Creating a Legacy: The Essential Resources for Women in Leadership

Foreign.

Welcome to this episode of Leadership is Feminine. I'm glad you're here. I'm recording this on March 3, 2025, just for posterity. I'm going to say that. So towards the end of last year, I posted a podcast that we would start to do some shifting in. The content of the podcast will always provide tools here for you. As a woman who leads a team, I will tell you that more and more you're going to find that in order to tap into a lot of that tactical support, you're going to want to join some sort of interaction with me and my business. Because more and more what I want to do here is create thought leadership for women at a higher level. I know that we all have tactical challenges that we're facing every day. I do. I know you do. And you know, that's what the work I do with my clients in either Lead or Sage's Roundtable or Sage Advisory. That's what we do. As well as the transformative conversations that help you become really that next version of you, or stepping into more of your own confidence and your own courage, whatever it is that we all know. You know, the more, the more I do this work and the longer I do this work, what I know is true is you can only go as far as you are willing to invest in and challenge your own limits, your own knowledge. You are your best investment. And while I do believe and know that as a business owner, there's a lot of things that want your attention, a lot of ideas that want your investment, the one investment that will never fail you is you. If you pour back into yourself and into your own knowledge, into your own wisdom, into your own capability, into your own belief system, that is where unstoppability lives. And so, yes, if you need to learn how to have difficult conversations, I can absolutely help you with that. But that is honestly an interactive process. And I think you know that how to do that in a way that you can bounce it off and you can really experience it prior to getting in front of that person and having to do that.

So on the heels of that podcast that I did in December where I talked about you being the asset and that's a big mantra of mine, I'm going to be doing a private limited series. So this podcast is public, but if you want access to the rest of this series, you're going to have to go to thevisionary CEO, a Sage woman, and you can access the rest of the podcasts there. Not quite sure how many episodes there are going to Be because I'm in the process of recording them all. But my hunch is it will be at least four or five, maybe six. So what is a well resourced woman and why am I doing this? Well, I want to give you a little backstory because this is a question I ask myself all the time. Why is this all such a big deal to me? Why do I care so much about why women do or don't advocate for themselves, have self trust, possess self agency? Why does it drive me absolutely to the wall when I watch someone remain limited in their life even after they know better? Why do I lose my mind when I watch women defer their interests, their best interests, their personal decision making, their money, their self possession? Why does it absolutely make me crazy when they do that to men? Even really, really successful women do that.

So I asked myself this a lot because even when I was young, I was always the friend who was looking out for the friend at the bar or in the hallway at school right when some loser would come up and want to schlep on. I just have always kind of had this streak in me. I don't know why.

I. My history, you know, I've come from a single, my parents got divorced when I was seven, so certainly I've watched a woman have to find her way in the world with that being my mom. But I wasn't particularly like, wasn't in an abusive relationship. I wasn't abused by my dad, I have a lovely dad. I wasn't abused by a boyfriend, although I had some pretty terrible ones. Like there just doesn't seem to be this crucible other than I think I was just born this way. And I know that this may sound a little, little wooey to you if you're listening, but I believe it's, it's ancestral and generational and I, I come from a background of very strong women, women who did things that other women didn't do. I have a strong Irish and Scottish European history and I'm, I'm convinced there's women in there who danced around stones. Not really sure. But what I do know is what I do for the right women, the advocacy that, and the space I hold for them works for them. And as I have done more and more of my own work with clients and with myself, oh, I got a little emotional. I find that yes, leadership is what I've been called to teach, but wisdom has been what I'm here to share. I think that leadership is just in its simplest form. It's a relationship that you cultivate with other people starts with yourself. And I think it's a behavior, I think it's a cluster of behaviors and skills that we have to learn. But there are roots that are within leadership that you are struggling with, which is why it's hard for you to make difficult decisions about your business, to address performance issues with people you don't want to address performance issues with, why you feel guilt when you wish you didn't, why you feel so depleted, why you feel so under supported. All of these things are sort of symptomatic, I believe, that we present externally. So we blame this feeling on our team, on the size of our business, on the scalability of our business, on the growth of our business. But really what we're talking about are these internal pieces and parts of us that we need to develop and understand better. I'm going to give you two more examples so that I can give you some backstory for why this private podcast series is coming out. So in January, I think I've mentioned, I went to a retreat and writers retreat with Alex Fransen. And it was amazing. She's amazing. And one of the things that I wrote when I was there, which I've already talked to you about, was sort of this illuminating memory of when my dad sort of drove away for the last time, right, as my parents were divorcing. And it's a very vivid memory. And it's and so I told the story through my writing at this retreat of what I watched this little girl watched her mother do what she had to do, what she had to figure out. She had to figure out how to make money, she had to figure out where to live, she had to figure out how to have me cared for so she could make money. And one of the reasons that she was so, I think, able to make more money to support us and then create opportunity for me was that she could lead people. And she had had some management positions prior, but she hadn't really worked a lot. She'd been a nutritionist and she had jobs but not a career. Right. Like sort of off and on, obviously having a child. They moved around a lot. My dad was getting his doctorate.

