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Women Taking the Lead

The Women Taking the Lead podcast is a resource for women leaders, allies, and organizations looking to promote more women into senior leadership. Episode formats include specific leadership challenges, "on-air" coaching with women leaders, and interviews with internal talent and organizational development leaders. Women Taking the Lead inspires women to overcome self-doubt and lead with confidence, integrity and a sense of humor.
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Now displaying: March, 2018
Mar 26, 2018

Hello everyone and thank you for joining me. This episode is going to be short and sweet this week for a couple of reasons. I am going to give you a quick update on my goals and frankly, I have learned another lesson about spreading myself too thin.

I did in fact spread myself too thin but this time it wasn’t about time or physical energy, it was creativity. I took on projects that definitely fit in my calendar and were not going to burn a lot of calories but they were going to take a lot of mental focus and creativity.

Before I knew it I was spent and started to have an aversion to sitting at my desk. I started to work with a pad of paper and a pen out in the living room. I lit a candle and made hot cocoa. I tried all my normal tricks and they helped a little but they only got me so far.

Although I would love to offer you some new insights this week I’m going to leave it to updates for the sake of my brain. Next week I’m releasing my interview with Angela Lussier of the Speaker Sisterhood and the week after that I will be coming with a fresh and well-rested 100% Jodi episode on The Dip. The Dip is a book by Seth Godin and subtitle is “A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick).”

Are you feeling that topic? I am and I’m going to share my experiences with you in just a couple of episodes from here.

Until then you know you can always be a part of the community and the conversation in the private facebook group. Go to womentakingthelead.com/group and it will take you right to where you can ask to join and fill out some information about yourself.

On to the update on my goals…

Goal #1 Build more strength and endurance.

Original goal for strength and endurance was to do 300 Spartan-regulation burpees in good form in one session by June 30. Separately, do an unassisted pull-up.

Let me start with the pull-up. I said I would have the pull-up bands to help with my goal of doing an unassisted pull-up and I received them last week. Now I just need to start incorporating pull-ups into my workouts during the week.

Last month I accomplished my goal of 300 Spartan-regulation burpees in good form in one session on February 20th.

In last month’s episode I reported that I’ve changed my goal to doing 1000 Spartan-regulation burpees in good form in one session. I have the plan all mapped out and as of this morning I have done 425 Spartan-regulation burpees in good form in one session.

Goal #4 Do a Women Taking the Lead branded full-day event in the summer or fall

I’m shooting to have this goal of 1000 burpees accomplished in October.at a fundraising event.

In last week’s episode I released the Facebook Live I had done with Emily leRoux of Spartan Races on International Women’s Day. In that conversation we announced that in October, which is breast cancer awareness month, we will be collaborating to do a “Burpees for Boobs” event. I am going to coordinate the event here in Maine but the intention is to have these events happening globally in October.

There has not been a lot of extra time to make significant progress on this goal but I have been sharing this goal with a lot of people who are ready to take action as soon as I can give some marching orders.

I am crazy-excited about this and it’s almost chaffing me that other things need my attention before I can give this my full focus. However, there will be more to come on this in a couple of months.

Goal #2 Be in a relationship

One of my milestones was to join a dating app and I announced last month that I did that.

Additionally, I had a conversation with a friend about going on the dating app and we went back and forth about what I was looking for. After getting some good critical feedback I declared that I would just start with the intention of meeting good human beings. Since then I have met several good human beings and I’m glad I’ve met them. Some I would want to continue to spend time with but no spark just yet.

I have no expectation that this goal will be achieved quickly. My only expectation is that conversations happen that lead to dates, so I can get to know more men.

Goal #3 Increase profitability in my business.

Goal: have a net income (earnings minus expenses) of $80,000 minimum this year.

February’s Profit and Loss report showed a net profit of $493.82. That’s not good and can be partially explained by where my annual bills fall. Some of my largest bills come due in February and March. I’ve also had some legal work done and if you remember from last month I’ve been giving more work to my Virtual Assistant to alleviate my workload as I begin to take on new projects. That has served me well and I am still in the black.

However, as I stated last month if I’m going to have a net profit of $80,000 I’m going to need to start recording an average net profit of about $6700 a month. So I’m a little further behind but there is more potential in the coming months.

