A Female Entrepreneur's Perspective with Michelle Pippin

I've got a killer app for you. It's called Process Street. You know your business lives or dies by its processes. You got to do it right and you have to have the team following it consistently. We know that in house and that's why we implemented Process street and I encourage you to do the same. Process street is the easiest way to manage your team's workflows and recurring processes. In fact, it even comes with pre made templates for things like client onboarding, employee onboarding, sales processes, marketing processes, content publishing, promotion, customer support processes. You name it, the the system has it and now you'll have a consistent deliverable for your company. Do what we did and implement processstreet in your business. Plus, I got a deal for you. If you sign up now at our link, you get 20% off. So go to mikemcalowicz.com processstreet that's mikemcalowitz.com processstreet and if you're struggling spelling Michalowicz, you're not alone. Go to mikemotorbike.com Processstreet don't throw that superfluous slash at the end that messes everything up. Go to mikemotorbike.com processstreet and get 20% off today. All right, my dear listening friends, there is something you gotta do right now. It's go to profitfirstlive.com thanks. Kelsey's gave me the thumbs up because that means you will be coming to, I think the most important event perhaps of your lifetime, at least for your business. This is where we teach you the ins and outs of the profit first methodology. It goes far beyond the book. It's a two day intensive here at our offices in Boonton. Plus, think about it. You get to meet Kelsey. Amy.

Yeah, I'll be teaching for a little bit.

Yeah, and we have fun with folks. Like, we walk around and we joke and no, we really don't do much. There's really nothing.

Yeah, we stare at you awkwardly.

That's, that's basically it. The place goes totally silent. Like, you walk in, you're like, hey guys, I love your show. And it's like, is this silence?

But we take requests. That's all.

Yeah. All right, well, come to the most boring office of all time by going to profitfirstlive.com and do it right now. Pick a date that works for you and we'll meet you over here. Hey, in today's episode, we're going to talk about what it takes to be a successful female entrepreneur. You're going to hear all the details on that in this episode of Entrepreneurship Elevated. Oh, I know what we forgot.

Strap ons.

Strap ons. Nothing. Strapped on.

Okay, let's stop saying that.

But what was the new word you came up with, Amy?

Score.

How does. What was that a bastardization sport?

I was sporting my fall flannel.

Yeah.

But I was squirting it.

Squirting it.

Squirting it.

And then you thought it was some kind of Scandinavian.

No, I didn't think it was something nefarious. You did.

I did. I thought.

Oh, you thought it was nefarious.

Kind of sounds like a bodily function.

It does, right?

She squirted.

Yeah. Yeah. It sounds disgusting now. It sounds disgusting. My name is Mike Michalowicz. I am the author of Profit first, along with some other books. I got a brand new book coming out called Fix this Next.

I'm so excited.

I'm really jacked now. I'm feeling it. I'm working on the third pass of the manuscript.

Awesome.

You know that flight I'm taking to Washington tomorrow?

I do.

Freaking six in the morning. Whatever. I'll be writing the whole way there. I'm gonna be writing the whole way to Cleveland. I think I'm going to the next Cleveland. I'm going to Buffalo.

Correct. Joe, you will stop home first for. For little bits. Yeah.

Like an overnight.

Yeah.

He's like, oh, I am.

Look at the hope in his eyes.

I'm gonna be home for a day. Oh, I didn't know that. Krista doesn't know that. Oh, surprising.

Originally, you weren't. You were supposed to go to Chicago, but I rerouted you.

Well, I'll be working on the book. So I'm the author of that brand new book and I'll be scareding, squirting, squirting around the country. I'm joined in studio by my dear friend, Kelsey Ayers.

Hello, friend. You can find us on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, iheartradio, mikemcalowitz.com or any podcast or anywhere.

She's the president of Obsidian launch. Yay. Yeah. Right? Finally, we made a good move here, and we're talking about sending her to, like, leadership training and stuff.

Yes. If you know of any that would want me to be their friend.

They all want you.

Also in studio, Amy Cartelli.

Hey there. Hi there.

Who just returned from a wonderful anniversary trip. Trip with your husband.

I did. Newport, Rhode Island. It was lovely.

Your husband dressed very smartly. I saw a picture of him with that white shirt. Nice jacket.

He's a dapper Dan, you were dressed.

Very elegantly, the two of you. What a couple.

I know. And so beautiful.

Very beautiful people.

Kind. You guys are the best.

Not kind. It's a fact.

Thank you.

Did you show them a little squirt at the end of the night?

Oh, Lord's gonna come back and bite me.

Oh, is that what squirting us squirting.

With to shut up now.

Kelsey, I literally don't have my script in front of me. Was that a laugh or what the hell was that?

No, I think that was Amy.

Oh, that was not me. Michael.

It was not you? No, I was looking at Kelsey when she did that. Was that.

We have a shout out.

Okay. You two are giddy today.

It's all Kelsey. It's so. It's all Kelsey. She just.

