695: The Women Who’ve Supported Me

This episode could go sideways really fast. It's going to be one up there with a few other recent rather cringy episodes like Benched, that one I almost yanked and didn't put out. But the thought that keeps rolling around in my head, I feel is so important I'm willing to risk it. It's a deeply personal episode about the women in my life who have mentored me or not mentored me, and how few, frankly, there have been. And I'm sharing it because I'm asking you today to think about the people in your life who took you under their wing and the people that you're taking under your wing right now. Stay with me. Flow Dreaming Still Kinda Woo Woo is just what it sounds like. An escape into the world of woo. Also a ride into you and how to feel happier, wiser and more self aware in every way. It's your ultimate journey into personal growth and inner power. We'll explore ideas like how your energy self influences the kinds of opportunities you encounter, or how your personal growth can drive your business growth, or even how that feeling of being stuck is really always coming from something else. We just have to figure out what. That's right. We're a dash of woo woo. A sprinkle of self care, a heap of problem solving and pattern busting, and a giant cup of encouragement. We're going to relight so much passion, purpose, self love and confidence in you that you practically stagger. I'm Summer McStravik, your host and welcome to Flow Dreaming. Still Kinda Woo Woo. Ah, here we are. Oh, as I mentioned, I am going to bring myself through this episode with you, even though a part of me is saying, oh no, you should definitely not do this one. Just go quit for the day, Summer. Just, you know, it's time to go, relax, make dinner. But this idea has been in my head for a good week. In fact, this episode is jumping ahead of some other episodes that I had previously planned. Because sometimes when things are just bubbling in your heart, you. You have to do that. You have to follow them. I was having coffee a few weeks ago with some friends of mine. We get together every so often. We were reminiscing about earlier places we'd been in our lives, a workplace we had shared together, in fact, and talking about some of the people there. And it struck me one of the women had been, I don't want to say mentored, but she'd really grown from. She'd been cared for by a certain person, a woman in the company. And I said, that's so interesting. My experience was the opposite. It was wary. It was, oh, you know, close my office door when she's walking past. And I thought to myself, what's the difference here? How strange this is? And it got me going, got me thinking after that about a lot of choices, you know, I made in my life about how to grow my life, my career, my marriage, my business, everything. Who helped me and what did I have to figure out by myself? Something that I teach a lot today when I teach flow, dreaming and me school in particular, is that some of us have become so, so good at being alone. I mean, we are great at it. If I say it, we are fabulous. Just leave us alone. We'll do our thing, we'll get it done, we'll be successful. And then we look around and, well, our friendships are limited. Family, limited, partnership, maybe not even existent. But we've become successful by being so capable of doing so in our life, doing things without help. Yet I know it's not that way for everyone. I know plenty of companies, companies, Fortune 500 and lots, Fortune 5000 companies, who put an incredible emphasis on we want to teach you, raise you, mentor you, grow you. Clients I work with today are working with companies who will pay to have, like, professional development and executive leadership and growth. You know, please grow. Grow for us. Become better at who you are and what you are. We want to see it happen. I know it exists, and I've been part of it. I've been blessed to be that mentor for some people in that. In that regard. But when I look back, and maybe you can look back a little bit too, and it'll help us understand how we are the way we are today, and not only that, but who we want to be going forward. When I look back, I counted the number of women in my life who I could say sincerely mentored me by mentoring, I mean, went out of their way to extend their hand to me, to extend their friendship, their guidance, their wisdom, maybe help me with something that they knew I did not yet have access to as a baby, just growing up in my career. And they were 10 years, 20 years, 30 years down the road from me. And some of them, in fact, did reach out their hand and say, hey, can I help you? Do you need this? But if there were streetlights on a dark road, I'd be encountering one every 4,000 miles. But I remember them. They were there. They did it. I also remember women that I believed would be mentors, that were supposed to be mentors, by all accounts, who were anything but And I learned from them, too, but in a very different way. So