How to Raise Strong Daughters

For those women that are out there, you're gonna have the mommy guilt. You're gonna have everybody telling your whole family's gonna tell you you're not a good wife. What are you doing? You need to take care of your kids. You need to do this. Hey, you know what, my daughter, the most proud moment I've ever had is listening to my daughter tell another woman I want to be just like my mom. And I would have never been that if I would have just been making sure she was perfect.

Who here loves hearing from powerful women? Make some noise. I'm very blessed. I have a beautiful wife. Her name is Kirsten Mark and she is my powerful woman. But we're not talking about Kirsten. We are talking about our female panelists. And we're going to bring them on one at a time and. And you guys are all going to get in your feet and you're going to give them a round of applause. Everybody up. So the first person up is Ms. Dana Lynn Bailey, the first ever female Miss Olympia, owner of Flag Nor Fail. And she has a goat. She told me to tell you that she has a goat. Dana Lynn Bailey, Make some. Next up we have Veena Jetty, founder of Multiply Community and Vive funds. And she's transacted over a billion in real estate. Vena Jetty, Make some noise. Next up we've got Forbes, who is a best selling author, keynote speaker, and she is the queen of the pitch. The make some noise for Forbes, everybody. Let her hear it. Let's go. And you guys know we got Andy Elliott yelling at us all the time. He's the brawn of the operation. And behind every strong man is a powerful woman. And this is Queen Jacqueline, the brains of the Elliot.

I really hope we'll be able to hear.

Good.

And let's talk about the real superhero of the day. She's the one that takes care of all the work in Keaton's house, taking care of five, five daughters. And also Keaton's big ass, Madison Hoskins. And obviously, give it up for the muscle. Let's go.

No, I think my mic's on. You guys hear me? All right, take a seat, ladies. This is going to be great. All right, I want to tell you why. This one is my favorite part of tonight. You guys know I have five daughters. And the most crucial thing for me is to teach them why it's important to be powerful. So we decided to pick five of the most powerful women that I know to be on the stage today and talk to You. So tonight, this. This will be my favorite time on stage. Now, I've set up questions to ask every one of these great young ladies, and I'm gonna let them all answer. My purpose in doing this, I want to inspire the women in the arena tonight. All right, we'll go with. We'll start with Dana and work our way all the way down. Okay, I got one question, and you all get to answer. I actually really thought about these questions because I really, really want my daughters to hear what's going to be taught today. First question. In a world dominated by men, what and how do I, as a father of five beautiful girls, teach them how to become limitless in their potential? Dana.

Man, you already know. Should I talk like this? You already know. I don't even need to tell you this. You're already doing all this. So may this be to everyone out there. You know, you had Ludacris on your roof last night of your house. You landed three helicopters in your yard. You have an entire arena full of people. You already dream so big. And I think that's the greatest part about kids, is they're dreamers. They're at the stage where, like, their imagination is going wild. And as we get older, we start losing that dream part. You know, you get faced into reality of, oh, yeah, you have mortgage payments. You have to pay for cars, and you have people telling you, that's not a real job. You can't do that. And you start losing the dream stage because reality doesn't make sense. And I think now, at a point in time, when they're young, like Taya and Callie are at that perfect age where you should be absolutely nurturing them at that stage when they're young, when they're five, six years old, when they're dreaming already is. Nurture all those dreams.

Keep.

Keep them living. Start building those skills while they're young so that when they get to high school, they already have their life figured out. You know, I. Growing up, I didn't have anyone in my life that told me, like, hey, Dana, like, sat me down and said, hey, Dana, what do you actually want to do? Because you can actually do anything. I didn't learn that until I met my husband. He's the most wonderful person in this entire world. Thank you. But it wasn't until him, where he sat me down, he's like, you have something special in you. You can literally do whatever we want. We sat down, we wrote down all my goals. I wanted to be a fitness model. I wanted to be on the Covers of magazines. I wanted to get to the Olympia and I wanted to own my own gym. I wanted to change people's lives. And in two years, I conquered every single one of them. And it was just sitting down. Thank you. And it was sitting down and actually dreaming that. So get with your kids now while they're young, in that dream state and nurture all of their dreams. Start building the skills now so they already know what they're going to do by the time they're 16. I think you're next.