The two of you. I love that you love each other so much.

I know. So much.

The horsing around. Oh, it gives me tears. I don't know what's the shout out?

Okay, so this one comes from Daisy Simonis. She writes, I bought Mike's book in the hope that it could help transform the financial strategy of the company I work for. And I was not disappointed. It was easy to follow as Mike clearly sets out exactly what you need to do. And I was able to work through it and apply it to our finances one Friday afternoon. There is even advice for how to talk to your accountant about this new method, which we successfully did. Although a bit US centric, which is a non US Company, our accountants were able to help with this book is incredibly helpful and business changing. I would recommend it to anyone who is looking to successfully manage their cash flow and be confident in their finances.

Nice. Thank you, Daisy.

That's very sweet.

Yeah. The nice thing is prop first is now 19 languages.

Yeah.

Yeah. And we're getting some more atypical languages. Flemish is the newest one coming on board.

Cool.

Which is a variant, I think, of Dutch and it's a amalgamation of Dutch and maybe German or something, but.

Cool.

Yeah. So yeah, that's gonna be number 20.

Is it in Malaysian at all?

I don't know if you're trying to trick me.

No, I'm not.

So I don't think it's in Malaysian. I didn't know Malaysian was there a language Actually, Yeah.

But while I was there, there was a few people that I talked to that I think would really appreciate it. And you would love to be able to send. Yeah, the one speaks English well, so I can send him an English one.

But the other people, you have no idea what they're saying.

Yeah.

They're, like, trying to ask you, like, are you hungry for rice? Like, yes, I get you a copy. Of course.

I love that you're a business owner. I drive a cab.

I'm the president of the company. You know, I do want to thank our corporate partner, nextiva, that makes the show a reality. Inventors of the true voice system. We'll tell you more, but details on that a little later. Someone said. Did someone say that in the meeting today?

I said it.

Oh, that was. You're so funny. I thought it was one of our guests.

He did say that nextiva had amazing technology. And he was mocking you, I believe.

Because I brag about them so much.

Yes.

And we do have some fun stuff we're gonna do today. We have an amazing guest. Michelle Pippin's coming on. We're gonna talk about successful female entrepreneurs and how to do it for yourself. And then we also are gonna do a game, which I gotta find out where I put it. A new game. Amy hasn't participated in one of these yet. We're gonna do musicians become entrepreneurs. And I'm gonna give you four musicians, all names I specto recognize, and three of them actually have started businesses in addition to their music career.

Okay.

One of these persons is a farce. Okay. And guess the farce. Kelsey, when we did this game last a few episodes back, got it wrong. And then when I read the notes, she actually kind of got it right.

So I had gave me points backgraciously.

I gave her half points. Yeah, she said. I said, billy Joel has a motorcycle shop. And she says that's a lie and says it's absolute truth. He does. He has a motorcycle museum where he sells T shirts. He does not sell any motorcycles. So she was kind of right.

You get points.

Yeah, she's got. Right.

That's good.

Okay, there's another boring factoid. Do we have anything else we have to talk about, Kelsey, before we get into the meat and potatoes?

No, we can get into it.

Okay. As a founder of Women who Wow, the premier coaching and mentoring platform for seriously driven women entrepreneurs, Michelle Pippen is relentlessly committed to equipping her members to create wild success on their own terms. She is known for her no excuses, just results approach to branding, selling profit, and business success. And Michelle and I go back quite a while now, so it's my joy to reconnect with Michelle when. Welcome to our show, Michelle.

Welcome, Michelle.

Thank you. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here, and it has been so fun so far.

So I. We were interviewing. What was her name? She. She's gonna be speaking at our event at ProfitCon. She's from India.

Bushra.

Bushra.

Bushra. Bushra. Bushra. So I'm interviewing Bushra and I asked the first question, and this woman Michelle is like, totally so funny. She goes first. First of all, Mike, stop mansplaining your questions to me. So I'm afraid to even ask you a question because I just don't understand the perspective. Let's start off with the challenges that female entrepreneurs have. What are they facing that perhaps guys like me are not?

You know, I think that we face a lot of the same challenges, but in business and being an entrepreneur. But there's a few expectations we have as women that I feel like some men probably don't struggle with. Like, as an example, you know, I started my business 20 years ago ago when my oldest kid was born. And I wanted to be a successful entrepreneur, but I also wanted to be a loving and available mom. Right. Like, these are things that in the women's world, they can sometimes be viewed as, like, mutually exclusive. Men are, you know, they're kind of encouraged to do both. And women sort of have to, I don't know, like, navigate those waters a little bit differently. And we put, I think, different expectations on ourselves to be all things to all people. And I definitely think you can do them both. Right. Like, I was a very, very, and still am a very available mom. Although I'm happy to report I'm an active empty nester at this point. Right. I've got two kids out of the house and one kid who's a senior in high school. So I'm almost done with that, with that part of motherhood. But I definitely think that women put expectations on themselves that we have to be kind of perfect in all of these roles. But also, I feel like there's a. In terms of just profit in selling and branding and marketing, you know, men SW sort of see things very black and white. So networking for a man is better explained as we're going for me to pick up a check. Right. Networking for women all of a sudden gets complicated, and we're like, building friendships and building these relationships. And the sales part and the marketing part tends to go way down the line. So I feel like we live in some more gray areas, which makes success a little bit harder.

