boundaries and exploring new ideas. And so I raised capital from friends and family, and began 8 years of e-commerce retail as a pioneer of the pet industry at that time, which grew into distributing pet supplies from all over the world into Singapore’s pet retail stores.

Over the decade, competition increased and profit margins became slimmer in brick-and-mortar retail, so I started tinkering with designing modular pet housing to create furniture for both humans AND pets. I knew nothing about designing, or furniture, but I had a team. We started from scratch — market research, designing, raising capital, working out shipping logistics and planning our launch. It was to be a Kickstarter launch, but we only raised 10% of our total goal. Our Kickstarter had failed. And the pandemic had just hit. It was a bad year.

I had always loved threading bracelets; I was threading kid bracelets at age 3. It was therapy for me, and over the years I had made many crystal bracelets for myself. I started gravitating towards making bracelets again — it was soothing for me. I also started beefing up my crystal collection again and that’s when I found a community of women who shared the same interests as I did. But more than that, I realised that in a globally gloomy time, the love of crystals brought strength and positivity to a lot of lives. I decided that I needed to empower people in a dark time such as this — by building my Lattice Gems Tribe. So I started Lattice Gems — without e-commerce, nor did I raise any funding — I only had a quest to empower more lives. Lattice Gems was born on Instagram @latticegems and within a year we have grown exponentially — friendships forged and bonds created all over the world — and yes we have a website now 😉

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

Lattice Gems is my unique business baby. Not only did it start in a chaotic world as a beacon in the darkness, I was also closing a gap in my personal life. I was in a 5 year long-distance relationship spanning from Singapore to Russia, then China, Japan and Hawaii. Finally, we were married, but since starting Lattice Gems, I was also in the midst of migrating to where my partner was, and still is — the beautiful island of Oahu, Hawaii. I had never lived anywhere else in the world despite traveling extensively; and moving to the middle of the ocean was exciting yet scary. I was sad to leave my friends, family and the life I knew behind, but I was starting a new adventure. This propelled me into throwing myself into completing the entire migration process as quickly as possible while building my Lattice Gems community around people who lived in the United States. Finally, with two of my pet bunnies in tow, I flew from Singapore to Hawaii, where I began my life as a new military spouse; and brought Lattice Gems halfway across the world.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

When I first started Lattice Gems, I had packaged some crystal orders into recycled boxes from my own online shopping for shipping. I am a big advocate of recycling and reusing, but one time I had forgotten to remove from the box an order packing list for lingerie that I had bought; and it ended up with one of my customers in the UK! She sent me a message to thank me for the crystals and said she had lingerie from the same brand too. We laughed about it but I made a mental note to always check the insides of boxes if I were using recycled boxes! Today, Lattice Gems’ packages ship in custom branded packaging that I have sourced extensively for to be eco-friendly. From wrapping paper that is compostable and acid-free, to stickers made of recycled paper and soy-based inks, the only notes my community will be getting are handwritten cards from Lattice! All of our bubble wrap is recycled bubble wrap.

When I was 8 years old, my mother got called into school. I will always remember sitting in the teacher’s office when she told my mother that I was selling bookmarks to classmates. The teacher said, “Maxine has been selling bookmarks to her classmates — does she not get pocket money?” I was getting a dollar a day (this was the 90s) for food at school and always had money left over. But I was “employing” a small group of classmates to draw and make bookmarks, while I sold the bookmarks to other classmates for fifty cents each. I would then give the “employed” classmates ten or twenty cents if their bookmark had sold. My mother had the most serious face on and I thought I was in trouble. She cleared the air with my teacher and promised that I would not do it again.

As soon as we were out the door, my mother burst out into laughter and asked me, “Why are you selling bookmarks?” I said that I loved reading and I wanted to sell things that I love so that other classmates could love reading too. As a child, I also knew that my mother was not mad and selling bookmarks was not wrong.

From this young experience my mother had shown me not to sweat the small stuff. I was not doing anything wrong except going against some rules. But I was not doing anything morally wrong and I was instead pushing the boundaries of everyone’s comfort zones. What about fostering entrepreneurship amongst students? It was a lesson from a long time ago and times have changed, but that experience taught me a lot at a young age and I am grateful to my mother for showing me that you can push past boundaries to do what most people won’t even bother trying to do. And that it is ok.

I started at a relatively young age because I was exposed to many young entrepreneurs. I was fortunate that I had both men and women mentors believe in me despite my gender and age. Being bold and independent, I never really felt held back by what I could achieve. Most people are not taught that failure is an option but I believe that only when you try something new and step out of your comfort zone, is a true test of character. Our society does not promote failure as a way of life, and especially in Singapore where I grew up, results matter. Perhaps many women are afraid of failure, or face lack of support from family because of demands from family life. However, regardless of gender, self-doubt is the number one killer for any entrepreneurial journey. Apart from the immense emotional and mental strength that is needed for the long haul journey to success, believing in yourself and finding that voice to speak up is extremely important to get that chance at success. Entrepreneurs with grit and drive to succeed usually do, as long as they take the first step to just try. Even if you face failure, you can only learn from it and progress from there.

Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?

Having grown up in a results-oriented country, where from the education system to the working world, society looks favorably upon your successes and demeans failure. Even though Singapore has now pivoted to become a startup paradise in Southeast Asia with robust government subsidies and policies that encourage ease of setting up a business there, society has been moulded to excel. Looking to Israel, one of the leading countries in entrepreneurship and innovation, their only abundant resource is human capital. The Israelis live in a society where their shared pride for the nation creates an understanding that failure is a natural part of any innovative economy. They understand that for every successful entrepreneurial journey, there are thousands of others who fail and that is also a natural part of entrepreneurship.

So in order to overcome the aversion to failure, it all starts with the individual. Each individual has a part to play in our society and together with a cohesive mindset that failure is part and parcel of life in every journey, the path can be paved to encourage a “just do it” mindset. As individuals, we can start learning that failure is not part of your personal identity and we do not need the approval of other people to live life. We learn to push on past failure, even if your business has been ongoing for years. I firmly believe that it all lies within the mindset of each individual.

And as a society, we can accept that failure helps us grow in more ways than one. We should encourage family and friends who are entrepreneurs rather than discouraging them because it’s “too risky” or not the conventional pathway to success. Governments should think about enacting policies that greatly streamline processes for entrepreneurs and provide higher access to funding especially for women-led companies. With less red tape, it allows individuals to be creative and further encourages them to give their ideas a shot; without the fear of having navigated a strenuous process, invest thousands of dollars or more, and still potentially fail after overcoming multitudes of obstacles.

This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?

Apart from the tons of research that show that women-led companies have stronger teams and often outperform male-led counterparts in the same industry, there are still significantly less women-founded companies in the world. Even though the number is growing progressively, women often may not believe in themselves enough to dream bigger. This leads to a lack of “women tribes” who can rally other women, fund startups and push them past boundaries to achieve bigger things. Having a large network of women who can support each other in the entrepreneurial journey is vital to more blossoming ideas, more funding, more innovation and as a whole boosts the global economy.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?

It is a myth that every founder big or small has a luxurious life, a ton of freedom to do as they please, and that every founder’s idea would leave a lasting legacy. The truth is when you take the leap of faith to start an idea, there are tons of other similar ideas and many other factors that would determine if your business makes it to that “unicorn” status. Doing the work and being hands-on is important to me, and a lot of times founders also struggle with the mental and physical stress to push their vision through. Being a founder is a lonely road with many moments of isolation, alone with your own thoughts even if you voice them out to friends, a spouse, or the team. Often times I myself have experienced imposter syndrome where I ask, “Why me?” or, “This isn’t good enough,”. It has made me realise that it is vital to keep my goals in perspective — i.e, what do I really want? — and to stop comparing my achievements to other people’s successes. At the end of the day, true success is what is defined only by yourself.

Anyone can be a founder, but it takes a lot more to be a good founder. I believe that grit and resilience are key to driving through that initial idea, because things change all the time, and bringing an idea into fruition is a tough road to walk. There is a lot to stomach. To be resourceful is also a key trait to overcome difficulties and to keep the ideas flowing. These traits also overlap with being an employee, but employees are paid to carry out tasks to achieve the founder’s goals. Many employees may not “go the distance” with the passion and vision of a founder. Typical employees are people who are content to work 9–5 and get paid $x for y-time, perhaps people who prefer a stable income, no frills, less risk-taking.

A good support network: This is my number one thing — being an entrepreneur can get very lonely, so to have your own tribe of people who love you, encourage what you do, or just are simply there for you, helps A LOT. There are a lot of challenging days where I have simply lost focus or get mentally drained, and that listening ear can turn things around just by being there. Actually, this is vital for every aspect of life.
Find time to play: Yep, all work and no play makes “Jack” a dull boy. For the soul to constantly be nourished, it has to be replenished. Driving my passion is one thing, but being drained and burnt out is also a thing. Having experienced that over the years has made me realise that having fun is essential to personal growth. It could be as simple as watching television to unwind, or getting out there with friends and having conversations. Spending time with other people and doing leisure activities reduces stress and also boosts the brain functionality — and can encourage the flow of ideas through conversation
Be Curious: I always ask questions — in my own mind, sometimes I blurt them out. I have been taught as a child that there is no such thing as a stupid question. Being curious has allowed me to recognise ideas and discover things I never even knew existed. Curiosity has allowed me to go on many an adventure, to form genuine and sincere relationships with people. Personal contact and connections can go a long way. Knowledge is limitless, and as a founder to acknowledge that and to be curious about things you don’t know increases the exchange of information and boosts achievement when you are genuinely curious and interested in what you are doing.
Be Driven: As a small business owner, I am the driving force of all aspects of my business. This includes ironing out all business processes and setting goals and milestones. Sometimes a phone call is necessary in lieu of an email. Once I stop being driven to achieve set goals, things don’t get done on time and business inevitably slows down. There are so many endless possibilities to improve and automate the business that I dream of and can be worked towards, and the intrinsic desire to challenge myself and to unfold new journeys is something I relish. That being said, there are also many tasks that can be outsourced while achieving set goals, so that I don’t drive myself to burnout.
Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty: Being the driving force of Lattice Gems also means that I am critical — only because I have built all aspects of the business from scratch and know the ins and outs of each process. If something doesn’t sit right with me, I know when to say no. Suppliers underdelivering what they have promised on quality? I communicate with them and work out solutions. I ensure that quality is key for everything I put out there and I do not tolerate bullies. One time, a shipment of my crystals got shipped to the wrong address and the recipient opened my boxes and stole half of my purchase, even though they shipped the remainder of the items to me. I reported the case to the police, and filed claims with all the shipping parties. Fix what needs fixing even when it is not convenient or easy.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

I truly believe that through Lattice Gems, I have not only been able to share my love of crystals around the world, but more importantly to show people the power of positivity and empowerment through beautiful creations of Mother Nature. In a time where a lot of people have felt negativity and darkness, they have turned to healing crystals, and many have found the meaning of being happy, or an alternative means to finding positivity in their lives. While some of us may have been previously consumed by a fast-paced world and materialistic whims, perhaps Lattice Gems has brought them an appreciation for naturally formed beauty. Also, the empowerment to look within themselves to find intrinsic happiness they never knew existed. Lattice Gems is constantly evolving and growing, and there is so much more that can be done to share my world of crystals, healing, and to grow the community of people so that more knowledge can be exchanged. To hold a Lattice Gems crystal is to hold that spark of joy it brings; and that alone makes the world a better place little by little.

A movement of selfless acts to give back to families and children who live in less-developed countries with the hashtag #latticegivesback. There are millions of people who live without access to basic needs in many different countries across the world. In fact, many of the small families who ethically mine crystals are from less-developed countries such as Madagascar, India and Indonesia, to name a few. I think that in our society of technology, social media, and personal conveniences, we often lose the perspective that many others around the world still live by striving to fulfil their basic needs of shelter, food and water. Lattice Gems was built on social media and e-commerce. If I could inspire a movement for my community to use their social media to post their selfless acts for strangers, family or friends, I could then work with larger businesses to give back to communities around the world.