I don't want to go into a reckoning today. This is not a spill my reckoning, retribution. In fact, I'm going to leave a lot of people's names completely out. But I don't want to leave the experiences out because I think as women, and you guys, I'm going to include you in this too. Maybe you have had this experience. I'm only focusing it on, you know, the traditional female woman, you know, helping one another move through the corporate ladder and move through the life ladder angle of things. And for me, it was pretty, almost, Almost completely women. Not completely, but almost. So that's the experience I have to speak from. So I'm going to go back and name a few names who I am just going to shout out because I admire them so darn much. The first one was Shirley Ann Williams, and she was a professor at ucsd, which is University of California, San Diego. Back in the 90s. I encountered her as a literature student. She was a beautiful African American woman, wrote gorgeous works, poet, and part of the honors program there. And I had reached UCSD rather late because it took me a long time to figure out what college was. Didn't come from that upbringing. And I remember one day she reached out to me and she said, you need to have a faculty sponsor for your honors program. And I said, oh, I get, I, I do, I. Yes, I do. And she said, I'd like to be that sponsor. I'd like to be that mentor. I'll do this. And I still remember being very confused, like, you want to mentor me? Is this a thing? Is this, Is this what really happens? You do that? Is this a requirement? Why'd you pick me? Why did you pick me? But she was the first person who made me aware that there was actually a system for this, that there are systems for this. No, you don't know what you're doing here. And I'm going to help you through this. And if I have you under my wing, doors will open. And I was shocked. And it's so funny because in hindsight, we only got to spend about a year together. She passed shortly after. Turns out she had cancer. Same cancer that I would go through myself 20 years on. And it was so startling for me because I had known her so short a time, yet she vested herself in me and then she was gone. And I couldn't ask her about it anymore. Why did you do that? Who are you? Who does this happen to? Why did, what did you get from this. Why did you do this? Especially in hindsight, with what she was going through and me not knowing. She woke me up to that idea that you can and should take care of others and extend your hand first. So after that, and I know this could feel like a kind of intense flow dreaming episode. And you guys are right, some of you have emailed me saying, oh, these are more intense. Like, yeah, they are more intense than when I was 32, but I hope they're good and delicious and maybe a different way. But I think that's part of the delight of getting to know someone over time. And that's partly what we've been doing here together. Many of you have listened to me since 2005, and I literally joke, you guys have watched me grow up. So here I am, coming to you as a woman now in her 50s, not her 30s, having broadcasted, recorded every day, or, excuse me, every week for the last, what, 19 years. And I'm finally ready to do the episode on how we can care for each other again, not just as women to women, but anyone to anyone. A second person who comes to mind as a mentor, of course, goes without saying. My mom, my grandmother, fundamental core women. But I have to sort of exclude them from this episode a bit because they are my parents, my mom, my grandmother. And I recognize not all parents are mentors. Mine certainly, certainly were, first and foremost. And because they were my mom, it was my mom and grandmother. I suppose I had an assumption that they would care for me and take care of me. And I know that many of us want to have that assumption, but it was never followed through. Our parents did not do that. So I could talk for hours about her, but I'm not going to. I'm just going to tip a nod because I'm focusing more on the people that I did not expect, the ones who went out of their way, the ones who had no obligation to share their wisdom and knowledge. The next person was Denise Lin. Is Denise Lin. Some of you know her. She's beautiful inside and out. I still remember a day in Maybe it was 2007 or eight, quite a while ago. And she said to me, you know, you should probably be teaching workshops now. And at the time, I was still employed. I was, in fact, you know, in a corporation and just grinding through the motions. And I had some good things to say, and people were listening. And she was the only one who reached out and said, you should be teaching. Why aren't you a teacher? I said, I don't know. I'm Just, I don't think of myself that way. I don't even know where to begin. I have no idea, how do you set up a workshop? How would I do it? Where would I go? Who would come? And she said, oh, honey, have it at my house. Well, turns out some of you