An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Unwavering Confidence. We tend to back down from the power that unwavering confidence can evoke in fear of what others think. For females, confidence has been cast as ‘bitchy’ in the business world. In truth, when we exhibit unwavering confidence it can be scary for others to see. In my experience, my unwavering confidence is both inspiring and daunting for those who meet me. I’ve given talks to hundreds about embracing the mess and it’s through my confidence in my own embrace, that people are drawn to me. Confidence is the armour that shields us from all the obstacles we face as founders. It’s also the grace we grant ourselves throughout the aspects of surviving before we can thrive.

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

Liz Kametz is an author, coach, business owner, a mom of four children (two special needs, two step-children) and one anxious rescue dog, and a wife to a loving hubby, who together share in their journey of learning and growth. She most importantly knows the power of self-care and a focus on wellness, especially on how positive an impact it has with her and her children (one on the spectrum, one with anxiety disorder).

Liz created Just Be to address her own chronic stress and lack of self-care. She’s used her healing journey over the last 7 years to author her debut book and design transformation workshops. Liz holds an MS in Systems Engineering, BS in Chemical Engineering and has made a career in successfully coaching leaders and large organizations through transformation.

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?

It’s such a pleasure to be here, thank you so much for having me! My story is both unique and common among many aspiring female entrepreneurs. I built a career on being an achiever and always focused on helping others solve problems. It took about 20 years in Corporate America for my body to finally draw a line in the sand and wave the flag to surrender to chronic burnout. See what happens with women like myself is we focus so much on all the ones around us, especially the ones we love and care for, and we tend to put ourselves at the bottom of the list. When it comes to a career, this can be very mysteriously hidden in societies ‘norm’ of climbing the corporate ladder, or doing what’s ‘best for the team’. In this veil of achievement, our logic tells us we are building a successful career, but our soul has other plans. If we don’t listen to our soul’s purpose, especially if you are intended to be a woman in leadership, what ends up happening is we approach burnout and our bodies start to fail. For me, I hit the wall with chronic stress that manifested into multiple physical ailments from back and shoulder pain to over debilitating anxiety. Flash forward five years and I can confidently say I’ve focused my energy on building a business around self-care and my soul’s purpose which promotes ultimate alignment for success.

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

Picture the energy created by pursuing your dreams and taking action towards your goals. I was deep in the details of launching my brick & mortar wellness center at the turn of 2020. Just saying that date should give you indication about what I’m about to tell you! My business partner and I were shopping like thieves in IKEA for all the last minute needs to fill our almost 3,000 square foot space we had been designing. Construction was almost complete, we were about to host a Female in Business networking event of over 70 local leading women in business, and we were sailing on the high energy of all the possibilities in front of us. We had so many carts of towels, sheets, decor, etc, that it was hard for the two of us to move through the checkout line without help. With the blink of an eye, COVID hit and all of those best laid plans for opening our doors in April were thwarted. Honestly, I never let it get to me. I let every obstacle and twist and turn that I faced be a lesson to keep going, perhaps just in a slightly different direction. I call upon this story as the most interesting because it’s not often that you can feel failure before you even begin. With any perceived failure the real growth happens when you shift perspectives and allow the experience to be some of your best guidance.

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 first of all, I love how you say ‘funniest mistake’ because each hiccup should be viewed this way. If we can introduce some humor into our experiences the lighter we become and the easier it is to move through the disappointment. Honestly, in reflection, there are probably a bunch of mistakes because being a business owner with staff and a facility and services was all new to me. One specific example that comes to mind is the idea of trying to do everything myself. This was a ‘mistake’ that took me almost 2 years to rectify. I’m a woman who has succeeded at most everything I put my mind to and leaned on my education and experiences to guide me. I have engineering degrees which taught me how to understand large complex problems, how to leverage technology, and use analytical thinking. So when you consider the entire business eco-system of a small business owner, all the facets I could handle from strategy, finance to customer experience. What I didn’t enjoy was the sales and marketing parts, but that didn’t stop me from learning! No no, I charged forward pulling up my big girl pants and diving into webinar after webinar on social media strategies, marketing 101’s etc. looking back, I could have saved my time and energy and hired an expert while focusing on my genius work, but I was too set in need to control, save money, and do it all myself. Not sure if that is laugh worthy, but hindsight is always 20/20, and I can chuckle to myself about the time I probably wasted and use it as a guidepost for picking and choosing where I should be spending my energy as a business owner on a daily basis.

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?