His nickname “The Rock” would resonate very well with me and my community of “rock”-lovers, but that has absolutely nothing to do with me wanting to meet Dwayne Johnson. He greatly inspires me not only because of his highly charismatic persona, but because he had hit rock-bottom (pardon my rock puns, I cannot help it) several times in his life before ascending out of the rubble with sheer determination and grit to achieve the success he has today. He greatly inspires me because despite all the challenges he faced throughout his life, he took risks and worked extremely hard to get where he is today. He has never been afraid to follow his dreams and he puts his all into carving out the life he envisions for himself. I resonate with him and share a similar mindset because he has always advocated being unstoppable and that success is never overnight. We were both married in Hawaii, and we both like surrounding ourselves with like-minded people, so I think we would have an enjoyable meal together 🙂

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Female Founders: Maxine Bishko Of Lattice Gems On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Founders: Eden Cheng of PeopleFinderFree On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed…

Female Founders: Eden Cheng of PeopleFinderFree On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

A Resilient Character — As a female founder, you need to have a strong amount of resilience and determination to succeed. After all, dealing with a lot of gender discrimination, doubt, and rejection, simply for being a female founder is sadly part of the job description and while it shouldn’t be, it doesn’t pay to hide from the reality of it. As such, it’s always best to make sure that you face these challenges with a solid amount of resilience, by telling yourself that “no matter what roadblocks come my way, I won’t stop until I get to where I need to go”. This was a mantra I used at the start of my journey and repeated to myself over and over until it eventually became imbued into my very personality.

As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Eden Cheng.

Eden Cheng is a business leader, entrepreneur, digital marketing-specialist and most importantly, the founder of a SaaS company called PeopleFinderFree, which is effectively an accurate, true people search service. It allows users to effectively look-up any person they wish to collect information on, giving people the opportunity to learn more about the people they are curious about or in the case of business, learn more about their customers, which more often than not, helps them create more targeted and personalized marketing campaigns to boost their ROI, as a result. When she is not busy working, she often spends most of her time either at the gym, taking her dog out for long walks or rock climbing.

Everyone has their own reasons to jump into the world of entrepreneurship but in my case, I can probably say it was a culmination of a number of different reasons. For one, I got tired of working for others. I wanted the opportunity to create something of my own and lead it to success without having someone constantly breathing down my neck. In other words, I was highly driven to take charge of my own path, and so I made the commitment to quit my previous job as an executive assistant at a software company and launched my own SaaS company with a partner instead. And while the journey so far has not been an easy one, we have managed to find some solid footing having landed some high-value clients of late, as we continue to steadily work our way up the ladder.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

I would probably say that the most interesting thing to happen to me was that 4 months into launching my business I actually ended up in hospital. This happened because it can often be difficult to manage all the responsibilities that come with launching and managing a startup. In my case, I was overly stressed out because I was constantly chasing an upward career trajectory, having to constantly be available to my employees 24/7 to help them manage their workloads, as well as to stay in touch with potential investors, clients, etc. This constant need to always be on “go mode”, left me even working on my off days and even sleeping fewer hours most nights, even when I didn’t have to. Inevitably, I ended up in hospital because of compounding overwork that led to high blood pressure. It dawned on me that entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart and that looking after oneself in this line of work is just as important as looking after the growth of your business. Since then I have managed to reevaluate how I balanced my work life and after a suggestion from a friend, I started spending more time on improving my physical health by going to the gym, which has significantly helped me to find an outlet for all the stress and workplace frustrations my position brings with it.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

One of the biggest and silliest mistakes that I made at the start of my business was taking on too much responsibility because I was carrying that “if you want something done right, do it yourself mentality”, and in the midst of juggling so much at once, this actually once led to the misclassification of my employees on their payroll. This happened because since our business usually outsources some of our projects to third-parties, it made it very difficult to stay abreast of all the people we hired and had to pay each month, which included our own full-time employees. So, at the time, I actually misclassified a number of our newly-hired full-time employees as independent contractors, which meant that on paper they didn’t qualify for certain company benefits in that period, like bonuses and overtime. It was a serious issue that affected a lot of parties and while correctable, it was at that moment I realized that I wasn’t so well-suited to keep handling the company’s bookkeeping and accounting, especially as we continued to expand our workforce and grow in size. From that moment, I took the lesson in stride and decided it was time to relinquish some control, and in this specific case, I opted to outsource our bookkeeping duties to a qualified provider who could better manage our accounting and tax responsibilities, in order to avoid any more mixups in the future.

If there’s ever someone I can thank for helping get my business to where it is it is my partner. At the time, when I was thinking about quitting my job I was dealing with a lot of doubt as to whether I would be able to actually make a business thrive on my own. However, my partner, who also happened to be my ex-coworker, said that she was willing to help me because she saw potential in my business plan and was willing to give me the moral and financial support I needed to at least get the business up and running. And while some of my family and friends were concerned that making such a leap would be detrimental to my financial stability, I believe that if she hadn’t given me that encouragement to follow my own path and also provided the support I needed at the start, I don’t think I would have actually been able to make that drastic leap on my own to begin with. It was definitely the catalyst that started everything for me and all I can say is that sometimes all it takes is one person to place a little bit of faith and trust in you, and you can move mountains.

I believe that what is really holding us back, as women, from founding companies is the fact that there are still a huge number of overlapping systemic barriers to getting through. For instance, in the business market, females still get paid less than men, which makes it very difficult to save enough money to branch off on their own to begin with. Moreover, most women, especially mothers, still have to handle domestic labor, which can often make it almost impossible to find time to work on their enterprise and take care of their families. Besides that, it’s no secret that entrepreneurship has always been represented as a male occupation. Naturally, it can be difficult for women to be encouraged to branch out and stand on their own when the industry itself doesn’t seem modeled for us. And finally, speaking from personal experience, trying to get funding from financial institutions as a female business owner is very difficult, with most VC funding often being awarded to more men than women, especially when it comes to male-dominated industries like tech.

Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?

I think that one of the first things that we need to do is to officially legalize gender equality in business. This means making bias and workplace gender discrimination officially illegal, in order to solve a lot of the issues many women may be facing in the workplace. It’s not a secret that most women tend to be passed up for promotion by most company leaders, not to mention paid less. However, if governments would actually take the initiative and formally mandate equal pay, as well as representation in leadership and investment dollars, then women would be in a better position to fully participate in the business market and succeed.

I also think that governments should create and provide mothers with childcare programs. As I mentioned before, dealing with domestic duties can often take up a lot of time that women could be spending on developing their business. However, not all of them can afford to pay for their kid’s child-care expenses. As such, it would be ideal if governments would create child-care programs that would help alleviate some of this work from women’s shoulders, which would allow them to then focus those efforts on their businesses, which ultimately benefits the economy in the long run.

And finally, I think change needs to start with us, as individuals and this primarily means that there needs to be a major cultural shift in men’s opinion on women. It’s no secret that a huge number of women have experienced assault, discrimination, and harassment from the male gender for decades, if not centuries. Considering the fact that it’s 2021 and we are no longer living like barbarians, it’s time that men take action to educate not just themselves but their own children on what it means to value, protect and treat women respectfully, be it in the workplace or while out in the world. This means asking oneself, “What are my biases?” and “How am I holding myself back by not overcoming them?” If we can do this as a collective people, then slowly but surely that inequality will begin to evaporate eventually.

This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?

For one, most female founders tend to lead companies that show the highest rates of employee retention, engagement, and satisfaction, above all others and the main reason I believe for that comes down to the level of empathy that the female aspect brings to the business. Unlike male-dominated firms, female-led businesses tend to take a more empathetic approach to leadership, prioritizing workers’ health and mental well-being first above the bottom line for the sake of long-term success. Naturally, with more fame-led businesses, we can expect the economy to flourish better, job security to be more stable, not to mention general work/life balance for most people to be much better handled, which ultimately benefits the economy significantly. In addition, by giving women the opportunity to become founders you empower them to be stronger, as they will be able to achieve financial independence, ensuring that they can not only better protect themselves from violence and poverty, but also better look after their families, especially with the many single-parent homes that many women have to deal with on their own.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?

If there is one myth, in particular, I think should be completely dispelled is a common idea that women lack the necessary skills to make effective leaders. The reality is that women and men while having different leadership styles, both have something to offer that the other needs. For instance, women are often seen as the caretakers in business that tend to support others and reward subordinates, while male leaders are seen as being more effective at delegating and problem-solving. It is this gender stereotype that leads most to believe that men are the better leaders, but in reality, without the empathy that women offer in the workplace, it’s no wonder most male-led businesses boast higher employee churn rates, in comparison to women-led businesses. The fact of the matter is contrary to what many may think, both have natural skills to offer that the other can learn from.

There is no doubt that anyone can become a successful entrepreneur and company founder, as this is not something you are born into but rather grow into. And to succeed I believe that the first thing one needs is passion, which is not something that can be taught in business schools or online courses. It is a true hallmark of a successful entrepreneur because those that succeed are those that do what they love the most and this deep passion is what will push them to launch a business, push through the barriers, and also keeps them going beyond just the financial rewards that they may get from their endeavors.

Besides that, they also need a significant amount of self-awareness, because being a founder requires the ability to take stock of one’s strengths and weaknesses as by understanding themselves well, they will be able to know which areas or tasks they need to focus on to improve themselves and their businesses.

You need to be naturally resourceful, which is a serious quality that is needed in new startups with a small staff and minimal funding. This is the ability to achieve one’s objectives and solve problems, even if they are facing some challenges without adequate resources at hand. And even without immediate know-how, they need to be able to let their creativity shine and somehow find a way to manage their businesses effectively.

But most importantly, you need to be a person of strong resilience because in this line of work you will face a lot of rejections from investors or clients at some point in time. Or even perhaps your business idea may not take off as well as you hope it will. Either way, you need to be someone that doesn’t see failure as a sign to give up, but rather a lesson that you can learn from. This also means being optimistic amidst challenges and setbacks by recognizing that your first business idea may not be sustainable, but you can still use this information and apply it to something new.

#1. A Resilient Character — As a female founder, you need to have a strong amount of resilience and determination to succeed. After all, dealing with a lot of gender discrimination, doubt, and rejection, simply for being a female founder is sadly part of the job description and while it shouldn’t be, it doesn’t pay to hide from the reality of it. As such, it’s always best to make sure that you face these challenges with a solid amount of resilience, by telling yourself that “no matter what roadblocks come my way, I won’t stop until I get to where I need to go”. This was a mantra I used at the start of my journey and repeated to myself over and over until it eventually became imbued into my very personality.

#2. A Positive Mindset — As a business founder, especially as a female founder, it is commonplace to have to deal with a lot of negativity when trying to launch your business. And sometimes it can even come from those around you, telling you to “be more realistic” for example, especially when trying to make your mark on a male-dominated industry, and because of that, you need to be able to cultivate a positive mindset. In my case, I managed to do this by practicing a lot of meditation and also reading a lot of books by successful entrepreneurs, which slowly gave me the confidence and assurance in myself that I needed to face not only my doubters but also my inner demons as well.

#3. A Strong Support Network — If there’s one thing I have to come to learn, it’s that one of the best ways to ensure that you have a stable enough foundation in order to thrive is to first build a support system and community before anything else. Without the right support system, it can often be easy to fall under pressure and feel overwhelmed, and if it wasn’t for the people closest to me, there are times when I may have just given up on my journey. This support system could be your partners, friends, coworkers, and even family, but the idea is to make sure that you have people beside you that will stick by you through thick and thin until your goals are fulfilled, no matter how rough or slow the journey may be. And one of the best ways to do that is to always be selective about the people you depend on and bring into your life because a founder’s strength doesn’t start in the workplace, it starts at home, with your personal life. And, on the professional side of things, this also involves making sure that you always hire the right people for your business, not just based on skills and qualifications, but on personality and character, as well.

#4. Proper Self-Care — Self-care is another important aspect of being a successful woman founder that should not be overlooked because in this line of work I can speak to the fact that it can often be difficult to manage all the responsibilities that come with balancing work and personal life. For instance, in my case, I used to be overly stressed out because I was constantly chasing an upward career trajectory. This meant that since I was starting a business I had to constantly be available to my employees 24/7 to help them manage their workloads, as well as to stay in touch with potential investors, clients, etc. As I mentioned earlier, this constant need to always be on “go mode”, left me even working on my off days and even sleeping fewer hours most nights, even when I didn’t have to. The consequence of that was a trip to the hospital and that is something you want to avoid, trust me!

#5. Flexibility & Adaptability — Entrepreneurship is very rarely a straight path to success and with it comes many bumps and in the worst case, even failures. As such you need to be someone who is adamant to fight against failure but isn’t afraid to face it should it happen. In other words, you need to be flexible and adaptable to change, be it good or bad, because for you to succeed as an entrepreneur, you need to take failure as a lesson and no defeat, then use it as energy to fuel your next idea. You have to always be able to find a way to get that entrepreneurial energy flowing at all times, because looking at the most successful leaders of today, most of them are where they are because they didn’t stop, no matter the roadblocks that came their way. So, try to be less stubborn and be more open to change, because you never know when that one failure ends up being the catalyst for your next big idea that becomes the money maker.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

I believe that being successful means that you have a responsibility to give back and while there are many ways to do this, I spend most of my efforts in trying to better the environment and contribute to the fight against climate change. This is because the earth will not be sustainable at the rate that we are going and if something isn’t done soon to curb plastic waste, global warming, co2 emissions, etc… then we will all pay a heavy price. It is for this reason that within my company, my staff and I take part in local green initiatives every couple of months, such as assisting local environmental groups in research and conservation, tree planting, plastic curbing, etc. We also try to play our part in making our oceans a much cleaner place by making small contributions each month to sustainability programs like “Ocean Conservancy”, for example.