know, Denise has had gorgeous, gorgeous properties fully set up. Like, she made her home into her workspace and would have retreats and beautiful programs for people to come from all over the world and be with her in her home space. And she said, it's yours this weekend. Said, what do I pay you? She said, nothing, just come. You need to do this. You need to find this in yourself. And partly because of her, I did. I probably wouldn't be doing the work I'm doing still today if she had not said, come find this in yourself. I don't know what she saw, but she's a mother herself and maybe she saw that I was a lost little lamb and someone had to reach out their hand and say, you need to be doing this. That's also a wake up point for me. Someone saw something in me I could not see in myself. I didn't know how to do. I didn't even know to ask the right questions about how I was locked into an idea of what I had to do to be successful. And it was definitely not being an independent thought leader. Workshops, pivot point. I wonder if, again, to bring this home to you, you've had someone do that for you, tell you something about yourself, show you something about yourself, give you space to explore something in yourself that you had no idea to even ask for. Reminds me of a client I was speaking with the other day. She was talking about how she has a board for her company, yet she's not really sure how to utilize that board. Nobody told her. And she's kind of embarrassed that she has this beautiful, wonderful, rich, thriving board of, you know, stellar professionals, and yet she's doesn't know how to really extract what she needs from them. And I said, one, ask them, how can you help me? What do I not know? Because that's something I never learned to do. For years and years and years. I just thought, I'll figure it out on my own. I'm not going to ask, tell somebody I don't know what I'm doing. And they have to, nope, nope. But then I also thought, I wonder if there's someone on your board who can reach out to you and say, I see what you're doing. I've already done that. Let me Help you. Let me shorten the length of time, shorten the learning curve. I said, that is your board member. That is the one for you, whomever that is. So I'm looking for people like that. I still continue to. I am not beyond being mentored. I'm looking for people who walk in and say, why aren't you doing that? Can I show you? Can I open a door? Can I help you? And in turn, I look for people that I can do that with as well. Reciprocal relationships, one's not based on, you pay me this, I'll pay you that, but I see something in you. And they say, I want to help you, too. And eventually, I will probably have enough time in my life to just say, I see something in you. Let me just help. I think that's a reason why a lot of us get stuck in the middle zone. We want to help other people so much. But I also know my priorities lie with making sure my kids get through college, making sure I'm paying the bills and staying afloat. And, yes, I've already been successful, but I'm not at that point yet where I can just say, I'm retired. Let me help. I think a lot of mentors who kind of potentially entered my life but drifted away were in that spot that I'm in right now myself. I'd love to help you, but I am so busy right now. I am booked. I am packed. I have my own clients to serve. I have my own employees to take care of. I've got my family. I've got. I would love to help you, but. And I recognize that that's why every now and then, when the extra one did break out of that, and I could recognize you have all of that, and you still said, let me help. That's how I aspire to be. And that's why sometimes I do and have reached out to people around me and said, I want to do a workshop with you. I want to help with that. Can't do it all the time, but I do because I remember Denise Lynn. Next on the board, I hope. Is this fascinating, you guys? I know. Like, what is this history? Next on the board. Debbie Ford. Some of you remember her, right? The Dark side of the Light Chasers. She pioneered a lot of work and shadow work. I remember she taught me the value of appreciating the people that help you. She would do things at the time that I was working with her, such as she would hire a masseuse to come in and give the entire crew. What do you call Those, those little back massages, those 15 minute massages in the office. She blessed me with a beautiful necklace. One year at Christmas, she invited her entire crew, my crew. We were working together in radio and podcasting at the time. She invited us all to her beautiful home at the top of a mountain in La Jolla. Very ritzy, fancy. And I remember just thinking, wait, you should only have ritzy, fancy people here at this party. And yet you have all of us. Because she did, because she was recognizing. I'm mentoring you. You never know when the people who give to you, you can give back to them. You never know what will happen, what will come from that. I don't