So in your kind of process, not your kind of, but in your process to becoming a successful female entrepreneur, you talk about defiance. What does it mean to be defiant?

Well, you know, I Think I've heard the saying that the entrepreneurial salute is a one fingered salute. Right. And I think as an entrepreneur anyway, we kind of have to be defiant. But as a woman entrepreneur, it's very important to be willing to do things differently to defy industry norms. In fact, that's one of the main strategies that I use with private clients. When I used to work with private clients, I would say, listen, make a list of all the different industry norms in your industry and see how many of those we can break. It's important to do things differently or else you're going to really blend into the mediocre masses is what I call them. But you also have to be defiant in the face of obstacles and adversity. Right. Like there's so many things that you face on it, on the journey to being a successful entrepreneur and you've just got to be willing to hop over those obstacles, rebound quickly from adversity, and continue with your defiant walk towards the success that you want.

Well, this may tie back to your first point of being an entrepreneur and a mom. My wife is a stay at home mom her most, almost her entire life. And there's like almost this shaming that she's experienced, she says, with other women that are professionals or entrepreneurs. Like, is that all you are? Now there's the other two, there's moms who, shame on the entrepreneur, saying, really, you sacrifice your family for this pipe dream.

Yes.

How do you live in this defiant stage and manage that conflict?

Yeah. You know, it's so funny because I just ran into a working mom yesterday at the grocery store actually, and I asked her, have you been back to work yet? Because she just had a set of twins. And she goes, yeah, I went back in June. And she said, you know, just was so glad to get back to my, you know, kind of like a little schedule. And I remember in that moment thinking, you know, my response to her, and I'm ashamed to admit this, but my response to her would have been different 15 years ago. Right. I would have felt like, oh, you know, you know, you had to go back to work. But that was, it was more my own expectations. Right. It was more me trying to navigate that balance between, you know, having a love for my children or love for my family and also this like burning passion to create an income and impact and influence in my own sort of arena. And I don't know that there's. I don't really believe in balance necessarily. I believe in priority. And to me, I feel like any woman who's Wrestling with that judgment is really needs to come back to herself. And it's like, am I living according to my own priorities? Right. The things that are first in my. Am I putting them first? And just adjust according to your own priorities versus anybody else's expectations. Because I feel like that's such a prison to live in, right? When we're trying to, you know, somehow adjust how we live to fit somebody's expectations, you're going to run into somebody else and you've really let them down by the choice that you've made. So it's really about your own priorities.

You know, I've seen this other judgment that is totally unfair, but I see it placed upon women as a guy, and I don't see place upon guys. A strong or defiant guy is actually the word is strong. Like, oh, what a leader. A stronger, defiant woman is a bitch.

Absolutely.

That's. I actually hear those terms like, oh my God, what a bitch is. And literally, I've seen this two people execute the same directive and commands with the same authority. It was just a man and a woman in different scenarios, but man and woman. And one guy was strong, the woman was a bitch. What. What's going on with that, Michelle? And how do we navigate this?

Oh, my gosh. Well, you know, you would know this about me and you know, maybe some of the people in your audience, but I'm not winning any Miss Congeniality awards in the entrepreneurial world. Right. I've never even Amy or Kelsey, I've never even been nominated.

Right.

But the reason is I don't play by the rules. I don't like, you know, pay homage to the people I'm supposed to pay homage to. Like, I just kind of show up and act like I belong. And that is not particularly appreciated. Right. I feel like there's a certain. And I think this can be applied to men or women, but I feel like there's a certain expectation that we crawl before we walk and walk before we run and climb this ladder that's frankly, we have no moral obligation to climb that ladder. In the entrepreneurial world, you can totally leapfrog to the top, but you can be viewed as a bitch. You can be viewed as somebody who's too bossy. But the truth is, again, your opinions of me are of no concern to me. I just posted an article the other day. It says not one drop of my self esteem is reliant on your opinion of me. And I think that's just a repeated mindset.

I'm writing this one down. I Mean, that's good.

It's so hard to actually cultivate.

Yeah, but it's just like a muscle. It's like I have this program called mental toughness, and it's just like a muscle. When you are constantly reaffirming that. That my self esteem does not depend on opinion of me or anybody else's opinion of me, then you, you begin to kind of build that muscle. That's like, you know what? Screw this, right? I'm just gonna go out there, I'm gonna live loud. I'm gonna live authentically. I'm gonna do my thing and, you know, let the chips fall where they may.