Goal # 5 Outsourcing

Goal: (contingent upon profitability goal) to outsource social media content creation and email inbox management.

Although I am outsourcing more items to my VA my intention was to outsource social media content creation and the management of my email inbox. I am behind on emails and I don’t feel great about that.

Seeing this goal realized is definitely going to take having the funds available to pay for these services. I am hopeful that this will happen sooner rather than later.

Again you can be a part of the community and the conversation in the private facebook group. Go to womentakingthelead.com/group and it will take you right to where you can ask to join and fill out some information about yourself. I would love to meet you there.

As always I hope this was of value to you and here’s to your success!

Thank You to Our Sponsors!

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Zebralove Web SolutionsYour website tells a story about your business! At Zebralove Web Solutions, Milly and her team are going to make sure your website tells the story you want your customers to hear. Connect with Milly at zebralovewebsolutions.com to create the impression you want to make!

Resources

Private Facebook CommunityChat, share and collaborate with other women listening to the podcast!

Accomplished: How to Go from Dreaming to DoingA simple, step by step system that gives you the foundation and structure to take your goals and make them happen.

Mar 19, 2018

For this bonus episode, I met up with Emily leRoux, the Spartan Women Global Leader for Spartan Races, Inc, for a special Facebook Live recording on International Women's Day.

Emily is a top ranked sales professional with 14 years experience partnering with some of the world's largest consumer businesses in the UK and Japan. An encouraging leader and mentor of a diverse, multicultural team of highly skilled and motivated salespeople and staff. Emily is the founder of Mums in Business Tokyo; an ever-growing network of professional females with one thing in common - we're all frantically trying to find ways to balance working life with everything family life throws at us too. She was nominated as '2016 Entrepreneur of the Year' by the British Chamber of Commerce in Japan.

Emily is heading up Spartan Women and the Global Spartan Women Ambassador Program on a mission to harness the immense ability, inspiration and experiences of Spartan Women, sharing them with our community to inspire others in overcoming the challenges of everyday life.

Topics We Discussed:

  • Spartan Races at all ages
  • Building a global community for women
  • The inclusivity at Spartan Races
  • What Emily is currently working on
  • How to get involved
  • My new burpee challenge

Links

Original Facebook Live:
https://www.facebook.com/womentakingthelead/videos/878081589038041/

Spartan Women Facebook Group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/spartanwomenofficial/

Spartan Up! interview with Marla Sweeney:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY5bcqyHppQ 

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/spartanwomen/

Thank You to Our Sponsors

Podcast Movement is the world’s largest gathering of new and veteran podcasters, or anyone looking to start their own podcast the right way. For $50 off any level of registration, visit podcastmovement.com and enter promotional code lead.

Zebralove Web SolutionsYour website tells a story about your business! At Zebralove Web Solutions, Milly and her team are going to make sure your website tells the story you want your customers to hear. Connect with Milly at zebralovewebsolutions.com to create the impression you want to make!

Resources

Private Facebook Community: Chat, share and collaborate with other women in the community!

Accomplished: How to Go from Dreaming to DoingA simple, step by step system that gives you the foundation and structure to take your goals and make them happen.

Subscribe to Women Taking the Lead

If you enjoyed this episode subscribe in iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Google Play Music or iHeart Radio and never miss out on inspiration and community!

Mar 12, 2018

We are this close to official Spring in the northern hemisphere and I am ready for it! I do appreciate winter for what it brings: reflection, the holidays and the slower pace. At least, it’s supposed to be a slower pace. I do less travelling in the winter but that didn’t stop my schedule this year from being pretty jam-packed.

I am ready to be energized by Spring and I’m looking forward to what this season has to offer.

Spring is also bringing Marianne Williamson to Portland, Maine and I am freaking out. She is the author of the quote at the end of each and every episode of this podcast.

I first heard this quote from her book Return to Love: Reflections on A Course in Miracles exactly 20 years ago. It was 1998 and I was in a leadership development program at the time and one of the other participants read the quote and passed out printed copies of it.

Hearing the quote the first time gave me goosebumps and I remember starting to cry the words resonated so strongly with me. To say Marianne Williamson has had an impact on my life would be an understatement.