If I was to inspire a movement of massive change in the world, it would be one that helps provide more women, especially those within developing countries with opportunities to independently support themselves and their families. Having come from a single-parent home, I can speak on how difficult it can be for many mothers out there who are struggling to take care of their families while also striving for a better future for themselves as well. In fact, this is a major problem that has never been evident during this COVID crisis, with many women having been forced to make the decision between taking care of their families or prioritizing their careers. And with the cost of child care continuing to rise, while wages still remaining mostly stagnant, I would encourage more governments and business leaders to pay more attention to this demographic by implementing policies and laws that help to not only alleviate the burden of paying for child care but also do well to promote female participation in the labor force, and more specifically, in leadership roles.

I would love to sit down, even for just an hour or two with Jessica Alba to pick her brain on business and what it takes to make it to the top as a woman, seeing as her success in building Honest Co. is a hugely inspiring business story for me.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Female Founders: Eden Cheng of PeopleFinderFree On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Founders: Lilly Travieso Of ELLA Sports Foundation On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and…

Female Founders: Lilly Travieso Of ELLA Sports Foundation On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Support system — It is extremely hard to do things alone, which makes a network of people essential for growth. With a support system that believes in your mission, you can continue to move your foundation/company in the right direction.

As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Lilly Travieso.

Lilly was always athletically inclined and played different sports from a very young age. Over the years, she became passionate about playing softball and aspired to play softball in a top university. This required her to embark on an extraneous physical, mental and academic journey. She faced many challenges and adversities but learned to become a leader in and out of the field and traveled throughout the United States and internationally, such as Cuba to play softball. She also had the honor to play for Puerto Rico’s Junior Olympic team.

Lilly is thankful for all the opportunities that have come her way and the immense support and guidance her parents provided for her. She would like young athletes and Latina athletes like herself to have the same opportunities and support. Therefore, the idea and vision of ELLA was created.

I’m a first generation Hispanic American, raised and born in Los Angeles, CA, with a multicultural background: Salvadorian, Puerto Rican, and Cuban. As a young Latina, I always dreamed of playing college softball in a top university. I began playing softball at the age of six. From the moment I held the glove in my hand, I felt a special connection to the game. As years passed, I played different sports, but overtime, I developed a true passion for softball. Being an athlete at a young age provided me with many once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. When I was fourteen years old, I traveled to Cuba to play softball against the Cuban Olympic team and participated in a cultural exchange program. I represented Puerto Rico in the Junior Olympic National Team in the Women’s World Cup 19U Division when I was seventeen years old. Playing sports from a young age has taught me work ethics, discipline, patience, and resilience. My parents always taught me that nothing in life is handed in a silver platter. However, this shouldn’t stop me from having dreams and setting goals because hard work pays off. As a daughter of an immigrant, I’ve learned to cease every opportunity that comes my way.

Through my athletic journey, I realized the many disparities that Latina athletes face culturally and economically. ELLA wants young female athletes and Latina athletes like herself to have the same opportunities, but most of all, she wants all young female athletes to have the mentorship and support they need as they embark their own athletic, academic and professional journey. Thus, the vision and mission of the ELLA Sports Foundation was born!

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

One of the most interesting stories that happen since I founded the ELLA Sports Foundation is the day I met one of my professional softball icons Lisa Fernandez. I had the pleasure to present to her The Lifetime Achievement Award on behalf of the ELLA Sport Foundation. I have looked up to Lisa Fernandez for being one of the first Latina pioneers in women sports. Her drive, passion and unbounded leadership qualities are admirable.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

At the beginning of starting up the foundation, I used to go by Ms. Travieso. One time, I called a Latino owned company, and they returned my call unsure whether my call was real since my last name means Naughty in Spanish. Even though I love my last name, I now go by “Lilly” to avoid any confusion.

I’m extremely grateful to my parents for always supporting my development as an athlete but most of all for believing in me and my ideas. From day one, my parents have been my financial supporters but also have instilled in me to always give back and share my wins as well as my struggles of my athletic journey.

I believe that cultural and societal misconceptions regarding educational and career advancements of women in the United States is what is currently holding women from founding companies. Women are not empowered from a young age to become leaders of tomorrow. Instead, they are often set to follow predispose roles to fulfill societal, cultural and gender norms. Culture must be embraced and respected but should never hold back an individual from growth.

Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?

Our government and communities need to work on empowering and preparing women leaders that will impact their communities from a young age. It is important to encourage young girls to pursue playing sports because it allows young girls a medium to imagine, aspire, dream, explore all possibilities, and to engage with other girls with similar passions, qualities, to develop leadership skills, and to be a team player. It also empowers young girls to aspire a TRUE, yes you can mentality by experiencing firsthand opportunities that sports can bring to their lives, which will ultimately impact their future.

This is the reason why I founded the ELLA Sports Foundation. Our mission is to support young female Latinas to become leaders of tomorrow through sports and academic excellence. We work on developing leadership in Latina athletes through education, training, mentorship, and advocacy in the sports community.

This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?

I encourage women to become founders to help expand relationships with our communities. This will increase awareness and knowledge in leadership development for our young female generation. The ELLA foundation works on bridging this gap of knowledge with the ultimate goal to create more educated Latinas in order to have a better outcome in life by breaking cultural conformities.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?

Some of the myths that I heard along the way of founding the ELLA Sports Foundation is that you need to have a lot of money to get started. However, the truth of it is that all you need is a vision, mission, desire and people that believe in you. Once you get a following and expand awareness on your goal, people will gravitate towards it.

Not everyone needs to be a founder which allows others to pursue jobs of equal or higher importance. Specific traits that are essential to be a successful founder are commitment, resourcefulness, teamwork, persistence, and leadership. These are traits not only found in successful founders but can be acquired by many.

A vision — Everything starts with an idea; it is what you do with that idea that matters
Support system — It is extremely hard to do things alone, which makes a network of people essential for growth. With a support system that believes in your mission, you can continue to move your foundation/company in the right direction.
Awareness — We strive to bring awareness to our foundation by serving local, national, and international Latina communities. Through grassroots, social media, and other media outlets we hope to eventually create a recognizable brand, reaching additional supporters.
Risk taking- Risks are required to undertake huge ideas. As with all sports, failure is a part of the game. You will never succeed if you are afraid and don’t take the first step.
Knowledge- The more knowledge you have, the less costly mistakes will be made. Mistakes are inevitable, but they serve as learning opportunities.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

That’s the goal — making the world a better place. I’m working with the ELLA Sports Foundation to expand relationships with the Latino community by increasing awareness and knowledge in leadership development and higher education through sports. There is a huge misconception among the Latino community about being able to afford private high schools and or top universities. We are working to bridge this gap of knowledge with the ultimate goal to create more educated Latinas in order to have a better outcome in life by breaking cultural conformities.

The movement that I would like to create is for women to have a YES I can mentality without having to settle for cultural, gender and community norms. Let’s ignite women, specifically young women to think outside the box, to imagine, to dream and pursue their dreams.

One person that comes to mind is Eva Longoria, the founder of Eva Longoria Foundation. She was raised to give back to her community, like myself, and has made significant impacts by empowering young Latinas through academic and career success. She is a role model to me, and I would love to collaborate to expand our vision.

Jessica Mendoza is another empowering Latina who was a collegiate athlete like me and is taking strides to inspire young women in the career field as a recognizable MLB/Sports analyst and broadcaster.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Female Founders: Lilly Travieso Of ELLA Sports Foundation On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Wilma MacDonald of Maverick Motherhood: 5 Lifestyle Tweaks That Can Dramatically Improve Your…

Wilma MacDonald of Maverick Motherhood: 5 Lifestyle Tweaks That Can Dramatically Improve Your Wellbeing

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Keep it simple. So often we try to decorate the house before we’ve built the foundations. Leaping to green powders and supplements before we’ve built our nutrition core. It’s not sexy, flashy or loud. Instead it’s small, simple consistent changes that don’t add anything else to your already stuffed to do list and add up to big changes.

As a part of my series about “5 Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Dramatically Improve One’s Wellbeing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Wilma MacDonald.

Wilma is a qualified nutritional therapist and founder of Maverick Motherhood where she helps exhausted mums transform their lives, upgrade their energy and inject much needed va va voom into their lives. Her mission is to help women fuel up properly, because when you power up your body you can unlock your inner power to thrive. Her expertise has been featured in The Huffington Post, Natural Health Magazine, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail and has been guest speaker/featured expert for various online platforms supporting women who’ve had children.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the story about how you first got involved in fitness and wellness?

I was regular corporate cliché. Living off croissants, coffee, pizza and pinot grigio. Work was long days, late nights and mini eggs for dinner. I was coasting along with life. My 20’s and early 30’s were spent working in windowless corporate offices, in the bar, on red eye flights and piecing nights back together the following morning. By 28 I was on high blood pressure medication and the Dr requested I change my lifestyle. I declined.

A kidney infection that had me in hospital instead of at my 5-star hotel Christmas party was the start of things changing for me.

In 2001, aged 22 I was diagnosed with a hereditary degenerative kidney condition called polycystic kidney disease. It’s where cysts grow on your kidneys, I had some on both my kidneys and one on my liver. I was told that they were just there and there was nothing I could do to stop them; as my Granny was 86 when they discovered she had them I was told I had nothing to worry about. I ignored them.

10 years later in the hospital I was reminded that my kidneys, my body and my health needed my respect.

As well as the kidney infection, I had boils on my butt, a cough that lasted 3 months, struggled to sleep and had a level of tiredness that seeped into my soul. I was a high functioning exhausted insomniac and I looked ‘healthy’ on the outside — mostly.

In an attempt to feel ‘normal’, I went round the wellness houses. Acupuncture, herbalist, reiki, GP, physio, meditation and eventually a nutritional therapist. It was following sessions with a nutritional therapist that I saw the biggest and longest lasting impact on my health.

A few years later, I knew that a corporate career was no longer what I wanted to do, I did a 3-year nutrition qualification and for a few years juggled finance and nutrition work. It was only post tiny human that I really discovered my nutrition niche in working with exhausted mums and its exploded from there.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

The most interesting thing that’s happened to me since I started my career is all my clients. They blow me away with their resilience, their willingness to change and the trust they place in me. I never underestimate the privilege that I have to be let into people’s lives, hear their stories and help them upgrade their energy, change their health and ultimately change their lives. I love it.

Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or take-away did you learn from that?

Getting on my nutrition soapbox, often and everywhere. I turned into a nutrition bore, it was all I talked about and thought it was my place to pass comment on what you were eating, whether you asked for it or not. Experience has taught me that no one likes being lectured to (including me) and that leading with compassion, empathy and relatability is far more effective to supporting people to change their habits than judgement delivered from a place of nutrition superiority.

I can look back and laugh now, honestly no one would invite me for dinner in case they got stuck with my nutrition chat and complicated dietary requirements.

Can you share with our readers a bit about why you are an authority in the fitness and wellness field? In your opinion, what is your unique contribution to the world of wellness?

I’ve been told I have a direct and witty approach to nutrition which I’m fully embracing. Health is a serious business for us as individuals and for the world as a whole, sometimes we forget that fun, ease and pleasure are as important to our health as eating broccoli and drinking water.

My unique contribution to the world of wellness is supporting exhausted mums. The ones who have borne the brunt of the pandemic. The ones who have been forgotten about. The ones who are told that being tired is a part of motherhood, so suck it up. The ones who are told that they chose to have children so now they can’t complain. The ones who have grown and birthed the next generation and are then left to their own (over used) devices.

I’m here to redefine internal and external expectations of what it means to be a modern woman who has children by fueling them up to create the life want.

My husband, Andrew. He’s my accountability partner, cheerleader, coach, investor, nanny to our tiny human. He supported my decision to quit my lucrative finance career, he calls me on my BS, talks through ideas with me, reminds me daily that I’m brilliant, puts up with my often long working hours all alongside his own demanding job. He believes in my vision and purpose as much as I do. Maverick Motherhood wouldn’t exist without him. He’s the best.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. We all know that it’s important to eat more vegetables, eat less sugar, exercise more, and get better sleep etc. But while we know it intellectually, it’s often difficult to put it into practice and make it a part of our daily habits. In your opinion what are the 3 main blockages that prevent us from taking the information that we all know, and integrating it into our lives?