So here at our office, Kelsey. Well, Kelsey's an entrepreneur at home. She's the president of our company here now. But Kelsey, yeah, it's amazing. And her trajectory has been deservingly so callous.

Thank you.

And you, you lead through kindness and giving, right?

Yes. Oh, yeah.

Here's a risk we run. Michelle. I wouldn't call Kelsey defiant in some cases or confrontational means probably a better word, right? Confrontational. That's better word. She's defiant but not confrontational. Is there, is there another challenge if you're seen as too soft, too kind, is that considered as a weakness, especially for women?

Yeah. I mean, I don't know, like, to me, I wouldn't focus on whether I'm seen as too soft or weak, but whether I'm actually being too soft or too weak. Right. And I'm not at all confrontational because confrontation takes too much energy and effort, frankly. And so, you know, my effort is better directed towards my own goals. And for me, I try to. And I grew up in a house where there was no seam, right? There was only like, what is something or what is it not? You know, it's a black and white. And so for me, it's like, you know, some people might think me too soft, other people might think me too, you know, too confrontational. But in the end, it's like, am I being. Am I honoring my purpose here? Am I doing my best work? And, you know, and it's like, if they think I'm too soft, again, you know, that's none of my business what they think of me, but, you know, it's like, am I producing the results I want to produce in my home, in my marriage, in my body and my business, you know?

You know, so the two women here are probably the strongest women I know. So Amy faced cancer, face it down, you know, and took it on. And Kelsey, another version of strength is how you lead. But also we did this. What was that thing we did with the house? Habitat for Humanity. Thank God, Wearing these glasses. We did Habitat for Humanity. And then it's like the end of the day, everyone's like eating pizza wrapped up. You hear one hammer, hammer away. And Kelsey is like working.

We're not done.

But maybe these are very much guy measurements of facing a life threatening disease or a work ethic when it comes to flying around a hammer. Michelle, you talk about consistency and maybe that's a better definition of success for female entrepreneurs.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, a huge part of my success is that I just didn't go away, right? I just kept showing up every day. I am persistent and consistent, if not anything else. And so for us, I feel like getting back to, I guess, the being defiant and being strong and it's really a quiet power. If you've got to constantly tell people how powerful you are, maybe you could kind of doubt how powerful you are. There's a quiet strength in a defiance that is loyal to your own goals and purpose. But the consistency is huge. I mean, a lot of people, and I was guilty of this. I always, especially when my kids were younger, I always planned on like, what I was going to do on this one day. I'm going to get so much done on this one day. Or I would look forward to the quote, unquote, one day when I had all this time to work. And I realized somewhere along the line that what I did every single day was going to take me a lot further than what I did on those big work days or the one day visions that I had. And that consistency dramatically sets you apart from anybody else because being an entrepreneur is like, it's an up and down battle, right? Some days you feel on top of the world, you can accomplish anything. And then some days you feel like nothing's ever going to work out. And so when you can maintain consistency despite your emotional temperature, right? When you can maintain that consistency, then people take notice. They're like, you know what? This chick doesn't go away. She continues to pepper the Internet or pepper her industry with her twisted little view of business. And they notice, right?

How do you keep anchored in your authentic self?

You know, I think that journaling for me helps. That's such a woman entrepreneur thing to say. But I do journal every day.

Well, us guys call it diaries, by the way.

Okay, perfect. Yeah, Diaries.

That was good.

Thank you.

So I love to journal and I kind of start my day with kind of reminding me myself in the journal, like who am I? Right? I am accomplished. I am driven. I am a person who produces results like I really journal and anchor in, but also I also just kind of listen in to what I really want to say, what my message is for that day. And I stopped censoring myself, right? So it used to be that I blogged and wrote articles only about hardcore strategy, marketing and selling and branding and all of that. And now I'll weave in, like, messages about my husband and I or my kids, and I start to weave in a lot of different parts of me that, frankly, you don't get anywhere else. And so that is. It's just a habit of not just listening to what I really want to say, what my heart wants to say and where I really want to go and what my true vision is, but also being willing to be vulnerable with that to the outside, and sharing some of that with my market.

I think we men and women are very influenced by the media around us. I know if I look at the magazines at the supermarket for the women's magazines, it's always the. There's a. There's a defined media perception of how a woman should look, Right?

Yeah.

I think there's also a defined perception of how an entrepreneur should behave. That's the COVID of Voice magazines. So, Michelle, what is your belief? How are female entrepreneurs influenced by, you know, Sara Blakely being on the COVID of every magazine I ever see now, or the woman that started with that blood company, she ended up being a criminal.

Oh, I know exactly you're talking about, but I can't think of her name.

There's a book came out called Blood Money.

Yes.

It was this big scam, but she. But she came across the point. She came across like a Steve Jobs.

Oh, there's that documentary on her.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What is the perception that media is trying to perpetuate to the female entrepreneur? And how do you believe that's being received and affecting entrepreneurs if it is?