So I love this question. I'm also the mother of two daughters. I have 20. When almost five year olds, well, they're four going on 14. So they have a lot of sass in them. And this is something that I actually do very intentionally now. Every day I send them out the door with three goals. Their first goal is always to learn something because I want to instill curiosity in them. I want them to be excited about learning. And it can be anything. It doesn't have to be anything business related or math or science. It can be literally anything. Like the other day my daughter came home and said, I learned what the word confidence means. And yesterday my other daughter said, oh, I learned about oxygen today. So they just have to learn something every day. The second thing that they need to do every day is help someone. And that's because I want them to get in the habit of looking for opportunities to serve someone else and to make an impact in the world. But the third goal that I have for them is probably the most important. Every day I ask them to fail at something. And the reason I ask them to fail at something is because I want them to get in the habit of celebrating trying, doing something that's uncomfortable, because that's what makes us limitless, is being able to step outside of our comfort zone and keep growing by 1% every single day. So those are the three goals that I send my girls out the door with and the other thing that I do at home with my girls. And I encourage all parents to do this because it's so ingrained in our mind that this is a man's world. And I'm in real estate, private equity. I transact on multifamily assets. And so I'm no stranger to being in a room where it's all men, but it's so ingrained in our everyday lives that we default to the masculine, we default to he. So I've made it a conscious effort and intention in my life that I say, oh, look, the pilot's going to be here soon. When is she going to be here? And I default to the she every single time. And I don't feel bad about not defaulting to he at all. And I don't try to do 50 50, because my girls are going to go out into this world and there will be plenty of people that will signal to them and tell them that this is a man's world and will default to he. So I try to counteract that at home by defaulting to she. I keep a lot of books around my kids that show women as heroes and women as the protagonist of the story. So leading by example, setting those examples, and then also pouring into other women. We're all business owners here. If we get the opportunity to help mold and mentor and coach other women, then when my girls go out into the real world, they will see it's normal to have women at the table. It's not some space that they. They shouldn't be. And it's somewhere that they deserve to be at. And they belong at those tables.

Love it.

Thank you.

All right, so as 55% of the population as we women up here, who says it's a man's world? Only if you say it is?

Me.

I'm sorry. I've been on this planet yesterday 64 years, and I've learned a thing or two. And it's now no longer time to play small. I'm gonna sit up here. I'm just gonna enjoy the energy. I'm not kidding, guys. My name is Forbes Riley. Hopefully you've seen me doing infomercials, grossing two and a half billion dollars in sales. And you know how I did it? As an ugly, awkward little girl who had a broken nose, braces. For eight years. And for two years, I couldn't even talk. Nobody wanted to be my friend. I was an outcast. None of you girls would sit at the cool table with me because I was ugly and awkward. And I decided, this is what you, as a dad, are gonna teach your daughter, that you are not the outside. You are the inside. My dad was a dreamer and an inventor and a magician. He made the craziest things. And one day he said to me, kiddo, how do I get my inventions out to the world? And I said, dad, I have no idea. I'm eight. When my dad died with all those ideas that you all have in your head and he didn't get them out, you know what happened? The trash collector guy took all the things in this beautiful Willy Wonka garage, and we had no money. But I Didn't know that threw them away. I will never forget that moment, Keaton, when all my dad's dreams were just trash. And I realized for 20 years of my career, I took people just like you who have ideas, put them on television, did infomercials, made, million dollar days. I want you to teach your kids, girl or boy, that it is to be resilient, to keep moving forward. Because life is a roller coaster. And you guys, if you want to experience the high high, get ready for the low low. My mother played straight the whole life, and it was boring as shit. It was. I watched her. I said, I love you, but I don't want to be you. My mother was £260 my whole life. She didn't play any games with us. She didn't go biking. She was in a moomoo. And I thought, I don't want to be that. I didn't have a role model. I wish I could have looked at the five of you. Look at how spectacular. Mother of five over here. Girlfriend, you don't look at the Brady Bunch mom at all. And it is our time, both men and women, to look in the mirror. And let me give you a gift. It's called the gift of permission. Look in that mirror and I say hereby grant you permission, Forbes Riley, to get on stage at whatever age. Rock the outfit, rock the room, Love on who's here. Live in gratitude. And that is what I have been doing. And I'll tell you the last thing, be sexy. But get this. No, but I love my girls. Like, yeah, we got you, girl, but define sexy. S, E, X, Y. Seeing excellence in yourself.