Her words changed the way I related to myself and this concept is at the core of the coaching I do today. I feel like this is another of the many blessings that have come into my life when I started putting out to the Universe what I wanted.

Here is the link to buy tickets to this event:  http://www.leapinlizards.biz/event/marianne-williamson-love-america-tour/2018-05-06/

This week I wanted to chat about something that has been on my mind because of the work I’ve done for my website and it comes up in conversations on the regular for me.

The whole concept of being or not being Type A

I promote myself as a coach for Type A women, and naturally that’s my answer to the questions, “What is it you do?” or, “Tell me about your business.” I can see how my answer immediately has the person I’m talking to assessing whether or not they would put themselves in that category.

I often hear as a first response, “I don’t know if I’m Type A” or, “I wouldn’t categorize myself as Type A.”

When I ask a few questions to help them figure it out it commonly turns out that they do in fact have Type A tendencies.

Because this is a common occurrence I debated on changing the language to describe the work that I do.

However, rather than being coy about the fact that women with Type A tendencies are my ideal client I’d would prefer to remove the stigma of being Type A. Because that is what I believe is at the heart of this.

There is a negative connotation in our culture to having Type A tendencies.

The qualities of being driven, goal-oriented, results focused are not considered feminine qualities. The stereotypical image I believe most of us have about a Type A person comes from a masculine image of an aggressive, super-competitive, “winning is the only thing that matters”, workaholic, unfeeling type of person.

That’s not me and that’s not you. I don’t even know many men that would fit this stereotypical description.

I think this negative stereotype of being Type A is why many women shy away from the term Type A until I can get them to see their own natural tendencies and laugh about them.

Let me give you some background on where the term Type A came from, along with some descriptors of Type A tendencies and the positive and negative aspects of these tendencies.

Where the term "Type A" came from

In the 1950s a study on heart disease was conducted by two cardiologists, Drs. Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman. As was common at the time all the subjects of the study were men and this study identified three types of behaviors:

Type A, which they labeled as competitive, ambitious, impatient, aggressive, and fast-talking;

Type B, which is more relaxed and non-competitive, and

Type C, which is hard-working but becomes apathetic when faced with stress.

Now I bet you and I can both consider those categories and see ourselves in some but not all of those descriptors in different areas of our lives.

More research has been done over the years and more nuances to Type A behavior have been uncovered.

For instance, people with Type A tendencies are likely to:

  • Work diligently to finish activities within deadline and over deliver on what’s expected
  • Be involved in multiple stressful activities tied to deadlines.
  • Practice perfectionism.
  • Have a need to be in control or in positions of power (owner/leader/decision-maker) and thus…
  • Be a business owner or corporate executive.
  • Take their work and causes quite seriously.
  • Have an intense sustained determination to achieve personal goals.
  • Be hypersensitive to time because they hate to waste it.
  • Compete constantly against others and themselves.
  • Have a persistent desire for recognition and advancement.
  • Exhibit mental and physical alertness over a long period of time.
  • Appear to be insensitive toward other’s feelings.

You can hear/see that in this list a balance of strengths and weaknesses and the weakness come when Type A tendencies are un-managed.

Having Type A tendencies is pretty awesome unless...

If left unmanaged, these tendencies lead to stress, anxiety, frustration, exhaustion, martyrdom, overwhelm, feelings of powerlessness, self-doubt, insomnia, and an inability to concentrate, make decisions, unplug/relax, have fun or feel happy.

All of this impacts the quality of health, relationships, finances, and career or businesses.

I also want to point out that because of our culture more and more people are exhibiting Type A tendencies. There’s more value placed on achievement, to be successful, be known, stand out of the crowd and make a mark, etc.

I can’t speak for other countries but in the US, because of the cost of living the standard American lifestyle most households require both partners to bring in a good salary. This also creates a push to land a great job, have regular career advancement or for the self-employed, to be making enough profit consistently to sustain the household budget.

So people who under different circumstances would have comfortably described themselves at Type B or Type C they are now finding themselves exhibiting Type A tendencies.

It seems pretty bleak talking about un-managed Type A tendencies but I’m here to tell you being Type A is pretty awesome, as long as you are taking care of yourself and keeping it in check.

