Do Women Build Businesses Differently?
What Holds You Back?
Feeling held back and powerless to change it can be maddening. There are so many ways we spiral into disconnection with ourselves and lose our authentic voice and personal power. This split is disempowering!
If your wisdom – your inner knowing and vision, what you notice, place as a priority, and value, and what matters the most to you – is without power you don’t possess the willingness and ability to make the changes or create the work and a life you most want.
The only way to shift this is to begin to speak. To break through the isolation. To value the voice of your wisdom. It’s hard to make changes when you are in the grip of internal controlling images or patterns. Until you see them – you don’t know how to change your own experience from deficiency to sufficiency.
We often spend the first couple coaching sessions exploring this. One of my clients, a corporate lawyer, broke out of isolation in our first meeting, by speaking about her own spiral into disconnection with herself and the ways she lost her authentic voice and personal power at work.
We opened the portal to change as she felt and gave voice to her controlling images. It was the first step to shattering her repetitive internal dialogue of “something is wrong with me, I’m the problem and I need to be different”. I really appreciated her courage as it’s difficult and uncomfortable to do.
Over time, we worked together to find new body anchors, refine her images to include those that empower, and develop new patterns. She made new agreements with herself. Her effectiveness naturally increased along with the results she longed for.
One big change was that she stepped out of certain ongoing and escalating relationships once she started to speak truthfully about the hurt or disconnection. Rather than adapting to fit in and not make waves, she learned how to bring her authentic wise self forward in all types of social and work engagements.
It’s true for all of us. Once we listen to our wisdom, give it personal power, and link it to our leadership we began to make the difference we long to make in the world.
How do you identify these pesky internal controlling images or patterns that derail you? Is there one that is still stuck? I’d love to know.
Warmly, KarenBTW: This great phrase “Controlling Images” was introduced to me by my colleague Dr. Kum Kum Malik who spoke at the recent Women’s International Networking conference and applied it to restrictions in the self-realization of women and specifically motherhood. While Controlling Images can and do surround us and reinforce certain behaviors I find those we internalize are particularly deadly. Jean Baker Miller brilliantly applied this concept to psychology.
Working in the In-Between
In today’s organizations, getting something done means working in the intersections – the places between teams or organizations, where a traditional leader has little direct influence or power.
Many women are wise in collaboration, cyclic change, relationships, nurturing, and working with ambiguity. They see and act from inside a web of interconnections. Their web-like-thinking and feeling moves easily between different stakeholders, competing priorities, and shifting relationship to carve out a solution. Their wisdom is the source of what they notice and value and how they perceive the world in operation – their vision.
Without the female vision organizations lose power. Sally Helgesen and Julie Johnson identified some of the costs in their must-read book “The Female Vision“, “They undermine the full potential of their talent base. They diminish the capacity of their people to make balanced decisions. They undermine creativity and reduce the potential for real collaboration.”
If you check out the images of wise people by googling wisdom, you’ll discover that a significant number of the faces and quotes are by men. It appears that women’s wisdom is undervalued and underrepresented! When women’s wisdom remains untapped, we all lose.
It makes good business sense to develop and utilize feminine wisdom within our selves, in teams and in our organizations. Women leaders must take the initiative. They can’t wait for their organizations, managers or family to recognize the power and value of their wisdom.
As the wise leader that you are – how do you speak about your wisdom and the contribution it makes to your organization, team, community, family, or the world? Do you find that you have the words to clearly communicate? Do you receive respect?
We’d all like to learn from the ways you unlock your wisdom in authentic connections at work. Let us know.
Warmest regards, Karen
Take the Leap
Are you ready to shift from repeating the past to creating a new future? Give yourself permission. Take the leap. Your wisdom may be your underutilized source of power and leadership.
When your wisdom remains untapped, you suffer. You are unable to translate your observations into action. Your connections with others can feel superficial and inauthentic. What you know remains locked within you. Your effectiveness is diminished.
Your wisdom can be a source of power! It starts with valuing your wise self.
I took a leap last week when I spoke at the recent Women’s International Networking Conference (WIN) in Rome Italy. At the beginning of the talk I asked the room of 70+ businesswomen to settle into their feminine wisdom. They found it easy! From this center they reported that they felt confident, alive, perceptive, capable, accessible, and smart. They knew what was theirs to do and felt prepared to do it.
I shared with them 4 steps to develop wisdom and help wise leaders incorporate it into tough work environments. The secret is in the Yes.
1. Recognize your wise self. Say Yes. Value it. 2. Cultivate and Develop your wisdom. Seek out places and experiences that support you. 3. Develop a small secure network of other explorers or wisdom partners. Share, amplify and make each of your wisdom ‘right’. 4. Proactively ask and listen to your wise self. Find courage and act on what you hear. Take the initiative. You can’t wait for anyone else or your organization to start valuing your wise perceptions.It’s up to you to recognize and develop the power and value of your wisdom. Enjoy the leap! I love the feeling of being in mid-air.:) Warmly, KarenThe Change Ladder – 4 steps up
Ready to initiate, provoke, catalyze a change? Be wise. It’s all in the set-up and here are 4 steps up the ladder to successful change:
1. Feel: What do you really want to see happen? What’s essential? Discover your real motivation, what really matters, and you’ll clear the path forward.