I love that.

Thank you for being here.

Hello?

Hello.

Is that working? Okay. Sorry, can't hear. Okay.

What?

I can say so many different ways. I mean, there's such good answers. By the way, being resilient. I would totally agree and piggyback on that. But one of the biggest lessons that my father gave me was being able to see failure. I think a lot of parents, a lot of fathers, they try to show that side to their kids, that everything is perfect and they don't like them to see failure. I got to see failure over and over and over and over in my life. And it made me very adaptable. See, the biggest mistake, I think, that most people, a lot of us, try to do when we achieve a level of success, is that we try to give our kids a life we didn't have. We try to give our kids a life we didn't have. And we don't let Them make mistakes. And one of the big lessons is that sometimes spoiling your children, by the way, is a blessing. I mean, it's a really good thing to spoil your children. But I went through this with Andy, and I was like, he used to take. Take Kira to go get her a Barbie every time she stubbed her toe, like, it was like one of those things. And I said, hey, you can't do that. You have to make her strong. What's going to happen to her when she has her first heartbreak? Is she going to crumble or is she going to feel powerful? Is she going to want to go and be like, hey, I am valuable. I can achieve it all? And, yeah, being, you know, loving herself and not having to please everybody out there, you're going to have your chilt. How you honor your spouse, how she looks at herself, how they look at their mother. She said she didn't have a mother to look up to, being that example. And how you honor Maddie.

Yes, yes.

It's going to be one of those things as well. So they can look at her as a hero. How you respect her and everything. I mean, but failure is such a big and such an important thing. A lot of people reach that success, and they do not use that. That's the biggest blessing that you have. Show your children that messing up is a part of life.

Oh, these are great answers.

Come on, mama. Gosh.

Well, those five little girls are mine, and I have the best example. So this question is kind of hard for me, but honestly, leading by example, and I know it sounds cliche, but my girls get to sit and watch Keaton day in and day out. Hustle, hustle, hustle. And last year, our cute Taya, that's 12, decided that she was gonna do her own business. And I know that that stems from watching her dad day in and day out. And she's here again. If you guys have seen her buy a bracelet. Yeah, yeah, she. She's here and she's selling her bracelets, and she hustles and she makes them. And that's the ultimate thing I think you can do as a father is just be that example. And then also I think just being present with them and give them your time and your full attention, and kids thrive with that.

All right, those were all great answers. Now, because that was for me, and it was more a selfish question for my own daughters. I'll ask for the crowd here. If I'm here today as a female and I have all of these speakers speaking on all kinds of topics, and I'M learning all kinds of stuff when I leave here. I should have a question in mind of what can I integrate right now to become a more powerful female in this world? What one thing would you tell the women here that would allow them to integrate something immediately to become a more powerful female in today's world?