assume, I don't take for granted that just because some person is paying you to do this work for me. I want you to have joy doing the work for me. I want you to know me. And I took that into my heart and thought to myself, I want to be just like that. I want to be like Denise and I want to offer opportunities that when I can truly give them, and I want to be like Debbie. I want to give back and say, I see you and I elevate you and I see more in you than you see. And yes, you belong here at this fancy schmancy party in your broken down 1984 Volvo. Yes, you indeed, you. Because that was me. And she taught me that. After that, the number of mentors in my life began to decline. And I think largely because I went solo in my life, meaning I started to build my own company and build my own connections out, and people started to consider themselves more peers, or if not peers, then they were people who were too big to reach down. Meaning, and we've all had this experience, I would ask for something, but I was too little in their minds to be worth the effort. And I know that sounds. This is where it's getting cringy, folks. And yeah, I know all the judgments coming up, even of me, for me, as I accept and acknowledge this. But in hindsight, I wish I had not accepted that from them. I wish I had gone back and said, no, actually, I would love your help. I'd love your guidance. I totally understand if you don't have time. I totally get it if I'm not at the level of you. And that, unfortunately, again, is, I think, where a lot of people get. I would help you, but I only do things that are tit for tat. We've all got to be up there at that same place with one another. Earlier today, I was sending out A pitch to Amy Porterfield. Some of you know her. It's funny, she's been in and out of my sphere for a long time. We should have crossed paths by now, multiple times. Yet we haven't. So I'm finding myself communicating with her staff, and they're like, fill out this web form and we'll get back with you. I said, okay, fine. Well, I'll fill out the web form, of course. And one of the things it said is, what's the name of your podcast? And don't worry, it doesn't have to be a top. You know, one of the top ones ever. We are open. And I thought, oh, my. Well, I really like that sentiment because she was acknowledging a fear so many of us have. I am not worthy of her level. I'm not of that. She will not see me. She will ignore me, not be part of things. Don't even bother. She acknowledged that. Now, I can't tell you if Amy will come on my show or not or will ever put anything together. But I appreciated that so deeply. And it's that fear often that people will say, you're not at my level. And truly, I get it because, well, think about this. Think about actors, right? We often wonder, why do they only hang out with each other? And people say, well, it's because, you know, if you're hanging out with another actor, you don't really have to worry about them taking your photos to the paparazzi. And there's a feeling of safety involved, like, you know, what I'm going through, and we're gonna protect each other. I get it. But I also get that when you're of a certain energetic level, other people of the same level align with you. Level, not being higher, lower level, just being your position is here, someone else's position is there. And so they come together, they see one another, they're vibing the same, if you will. So when you're approaching somebody who could be a mentor or someone above you, the energy is, I'm something. I am of your level, even if you're not in terms of cash flow or notoriety. See, you're the one putting all of these restrictions on what that level is of theirs that you have to match. But what if you are of their level of spirit, of heart, of insight, of love? What if you're at those levels? What if you match them perfectly? So in hindsight, there are some people I wish I had said to myself, I match your level, but you have more experience than me. Would you be willing to help? Which Leads me now to those people who were not my mentors or who were inadvertent mentors. One of them was someone a long time ago who had hired me. Right? And everybody here is vague. I'm not. Again, this is not about any. Any. Don't even try to figure out who. Who these people I'm talking about are. Okay? This person had hired me at one point, and I was very reluctant, very independent. And she convinced me. She said, you have to give this a try. You don't know what you're missing. I said, no, no, no. She said, yes, yes, yes. And then she proceeded to become my mentor in helping me understand what it was like to work in a corporate environment. And I'll forever be grateful because I wouldn't have had that experience had she not stepped in and told me, you're being weird and wrong and think about this, think about this. And she could have and probably should have just said, okay, fine, I'll get somebody else. But she didn't. She said, I want to work with you. I see your