But being able to lead was her from my assessment, right. My young girl mind memory of being able to land in a role where she had decision making authority and she also had the salary that could go with that. So I've always known that leadership is a vital skill. I've also always known, at least in my memory, that we can't control what happens to us, but we can always control how we respond. And so if we fast forward to when I was a young woman in my early 20s, and I was managing people, I had mostly women on my teams because we were in education and attracted a lot of women. And I watched young women making very dumb decisions.

And that's. I don't mean that to sound as judgmental as it does, but they really, they were very dumb. You know, they were not well thought out. They were rooted in a belief that someone else would take care of them. I used to want to host what I called this stupid girl class. And I was going to pull everybody in a classroom and just talk to them about what I now call, you know, personal agency, personal responsibility, taking ownership of your life, not giving it to someone else. And so even when I was young, I used to do this. I started running retreats, calling them be courageous. And she is relentless. So this, this string has gone in through my life forever. So here I am with you, and I want to talk to you about being a well resourced woman. And this is coming out of, again, thousands of conversations with women who on their surface, I would have thought would never tolerate what they tolerate in their lives from other people, from themselves, but they do. And so a while ago, my coach said to me something like, you know, never underestimate the power of a well resourced woman. And it really stuck with me. So much so that at this Hawaii retreat, I started to really think about, maybe this is what I want to write about. And then we talked about maybe it's a podcast. And so here I sit talking to you about what is a well resourced woman. And when you hear that, I wonder what you think. You know, initially, I think what we all think about is money. And the truth is that I believe every woman should have her own money. She should earn her own money, she should keep her own money. Why now? I saw a really interesting reel the other day. Forgive me, I never know who anybody is, but it was an interesting reel. It was like one of those, what they call them, income skit. No, well, you know what I mean, when, like you watch one and then I can't remember what it's called. And the other person talks about the video that we just watched. So it was a guy, and he was like, I don't understand what the big deal is. If a woman wants to be a homemaker, she wants to stay home. I don't understand what the big deal is. And then stitch, that's it. So then the woman who was doing the stitch said, hey, hey, listen, I agree with you. If that's what a woman wants to do and she loves it, more power to her. I will tell you that as a woman who recently went through an unexpected divorce, I'm very glad that I had my own income. Had I not had my own income, my choices would have been quite limited. One of the reasons why women fought so hard for all of the rights that we have had is to have agency. Because not very long ago, 50 years ago, some, in some, and in many cases not even as long ago as that, in some states you couldn't get divorced, you had no ability to get divorced. If, if you don't have any money, you couldn't hire a lawyer, you couldn't get divorced. And so no matter what relationship you have with your husband, you would be trapped in it. Because for the longest time, right, women were considered property, as were so many other people. And so financial agency is one of the cores to being well resourced. I work with women who generate $700,000 a year in their business. Seven million, 25 million, 80 million. And I am shocked at how many women don't even know how much money their business made last month. They don't know what their profit is. They don't know what their profit was for the year. They don't know how much money is going into their retirement account. No, my husband figures all that out, but my partner's got all that handled. I don't really pay attention to the finances. I'm over here doing this. Listen, I get it.