Oh, I love this question, because, AMEN! So many aspiring female entrepreneurs I coach are trying to do it all on their own. I had the lucky circumstance that as my vision was forming of what type of business I wanted to create, my path crossed with my now business partner, Adrienne Gervais. As you recall in my origin story of business ownership, I had hit the wall of chronic stress and burnout and I was seeking as many different healing modalities as I could to help with my physical and emotional baggage. I was referred by a neighbor to Adrienne to try Integrated Energy Therapy which was nothing I had tried before, but was open to anything. After one or two sessions with Adrienne as she cleared many of my physical and emotional blocks, she mentioned how she could sense lots aswirl with my visions coming to clarity. It was no coincidence our paths crossed at the right time. Over the next few months Adrienne flowed alongside me as a champion of my mission, providing a constant feeling of encouragement and reinforcement. Since, we’ve more formally established our working relationship, but honestly it’s always been in the spirit of helping each other align to our life’s purpose to heal, grow, and share our learnings with others.

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?

I’m probably the first generation who grew up being told I could be or do anything I worked towards. My mother was given a handful of careers to choose from and that was that. For her, It was definitely rowing up- river to consider anything that wasn’t the ‘norm’. Today we have more opportunities for young women to explore their passions at an earlier age. It’s still not enough. Although we’ve moved the needle to help these young women open up more possibilities, to me, it still feels contained. It’s not enough to tell young women they can ‘do’ anything in terms of a career, we need to keep reinforcing they can ‘be’ anything they want to be as well. We need to focus on encouraging the spirit of a young child who dances in her tutu and creates inspiring idea after inspiring idea, to continue to dream. We need opportunities for these young women to build an armour of confidence that cannot be penetrated as they go through life.

So if you think of the women today who might be holding back, that’s my answer, confidence. Bravery to go against the grain and follow their dreams. Courage to pursue their souls’ purpose even if it’s not what is expected..

But let me be clear — I do see this shifting. I see SO MANY more women holding up their metaphoric swords of pursuit and charging towards their dreams. So many more women are standing in their power and aren’t holding back. For those women (like it was for me), it’s not a matter of us holding back, it’s a matter of those around us opening doors for us to move through, instead of feeling like we need to shatter the status quo. It’s not a matter of us holding back, it’s a matter of the systems in place shifting to support female leaders. I’m encouraged about the time we live in and seeing these numbers increase as both women find their power and society shifts to allow 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?

Three key foundational approaches come to mind, especially as I think of what I hope my step-daughters gain as they move into adulthood.

1. Focusing education on confidence, self-esteem, and failure-learning. The younger we are able to encourage females to be confident in who they are, learn from mistakes, and have a growth mindset, the better chance we have in creating future leaders.
2. Increased financial opportunities to support women-owned businesses. The best business plan and mission to help through business ownership can be shelved if it’s not properly funded. There is still an imbalance in our opportunities for female founders to secure proper funding for sustainable success.
3. Continued focus on mentorship. This is happening quite a lot in the forms of women authors sharing their lessons, female networking groups and the like. We need to make sure this continues to grow as community connections are a great way to not feel alone and encourage each other by lifting each other up as we move through our journeys of entrepreneurship.

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?

As has been stated in many publications, women make up about 85 percent of all consumer purchasing decisions and account for about $7 Trillion in consumer and business spending. So if we are so imperative in our economic success it’s pretty straight forward we should be in positions to design the business landscape. Besides that simple logic, women have proven themselves as powerful complex system problem solvers. Take a stay at home mom for example ( which I was for many years) on any given day she juggles the children’s meal plans, school communication and requirements, household management, conflict resolution, doctors visits, extracurricular activities, all while considering the emotional and physical well being of those she loves. She does this usually without even writing anything down, as her brain is wired to work through all the moving pieces at the same time. Now apply that to operating a business and the invisible writing is on the wall.

Women are made to lead, it’s as simple as that.

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

Oh yes! Love this. Here are 3 ‘myths’ I try to shatter everyday!

1. Work Hard, Play Hard. — Not for me! Play hard, yes. Work hard, no. If you’ve found your true soul’s purpose, first of all, it won’t feel like work. Secondly, you don’t have to overdo it. You can flow with your energy towards your goals with ease. Amazing, you can work less and gain more. It’s an earth shattering concept, but some of the best leaders live it.
2. More Time, More Money — Okay, I guess you could say this is a spin off of the first one. Here’s the deal, our society has grown through the industrial revolution where time literally was money in manufacturing facilities pushing out widgets. We have transcended this people! We can now disconnect the fusion of time with money. We need to recognize that our value (ahem, money is in our wisdom, our insights, and are not associated with how much time we provide AT ALL.
3. Perfection breeds Success — Not sure if anyone is actually saying this, but we see people living by this motto all the time. Not trying new things in fear of not being perfect. Not pursuing their dreams if they don’t feel like it’s going to be perfect. I do know someone said this: “Perfection is the enemy of good.’ so let’s do good, be good. I like to tell my staff, customers and mentees to “Embrace the mess!”. The messiness is where all the good growth comes. It’s okay to fail. It’s okay to do ‘just enough’ and it’s okay to be messy. The more we can show other leaders that perfection is not what we are striving for, the more likely we are to have more female founders raising their hand to try!