Yeah, well, you know, it's funny because, you know, 20 years ago, I would have said I was not influenced at all by what was on the COVID of the magazines until I got pregnant, right? And then I realized, like, there's no pictures of sexy pregnant women. And I started to realize. But. But definitely it's so funny because a lot of the covers of entrepreneur magazines, the women are kind of in masculine poses, right? They're in, like, a jacket, cross their arms, shoulders back. And it's like. It's almost like they have to. You know, I don't Understand, like, who's driving those decisions. But to me, it's like, it always shows us represented in masculine poses, clothing, et cetera, et cetera. And what I'd love to see, like, I work in my workout clothes. Like, all day, I'm wearing my little workout shirt that says, be a hope giver. And, you know, I'm in my workout clothes. This is how I work. I recently started doing something called Coaching from the Couch, which is like a daily livestream for my Facebook page. And it's like, I just want to show that this is how work gets done. It's not always in a business suit. I'm not sitting there with my arms crossed, waiting for someone, success to come to me. Like, I'm out there gutting it out, and I feel like there's a missing key there. And the other thing, while I'm at it, while I'm on a roll, is all of the pictures on these magazines are of famous people, right? I had, you know, the entrepreneur magazine editor in chief at one of my recent events. And last year he said, you know, we're not interested in the celebrity story. But then this year he is. And I noticed about seven months ago, every cover is a celebrity. And I'm thinking, I want to be the real world business coach, right? I want to be here for the women who aren't famous and who aren't on TV every week. And there's so much success to be created by us, by the everyday woman. And I feel like that's not represented. While I'm on a tangent.

Well, it's not a tangent. I mean, this is a really important thing. I've seen this in. In the entrepreneurial space tremendously, that we idolize certain people. So I see, you know, men, myself, idolizing, like, Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg on the female side. I see, you know, Sarah Blakely is a great example. Who's Mary Kay for a period of time, and she grew such a prolific business, and she was kind of a big name, and. And then I see people just trying to emulate them. How do we, as a female entrepreneur, any entrepreneur, how do we not fall victim to trying to placate to what the world expects of us? And I guess this points back to authenticity, but how do we avoid that influence? You sound like you were even influenced by it yourself.

Absolutely. And I feel like sometimes we emulate the wrong stuff. So, you know, people will say, like, you want to act like you're there before you're there, and so they buy things, they can't afford or they, you know, carry bags they can't afford or whatever it is. And to me it's like what I'd rather emulate is what they did to get there, right? Instead we start to, they say, okay, well they're famous. And so we start to try to get pr and there's nothing wrong with that, right? I hold a media event every year, but like we start to try to emulate what they look like versus what they do, the habits that got them there. So to me, I feel like it's really important if you're going to emulate someone, look back, like, look at what they did, you know, three years before they made it big. Look at what they did to get there. So you can emulate their habits and principles and then apply them in your own way. But I think that that's really the key to remaining authentic is looking for principles that are kind of across the board for successful people and figuring out how can I bring this to life in my own twisted, authentic way.

Over my 12 years of being an author devoted to the small business entrepreneur, I've discovered the biggest challenge. And you know what it is? It's profitability. That's why I wrote Profit first and that's why I'm now hosting a two day workshop here at my offices in Boonton, New Jersey where I will teach you and my team will teach you how to become permanently profitable. Go to profitfirstlive.com right now to get details again, profit first, live.com, find the dates that work for you and I'll see you here at my office. So I got a question which, well, hopefully you can answer or at least give me direction. So I want to help the male audience listening in right now in how do we manage our relationships with female entrepreneurs, like, you know, the female leaders of organization. And here's the deal. As a guy totally blind to what a guy driven world it is and it's, it's hard to explain because I'm blind to it, but this talking about, oh, when you see females posing on magazines as entrepreneurs, they're in male poses. I never know, I never noticed that. To me that's normal. So my question is, our new boss is a female. Many more entrepreneurs are becoming. There's many more female entrepreneurs starting up. And I think men need an ability to understand how to work in these environments appropriately. Is there any guidelines you can give us? Yeah, am I supposed to hold the door open anymore? I'm that confused.