We don’t think we’re worth the effort. Everyone feels tired, I just need to suck it up. My problems aren’t important enough to get help with. It’s selfish to do something for myself when I could be spending the time/money on the kids. These are some of the reasons I hear as to why people aren’t looking after their health and it all has roots in the fact that we don’t think we’re worth the effort. You are, you deserve it and you’ll be a happier, calmer and vibrant person for it.
Too much conflicting information. If you google how to get healthy you get 1,490,000,000 hits in 0.63 seconds. Add Instagram, Tik Tok, Twitter, print media, the news and your best friends’ husband to the mix and you’ve got to digest more information than we used to consume in a lifetime. There’s mixed messages, everyone’s trying to talk over each other and you’re sitting in the middle getting more confused. It’s like a kid’s soft play, noisy, messy and stinky (that’s the cauliflower pizza). Strip it back. Find a few (qualified) people you like, get to know them and their approach, try a few things they recommend and see how you feel.
We all think getting healthy = deprivation. Diet culture has it wired into our brains that getting healthy is a slog of deprivation. All salad and no sugar where you’ll have no mates cos you’re now a ‘health freak’ and is devoid of all pleasure and joy. We think its going to be harder than it needs to be so best not try in the first place. Food is a source of connection, community and celebration and that always needs a place in our lives, alongside green vegetables, movement and water.

Can you please share your “5 Non-Intuitive Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Dramatically Improve One’s Wellbeing”? (Please share a story or an example for each, and feel free to share ideas for mental, emotional and physical health.)

Ask for help. I often hear that there’s a block between the brain and mouth when asking for help. We know we can’t do everything alone, but there’s this feeling that we’re a failure if we ask for help. We ‘should’ all over ourselves when trying to improve our wellbeing and give up. Asking for help shows self-awareness, a commitment to improvement and gives you the accountability you need to move forward. Think of how you feel when you help someone, feels good right?
Keep it simple. So often we try to decorate the house before we’ve built the foundations. Leaping to green powders and supplements before we’ve built our nutrition core. It’s not sexy, flashy or loud. Instead it’s small, simple consistent changes that don’t add anything else to your already stuffed to do list and add up to big changes.
Do more, not less. Why do I want you to do more when you’re already struggling to do it ‘all’? When your car runs out of fuel, you fill it up with more fuel — you don’t stop driving it to preserve what you’ve got left. Same with your energy, you’ve got to do ‘more’ to get more. More protein, more fat, more carbs, more vegetables, more water, more play, more fun, more pizza, more sunshine, more movement, more pleasure.
Figure out your version of healthy. There’s classic definitions of health and there’s what health allows you to do. Figuring out your why and figuring out what upgrading your energy and health will mean to you as a human, as a parent, partner, colleague and friend will keep you going on any wellness journey. It’s got to be all about you, not about your kids or boss.
Hydrate. Low energy. Brain fog. Irritated. Dry lips. Constipated. Sticky mouth. Headache. Under eye circles. 75% of us live in a state of mild dehydration which means that feeling sleepy, unmotivated and having difficult concentrating is a default setting that can be switched by drinking water. Which makes sense when you know that your body is 70% water and your brain about 78% water. Drinking small glasses throughout the day is more efficient for your body and bladder instead of chugging 2 liters down at 7pm.

As an expert, this might be obvious to you, but I think it would be instructive to articulate this for the public. Aside from weight loss, what are 3 benefits of daily exercise? Can you explain?

I like to call exercise intentional movement for the mind and body. We exist in a modern world but biologically we’re still cavemen and cavewomen where movement was an integral part of our lives, not so much these days. In 2021, intentionally moving our body in a way that feels good (afterwards anyway) has more benefits than weight loss.

Energy upgrade. Feels counterintuitive but if you’re internal battery is feeling flat, the best way to recharge it is to move. Think of how pumped you feel when you’ve moved your body in a way that was challenging, you pretty much feel like you can do anything afterwards.
Stress management. Exercise is a physical stress on the body that contributes to a strong body and a healthy mind. The right movement for you reduces levels of cortisol and adrenaline in the body while increasing your feel-good hormones, endorphins. It also increases levels of satisfaction, self confidence and pride.
It’s fun. When we’re adults, everything seems to get serious. Everything needs to have a goal attached. Metrics to measure up to and having fun is ‘childish’. What if we did some movement for the fun of it? To see how we felt, to bond with our tiny humans, to meet big humans. What if we took the pressure of achieving the perfect physique away and considered our exercise as a way to play? Research has shown that when adults engage in play it has a positive impact on their physical and mental health.

For someone who is looking to add exercise to their daily routine, which 3 exercises would you recommend that are absolutely critical?

I’m not a fitness professional, however daily movement is essential for overall wellness. The 3 exercises that I think need to be included daily:

Walking. Easy to include the tiny humans. Gets fresh air to clear the head and any funk. Doesn’t cost anything and can be done anywhere
Stretching. Want to improve your posture, relieve aches, increase your flexibility and manage stress? Add some stretches to your daily routine.
Squats. An excellent all rounder for pelvic floor, glutes, core and stability. You want to be able to push yourself out of your recliner when you’re 80.

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story?

I’ve read most of Paulo Coelho’s books, the one I keep going back to is The Alchemist. It’s a simple and powerful story that reminds us that we all have a purpose to fulfill in this world. Fulfilling that destiny is never straightforward, there’s temptations on the way to entice you away from your purpose and listening to your intuition will get you there quicker than any hacks or shortcuts. If you don’t follow your purpose there’s always going to be a niggling feeling that’ll leave you restless and wondering ‘what if’.

I was ambitious from a young age and knew that I wanted to be my own boss making a difference to the world. But I got sidetracked by what I ‘should’ be doing. Going to university, getting a ‘good’ degree, a masters and then getting an office job. I travelled for a few years after university, living in New York and New Zealand before returning to the UK. I randomly landed a temp job in a finance institution and leaned my career ladder up that wall. I shot up it quickly, but always with that niggling feeling that this wasn’t it. One 5am morning I was clip clopping through the airport in my stilettos and pencil skirt, pulling my cabin sized suitcase behind me, coffee in the other hand when it hit me that I was where I thought I wanted to be but I was a miserable insomniac who dreaded Monday mornings and was developing a bald patch on the front of my head through stress. This was my epiphany with legs moment when I knew that I had to figure out my purpose and live it out. Not going to lie, it wasn’t easy, still isn’t, but it’s worth it.

Now every time life and business seem overwhelming and I wonder if I’m doing the right thing, I remember the lessons from The Alchemist — we have everything we need to find our own buried treasure, learn to listen to your intuition and anything worthwhile doesn’t come without a trek across our own version of the desert.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

Mothers are not martyrs. Society often views mothers as whingeing weaklings who have to give up on themselves for the good of their tiny humans, otherwise they’re considered selfish. I am starting a movement that challenges the status quo where women have to suck it up and get used to being exhausted, overwhelmed with life and feeling yuck all the time because they happen to have reproduced. I’m here to liberate women from the idea that motherhood equals the demise of their health, freedom and ambition. By making sure mothers are well, it’ll have a ripple effect out on their family, community and the planet.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?

It’s actually a Bruce Springsteen song lyric. “From small things, big things one day come”.

My old job in finance involved huge multi-million-pound transformation projects; the only way we got there was by breaking down these massive goals into small daily tasks that were allocated budget, planned, tracked, replanned where necessary and celebrated when delivered.

This approach can be applied to pretty much everything in life, especially your health. We’re led to believe we need to make big sweeping changes and take big action to meet our life and health goals, when in fact it’s the small things done consistently and continuously that build up to big things.

Bruce Springsteen always knows best.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

Patrick Mouratoglou, Serena Williams’ head coach. I watched him on the Netflix series “The Playbook”. He told the story of how shy he was as a boy, taking one year to say one word to his psychologist and now he demands respect from the world of tennis for what he says and achieves. I really resonated with his words about self-belief, doubt and how mindset is what sets the champions apart.

What is the best way our readers can follow you online?

My online home is at https://maverickmotherhood.co/

On socials its Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_maverickmotherhood/

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!

Wilma MacDonald of Maverick Motherhood: 5 Lifestyle Tweaks That Can Dramatically Improve Your… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Founders: Sarah Lore of Apothecary On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a…

Female Founders: Sarah Lore of Apothecary On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Creativity keeps me going and as an added benefit, it also happens to help my business stand out from the crowd. Being able to be creative, playing with essential oils, dreaming up new product ideas, it’s my true love. I think staying creative is what gives me the energy to work on all other aspects of the business as well. I learned several years ago that staying creative is the best antidote for preventing burnout, so I try to have a creative outlet at all times. I am very lucky that my job doubles as a creative outlet for me because it doesn’t feel like work at all.

As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sarah Lore.

Sarah Lore has always believed in magic. At just 4-years-old, she had a near death experience that exposed her to the metaphysical world, igniting her beliefs and clairsentient abilities. In the early stages of her career, Sarah managed Neiman Marcus stores, where she found herself drawn to the cosmetic counters, sparking her love of beauty and selfcare. During this time, she realized she needed to integrate her experiences with her love of beauty, and gained her aesthetician’s license, Herbalism, Reiki, and Ayurvedic skincare training. With this knowledge, coupled with her own healing of an auto-immune disease, Sarah was determined to change the beauty industry, and founded Apothecary Co. in 2015. Since launching, Sarah has mastered the healing power of crystals, botanicals and essential oils, and has found true happiness in inspiring people to live their most magical lives, sharing the power of natural ingredients and crystals with others.

In my late 20’s I actually developed debilitating autoimmune issues, to the point where I could barely walk or use my hands at all.

I quickly discovered that my lifestyle played a huge role in my health and I worked super hard to make the changes necessary to overcome not only my symptoms of RA, but also years of PCOS and fertility struggles.

As an aesthetician of 14 years, I KNEW there had to be a way to make effective products that didn’t contain hormone disruptors, artificial fragrances, or toxic ingredients. That’s really where Apothecary Co. was born.

My hope in creating Apothecary Co. is that our products will allow people to avoid the compromise between health and beauty. We all truly can have both and feel good about what we are using!

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

Well, as we all know, COVID-19 was quite a curveball, to put it mildly. I kept thinking about coming out with hand sanitizer in 2020, but it was so hard to find supplies. Finally, three months into the madness, I was able to find everything in stock but I was super hesitant to come out with a hand sanitizer. It seemed like there were so many on the market that it was way too late already. I figured, if nothing else, since it was an alcohol base, it would last for so long that we could make a small batch and use it in our home if nobody was interested in purchasing it. It turns out, it wasn’t too late at all. We spent the next several months bottling and labeling hand sanitizer almost every day to keep up with demand. That was certainly a new direction in our business that I hadn’t seen coming.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

This is so embarrassing, but I’m going to share it anyway! I got an email from someone claiming to be from French Vogue that wanted to feature our products in an upcoming issue. I laughed and deleted the email, thinking it was surely spam. To put it in context, we were getting a lot of bogus requests at the time for free products.

Anyway, she sent me two more emails and somehow, I finally realized it was legitimate after all! It seems so ridiculous now, but it was just such a dream magazine for me that I couldn’t fathom it could be real. Luckily, the editor was persistent and I ended up sending them products for testing which were featured in an issue of the magazine. It’s still one of my all-time favorite features to date.

I was lucky enough to grow up surrounded by entrepreneurs. My Mom opened a quilt shop when I was a toddler, and I grew up playing under the quilt racks, hiding under the quilts as she was helping customers. After working in the corporate world for most of his life, my father started his own business as well when I was just starting high school. So, I think watching them navigate business ownership at those impressionable times in my life really let me know that it was possible for me too.

Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience, what is currently holding back women from founding companies?

There are so many variables from societal expectations of women to lack of available funding. In my own experience of speaking with women, I think the most common obstacle is a person’s own belief system. As I mentioned, I was lucky enough to see business ownership modeled for me growing up, so (very naively) I just always assumed that it was possible.

Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, or as a society, to help overcome those obstacles?

I think it’s really important for women who own businesses to show that they are real people, with real struggles to be that expander for others who might dream of starting their own business but are hesitant.

I’ve never met a business owner that was totally confident in what they were doing at all times. I think we all just kind of figure out a solution to each new problem every day, learning as we go and knowing that things will never be perfect.

Letting go of that expectation that you have to know exactly what you’re doing and things have to be perfect before you can start something is the only way to make any progress. If we know that it’s ok to be a beginner because we all start somewhere, then it becomes less scary to start a business. If you fail, so what, most businesses do!

This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?