I don't like to think about it all.

Trust me. That's why I have a CEO or I have a CEO CFO meeting every Monday, which is in about half an hour from right now. And I sit with my CFO and we go through all my numbers every Monday. I've known clients who don't pay their taxes or they pay them late or they didn't know they had to pay taxes running million dollar businesses.

I know women who don't have any money saved. Financial agency and acumen and literacy is one of the cores of well resourced woman. But why don't we, why don't we talk about, think about, have systems for money, right? I mean, I can hear little phrases. Oh, don't be gauche. It's so inappropriate to talk about money, right? Women still have this hangover. It's one of the reasons why I know my sage clients really like to be in sage because they could just talk about it. This year I made this much, and this year I Want to make this money, I want to make this much. And I have to figure, they talk about money, there's no judgment, there's no shame, there's no guilt. But we have these internal stories about money that limit not just our relationship with it, our ability to have it, but our acumen with it. So if I have a whole story about, you know, too much money makes you evil.

Or a woman who makes too much money makes her unattractive, which some men would have you believe, or in some women, why would I spend time thinking about, talking about and wanting to be about money? So how do we unpack that? And we're going to through this podcast series, a well resourced woman. What's another one? What are the resources of a well resourced woman? Energy. Your energy. Do you have any? Are you depleted emotionally, physically, mentally, energetically? Just too much, right? If you're an empath like I am, I know when I've hit the wall. We don't talk about it. Women grip the bat. Women don't ask for help. Women believe that if they ask for help, they won't get the help they need anyway. So there's so many of us. There's 11 million women out there running their businesses right on fumes. Because we're not prioritizing our energy. To me, energy is all of the things I said. Your emotional, mental, physical fitness, stamina, abundance, time. Time is a resource. What does a woman who is well resourced with time, what does her world look like? Most of the women I know who end up with free time freak out. They don't know what to do with it. I was just talking to someone I know recently, just personally. She said, I never sit still. I don't ever want grass to grow under my feet. She's constantly busy. She maximizes her time in her brain.

I'm like, aren't you exhausted? Do you ever stop? But time, what do we do with time? Do we buy time from other people? Do we give our time to other people? Do we do it on purpose? What are the other resources of a well resourced woman? Self trust. Do you believe yourself when no one else does? Or as soon as someone else doesn't believe you? Do you start to doubt yourself? How do you fix that? How do you get to the point where you feel good about the decisions that you make? And how do you say no to the decisions that you know are not right for you? How do you just no. How do you know? How do you know? How do you trust yourself? I have met again so Many women running beautiful businesses who feel incompetent and they think it's because they are or they don't know something, but it rapidly reveals itself to me as self trust issue, not a competence issue.

What are the resources of a well resourced woman? What have we talked about so far? We've talked about finances, we've talked about time, we've talked about energy, we've talked about self trust. A well resourced woman possesses personal agency and ownership. So what do I mean? Advocacy for yourself and ownership for your choices. So I will not blame you for a decision I made, but I will not make a decision because you want me to make it. I will not make a decision that is outside of my best interests and in fact I will advocate for mine and other women's self interest. One of the most powerful parts of what I do to me, I think my clients might or might not, I don't know if they'd agree, is to remind them and work with them to find their own voice and advocacy. I have, I want to say I've been shocked. I don't think I've been shocked. I just am saddened when I encounter and have encountered and continue to encounter women who are literally in abusive relationships with partners, team members, friendships, vendors.