First of all, definitely hold the door open right like, not. Not because I'm too weak to open it for myself, because I shouldn't have to, right? Like, when I was a kid dating my dad, literally, like, I knew better than to get in a car with a boy who didn't open that door for me. Because, see, if I did that, I'm in trouble. If he doesn't open the door for me, he's in trouble. And I will never forget this one guy got in the car and I just stood outside the door because I knew better, right? And he, like, motioned, like, it's unlocked. And I'm thinking, I know, buddy, you better get your tail over here and unlock this door. But anyway, so definitely, you know, be chivalrous if that's who you are. You know, I really. I think it was Gloria Steinem who, you know, talked about, we don't need the female leader. Like, why not just use leader? Why not just relate to us the way you would anybody else and be open to that dialogue? And I feel like we have kind of turned a not so great corner in the world of being a feminist, right? Where all of a sudden we're not owning our power, we're almost like claiming our victim status. Like, that's not powerful. Give me a break, right? Just go out there and to me for the men, like, you know, be a man. Be who you are. If you're chivalrous, let that show. And if it makes me uncomfortable, trust me as your colleague to say, hey, I'm uncomfortable when you open the door for me for whatever reason, right? Or I'm uncomfortable when you ask to pay. Like, to me, it's just like, just let us be co CEOs at lunch. Just be who you are and let me be who I am. And we need to kind of forget some of the rules except, like, be a good human, right? Like, you know, the grab assing's gotta stop. Not that it's ever happened to me, but you know, that kind of stuff, like, be a good human and then, you know, let us be co humans at the table.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's interesting. I have been one of the guys who have gone too far to the now the. I've victimized myself. So when I'm on an airplane and a woman is struggling to puppet bag, I'm like, well, I'm not gonna.

Oh, my gosh, I hate that. It's like, you see me struggling, right?

I know, but listen, no, I'm not always doing that. I noticed myself doing that.

Yeah, I can see that.

And now I realize to your point is that anyone struggling with a bag, right, stand up and say, hey, but ask permission. May I assist you with that? Or may.

Yeah.

And people respond to it.

Yeah.

I did have a woman look at me go, I don't need your damn help. Don't mansplain to me. No, she didn't say that. She didn't say. That was my own head saying.

But that is what you're afraid of, right? Like, right.

It totally is. Yeah, I said that in Jess. But that is the reality. I'm afraid of being disciplined for doing something that's, you know, not appropriate, but using as a. A victim, a martyr. I'm being a martyr and saying, wow, right? Women's rights. So what about the mental tough game? I mean, how do you play this? You've alluded to it a lot. You've spoken to it already. But I just really want to understand as we wrap up this interview is, as a female entrepreneur, how can we amplify our mental toughness to see through as an effective leader?

You know, the real key is not to deny your emotions, right. But to not allow your emotions to lead. Right. That's what a toddler does. You know, they're mad. They throw temper tantrums when we get discouraged or we get sad or we feel rejected. Then all of a sudden, we take our eye off the ball and our actions follow. We start to go into this little trough of inaction, and we wonder why we might be experiencing some feast or famine in our business. For me, be mentally tough. Sharpen your game every morning. Remind yourself who you are and what you're up to, and then stay the course. If you had a job, any of us who had a job at one point or another, we didn't call in and say, I'm really uninsp so I'm not coming to work today, or my husband and I are fighting. So I'm not coming because it would sound ridiculous to your boss, and it's equally ridiculous as an entrepreneur. So be mentally tough. Know what you're up to. Be drawn by the passion of what you really want to create and show up for work every day. Right? That's what we do. It's noble.

Michelle, where can our audience learn more about you?

I provide daily resources for women entrepreneurs on my Facebook page. Facebook.com women who wow. And I would love to meet your audience there. I have a lot of fun over there. We do live streams and blogging. That's my main love is blogging and writing. And so, yeah, I'd love to meet them there.

Okay. Well, then it shows. And so our audience knows Michelle started her first business. 50 bucks. That's all the cash she had. 50 bucks. Has grown to have members in every single state of the country, the US plus eight other countries, and is continuing to grow. So you are the definition of a success.

Thank you so much.

As any entrepreneur, male or female, thank you for joining us today.

Thank you for having me. Thank you guys. It was so fun.

I was just tripping on some Michelle pimping. Thank you very much. Yeah, get that domain right now. All right, Kels, you know what we have to do, but does Amy. Yes, Does Amy?

She knows I know.

What do we do? Amy?

We're gonna tell what we learned today.

Okay. That's exactly right.

Am I right? Am I right?

You're right. We're gonna do a game. But first, wow, that was a good one. We're gonna talk about our corporate partner, Nextiva. I talked about TrueVoice technology. It's funny, you can almost feel Jeremy's presence in this room.

It's almost like he's here.

It's True Voice Technology. It's her new system. It feels like someone's in the room even though they're not. You haven't heard a word from Jeremy, but you hear boxes being cut. You see him. Look around you.

It's almost like you can see him.

He's only an hour late to work. True Voice Technology gives you all that tracking your colleagues, time ragging on now. He said he was coming in late. We told him it's called True Track. I like that better. He says it's called True Track. They're a voice over IP phone system that's gone kind of on steroids now. It's a CRM. It's all connected together. It's called the Next os. You gotta check them out. They are an extraordinary company. Nextiva.com Kels?

Yeah.

What'd you learn today?

So much. I really love this. I thought this is a great kind of conversation. Meandering. I don't know what I want to focus on. I'll say. I really love being defiant to your own goals and purpose. I feel like determining what you want from your life as an entrepreneur and being drawn to what you want to create. And then let that be your gauge and not any outside noise. And let that be your gauge for your own self esteem as well. Like it doesn't matter what people say as long as you're getting results that you want. But it has to be your measurement, not Somebody else's, you know.