If I learned anything in the last 40 years of my life is confidence is where it's the key to all of your power. It's the key to all of your success. Quick history about me. You know, I have a long history of being very insecure. Growing up, I was very insecure. I had a lot of body image issues. I was a follower. I did things just to fit in. I didn't want to stand out. A couple years later, when I was 20, I found the gym. The gym changed my life. I started lifting several months. I didn't realize, you know me who was very insecure. Six months into the gym, I started seeing Delts. I started having a back. I had abs, I had legs. It did something to me. It made me stronger, obviously physically, but more importantly mentally. It was the first time in my life that not only did I start loving the way I looked, but I appreciated what my body was capable of doing at this time. This is like 2004. Back then, girls weren't in the gym, girls weren't training, girls weren't benching and deadlifting. You know, it's a much different scene now. And while I actually, for the first time in my life, like, there were years in my life, I didn't wear shorts, I covered my legs, I hated my chest, I hated my legs. It's the first time in my life that I was in love with my body. I was so proud of it. The rest of the world didn't agree with me. The rest of the world thought I was gross, I was ugly, I looked like a dude. So then I throw myself into the fitness industry where I thought all my people would like, oh, I fit in. These are my people. No supplement companies wanted to work with me. No magazines wanted to work with me. I was dead last at every show. I didn't fit in any category. No one wanted to work with me because they didn't know muscles on girls was not a thing. And my husband, I bring him up a lot. Sorry. He said one. This is like the pivotal moment. I'm so sorry. I'm going to try to get through it. He said, dave, you don't understand how powerful you are. Like, I don't. What do you mean? He's like, the fact that you can literally post a picture of yourself and evoke so much emotion in people, obviously at that point in time was very negative. You can invoke so much emotion in people that they have to go out of their way and tell you how gross you are, how ugly you are. You just own them for that three minutes where I post a picture and you hate me that much that you have to tell me how gross I am. I just owned you for those three minutes. And that was the point where I switched and everything changed. You've been. He's been my rock. I've learned so much from him. And that simple thing is, like, that's my superpower is being different. And it's exactly why I'm on stage today talking to you, because I was different. I didn't fit in. I was competing in a sport. I didn't even fit into the category. And every time they came back and told me, you're too big, you're too hard. You need to get boobs. You need to grow your hair out. You don't fit. There was a very clear path that I was supposed to take, and I refused to take it because I loved exactly who I was, and I was so resilient. They literally made a division for me, and I became the number one. I became the best in the world of that because of. I trusted myself. I trusted in myself as soon as soon. If I took the opinion off of everyone, like, strangers, family members, friends, judges telling me to change myself if I made one of those decisions. If you make a decision based on someone else's opinion, you've completely lost yourself. When everyone is telling you you're going the wrong way, you're doing it wrong. That's the direction you need to keep going, and you keep fucking going in that direction because that's what you supposed to be.

That was great.

D.

So for me, I have two things that you should walk out of here doing. First and foremost is show up authentically. A lot of times in the social media bliss that we see, we see a lot of people telling us, like, we have to go hard and we have to lean into everything and go 100 miles an hour. But then at the same time, as women were simultaneously told that our house has to be perfect and our bodies have to be perfect and our hair has to be done and our makeup has to always be done and we always have to have our house ready for a home and garden magazine photo shoot, and our kids have to be perfect. Right? It's bullshit. Okay? Nobody can do all of these things all at once. This is the highlight reel of social media. So allow yourself to be authentic and show up and do the things that you can do. Like if I am here working, someone else is taking care of my children and that's something that I have accepted and that's a sacrifice that I'm willing to make for a bigger impact. So show up authentically to you. Do not follow what social media tells you to do because that's the highlight reel of all of our lives, myself included. And secondly, and probably the most important thing that I did that actually took my business to the next level and just my personal development to the the next level was finding a community and a group of non competitive women. It is very hard to find this because what society tells us is that there is only enough room for one of us at the top. So we hit the diversity quota. That is not even true. Look at this panel. We have incredible women. You guys are going to hear from two women that have poured into me. You're going to hear from Jen Gottlieb and Stormy later today. Those two women have poured into me. They're not competitive with me. They are lifting me up. I have Rosie Noel here, who's my mindset coach. She's constantly lifting me up and pouring into me. Because what these women realize at the top, we collaborate. We do not compete at the top. Competition. Competition happens at the very lowest vibration possible. So when you find women that tell you you can do this and will hold your hand and take you through whatever it is you're going through, that is the hack to the next level. Finding that community, finding those people that will cheer for you and the people that will hug you and hold you when things aren't going well. Because entrepreneurship is hard. It is not always sunshine and rainbows. Let's. Like you said, there are the lows and there are the highs. And you need the people who want to help you get to those highs as often as possible. Who will cheer you on when you get to those amazing milestones that you are capable of and know that you belong here. We belong in those rooms and we belong at those tables. Don't let anybody tell you anything different.