Women are infinitely intuitive which is such a secret weapon in business. That aspect alone makes women so amazingly equipped to become founders. Whether it’s being able to effectively communicate with team members, having a high level of emotional intelligence, or anticipating the future needs of the business, there are just so many aspects of intuition that really provide women with such a superpower.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?

I think many people (myself included) want to own our own companies so that we can have more flexibility with our time. In reality, you end up running a company 24/7 and even if you have a team, there will always be certain things that only you can do.

If someone isn’t getting paid that month, the founder’s check is always the first to go. So, there’s always risk involved, especially financially. It takes a lot of emotional stamina, there are new problems each day and many sleepless nights. There is a constant need to stay ahead, to stay educated, to plan months in advance. I am always listening to podcasts, taking online classes, and reading books.

Owning a company gets a very glamorous reputation, but there’s always the other side of that coin that isn’t addressed as often. It can be a total emotional and financial rollercoaster. I don’t say that to discourage anyone, but I think the most common misconception is just that it’s so amazing to own a company 100% of the time. It is great! Don’t get me wrong. But it’s also a lot of blood, sweat, and tears with a lot of sacrifices that may never be visible to the outside world.

All of that being said, the rewards do make it completely worth it, and being a founder of my company is one of the things that I am the most thankful for in my life. I truly look forward to waking up and working every single day because it doesn’t feel like work at all.

I think it’s a misconception that everyone should own a business. I truly believe that if it’s in someone’s heart to do it, that they should. They should never let fear stop them from pursuing a dream.

But at the same time, I don’t think everyone should feel the pressure to start their own venture. There are a lot of people that love the security of having a guaranteed paycheck every month, reliable healthcare, vacation days, and knowing what to expect every day when they walk into work.

When you own a business, you can’t normally just clock out for the day and not have to think about it until the following day. You may not be able to pay yourself for years. When I started my first business in 2009 I had to work as a Brazilian waxer to pay the bills while I worked on the business every other waking second. I didn’t have healthcare or vacation or regular paychecks for a few years. It’s definitely a completely different lifestyle.

So, to answer the question, I think the main trait that increases the likelihood of success is that you have to have unflinching determination. You have to want it in your soul. You have to be willing to keep putting in the work even when it seems like there is zero reward because you have to believe in yourself enough to know that the rewards will come eventually. You have to be willing to go all-in and bet on yourself knowing that the payout will be much higher when you succeed.

Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need to Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder?”

I don’t know if these will apply to everyone, but I can share what have been the most important things for me in my journey.

Determination. I mentioned this before, but this has been the most important piece for me. There have been so many times that I wanted to give up and if I had thrown in the towel on those days, I wouldn’t still be here. I had to rely on sheer determination to get me through.

Staying educated is another piece of the puzzle. There are new companies being started every day and remaining competitive is important. So, getting in education wherever I can has been key for me, whether that be from podcasts, books, or online classes.

Flexibility is so important. Things rarely seem to go as planned and there are new challenges every day. Staying flexible and being able to problem solve on the fly is something that I am definitely working on, but that is very important in my daily life.

Creativity keeps me going and as an added benefit, it also happens to help my business stand out from the crowd. Being able to be creative, playing with essential oils, dreaming up new product ideas, it’s my true love. I think staying creative is what gives me the energy to work on all other aspects of the business as well. I learned several years ago that staying creative is the best antidote for preventing burnout, so I try to have a creative outlet at all times. I am very lucky that my job doubles as a creative outlet for me because it doesn’t feel like work at all.

Mindset Work. It sounds so boring, but I really believe that mindset is so important and it’s an ongoing process. Just when I think I have overcome certain beliefs, I realize that I have different limiting beliefs that are creeping back in and I have to do the work and stay on top of those shifts every day.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

I’m sure that we are all confronted every day with the reality of a changing world and the desire to make it a better place for future generations.

That’s really what inspired me to partner with an amazing organization, Operation Underground Railroad, whose mission is to pave the way for the permanent eradication of child sex trafficking.

While this cause has always been important to me, being a new mom, it seems more important than ever. We’ve recently launched a new lip shine that will directly benefit this cause on an ongoing basis in addition to a portion of our proceeds each quarter being donated to various charities.

I’m really passionate about ending human trafficking and although making donations may seem like a small contribution, I do believe that every little bit counts. People can read more about it and donate directly to ourrescue.org if they feel called to help with that cause.

Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them!

There are so many women founders that I admire that I would LOVE to be able to chat with someday. Joanna Gaines, Gwenyth Paltrow, Erin Benzakein, and Jamie Kern Lima are a few that I really admire for their innovation. And of course, meeting Oprah someday would be the ultimate dream. That reminds me, I need to add this to my vision board this year!

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Female Founders: Sarah Lore of Apothecary On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Colleen Gallagher: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

I always suggest for anyone who feels stressed, anxious or overwhelmed is to slow down. In the moment of anxiety, worry or stress, simply begin to focus on your breath. Often times, during a moment of stress, we breathe shorter breaths. I suggest inhaling for three seconds, holding the breath for two and breathing out for five. Do this for three to ten rounds. As you count in your head while it puts you in control and gives you power to begin self-regulating your breath and nervous system. A long exhale releases whatever emotions that caused your body and nervous system to react, and you begin to self-regulate your body with your breathing.

As a part of my series about the “5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Colleen Gallagher.

Colleen Gallagher is an intuitive business and personal development consultant, author of several books including her latest release An Uncompromised Life, survivor of childhood cancer and currently pursuing her Ph.D is Psychology with a focus on Global Leadership and Change. Her greatest success is seeing her clients fall in love with life by overcoming trauma and life challenges to create a lifestyle career that impacts the world. Colleen empowers leaders and businesses to come to a newfound clarity of their mission, so that they can better understand their gifts while taking calculated action to grow their businesses.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?

At age 14, I was running down the basketball court for a layup, and suddenly, I fell and could not breathe. I went to the hospital, and learned that I had a significantly enlarged right thyroid and would need surgery to determine if it was cancer. Once I had the surgery, I would be on medication, one pill a day, for the rest of my life, and if I ever wanted to become pregnant, I would need to readjust my medication. It did turn out to be cancer, and while I was fortunate enough to beat it, there was a lot of trauma in the process.

Spending so much time in hospitals, I saw the financial issues placed on families with sick children. This inspired me to start a career in sales because I knew I would be able to make enough money so it would never be an issue if I faced similar circumstances later in life. I found myself in a successful corporate sales career which I quickly realized was not allowing me to live my true purpose. I had everything I ever wanted material-wise, but on the inside I was empty. Because I saw so many children die of cancer but I survived, I always felt like I was responsible for doing more with my life. I have always loved helping others to shift their mindset and step into their purpose, and I realized I wasn’t doing that for myself. So I left my corporate sales job and moved across the world to New Zealand, where I began my journey to receive clarity on my purpose by doing yoga and meditation four hours a day, for six months. This is how I birthed my online education company Colleen Gallagher International where I empower business leaders and everyday people to offer and create lifestyles people love. I take a holistic approach to coaching people on how to live a sustainably happy, healthy and wealthy life. And I’ve never looked back- now I have a global online brand, over 20 online courses, my Podcast, three books, a crystal line, my oracle deck, my masters degree and receiving my PhD — all while impacting thousands of people every day.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

There are two: one moment was when I finished hosting a live video on Facebook and offered people to enroll in my signature six-week program that goes with my first book, Live Your Truth. I did the Live, created a webpage then went to the pool, and I remember people were enrolling in my sales page, and I was making money while at the pool. I thought this was a dream come true; I never knew that I could be off enjoying my life making uncapped money from one video. This was a pretty insane realization that I could work hard to build something, and it could go on to help people and allow me to simultaneously be out enjoying my life, too.

I was at a business mastermind event in Arizona and one of the leaders who was teaching shared that he was really striving to hit his first million dollar month. I remember I started to ask him what his intention was — what was he going to use the money for, what was his reason — really going deep with him on being specific for this manifestation to occur. He messaged me on Facebook three days later saying, “I DID IT, I hit my million dollar month, if you ever need anything just let me know.” In that moment, I realized how special this work is for healing our relationship with our purpose and growth.

Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or take-away did you learn from that?

When I look back at my most humorous mistake, it was that I would do anything to close a customer. I would talk to them for hours, give them free advice and bend over backwards trying to convince them my services were worth the price. Ultimately, I would end up so frustrated and it would take so much energy. It’s funny looking back because I would change automated emails and specific word verbiage to match the person I just talked to on the phone to close the sale, as if that would really make a difference. I would redo COMPLETE sales pages to provide a solution based on a phone call I had with a potential client to fit their needs, and when I did this, none of those potential clients ever bought. Finally, I realized that people who need serious convincing to buy your educational services are not ready to do the internal work and likely just want to make quick money without making a significant, lasting impact on this world. It is like someone going to school to get their degree, yet they don’t want to do the homework. So I learned that if you always offer what you feel called to provide, based on what problems you have solved in your own life, the right people will come.

I completely agree with this, and I’ve easily spent a significant amount of money on private mentorships and coaching in the last three years. I’m grateful for each of the mentors I’ve hired for different reasons and stages of my business and soul evolution. I think one of my favorite stories is with my third book, An Uncompromised Life. A mentor of mine Ivonne Delaflor did an exercise called “Futuring.” This process was a huge part of understanding how to create miracles out of trauma and designing a heart-centered business for others to see it as a requirement for your lifestyle to include your career to thrive in life truly. It’s what led to me building an eight-step process to help guide people in designing a heart-centered business.

What advice would you suggest to your colleagues in your industry to thrive and avoid burnout?

Burnout happens when you feel like your work or job is separate from your personal life. I believe to thrive in your career that your work must be integrated as part of your lifestyle. When you gain clarity on what you’re passionate about, slowly integrate this into your career and you never feel like you work a day in your life. You can begin to see your passions by simply reflecting on the conversations you usually have with friends. Mine usually center around purpose, business, traveling, digital marketing, etc.

Second, you can go to YouTube or your television and evaluate the content you consume; this will help to guide you in defining your passions. Then ask yourself, “what solutions can I offer based on what I am passionate about?” and “what problems have I overcome in life where my learnings could help others?” Once you identify these things you can begin to create a brand around this. Before you know it, you will be thriving because you will be teaching on what you want to teach people about every day. Naturally, you will attract a community of people who are passionate about learning about what you love. Sales is simply having a conversation about something you are passionate about to educate others. They will eventually buy whatever you’re talking about because they see the joy it brings you and want to experience that joy within their life as well.

What advice would you give to other leaders about how to create a fantastic work culture?

The best advice I can give leaders on creating a fantastic work culture is that you first need to know who your employees are, understand their day-to-day work and what they value. For example, a team of people who see each other all day every day in their work may value time connecting with upper management and feeling heard, seen and appreciated for their work, instead of having a “team” outing with people they see every day. They would likely also value time off with their families, so you might take that into consideration and offer them an extra day off after a busy season. For a company or team that is more siloed in nature, like perhaps a sales team, they would probably appreciate a connection with their team members to learn what is going well to gain insight from each other. People who work in positions that can be done completely remotely, like the tech industry for example, will value complete freedom of their schedule- having deadlines and work meetings, while still allowing for plenty of time to be creative. Of course, remote work has to be a consideration for most companies now due to the pandemic and is becoming more and more common. As in any business, knowing your customer is critical, but I would argue that knowing your team is even more vital to understanding what will motivate them and help you retain top talent.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. Mental health is often looked at in binary terms; those who are healthy and those who have mental illness. The truth, however, is that mental wellness is a huge spectrum. Even those who are “mentally healthy” can still improve their mental wellness. From your experience or research, what are five steps that each of us can take to improve or optimize our mental wellness. Can you please share a story or example for each.

The first exercise I always suggest for anyone who feels stressed, anxious or overwhelmed is to slow down. In the moment of anxiety, worry or stress, simply begin to focus on your breath. Often times, during a moment of stress, we breathe shorter breaths. I suggest inhaling for three seconds, holding the breath for two and breathing out for five. Do this for three to ten rounds. As you count in your head while it puts you in control and gives you power to begin self-regulating your breath and nervous system. A long exhale releases whatever emotions that caused your body and nervous system to react, and you begin to self-regulate your body with your breathing. I use this exercise when I feel like whatever is about to happen in my life feels uncomfortable or like something I cannot handle. I breathe out the unhealthy emotions to allow myself to come back into my body and realize I am safe. This is part of the process.