Yeah, well, her quote was, not one ounce of my self esteem. Depends on your opinion.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Was it one ounce or was it one drip?

One drip. Or what was it? Was this even smaller than drip? One molecule, one drop.

One drop.

One drop.

One drop.

One drop. One atom, like drop.

It was very one electron.

Yeah. One electron. One electron. One quant.

I think it's called one quant.

Okay. Talking about quants, Amy.

And squirting.

And squirting. You ever squirt a quant? That's disgusting. That's it. I love it. I can't wait for a high school reunion.

I know.

You know what's so funny is, like, I'm excited to go to the high school.

High school reunion just to hang out with you.

You guys see each other every day.

Kelsey, you want to come?

Yes.

You should come.

I was telling that. What if I just show up at Johnny's? They won't know, right?

They won't know.

Why don't you show up at Johnny's? Please?

Yeah.

That'd be so much fun.

Oh, my God. Kelsey, you're gonna come, right?

Yeah.

Will you?

Yeah.

Oh, my God. This is the best ever. Okay, so high school reunion just got better.

Yeah.

So am. What did you learn today?

I really liked the idea of guiding yourself, your direction, not so much by trying to attain balance, but with priority. That was like, ooh. That cleared that all up. Especially as a mom to balancing, you know, work and home and things like that. It's a ridiculous never, never attainable thing to get balanced. Balance does not exist. There's no balance. You don't get balance.

Yeah.

But it is priority. And I love that.

Me too.

Because I really just kind of like, oh, clear. It's like somebody put the defroster on and.

Awesome.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're tripped out. Murdered.

In my tripped out, murdered Dodge Durango.

Yeah.

For my suburban lifestyle. For me driving around Boot, New Jersey.

Yeah. Just in case you go to some tough part of town to get an ice cream. So I liked. If you have to tell people you're tough, you might not be so tough. That was one takeaway. And women posing like men like that was just. To me, that was clarity.

That was one of those moments where you see it for the first time for years.

Yeah. I've never noticed.

Have to have seen every one of those men magazines where the woman's got her shoulders back, chest out, and arms folded across her chest in a power suit, like in a power pantsuit kind of thing.

I've even seen women wear a tie.

Yeah.

And I didn't notice.

Yeah.

Shame on me.

Yeah.

Or I shouldn't say on me. It was a blind spot.

Yeah.

And so now I'm open to it. Now I will see it everywhere.

Yeah. And I feel like, as somebody. I'll speak for myself. I'm not a particularly aggressive person. I am somebody who, you know, my focus is sort of kindness. Like, the way I. The lens I look through is human first. And I feel like there isn't a lot of representation in that. In, like, the business sphere for women. Like, there's this almost perception that you have to be really tough. Like.

Yeah.

And you have to be kind of aggressive.

And that's probably why I always shied away from business. Like, I worked for medical office.

Oh, yeah.

You know, like, business just turned me off because of that perception. And it was just a perception.

Yeah.

You have to have that kind of almost like a greedy drive, you know, like. Like that. This. This. I don't know just what you were saying there.

So I. I know one of your first jobs, Amy. Not in high school. I think this was after high school. But I'm gonna see if. If Kelsey can figure it out. So it was in the wedding industry, Right? What do you think she did in the wedding industry?

I know what it was. What, she was a model?

Yeah, she was a model.

Yeah.

How'd you know that?

She told me.

Damn it.

How do you think I knew it?

You know, freaking everything. K R E, Kelsey.

I talk to people and I ask them about themselves, and then I remember it.

Mike, that's how you ruin everything.

I love it.

You ruin. By remembering things. She correct me. You are horrible, Kelsey. So.

It's just that she keeps twisting your.

Own words on you, and then you end up coming up short.

I know, right?

It's this fantastic comedic equation. You two are constantly.

It's like a family.

It is a family.

She's my smarter sister. So. Yes.

I'm gonna tell Lee that.

You should. You should, you should. So, hey, do you guys want to play the game first, or do you want to do the. You want me to share a boring tip? I don't know. I'm, like, down because I want to play the game.

Let's do the game first.

Is that okay, guys?

Yes.

All right. Michelle, you still wanna.

I'm still here.

All right, so get ready for this game. So this is called. I don't know if it has a name, but here's the premise, at least. These are musicians, famous musicians. That have become entrepreneurs. I'll give you four of them. Going to read them all off. And then Michelle, Amy, Kelsey, and even Jay Shlomo. If you want to yell it out, you have to guess which one is not an entrepreneur, has not started a business. Okay, first one's Jay Z. You know Jay Z. He wrote Umbrella. Crazy in Love.

I think that's Rihanna.

No, he did. He performed on that. He performed Umbrella.

Why are you listing songs that aren't his songs?

Cause he performed on it. Was it him and Beyonce?

I'm the ass.

You are.

He's married to Beyonce.

And I dare say he wrote it. No, but he's performed with Rihanna. He's got it.