Yes. Love that, love that, love that. So if life happens for us, not to us, one of the things that I want all of you men and women and stop making distinction. We're entrepreneurs and dreamers in this room. I don't care whether wear high heels or not. So all of us, hello. Is that if life happens for you, one of the things that I've noticed is that you are procrastinating or you are pushing things off or you're sabotaging not because of who you are or what you learned here. We're in fact limitless. Correct. But if you stay in your past and you tell yourself that story, that person told me I wasn't good enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, or a woman. How dare they? But not how dare they. Good for them. They told us that. And then you get to figure out what the life lesson is from that. Because you tripped when you were five years old and your mother said you were a klutz and now you don't want to go sky rediving a klutz. No, you're not. And I do break through trainings with people because it hurts my heart when I see all of you talented, smart, efficient women being told that you're less than and believing it. How dare you believe in mediocrity. That is not what you were designed for, but it is what somehow keeps many of you grounded below where you should be. And so one find mentors who are sexy and amazing and women. No, we nurture better than I love you very much, but we nurture. That's why you're married to one. That's what women do. We care and we have a heart. But somebody touched us a long time ago and we give that rapist so much credit today. Don't do that. And if you can't break through that, I'm going to urge you, I'm going to urge you to stop letting your past decisions write your future. You want to be limitless, it starts today. Very big difference, right? Being able to say, I'm not. Can I hear you guys say, I'm enough, I'm enough. Oh, that's not enough. I'm enough. One more time, I'm allowed out. And that is what will get you to your future. Being limitless, not holding on to that little girl voice. I'm going to run like a girl. I'm going to run like a rock star.

Love that. Love that. So one of the things that helped me, I think a lot of us women go through so many different stages in life and we were, we try to please everybody. So I love, like, just break the effing leashes. Like, you have to forgive yourself and you have to understand that before you can serve, before you can be a good mom, before you can be a good wife, before you can be everything else that you're designed to be, you're Going to have. Have to put yourself first. I knew and I learned through my kids that when I try to make everything perfect, I wasn't serving them. They saw me as mom. They loved me, they wanted. They knew that I was there to help them. And I was always trying to make sure their hair was perfect, their clothes matched. Everything was good. We have this mommy, like, judgment, you know, and this mommy guilt. People tell us, hey, you should cook all these meals for your husband. You have your house clean, all these different things that you see said. But I realized that I wasn't that example. I wasn't the hero to my daughters. They did not want to be anything like me. I wasn't teaching them to be limitless. I wasn't teaching them by example. They were looking at other heroes online. They were looking at other people they wanted to be like. So I said, hey, you know what? F this, I want them to look at me. So I said, hey, you know what? Let them walk around with messy hair. Let the house be dirty a little bit. Let them take care of themselves. I'm not eating cold food anymore. I'm not walking around with the bun in my hair, and I'm not even working out. I am going to take care of myself, and I'm gonna be that example for my daughters to know what a real. I was gonna say a bad word, sexy one. You'll take that one looks like. So that's what I had to do. So for those women that are out there, you're gonna have the mommy guilt. You're gonna have everybody telling. Your whole family's gonna tell you you're not a good wife. What are you doing? You need to take care of your kids. You need to do this. Hey, you know what? My daughter, the most proud moment I've ever had is listening to my daughter tell another woman, I want to be just like my mom. And I would have never been that if I would have just been making sure she was perfect.

Okay? My thing is waking up every day with a great, grateful heart. When you wake up and your feet hit the floor, you count your blessings and you have that gratitude in your heart. And it just puts you in the right mindset to move forward, to move upward. And my other thing would be say yes more often. I think that is something that puts you into situations that make you uncomfortable, and we need that to grow so. So thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, Some of the most powerful women that I know presented to you. Thank you, ladies.

Thank you for having us on your feet, guys. Let these ladies know if you were inspired. Let them know.

I love it, sam.