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?

To be a founder you need to be comfortable in the discomfort. There isn’t a day that goes by that doesn’t cause concern if your mindset is wired to need safety and comfort. To be a successful founder I believe you must be passionate, ambitious, risk taking, mission driven leaders ready to take on a messy existence. If your emotional well being is linked to stability and security perhaps the ‘regular job’ will be most appropriate. Those who have a thirst to learn and grow on a continual basis are best poised to launch into the world as female founders.

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.)

1. Unwavering Confidence. We tend to back down from the power that unwavering confidence can evoke in fear of what others think. For females, confidence has been cast as ‘bitchy’ in the business world. In truth, when we exhibit unwavering confidence it can be scary for others to see. In my experience, my unwavering confidence is both inspiring and daunting for those who meet me. I’ve given talks to hundreds about embracing the mess and it’s through my confidence in my own embrace, that people are drawn to me. Confidence is the armour that shields us from all the obstacles we face as founders. It’s also the grace we grant ourselves throughout the aspects of surviving before we can thrive.
2. Growth Mindset. Whatever term you want to use, this is the aspect of being okay with failure. Being okay with something not turning out the way you expected. Honestly, removing all expectations all together, so no matter what comes your way you roll with it. In order to be a thriving woman founder, this type of mindset is foundational. I’ve had clients receiving services in our wellness center and the water stopped working, or staff giving last minute cancellations, or not being funded from a bank where it’s a table of all white males deciding. Any of these experiences could have made me throw in my hat and call it quits, but it’s through my positive mindset and recognizing that every experience is an opportunity to learn and grow, that has kept me thriving.
3. Support System. As much as we can be standing in our power as an amazing Queen Bee Business Owner, it ‘takes a village’, as they say, to run a business. Find your support system, either through the amazing staff you hire, or the loved ones cheering you on, or the boundaries you put in place; as these are your building blocks to thriving successfully. You can’t and shouldn’t do it alone.
4. Self Care. To have a business that is thriving, you need to be thriving. This means taking care of yourself completely. FIRST. You cannot give to others until you have given to yourself. This is a lesson that took years of unlearning and relearning for me to truly understand. I put everything first before myself and almost died because of it. You don’t need to wait until your body fails, or your mental health is on alert to take care of yourself. Instill repeatable, consistent self-care routines that feed your soul and don’t ever stop.
5. Dream. The best businesses were created out of solving a problem by creative souls who followed their dreams. Building time into your life to keep dreaming is a recipe to thrive. If you follow your dreams, each day as a woman founder will be filled with joy. For me, I had lost the idea of dreaming because I got stuck in my analytical, problem solving mind. When creativity of thought flows, the most inspired results transpire. Space, quiet, rest, nature, are just a few ways I allow for dreaming. To move from surviving to thriving we need to heal our souls and dreaming is a great vehicle to get there. What you’ll find is the more time you spend dreaming, the more ideas, and the more impact you can make to the world.

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

My business mission is directly linked to my life’s mission. It encompasses 4 key C’s: Compassion, Connection, Community and Caring. Locally we support as many causes that reflect these tenants as we can. Globally, I mentor aspiring female entrepreneurs to follow their life’s purpose. Each positive impact creates a ripple as our universe is all energetically connected. Change takes time, but incremental action won’t go unnoticed. Our world can be a better place today than it was yesterday if we continue to focus on what actions we are rippling out, so i focus on my 4 C’s to continue to ensure the impact is one of positivity and purpose.

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.

Leadership-Based Education. It always starts with our children and instilling qualities and skills that will lead to a happy, healthy life. If our educational system was more focused on the child’s holistic well-being and supported the pursuit of their dreams, no matter what that entails, the better the world would be. This means balancing the curriculum with both academic and well-being focused courses. Emotional and mental health would be the nucleus of the education system. How to be a positive contributing human in our global human system. That would be an amazing movement to see unfold.

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, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

I could think of a myriad of women whom I could address as mentors in my pursuit, some already passed, some still thriving. Specifically, I can really relate to the story of Arianna Huffington’s journey with business ownership, leadership and self-care. I applaud her business model transformation to lean into the mess and take lessons from her struggles to share those perspectives with so many globally.

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

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Female Founders: Liz Kametz On The Five Things You Need To Thrive & Succeed As A Woman Founder was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.