talent. I like what you give to me. She was an inadvertent mentor. I don't think she meant to be that or do that, but she did. We are that way to others at times. We don't even know we're guiding them. We don't even know we're elevating them or opening doors for them. But it happens. It could even happen by proxy down the line. Maybe something I'm saying in this very episode is going to do that for you. I have no idea. A mentor by proxy, an inadvertent mentor. And then we drift again into the ones who mentored in the terms of who you should not be and what you should not do. There was another person in my life, another woman who I fully expected would be my mentor. I was at a point where I felt like, yeah, I get this now. I've had some experiences. This is awesome. I want to learn how to be like this. I want to learn how if I help you and. And then you help me, and then I can help somebody else, like, win, win, win, win. But some other people taught me a different game that they were playing, which was, no, no, no, no. I win, you win for me. I don't help you win. I worked hard to win. I'm not going to give it up so easily. We all know people like this. We all have had people like this in our lives, Our families, our workspaces, even our friendships that become competitive. And it can be blindsiding terribly Terribly, terribly disheartening. I thought I looked up to you. I don't. I remember one person like this. I only found out years later she had actually said things behind my back, like, you got to watch out for her. Be careful. And the meaning behind that was, I don't want to see her go up. It's a threat. And I was dumb, Dumbfounded. Absolutely dumbfounded. I had no idea that someone like myself, no notoriety, no money, nothing to compare with this other person could possibly want to see me not grow. And yet there it was. And I took a lesson from that, too. That's what I mean by mentoring from people that I didn't want to learn lessons from. It was a lesson I never, ever wanted to see. So you can see the scales of life balancing here, right? I've got Denise Lin on one side, I've got this other person on another, and I'm thinking, God, who am I going to be? And which way does the world work? And how do I create more of one and less of the other? And, guys, I am still figuring that answer out, still figuring it out. I had one or two more other people who were reverse mentors in that sense. People who in some cases wanted to build me up, said they'd build me up, but really we're not doing so. Who were only doing so for their own devices, and I had to back away. And it broke my heart. Because I'm the kind of person who tends to put faith and belief in someone until they show me otherwise. And when they show me otherwise, I'm often kind of astounded, like, wow, why would you want to be like that? What happened to you? Then I have to pull out the old compassion and say, okay, practice compassion. This is. There's something here for you, Summer. Friend or teacher, which is it? You have people like this in your life, too. These reverse mentors, what you drew from them was, this is what it's like when you live in a competitive world, when you live in a, you know, winner takes all world, when you live in a world where people don't reach down with their hand and pull up. You guys ever watch the show, HBO show Succession, Right? It's been pretty pop. I mean, it's. I love it. That's terrible to admit, because the show is, like, creepy to the max, Right? But I love it. You see a family who cannot reach to each other at all. There is no mentorship going on, and yet they are all constantly learning from each other in every episode. But what they're learning is how to be more torture, torturous, how to be more self involved. Every now and then you get a little bright spot of true. Give true connectivity. And you think, oh, please, please blow. I just. Or grow. I want to blow on it like a, you know, blowing that candle wick to. To get bigger. And then an episode or two later, poof, it's out again. You think, oh, man, they did it to me again. They got my hopes up. It makes for good TV friends. It does not make for good lives. We as women, I have a vision. We as people. Again, you guys, I want to include you. It's just that I've had predominantly experiences with other women. The male mentors in my life have been even fewer and further between. But I have this vision that there is a point, and I hope the point is now. And I want myself to be at this point. And I'm working toward this point where I no longer say, lack. Thinking is guiding me that I need to be stingy with my mind, my resources, my door openings. Where I can say, stinginess is a person who is building at the expense of others. Mentorship is a person who builds with others. And to truly believe that and to see it and to know that I want to live that. I want experiences that help me live that. And the right things will happen at the right time. Times. And there have been people over the