The second step to optimize our mental health is an exercise called Voo, created by trauma specialist, Dr. Peter Levine. While your emotions are spinning out of control, sit down and simply say or sing the word Vooooooooo. You release the Voo for as long as you can hold it. I recommend doing this ten times to allow yourself to come back into a state of peace and calm. This, again, releases whatever emotions that activated your nervous system and allows for you to take control of self-regulating your body instead of the body regulating you. There is a science behind this word and how it vibrates within your body to actually harmonize your organs. A great example of this is when I wrote my third book, An Uncompromised Life. I was reliving old traumas when I was writing about them. I often would need to pause, and “Voo out” whatever life story or flashback was occurring while I was writing how I healed my life from a very traumatic event. It always allowed me to come back into my body to release the true emotion I was feeling instead of being disguised as anger, pain or blaming someone outside of me.

Third, I recommend listening to meditations on YouTube or Apple Podcasts in the morning or thought-out the day. Carving that twenty to forty minutes out of the day is powerful because you are declaring to your mind and body that this is a space and time where you will begin to be in contro, instead of your subconscious mind running the show which runs 80% of your thoughts. Your thoughts dictate your words, which create your actions. During this time, you can evaluate if these are thoughts you want to be having or if you’re going to change them. I recommend Episode 55 on my podcast as a starting place.

The fourth step is to create affirmations and put them around your home, bathroom mirror, office, on your phone, etc. Create affirmations on who you want to become. If you have a lot of anxiety or worry, create an affirmation saying “I am calm and peaceful in all my thoughts and interactions.” If you suffer from depression, create an affirmation like “I chose to be happy and joyful.” The power of affirmations comes from when we use our language to send a sound vibration out into the world. Whatever you put out of your mouth is what you are going to end up attracting back to you. Our vibrations are like a boom-a-rang in a confined room, where everything we put out into the world ends up coming back to us whether we like it or not. The power of affirmations allows you to begin getting into the habit of stating, expecting, and become the best version of yourself.

The last exercise is buying a journal and writing things down. Journaling is one of the most powerful tools to get what is going on inside your head out of your head and onto paper. Whatever we think about becomes our reality. But if we buy a journal and write our thoughts down, we break the cycle. Ask yourself questions like:

What do I want to create, achieve, and be in this life?
What are the limiting beliefs I carry that are holding me back?
What are some habits I can create to love myself more?

Write down whatever comes to you, and you will begin to write your reality. This is very powerful and profound work because when you do this, you can rewrite how the neurons are automatically firing in your brain, so instead of running on default, which you have learned from childhood, you begin to run on making decisions that empower you instead of ones that you have been told.

Much of my expertise focuses on helping people to plan for after retirement. Retirement is a dramatic ‘life course transition’ that can impact one’s health. In addition to the ideas you mentioned earlier, are there things that one should do to optimize mental wellness after retirement? Please share a story or an example for each.

The biggest thing to do after retirement is if you didn’t live your career in your purpose work, is to make sure you get into a community of people or online that align with your hobbies and passions. I have many clients who have retired and want to find their purpose and live it after their career. It always begins by answering the questions, “Well, what is your passion? If you had no limitations on what could still happen for you in this life, what would your days be filled with?” And from this place, they search online to enter into communities that will empower them to be in their passion, happiness, and joy every day. One example is a post-career client of mine who emailed after retirement about feeling stuck. They shared with me that they have a passion for reading, editing and reviewing books, but it’s not something they ever did before. I knew this potential client needed to start a book review business, and through our time working together, they did just that. It begins with speaking your passions out loud, and then allowing your community to help you reflect on how to bring your passions to life.

How about teens and pre teens. Are there any specific new ideas you would suggest for teens and pre teens to optimize their mental wellness?

I suggest anything creative for teens and pre-teens, from writing, painting, sports, music, etc. Teens and pre-teens are still developing their ability to learn how to best express themselves. Because many times they have already learned the habit of how to shut themselves off or communicate in a way that will allow their parents to give them what they want or to feel love from their parents at the cost of being who they really are. Because children learn very early if they act a certain way, even if it’s who they truly are, their parents may not love them for this, so the child adapts to betray themselves to receive love. Instead, they need to be taught how to express what is happening inside of them. By using creative forms of music, art, painting and writing kids can begin to express how they are feeling on the inside without expecting a negative reaction from a parent or teacher. As a parent and teacher, it is always more critical to offer a pre-teen or teen the opportunity to express their thoughts instead of demanding a certain behavior, expression, or result. This allows the child to feel like they can be heard, loved and accepted no matter what is occurring inside of them.

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story?

My first book, Live Your Truth, significantly impacted me because I realized how much of what has happened to us in our past stays with us to impact and influence our present and future decisions. And from this book, I realized that even the most minor thing that happened years ago can leave a significant imprint in our memory of feeling violated, isolated, rejected, unheard and unloved. It still influences us today to avoid a certain action to not say something we need to say in order to avoid feeling that way. For example, when a boy called me ugly because of the scar on my neck from cancer as a child, and this impacted my life for many years because I thought people always stared at my neck and would think I was ugly. So, in many ways, in the corporate setting or even in my life, I didn’t want to show up to in-person events. I wanted to be behind a screen so that my neck wasn’t as visible. A large reason I’ve subconsciously built my business through the digital world is because of this. I don’t think this anymore when I am at in-person events, but this comment haunted my decision-making for nearly 12 years.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

The movement I would start in the world is The Intoxicator Movement focused on intoxicating the world with love. An Intoxicator is someone who takes the time to look within — remove the toxicity — and becomes what is left. I believe we will continue to allow fear to guide our lives until we understand how to remove the fear of being rejected, made fun of, kicked out of a community, etc. By letting go of the toxic habits we’ve created, we can begin to accept who we are and intoxicate the world with that instead of the things that were hindering us from loving ourselves, loving others, and making this world a better place.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?

“Follow your heart so you can live every moment like it was your last moment.” This became one of my favorite life lessons quotes when I had cancer because I was inspired to go out and live my life to the fullest. But I saw so many adults killing themselves in their careers and relationships, and they were never happy. To me, this was the worst thing to witness — to know that you lived a life that was untrue to you. I never want anyone to get to the end of their life and feel as though they truly never gave this life everything they had. We never know when that day will come, but we know that it will. And I want everyone to know that they lived how they wanted to live, with who you wanted to experience life with, and impacted this world the way they believed they could.

What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?

https://www.facebook.com/thecolleen111

https://www.instagram.com/thecolleengallagher

https://www.twitter.com/col_gallagher1

https://www.linkedin.com/in/colleen-gallagher-81691661/

https://colleengallagher.co

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!

Colleen Gallagher: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Founders: Michele Bailey of The Blazing Group and My Big Idea On The Five Things You Need To…

Female Founders: Michele Bailey of The Blazing Group and My Big Idea On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

To be a founder you need passion, commitment, perseverance and tenacity. Founders are risk-takers. We need a thick skin to weather the good and the bad.

As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Michele Bailey.

Michele Bailey (www.michelebailey.com) is the ForbesBooks author of The Currency Of Gratitude: Turning Small Gestures Into Powerful Business Results and founder/CEO of The Blazing Group, a brand and culture agency born of her strategy-first approach to business and desire to enhance employee wellness in pursuit of business goals. She is also the founder of My Big Idea™, a mentoring program designed to propel individuals toward their personal and professional goals. Bailey has been recognized for contributions to women and entrepreneurship with honors such as the Bank of Montreal Expansion & Growth in Small Business Award and the Women’s Business Enterprise Leader Award in 2020. Bailey is a popular speaker and is also the author of a previous book, It’s NOT All About You, It’s About the Company You Keep.

I started my career in a sales role with a small ad agency where I rose to the rank of Executive Vice President before leaving the company to start my entrepreneurial journey. My experiences with the agency taught me that I didn’t want to work in a company where matters pertaining to employee work-life blend and company culture were regularly brushed aside in favor of maximizing profit.

In 1994 I left the security of my salaried position and founded my own ad agency, Blazing, to pursue my dream of running my own business, my way. My strategy-first approach to business and desire to enhance employee wellness while pursuing business goals led to the expansion of Blazing as a full-service brand and culture agency now operating as The Blazing Group.

My passion for finding business success while taking care of my team is what drove development of my latest venture and member of The Blazing Group — My Big Idea®. Blazing is turning branding inside out with the My Big Idea® program, an employee mentoring and wellness program designed to propel individuals forward in their quest for personal and professional success. In short, my team have found the formula for creating awesome business cultures that drive exceptional marketing. Countless companies have discovered both greater team cohesion and happier employees all the while boosting their bottom-line results as a direct result of our proprietary process.

Today though, I want to share a valuable lesson from my entrepreneurial journey with my clients and others by driving home the message to make true gratitude, and the regular and meaningful expression of it, integral to the way their business is done.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

After twelve years as an entrepreneur, I found myself the victim of employee fraud, forgery, and embezzlement.

This incident almost bankrupted my company and nearly broke me both mentally and emotionally.

It was only through the help, guidance and advice of my incredible support network and dedicated team of employees who chose to stay with me that I was able to overcome this most challenging time in business and focus on not only surviving, but thriving.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Very early on in my career, I had the opportunity to pitch a major credit card provider and was short-listed to be one of the three agencies to present in person.

In that massive boardroom, filled with business executives, I was presenting three different concepts and rationales and the strategy to go with each.

Unbeknownst to me, the slip I was wearing under my dress that day had come loose. As I was presenting, the slip slid down my legs. I noticed that everyone’s eyes were now focused below the glass table where my undergarment lay on the floor.

What could I do? I calmly stepped out of my slip, kicked it under the table, and continued on with my presentation. No one said a word, but the smiles around the table were big and wide.

I won that account. I was told it was in no small way because I demonstrated how well I work under pressure.

It pays to remain calm and professional no matter what unexpected challenges come your way.

During my first year of business ownership, I had the privilege attending a conference and listening to a presentation by Marg Hachey, an established and successful woman entrepreneur. She exuded everything I wanted to be as a businesswoman. After the conference, I mustered up the courage to reach out to her to ask if she would mentor me as I grew my business.

Not only has she helped guide me over the years as I grew my business, she was a great support to me as I was dealing with employee fraud, forgery and embezzlement. During this very difficult time, Marg connected with me each and every day to make sure I was okay and moving forward.

It’s been 24 years since we first met, and I am very grateful for her mentorship and the way she has enriched my life both personally and professionally.

I can name a few reasons:

Access to capital. Many banks don’t seem to lend as easily to women as they do to men.
Women usually don’t have access to the equivalent of the ‘old boys network’ to help them out. Although this is changing, women need to continue to support and encourage one another through the building of support networks.
No work-life blend. We are often pulled in many directions. While trying to run a business, we often have many other competing priorities such as running a household, caring for children or aging parents, with little time to care for ourselves. The number of women leaving the workforce due to the additional pressure brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic is astonishing.

Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?

Like I said before, women leaders, as individuals, need to come together to truly support and encourage one another for professional success. We all need to put in the effort to build that incredible support network for each other.
As individuals, women need to invest the time cultivating and maintaining an incredible support network.
Establishment of mentoring relationships — mentor to mentee and peer to peer such as is done by organizations like the Women Business Collaborative.
As a government and a society, we should further encourage the establishment of diversity and inclusion targets for corporations and government organizations.
Establish enhanced employee insurance benefits for maternity and caregiver leaves of absence as well as childcare support programs.

This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?

I think of it like this: why should anyone become a founder?

You create your own opportunities.
You have more freedom to design your work schedule.
Founding your own business allows for innovation, collaboration and creativity.
You are the master of your own work-life plan.
It’s an opportunity to bring your own unique perspective to business.

Ideally there should be no barriers for women to achieve all of these things.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?

Myth 1: “Starting a business will bring you freedom”

In fact, you will work twice as hard as you expect, initially and perhaps for many years, before you truly reap the benefits of your hard work.

Myth 2: “Starting a business will quickly lead to wealth.”

More often than not, you will have to invest heavily to get your business going. In addition you may have to put your personal assets at risk in order to get the level of investment you need to succeed. It may be a very long time before you see a return on your investment. And, there are no guarantees of success.

Myth 3: “Entrepreneurs are always filled with great ideas.”

Just like anyone else, there will be times where the well runs dry. This is why you need to surround yourself with other thought leaders and people who challenge you to think in different and better ways.

To be a founder you need passion, commitment, perseverance and tenacity. Founders are risk-takers. We need a thick skin to weather the good and the bad.

People who want reliability, stability, and a regular paycheck should consider employment versus entrepreneurship.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need to Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder?” (Please share a story or example for each.)