Manipulative and I believe abusive relationships. And my client doesn't see that. They think they're the one who's wrong. They think if they just change their behavior then that person wouldn't be that way. They wouldn't talk to me like that. They would stop talking to me like that. They all the things. So I have a zero tolerance policy in my life for anyone who is on, anywhere on the scale that I would call toxic. And that's a. I can't. We can go from A to Z on that, right? One little level could be someone who tells you they're going to do something and they outright don't do it right in front of you. They tell you they stand for something and they don't. All the way to someone who is verbally abusive, swears on you on the phone, threatens you. I mean listen, we've heard it, all right? No. How do you become a woman who says no, that's not going to be in my life. You know, you've heard me say the prize doesn't chase. And I mean it. And I want you to also, because the challenge I think we have right now, especially right now, you know, it's so fractious everywhere. And I believe that most people want most people to live a Beautiful life. And I really do believe that. But there is some, there's some fractures. And there are a lot of women right now who are really advocating and they're finding their footing to advocate whatever that footing is. And some of it is aligned with how I would advocate for myself, and some of it isn't. But you know what? You go, girl. Listen. Get it. And here's the thing. Some of the most derogatory comments and feedback to the women who are standing right now advocating for all women are other women. And for that I cannot understand it. We are not a united group. And it breaks my heart that any woman would advocate against other women. I. I don't get it and I never will, which is why I do this.

So. Because some of the hardest women to advocate yourself for and against are other women. To truly find your voice in a room full of women, that's hard. Probably even harder than anywhere else. A well resourced woman has personal advocacy and personal ownership. She takes responsibility for herself. And there's a couple more that I'm going to peel off as we go forward, but those are the big rocks and they are all rooted in the elements that I know. The questions that I know that you ask yourself so regularly. How do I stop being afraid of saying what I really want to say? How do I believe in myself when no one else does? How do I solve issues in my business without feeling like an a hole? How do I stand for and act like an emotionally mature adult when I fall apart? How do I stop feeling like I'm either a bitch or a pushover? How do I stop feeling like I'm incompetent all the time and I have all this comparison fatigue? How do I surround myself with top performers? I'm a top performer. How do I stop compromising? What does a real boundary look like and how do I set one and how do I keep them? How do I stop being so triggered by certain people? How do I end drama? I don't want drama in my life anymore. A well resourced woman. I want you to take this podcast. I hope you will. I want you to take this podcast and I want you to really journal about it. Like, what is a well resourced woman to you? And when you think of one, who do you think of? Who do you put there? Like, who are some examples in your world of a woman who is well resourced? And if you were going to become a version of yourself that had more possession of these resources, what are some of the things you would need to do right away? Things that you could change right away. What is the support you would need right away? Never underestimate the power of a well resourced woman. I love that sentence. But there might be some of you who hear the word power and it throws you off. And if that's true, I want you to ask yourself why? What is wrong with a powerful woman? What do you make that mean? Because we know that in order, in order to achieve what you most want to achieve, you have to have agency, you have to have influence, you have to have self confidence and competence. You have to have financial acumen, you have to have strong and powerful energy. You need to be well resourced with your health, your mental and your emotional fitness. I know I'm not telling you something you don't know. So what is it that tells you to not do that? What is it that halts you? What is it that stops you? What is it that makes you question that that's your assignment? You were not brought this far to go this far. Do you believe that? And what if this next leg isn't about the next download or content you buy or whatever conference you go to, but really about the next layer you discover in yourself? If that were true on the path of becoming a well resourced woman, what's next up? Always can tell me. You know you could, you can email hello, Chris Plackey. You know you can email hello the visionary CEO and tell us what your next resource is that you need to develop. I'd love to hear it. In the meantime, be on the lookout for the series. Just go to TheVisionary CEO, TheSageWoman and you can opt in and you'll get all the rest of the episodes as they become available. Tuxing Sam.