Do you have your hand on your hip over there?

Yes, I do. Yes, I do. He goes.

I dare say.

I dare say he has got his hip. Okay, so Jay. Jay Z, the singer on Umbrella of.

All those female songs.

And Crazy in Love. He sings on those songs. Sports bars. He owns sports bars. Okay, okay, next one. Jimmy Buffett owns just bars in general. I mean, like, you know, where you'll get wasted, have a margarita. Jimmy Buffett, of course. I don't know. Axl Rose, interestingly started drug rehab clinic. Do you know that one of the most afflicted. Well, every band does drugs. But guns.

You can't say that.

Guns n Roses had some as a.

Business, like, not a non profit.

Well, not in a nonprofit. Nonprofit. Yeah, it's still a bit. Did you just call a non profit, not a business?

No, I didn't mean it like that.

I don't know. It needs you female explaining to me. All right. I mean, real businesses. What an ass.

You are profiting off of it.

I'm happy people are getting the true nature of who you are.

So much for that kindness, right?

Right. God, you are just really devious. I know.

I'm just mad.

Gwen Stefani, who wrote some songs with Jay Z, owns a clothing line. Is that entrepreneur behind the clothing line line. So that's the three companies. Michelle, you have the honor of going first. It was Jay Z and his sports bars. Jimmy Buffett and his bars, Axl Rose and his drug rehab clinics, and Gwen. Gwen Stefani and a clothing line.

Sports. So when you say sports bars, you mean something to eat?

Yeah, Eat and drink. Yeah. Oh, oh, oh, you meant like.

Like a sports bar. You go to watch sports while you drink.

Oh, no, I'm sorry. I meant like, you know.

Know. Okay.

I don't know. I think so I have to pick the one. That's not true. Right, Right. Yeah, I don't know. I. I'm going good with Axl Rose in the drug rehab clinic.

Okay, that would be my guess, too. Did I just. Did I just. Am I trying to throw a bluff? Yeah, you gotta play the game. Amy, you're up next.

Trickery.

It's. For me, it's between Jay Z and Axl Rose because I messed up the.

Jay Z so much. That was a distraction factor.

I'm going with Axel, too.

Okay. I know. Wait, you were between Jay Z and Axel? Oh, you said Axel.

Okay, what was so amusing about that? At first?

No, because I thought she was between Jay Z and Jimmy Buffett. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, that was a good flip flop.

Yeah.

What are you doing?

I'm gonna go with Axl Rose, too.

You sure? Are you all gonna gang up against one person?

I'm not sure, but yes.

Axl Rose's drug rehab clinic line located in Nowheresville because it does not exist. You all nailed it.

We are awesome.

You all nailed it. Jay Z owns the chain called the 4040 Club Sports Bars. He also wrote the song Umbrella. Jimmy Buffett owns Margaritaville and retirement homes.

That's what I thought you were going with.

Oh, does he really?

He opened a line of retirement homes.

He's out of control. Have you ever drank or eaten at Cheeseburger Paradise? I've drank it a lot.

Drank it a lot.

Cheeseburger Paradise.

Paradise.

What's your rate there? Ever had a margarita there? I should, but wow.

No, I haven't.

Avoid it at all costs. It's probably the worst margarita ever had.

Really?

Unless you like cotton candy.

Oh, it's the worst.

Melted cotton candy.

Gross.

Gwen Stefani does own a clothing line. It's called Lamb L A M B. It stands for something, which is love angel music, baby.

That's those.

Yeah, but that's what it stands for. Oh, it's from our album, I guess. Yeah, yeah, whatever. All right. That was fun. So, Kels, what else do we have? Do we have a little thing I can answer or something?

We don't, but if you guys.

Seriously.

Yeah, seriously. If you guys do have questions, we're gonna answer them on a separate segment.

Oh, we're gonna ditch it from the show?

Correct.

Wow, that's surprising.

So you can find us on YouTube for this segment. It's called Ask Mike. Okay, but send your questions to ask mike mcallister.com.

Okay, cool. And where. Where's that gonna broadcast? Just on YouTube or is it gonna be also on this podcast? Like as standalone little segments?

Just on YouTube.

Okay, good. Yeah, so good. Sign up for that. Also, why don't you go to mikemcalowitz.com? you know, we just hired a company. What was the guy's name? Chris Reed.

Yes, Chris Reed.

What's the name of the company?

Ardmore SEO.

All right, we'll get their links, but they're, they're reviewing our SEO and we're gonna do a before and after SEO.

Like everybody knows what SEO is.

Search engine optimization. Basically try to get more visit to our website. Okay, well whatever. He's gonna do that. Go to Mike McCallitz.

Well, whatever, Amy.

No, no whatever.

Shut up.

Shut up, Amy.

Well, I'm hitting the climax of the music here. Go to mikemcalowitz.com, check out the site, click on get the tools. There's free stuff for you. And now we have Amy Ru. It.