Clear and focused goals both personally and professionally. I have always believed that one performs best when they have clear and focused goals. Over the years, I have invested countless hours reflecting upon my experiences and my personal and professional goals. I created the My Big Idea® program to share my learning with other leaders. When you have documented SMART goals supported by shorter-term objectives and milestone dates, and hold yourself accountable to those goals, your likelihood of achieving them is greatly increased. It requires commitment and regular measurement. You are actually 42% more likely to stay accountable to your goals when you write them down. My tools of choice are the My Big Idea Workbook and Daily Planner.
Value your strategic relationships in business. When you experience tough times while growing your business, your key professional relationships (i.e. your lawyers, accountants, bankers and other strategic partners) will help guide, mentor, and advise you through it.
An incredible support network. In my experience, when you have a strong support network, both personally and professionally, it allows you the safety net to create a big life. In the support network exercise I teach in My Big Idea®, I encourage individuals to identify the people that they can most trust and want the best for them in all aspects of their lives — personal and professional. These are your most important relationships and you need to focus on nurturing them.
Branding from within. Many leaders forget to include internal branding on their marketing radar. Yet, establishing and working on your company’s internal brand is one of the most important first steps you can take as it drives your outward-facing or consumer brand. Creating a truly great culture means you are branding from within, creating a group of internal brand ambassadors who live and breathe your brand. Your brand values impact the way they work — from the way they answer their phones or respond to emails to the way they talk about your company at Aunt Doris’ birthday party. Happier, productive employees make a positive impact on your brand and your business growth.
Know yourself. A strong sense of what your own strengths and weaknesses are will guide your hiring to fill in the gaps for the skills you need in your organization to succeed. While my Managing Partner Eric Marshall and the rest of my management team share the same values, our skillsets and strengths are all quite different. Learn to value people with differing opinions and experience, because they will bring a new perspective to the table which can prove very valuable.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

In 2021, I launched a Forbes book, The Currency of Gratitude, to show leaders that small gestures can create big results in both personal and professional life. I want to share the message that showing appreciation helps build relationships and those relationships are in the end what makes your business a success.

I am heavily involved in empowering business women through peer-to-peer mentoring such as the Women Presidents’ Organization and the Women’s Business Collaborative. I also actively participate in diversity and inclusion networks through Women’s Business Enterprise National Council, and WeConnect International.

And last but not least, through the creation of the My Big Idea® program, my team and I have created simple yet effective tools to help corporations attract, retain, engage, and appreciate their employees.

I would create a gratitude movement.

I want to show how simple and impactful gestures of gratitude can enhance all relationships, both personal and professional.

I would connect with Oprah Winfrey and Melinda Gates.

These women have the power, the network, and the influence needed to help launch a gratitude movement that would get the reach and exposure the world deserves. Especially right now.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Thank you!

Social media handles:

My Big Idea Instagram

My Big Idea LinkedIn

My Big Idea Facebook

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Female Founders: Michele Bailey of The Blazing Group and My Big Idea On The Five Things You Need To… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Founders: Dawn Santoriello of CFP® On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a…

Female Founders: Dawn Santoriello of CFP® On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

A Success Mindset I just knew in my heart I would be successful even if my circumstances at times would make others think differently. I had naysayers telling me to quit and go work for a big company. I was never going to do that. I knew that my book would be a game-changer for my business, and it has turned out to be.

As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dawn Santoriello, CFP®.

Dawn Santoriello, CFP® is the founder and CEO of DS Financial Strategies, a fee-based financial planning firm that develops customized plans designed to maximize the efficiency of your money. Located just outside Philadelphia, Dawn is focused on empowering women, couples and entrepreneurs to reach their financial goals with peace of mind and economic confidence across the U.S. On launch day, her book, The Spiritual Path To Prosperity…The Truth About Money Revealed, became #1 Best Seller on Amazon in the Budget & Money Management Category and # 2 in the Investing Category.

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I grew up poor during my early childhood. We couldn’t afford to go to the dentist and as a result I had a black hole in my tooth. Thank God it was only my baby tooth! My birth mom was addicted to drugs and alcohol and not around much. My grandmother tried taking care of me and my half- brother and half-sister. When that became too much of a burden my brother went to live with his aunt and my sister and I were in and out of foster care homes. We spent some time with her dad where I was abused because I wasn’t his. Ultimately, we ended up with loving foster parents who eventually adopted us when I was 10 years old. After what I went through I decided I never wanted to be poor again and I was going to help other people with their finances. My mom taught me how to manage my money and I was good at it. When my first career choice as a model/actress didn’t work out I went into the financial services field.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

The most interesting story that happened to me was COVID. I had just become a Certified Financial Planner™ in November 2019 and I was planning my first event as a CFP for April 2020. We all know what happened next. Lockdown. The craziest thing happened to me. Being a business owner, I would stress about my income and expenses. Well, when COVID hit my fear about money disappeared. Pretty Ironic right? I decided to pivot and hire a business coach and that led to my signature talk and my book. I started doing virtual events and my business expanded nationally. I also got involved with an amazing networking group and developed stronger relationships than I had done at in-person events with women across the US and Canada.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

When I was first starting my business, I tried to imitate other successful advisors using their stories and presentations. At one point I referred to myself as a financial swing coach! That just wasn’t me. I’d also go through this 30-minute presentation which bored most people. I learned that I can’t be anybody else but me. When I found my voice and was brave enough to use it my business turned around. I combined my love of spirituality (law of attraction) with money. I also shared my story which I didn’t do previously because it was embarrassing-being stuck in a parking garage with $200 to my name and I am a financial planner? This story resonated with people, and they were attracted to working with me because it wasn’t just all about the numbers. I help my clients manifest their dream life, clear their money blocks, and manage their money.

I have had many mentors along the way but there was one who helped me take my business to the next level. He worked for a marketing company and I just figured he was trying to sell me some newsletters for my business so I didn’t get back to him for 4 months. It turned out he wanted to help me grow my business, not sell me newsletters. He sent me to

an all-expense-paid trip to learn about a particular financial company. There I learned a strategy that helped my clients and led to me having my biggest month ever, $80,000. He also gave me a great lead program with no upfront costs to me which generated many new clients for me. Prior to that I always had to bring in clients without help from anyone. I am grateful for him taking a chance on me when I wasn’t a big advisor at the time. Most marketing companies only want to support advisors that are big producers.

I would say fear, especially if the are single, with or without children. Giving up a salaried job with a steady income to go start your own business can be scary financially if you are the sole breadwinner, especially if you have other people depending on you. Common thoughts would be, what if I lose everything while trying to get my business off the ground? My family will think I am a failure.

Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?

Having a support group of women who have started their own business that you can get advice from and mastermind together with. I am a part of a great networking group of women where we do just that. We support one and other and help each other get to the next level. Access to information is critical and can save you time and money and networking is crucial to growing and expanding your company.

This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?

More women should become founders because owning a business is very rewarding and you can share your unique voice and ideas with the world to make it a better place. Having a business that is aligned with your values is a great way to make a major impact on the world.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?

One myth is that you will be successful immediately. Just because you started a company doesn’t mean clients/customers are going to be knocking down your door to do business with you. You have to get out there and market your business. This is why having a strong network is a key factor in you being successful sooner.

No, I don’t think everyone is cut out to be a founder. It takes more than passion; it takes tenacity and a strong drive to succeed. There will be tough times and you will have to make tough decisions and you must be able to think on your feet. You must be a creative problem solver. The type of person who should seek a “regular job” is someone who likes to have set hours, a salary, 2 weeks paid vacation, and company paid benefits. This person wants to just do the job and when the day is over, they leave work at work.

The five things you need to thrive and succeed as a woman founder are

1)Drive. I went into the financial services industry because I was good with money and I wanted to help other people reach their financial goals. The driving force behind that was the fact that I grew up poor before I was adopted. I was so poor; I had a black hole in my front tooth because we couldn’t afford to go to the dentist. I never wanted to experience poverty again so from that point I studied really hard, got the best grades and that poured over into me working very hard to make my business successful.

2)Tenacity. I was on a mission to prove that anything is possible and out of nothing you can create anything your heart desires. I started working in the financial industry and moved to an area where I only knew my two brothers who did not immediately become clients. I did this two additional times in areas where I didn’t know anyone. I went from having $200 and being stuck in a parking garage to turning my business around and make over 6 figures later that year. There were a few rough times in my career, but I never gave up. I just did whatever it took to keep my business afloat, even if that meant taking on a side hustle to make ends meet.

3)A Success Mindset I just knew in my heart I would be successful even if my circumstances at times would make others think differently. I had naysayers telling me to quit and go work for a big company. I was never going to do that. I knew that my book would be a game-changer for my business, and it has turned out to be.

4)Your Tribe of Supporters. This is the key to success. My tribe is Fem City, a global woman’s networking group. Your tribe will elevate you, challenge you to grow, and support you in times of need. The members will also promote you and your message which will expand your business. You are only one person but with a tribe you can expand that influence through other people sharing your message. The love and support I received from my Fem Sisters had a direct impact on my book becoming a #1 Best Seller.

5)Self-confidence (Own Your Power) Don’t be afraid to be yourself. I was trying to copy other people in my business, mostly men by using their stories and their systems. It didn’t work for me. When COVID hit and I decided to share my story. Your story is your glory. I was embarrassed to admit my own financial difficulties as a financial planner. By finding my voice and speaking my truth I was able to grow my business in ways I didn’t think was possible. I created a #1 Best Selling Book on my first launch day, The Spiritual Path To Prosperity…The Truth About Money Revealed. I also developed my Signature Talk/Workshop which launched me nationally. I now embrace who I am and have found my niche. I work with women, couples, and entrepreneurs who embrace the law of attraction and want to reach their financial goals with peace of mind and economic confidence. I combine my wo- woo self with financial know-how.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

I have inspired others to follow their hearts and their dreams. I have changed many people lives financially for the better. I have donated to charities such as the American Red Cross. I also did volunteer work for Habitat for Humanity.

My movement would be to have a program for foster kids to have a place, program, or person that is also going to be a mentor and be there for them through the entire process until they are adopted. They can even stay in touch once the child is adopted. Foster kids need stability in their life since that is what is missing as a foster kid. I didn’t trust anyone and was closed off as a young child because I was always getting sent away to another home. Kids need to know they are loved and they are wanted.

I would love to have lunch with Oprah Winfrey. I love that she started her own channel and has made spirituality mainstream with her show Super Soul Sunday. My dream is to be on that show with her.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Female Founders: Dawn Santoriello of CFP® On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Founders: Bonnie Hagemann of EDA On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a…

Female Founders: Bonnie Hagemann of EDA On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Strong work ethic — I just don’t know how anyone could be a founder without this. I’m probably what most people would consider a workaholic because of my farm background. I like to work long and hard and then I feel good about relaxing, but that is not really what I mean here. What I mean is you just can’t be lazy or unfocused. There are times when the hours will be very long for a long time. On the other hand, we have to take care of ourselves. This is something I need to work on even more than I do. We do have to rest. It’s a marathon, not a sprint so we can’t run it like a sprint.

As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing.

Bonnie Hagemann is a Visionary leadership expert and the CEO of EDA, Inc., a well-known and respected human capital firm specializing in custom blue-chip executive development tied to business strategy. She founded her first business in 2001, acquired a leading brand in executive development in 2007, started building technology platforms in 2012 and has been building and running businesses successfully for 20 years. In addition, she is a gender equality advocate who co-founded WomenExecs on Boards (www.weob.org), a global network of women prepared for Board Service at Harvard business school and is a member of the business council for Exponent (www.Exponent.org), where she is deeply committed to advancing the state of gender equality on boards and in senior leadership positions.