Embrace your Type A tendencies. Own them and be appreciative of them.

If you take pleasure in your work and have a value of excellence, what’s so bad about that?

If you are motivated by competition because it brings out your best work and your most creative ideas, what’s so bad about that?

If being driven and focused on results means you can look back on all your efforts and see that they did in fact make a difference and changed the lives of others for the better, what’s so bad about that?

If your leadership and organization rally’s other to achieving their goals, where they might have otherwise been left floundering, what’s so bad about that?

And if you find you are going into overdrive working too much and not finding the space to relax, reach out to me. I can help you to accomplish more by doing less. It’s all about leveraging your strengths so you have more time to relax and stay in a creative and connected space.

Being Type A is pretty awesome and I wouldn’t change if given a choice. I’m speaking for myself when I say I wouldn’t have started my business or this podcast if I wasn’t so driven. I may have written my book but I wouldn’t have gotten so into my health and fitness. I definitely would not have moved to Maine or gotten so many promotions in my corporate career.

There’s nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to hide if you are driven to get results and love the excitement of a new challenge.

Do you need to take excellent care of yourself in and out of your work? Yes, you definitely do.

But if that’s your struggle, that’s what I’m here for. And it’s probably why you’re here as well.

Did that provide any new insights for you? I’d love to get your feedback. Being Type A I love both critical and affirming feedback. I can’t get better if I don’t know what can be improved and I’m all about getting better, thank you very much.

You can comment wherever you found this episode or you can email me directly at Jodi@womentakingthelead.com.

As always I hope my drive for excellence and providing great content was helpful to you and here’s to your success!

Thank You to Our Sponsors!

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Zebralove Web SolutionsYour website tells a story about your business! At Zebralove Web Solutions, Milly and her team are going to make sure your website tells the story you want your customers to hear. Connect with Milly at zebralovewebsolutions.com to create the impression you want to make!

Mar 5, 2018

Jen Hemphill, a military spouse & proud bilingual Latina, helps women who are tired of the traditional money advice gain a renewed sense of control, confidence and freedom in their financial life.  She is a Money Confidence Coach, an AFC® (Accredited Financial Counselor) and host of the Her Money Matters® Podcast.  Her first book, Her Money Matters: The Missing Truths From Traditional Money Advice, helps to fill the missing gaps for when you are financially stuck.

Story Behind The Book

Jen had no intention to ever write a book. Perfectionism held her back from ever adding it to her bucket list. Until one day, a publisher approached her and asked if she was interested in writing a book. Jen realized it was a great opportunity that she couldn’t pass up. In the process, Jen was able to observe her journey around money and mold her advice more around why she was getting stuck.

Traditional Money Advice

We have all heard the same traditional money advice, but sometimes it doesn’t work that cut and dry. You work so hard on what you are supposed to do, but often it doesn’t work out the way it should. Jen believes a big problem is that we aren’t talking enough about the emotional part of it… the money mindset.

Money Headquarters

When Jen refers to your money headquarters it is essentially a hub for your money. When you build a house, you start with the foundation, which is like your money mindset. Then you build from there, piece by piece. The next piece is money actions, then money skills. If you don’t have a strong foundation, just like a house, its not going to be steady.

Takeaway From The Book

Confidence. “Grab the confidence and run with it.”

Links

Website: http://jenhemphill.com
Book: http://jenhemphill.com/book

Thank You to Our Sponsors

LOLA: Organic cotton feminine care in customized assortments delivered to your door. For 40% off your first shipment use promo code: LEAD40

Zebralove Web SolutionsYour website tells a story about your business! At Zebralove Web Solutions, Milly and her team are going to make sure your website tells the story you want your customers to hear. Connect with Milly at zebralovewebsolutions.com to create the impression you want to make!

Resources

Private Facebook Community: Chat, share and collaborate with other women in the community!

Accomplished: How to Go from Dreaming to DoingA simple, step by step system that gives you the foundation and structure to take your goals and make them happen.

The Accomplished Community: A community of entrepreneurial Type A women uniting to achieve their biggest goals with confidence, integrity and a sense of humor.

Subscribe to Women Taking the Lead

If you enjoyed this episode subscribe in iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Google Play Music or iHeart Radio and never miss out on inspiration and community!

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