years, not just my clients, quote, quote, but people that I've said, I want to teach you how to do this. I want you to be a coach for me. I want to pay you. I want to bring you in. You should be doing this. I've been striving to become more like this because it is not a thing that I grew up in. It is not a natural way of living that I saw all around me, did not grow up in the, you know, in the different places where that happens, the different corporations or, you know, academic environments. Some of you are shaking your heads like, oh, no, it's not at my college. I know, I know. But it is out there. I've seen it. And every time I see it, I say, there, I found one. A spotted, woolly white woodpecker. There. They exist. They're there. I would love for you to join me on this journey and think about right now. Is there someone in your life you could reach a handout to, someone who would not expect it from you? A door you could open for them, a whisper you could put in their ear about something that they would not have ever dreamed about themselves. But you see, can you do that. When do we start doing that? Because if we wait till we all get very safe and secure and retired, we may have waited way too long. Unfortunately, those women I spoke of, they didn't wait that long. They did it when they still had time. They didn't wait till the age they are now. Interestingly enough, two out of three of those women have passed on at this point. So I'm so glad they did it with me when they did. Gosh, you guys, it's like gonna bring me to tears today's episode. But I really mean it from my heart. So please look out for someone like that and be that person to them and be generous with each other. It's not a zero sum game. You win, I win, we all win. I would love to. And I am trying myself to put together new ways of networking and relating not based on affiliate sales and old bro marketing tactics. I reach out to people now and I just say, hey, I like your work. Can I promote you? Can you promote me in return? Let's just do an exchange. Just. I want to share your message. You share my message. And yeah, it's reciprocal, but it's not based on. Because I'm here and you're there and. Right. All that stuff is just. No, I love your work. Your amazing. Let me tell people. And if you can tell people about me, awesome. I love that too. And you know what? If you can't because you've only got a hundred people on your mailing list, so what? I don't need it. So there you go. Gosh, you guys, you're right. I am getting more intense as I get older. But I hope, I hope. Still a little bit funny sometimes, right? I wanted to express this, though, because it's something that's been in my heart for a long, long time. And if I hadn't had coffee with my girlfriends a few weeks ago, I don't know if I'd ever have really expressed it and clarified it in my mind as much as for you. Who needs you, who needs your help? Who's somebody who would not expect it from you? What door can you just throw open? And what's more, you're going to be challenged to make sure that you don't feel loss or something taken from you or defensiveness or ego, fear being eclipsed. You're gonna. You're gonna challenge that in yourself. That's a good thing. Break it. Break through it. Break on through to the other side. Break on. I'm kidding. I think that's a good. A good wrap, though. For today's show. You know, I didn't do Shower Thoughts. I didn't do Mailbag. I didn't do any of them because today was such a straight download. It's such a straight flow. Hope you still enjoyed it. I love your thoughts. I love your comments. Summer flow dreaming.com. please know obviously I want to help all of you because I'm anticipating already tons of requests coming in. I will do my best. More than anything, though, I want you to understand that this is something I want us to collectively be doing for one another. It's an ethos. It's a culture change. It's a paradigm shift. I can support you because I'm not afraid of losing anything myself. I want us all feeling that way sooner rather than later. So with that, lots of love. It's been so beautiful connecting with many of you over the last couple weeks. We did our workshops together, stuff nobody taught you, the book that came out. And I have more fun stuff planned for this summer, including one brilliant thing I would love for you to register for that you can do. So go to my website. You'll see it's coming up. We have four weeks over the course of the summer that are going to be absolutely amazing and I hope I see you there. All right, lots of love. Take care. Until next time. Hey. We don't have sponsors for this show yet, but we do have our parent company, my company. It's called Flow dreaming dot com. If you are curious about exploring your full potential, There are over 250 audio meditations and Flow Dreams and courses there that can completely reshape your world. So take a quick jump over and check out flowdreaming. Com and with that, thank you so much for joining us.