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A twist of fate. I started my career as a high school English teacher with a plan to teach literature at a university, but it didn’t take long to realize that I was not well-suited for my planned career path. You see, I grew up on a large farm. We had cattle, alfalfa, wheat and cotton and we worked sunup to sundown. We were focused on producing and if we weren’t producing, we weren’t successful. When I found myself in public education, I could work hard, but struggled to feel that I was producing. I stayed only long enough to pursue a master’s degree and move to another position in a corporate environment, and with a sigh of relief, I knew I had found a better fit. But that was not the twist of fate. After finding my best environment in the business world, I moved to Dallas, Texas to get married and started looking for a job. I found one selling mortgages and was excited to get started, but the day before my start date, their corporate office put a freeze on hiring. I was devastated, but if I had taken that job, I would have had an entirely different career and life and I’m so thankful for how things turned out. Soon, I moved into corporate education and that is where I’ve been ever since, first as an employee, and since as an entrepreneur leading human capital firms. I love what I do, both leading a team of great people, and as a team helping many companies create a compelling vision and culture to develop their talent. There are layers and layers of reward in this work.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

Hmmm. first let me say, my life and work are rarely boring so choosing the MOST interesting is a bit of a challenge, but here is a good pick. I founded my first human capital firm on June 15th, 2001, acquired a few clients, started building partnerships and had the ball rolling in the right direction. Then one morning standing in front of my television watching the news while putting my earrings in, I watched a plane fly into the one of the twin towers and, as you know, the world changed for everyone. It was one of the most surreal days I’ve ever experienced because I didn’t know what to do. I had meetings. “Should I go to the meeting?” I finally decided I should go to the meeting which was with two other entrepreneurs who I was planning to collaborate with on a project. They showed up and we just sat down and watched events unfold on TV. I was worried about my new business, but also t petrified at a higher level at first. I had a daughter who was 3. I was afraid to leave her, afraid for her life, for my own, for friends and family, and for our country. It was just a terrible time.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Well, it wasn’t funny at the time, but I hired a family member who at some point apparently decided the job was not the right one but didn’t tell me and just sort of stopped doing the job to any significant level. I was frustrated but also, I didn’t know what to do because I didn’t want to fire her and yet I needed someone to do the job and couldn’t pay anyone else as long as she was still getting paid. Perplexed for several weeks, I finally went to her and simply said, “do you have any recommendations for someone to be my admin?” which was the role she was in. Now this is the funny part, she said “yes” and made a recommendation who ended being my admin for seven years. She was apparently having as hard of a time telling me as I was telling her. I vowed after that to never hire someone I can’t fire, but I have since hired a family member. However, I think I can handle it now. I’ve hired, fired, downsized, upsized and am now much better at saying what needs to be said in a kind and supportive way, but I still hope I never have to move off another family member.

Absolutely. I would have done very little purely on my own. I don’t want to and probably can’t function without a good team, so I’m thankful every day for the team I work with, but there are also two people who stand out. One is Jim Bolt, the founder of EDA which I acquired in 2007. Jim stayed with the company to help with the transition and to mentor me for 1 ½ years and he was the toughest professor I ever had. I never worked so much and tried so hard to perform, but I constantly felt that I didn’t reach the mark. It was one of the hardest times of my life because I was also a young mother and felt that I was either letting my child and family, my business, or Jim down. But in hindsight, I can tell you that the time with Jim catapulted my career, my knowledge, and capabilities. He practiced tough love and I would not be where I am today without him.

That timeframe also led to the second person I have to mention, my business partner Annette Klososky. After the acquisition in 2007, again my poor timing surfaced as the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis hit the world and I found myself in a 2nd major downturn. This time around though, I had debt from the acquisition, and we lost 70% of our business as did most human capital firms during that time. We were upside down and deeply in debt, but I didn’t want to file for bankruptcy. My solution was to work 3 years of 80 to 90-hour weeks without a paycheck and only 3 days off. I would stop and spend time with my daughter from 5:30 or 6 to 9pm and then go back to work, many times late into the night. I did this for so long that I found I was in a cycle and couldn’t pull myself out of it, but my body decided it could and just after the Christmas holidays one year, I became very ill. I don’t remember what it was or even if we knew, but I remember that I couldn’t even watch TV or have the light on. I was living in Kansas City and Annette came from Oklahoma City to help. She stayed with me for a few days, and I remember she sat beside the bed with a pen and paper and said tell me everything on your plate. I told her and she wrote. It was a long list. She said “Okay, I’m taking everything off your plate. Don’t give it another thought; I have it. You have one job. Get better. We need you.” And that’s what she did! She took care of everything until I was better. Twice she’s been there when I’ve worked myself into a place that I had to have help and both times, she was a rock and a friend.

Twenty percent is better than I expected. In 2019, one study (https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/09/us-vc-investment-in-female-founders-hits-all-time-high/) shows that female founders received only 2.8% of the VC funding, but even at 20%, it’s not enough. I believe this is because there is still implicit bias toward funding men, especially in the world of tech.
I also think that we need more women in the decision-making seats for investments. As of July 2020, women made up only 12.4% of the VC decision-makers. (https://www.axios.com/women-venture-capital-gender-equality-3811e58d-6d89-48ea-bd13-6dc3e03a8911.html)

Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?

Well, related to the implicit bias that I mentioned earlier and giving the benefit of the doubt here, I don’t think many men (or women for that matter) are aware they are biased, but like diversity bias, it’s there. I have experienced this myself. I have raised capital and am currently raising capital for our new technology platform. I have proven I can lead and run a business. I can build a team of high performers. I have a compelling vision and we have a great culture of empowered employees and gig workers. I can sell and deliver results. We can produce great products. I have an investor/advisor team that consists of investment bankers, entrepreneurs with huge successful exits and corporate executives. My team is trusted by our customers to work at the top-of-the house on highly confidential and sometimes very complex and contentious issues and yet, I still have trouble raising capital for our tech platform which will become our primary revenue driver going forward. Investors want me to show that I’ve done it — that is to show that I’ve built a company to $20 million or more in a short period of time, but I don’t have that specific track-record to point to yet. I need capital to build out the sales and marketing needed to complete our transformation to a tech company and then to scale. So, someone needs to place a bet that my history of leadership is a transferrable skill to building a tech company. That person or group, however, is hard to find, and I have to fight getting frustrated or beaten down. Having to pitch over and over feels like I’m giving up a little bit of my soul and raising money is very difficult. Personally, I think we need more government grants for women entrepreneurs and more corporations helping women get funded through grants, investments, or client capital where the company will work with an entrepreneur to buy their product (at a discount) before it is ready, or other mechanisms that end up being a good deal for the company and for the entrepreneur. We also need more investor activism that insists that a larger percentage of their investments go to female founders.
Referring to needing more women in the decision-making seats at VCs and other such investment groups, we need more and more women in the power seats. I am seeing that in many ways and women have had an awakening. I think we are beginning to understand that we, as a collective, have been held back and discriminated against and that if the game is going to change, we will have to unite and lead the changing ourselves. That is not to say that men are not helping. In fact, we have a new book coming out called The Courage To Advance: Real life resilience from the world’s most successful women in business (www.thecouragetoadvance.com) and while every woman in the book faced discrimination by men, almost all of them also shared that they had at least one champion who was a man, so I want to acknowledge and thank the men like Paul Polman on a global level and many on an individual. That said, major change is needed and we have to unite and push this change forward.

You know, if we think about it, women already know how to do this. If our neighbor is sick, we take food, help drive the kids to school or whatever we can do to help, but for some reason, we haven’t fully leveraged this natural support system into our work and careers, but now, I think we are starting to. This is a big part of the culture of the WomenExecs on Boards network that I co-chair with Maria Garcia Nielsen and that is led by two amazing women Rosie Bichard and Patricia Christian. This is a global, non-profit network of hundreds of women executives who have completed board governance education at Harvard Business School. The members reside in more than 25 countries, and we come together to support each other and help secure our members on the Boards of public and private organizations. When we get there, we will leave the ladder down and start pulling other women up into leadership positions as well. We know that if we unite, help each other get into powerful seats, roll out our rolodexes and reach across party lines, ethnic lines, religious lines, etc. we can, at some level, change the world for the better in our lifetime. We can make a difference for our daughters and nieces and friends and for their children and their children. We can do something that will matter long after we are no longer here to see it.

This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?

Women bring the soul to an organization. The business landscape is changing, and the younger generations don’t want to work for a company that doesn’t have a broader purpose, tangible culture, and a soul. I think women bring those elements, driven by empathy and emotional intelligence. In fact, I think women usually start with those elements and then figure out the business model. It’s the perfect environment for women to become founders. It’s hard, so let me just throw that in there, but if a woman wants to be a founder, now is the time.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?

That your time is your own and that you don’t have a boss. When you are a business owner, your life is often dictated by the business. I may be tired and want to take a weekend off and then something happens with a customer, or a product and I have to give up some time to take care of it. Plus, you have to stay in front of the cash flow which can be a challenge even in good times because fast growth takes a lot of cash as well. These are things that keep me working when I would rather play. And the customers and shareholders become the boss. It’s not that you can’t make decisions on your own, you can and do but when customers want something you have to respond, at least that is how we approach it.

Definitely not. In fact, I gave a talk at the University of Missouri to an entrepreneur group and the first thing I told them is what I tell my own children. “Being a founder is very hard and if you can help yourself don’t do it. Go get in a company and climb the ladder, but if you’re like me and you just can’t help yourself then I’ll be happy to share what I’ve learned along the way.” I think it’s easier to say what traits won’t work well. I wouldn’t encourage someone to be a founder who wants a strong work/life balance because you won’t have it. Or if you need certainty or security, you won’t have that either. If you need good benefits, you certainly won’t have that in the beginning and maybe for a long time. You may not even always have an income. If you blame others when something goes wrong, that doesn’t work well because if you’re a founder, you’re the ‘buck stops here’ person. If you don’t like to sell. In some ways every founder has to sell. You have to sell your company to investors and potential employees and your product to customers and your partnership abilities to potential supply chain. Sales is just an ongoing part of the role.

I think they are these:

Visionary leadership — being able to envision what the company needs to become and then the ability to paint that picture for others in a way that they can see and get excited about it, to engage them around that vision in a way that they feel it is their vision too, because if it isn’t their vision too, you won’t have their heart. I cannot do anything without our team. Every member plays a crucial role and while I can’t paint the high-level picture, each person on the team fills in part of that picture. Understanding the importance and vision of the team is crucial. This also helps all stay focused. We have a vision for EDA to transform from primarily a premium executive development service business to a premium technology business with services. We want to become the place where even our current competitors come for technology and research. We want to be great resource for our industry. So, our COO Kelli Adams came up with an idea to help with this bridge by using our core historic expertise to create a Coach the Coach certification for internal leaders who want to become coaches and for executives who are leaving their corporate job and want to become coaches and to teach them how to apply our technology as part of the certification. This was a brilliant idea as our brand equity leads to a strong desire for our EDA Coach the Coach certification and is a great way for our clients to get enmeshed with our technology and for us to get valuable face time with them. Kelli filled in a part of our vision. This type of thing happens regularly with each team member.
Strong work ethic — I just don’t know how anyone could be a founder without this. I’m probably what most people would consider a workaholic because of my farm background. I like to work long and hard and then I feel good about relaxing, but that is not really what I mean here. What I mean is you just can’t be lazy or unfocused. There are times when the hours will be very long for a long time. On the other hand, we have to take care of ourselves. This is something I need to work on even more than I do. We do have to rest. It’s a marathon, not a sprint so we can’t run it like a sprint.
Courage to step out and make hard choices. I’ve had to make many hard choices through the years. Usually, they are about people. I’ve had to fire people that I love. One person worked for me many years but when we did the acquisition, they just couldn’t make the curve to the new thing we were doing, couldn’t let go of the smaller company mentality and move to the to the greater brand and company that we were becoming. When I let her go, I couldn’t stop crying for at least a week. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
Teachable/a learning stance to continuously try to understand what they don’t know that they need to know and then investing in themselves to get the appropriate training, development, or education. I have personally spent at least $50,000 over 20 years on business/entrepreneur coaches who were good at finance, acquisitions, and things that I didn’t learn in my education in psychology. I didn’t go to business school and didn’t have time to do it once I founded a business, so I hired coaches who had done it and they taught me in real time. I also went to the Protocol School of Washington for protocol and to Harvard Business School for board governance education. I’ve spent a lot of money trying to learn what I needed to know and now (at 52) I feel prepared. I’m ready for what we are doing. It was worth every penny!
Extreme resilience — my favorite quote is Theodore Roosevelt’s “The Man in the Arena”. As a founder there will be many “man in the arena” days where your “face is marred by dust and sweat and blood” and you get back up and wipe the dust off and pull all your inner strength and keep going. It isn’t for the faint of heart. When the 2008 downturn hit, I had a business partner. We were working so hard to keep the business going and she decided it was too hard and wanted to get out of the partnership and just do contract work for the company. I was in shock and devasted as that doubled the work on me which already felt crushing; and I just couldn’t believe she would quit in the middle of our battle for the company. I was supposed to fly to another city with her, but I couldn’t do it. I dropped her off at the airport and drove to the city alone, a five-hour drive. I needed to clear my head. When I arrived, I met with a team of employees and advisors’, and we figured out how to move forward and they cheered me up. Yet again our team was crucial to surviving but I still had to get my attitude fixed and get back up the next day ready for another round in the arena.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

Only history will be able to tell us that probably long after I’m gone, but I am giving it everything I have inside of me. The areas where I hope to leave the world a better place is:

Gender equality on corporate boards and in senior executive positions
Helping leaders provide great leadership
Helping companies create compelling cultures that last.

Gender equality on corporate boards and in senior executive positions.

Yes, Melinda Gates and MacKenzie Scott as they have recently teamed up to help fund and support women. I would love to understand their passion areas in this initiative and to share what we’re doing to advance the state of women on boards and in senior executive positions.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Female Founders: Bonnie Hagemann of EDA On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.