2. Ask: Who else will this change affect? Who is necessary for implementation? Who’s view do I value? Make a list and design a way to include, inform, or involve so your key influencers are on board.
3. Act: Trust your instincts, express your passion, initiate, innovate, encourage. Lean into it, hesitation communicates uncertainty.
4. Listen: Stay awake to the right rhythm, volume, or pitch of the movement you are instigating. Check for unanticipated consequences. Listen to your wisest self as you step up.
As a wise leader, what is emerging? What change do you most want to catalyze – if you weren’t “waiting for permission”? More on building change readiness in this free report.
Seth Godin says in Poke The Box, “The simple thing that separates successful individuals from those who languish is the very thing that separates exciting and growing organizations from those that stagnate and die. the winners have turned initiative into a passion and a practice.”
Passion and Purpose in Business?
And Julie, thanks for your vulnerability. When you told us about your calendar full of only “good girl” events I felt for you.. I don’t know about you but my good girl is such a sweet charming person and at the same time can really get in the way of accomplishing my highest business priorities – really putting my attention on what is mine to do. My good girl is nervous of bold new steps too and comes up with all kinds of good excuses to go clean up the kitchen first.
When I think of that great quote “Well behaved women rarely make history”. a self-reflection question comes to mind: What am I holding myself back from doing because it doesn’t fit my good girl routine? Do I want to do it? Will it make a difference that matters to me? (I’m not really interested in being bad for bad’s sake even though my bad girl does deserve some time in life! 🙂
OK, back to the teleclass – one question came up again and again in all the emails we received afterward:
What about if I’m passionate about a bunch of different things? How do I put them together in a career?
Before I head out for a walk with my neighbor and our dogs, here are some first thoughts. More tomorrow!
Do you ever feel like you are being pulled apart? Can’t really sink your teeth into one thing?
Take a look – There is likely a theme that runs through your different and sometimes competing passions. Once you have hold of that theme then you can find that several different paths will all carry it out. Your theme is probably obvious! I thought mine was too ordinary – just like everyone else’s – so I denied it for a long time.
Once I laid claim though I realized it simply is: to “help people actualize their fullest potentials”. As a coach and program leader I’ve supported many men and women in the discovery and expression of their potentials. As a company consultant I also partnered with companies and their leaders and staff to free up higher levels of performance and creativity.
I speak and write about feminine wisdom, change, intuition, and spirit in business because they were each different doorways to get to potential.
What is the line that runs through your different interests? Try this: put out the colored markers and a big piece of paper. Draw/write each of your interest areas on the paper without relationship to each other. Then draw a circle around them all. What is the wish that encompasses them all? What do you most want to see happen because of you being you? What will make your heart come alive?
I’d love to know – what is your theme? What kindles your passion?
Till the next time,
Karen Buckley
Juggling the Big Rocks to Manage Time
This is something that happened last week in my home at 7:45am. My 17 year old son woke up late, raced into my office, and asked me to get him some breakfast while he dressed for school. My 22 year old daughter called from college with a problem, “I need your help now mom!” And, a new coaching client expected a proposal from me before 9.
A Formula for Success
Wise leadership is the willingness to risk being a visible vocal agent for change.” Jan Phillips
On September 14th I spoke with Jan Phillips, author of No Ordinary Time and The Art of Original Thinking as well as a compelling speaker. Jan is a wise feminine Alchemist, powerfully sharing her key to happiness and formula for success as a wise leader. I asked her how she stays on track and centered with all her fire and drive for catalyzing change. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN>
Jan spoke clearly about what she does to turn creativity into passionate action.
“What can you do to turn creativity into passionate action? Listen to what most touches your heart. Where is your power? hunger? joy?
Then apportion out your time equally between community, solitude, prayer and service. This balance causes bliss for me! If I’m out of bliss – I re-balance my time portfolio.” Jan Phillips
Apportion out your time equally between community, solitude, prayer, and service? What a change that would be in my life – yet, it’s what my soul hungers for.
In the late 80’s I facilitated the annual retreat for the Department Heads of the Environmental Protection Agency. To open I asked them to share their expectations for the meeting. There was a lot at stake and their responses showed how much they each cared about the outcome of this time together. Yet, one voice stood out. Bob spoke with calm resonance and his perspective included all sides.
On a break I asked him some variation of “who are you?” and how did you come to this wise perspective. He rose at 4:00am each morning to find enough time for solitude to balance his very full day as a top lawyer for the EPA. It made a difference! We could all hear and feel it.
As change agents it’s easy to forget the structured discipline and time planning that we need for maximum effectiveness and satisfaction. Too often I talk with leaders with a compelling sense of mission and purpose. Long lists of critical actions move them out of bed and into motion every day.
But it’s easy to forget about the disciplines that fuel their inner engines. They end up overwhelmed or bogged down in stacking priorities. Their vision narrows and actions lack impact.
What is your formula for success? Have you discovered inner disciplines that fuel your inner engine?
Karen Wilhelm Buckley 