Michelle Patterson: The Power of "I Matter"

Welcome back. It is Microsoft Launch the program. I'm Alan Taylor from Inc. Radio with my friend Scott Duffy, author of the book Launch. We're celebrating National Entrepreneurship Week presented by Microsoft. And Scott, we have your friend Michelle Patterson, CEO, WomanNetwork.com also California Women's Conference.

Michelle, it is so great to have you here today. What Ellen didn't mention is that you've also recently been knighted. Correct.

Oh, dame.

You are now Dame Michelle Patterson. Wow. And also I think the coolest award that Michelle's won recently is the Woman of the Year for the Boxing Council.

Wow. You don't even look like a boxer now.

How does that happen?

I don't know that actually, out of all the things that I've done over the years of my 45 years of living receiving the award. And it was after 52 years, it was 192 countries and we did a big event with them. And the World Boxing Council, they are really aggressive with helping women enter into the world of boxing. They're very progressive.

You know, it's interesting. I find myself in a situation where lately all of my best help I've ever had in my life are women. Not that guys haven't done a lot of good things for me, but right now my team is very strong on women. You know, they bring all to the table assets that I just don't have here or here. I mean, I don't know what it is. They just do such a good job of completing me in my business environment.

One of the things that I love and Warren Buffett makes this comment and he says, I'm so excited about the state of the world right now is because we're unleashing women into the economy. And so what this is about, and I oftentimes get asked, it's, you know, Michelle, you have the largest community of women globally. And you know, is this just about women? Do you want men attending these events? And I say it's really about men and women that if it was reversed, it's really looking at our talent pool and saying we want 100% of the talent pool, not 50% of the talent pool. So we'd have the same conversation. It was the other way around. So. So, Alan, you're absolutely right is how can we go ahead and bring in women and men to make sure that our companies, our organizations have the best of the best.

Michelle, what was it that inspired you to become an entrepreneur?

It was almost like an ache. I mean, it was, I've got to go out and start my own company. I was with a publicly held company for 13 years, and phenomenal company. I was in recruiting, one of the largest recruiting firms, and there was just that feeling of, I want to be able to go out and really start up my own company. And I did that. And for me. And you know, this story. Had received a phone call and was asked to take on the California Women's Conference. It was at risk of being canceled.

Describe to everyone what is the California Women's Conference. Yeah.

Okay, perfect. Well, so we're celebrating our 30th year, and it's always been put on by the governor's office up until 2011. The person who started it. So going back, Allen, to your comment, a man started the California Women's Conference. So we love our men. In fact, I heard today there was a individual that we're working with that's helping us with our analytics, and she says, michelle, you guys are 50, 50 men and women. I said, are you kidding me? Really? Because I've been watching it just grow so smart. Men go to the California Women's Conference because they recognize.

I'm going to.

You're going. Well, I got a special ticket for you. And it's scheduled. It's December 7th and 8th for 2016 at the long Beach Convention Center. But the biggest thing that I wanted to share was, again, women represent 78% of the consumer, 85% of the decision maker out of the household. And out of Scott's household, It's more like 99%.

Yeah, it is. That's right.

I know he's got two girls. And, you know, the women are running that house.

They are running the house.

Even the dog and the cat and the rabbit are girls.

Yeah, everybody in the house. That's right.

But I had a unique opportunity. I interviewed Governor George Duke Magin for the eighth grade school paper. I was 12 years old. I had little buck teeth, and I was asking him very profound questions. What's your favorite hobby? How many kids do you have? And he inspired me. I mean, he told me at the ripe old age of 12 that I mattered. That was the best interview that he had heard. And it really propelled me into going in and recognizing I have this voice, and I want to be able to share this voice. And I think so often.

Especially with women in the recruiting world, you'd have a man apply for a job, apply for a position, and he'd have three out of the 10 requirements. And he's looking at that job saying, you know, I got this. Like, I so got this job. Whereas a female would look at that opportunity, and she has seven out of the 10 requirements, and she wouldn't even apply. She wouldn't even go for it because she doesn't have all 10 of those requirements. So what the conference does is it lets you, the individuals, know that they have significant contributions and it helps them live their best life. And we've had speakers, everything from an Oprah across the board to the Dalai Lama to Arianna Huffington. I mean, just some phenomenal speakers.

You know, the best part is, you know that, Scott, on your deathbed, you'll have total consciousness because the Dalai Lama was there.

That's right.

That's right.

Michelle, what are some of the unique challenges that are experienced by woman entrepreneurs?

So one of the things that we focus in on pretty closely. I've got a podcast called Conscious Leader. We did 2.5 million downloads, which is exciting. So you can go to Women Network. But we're constantly looking at the big question is the balancing act? And there was a study done by Gallup Poll, and Gallup Poll looked at this, and they said, okay, who are the happiest people in the world right now, and what is it that they're doing? So not even women or men, but what is it that they're doing? And so they looked at it and they said, the happiest people are the individuals that are doing these five things, and they're focused on these five areas. And it was career, physical, financial, social, and community. And I thought it was very interesting because, again, especially with women, the happiest people are not the people that are making the big bucks. The happiness meter doesn't jump off the charts. It truly is. It's that community piece, and it's that relationship piece. When you are of service, when you are giving back, that's when you're happiest. And women in particular, they look at being in business as a form of service. And so they look at that bigger picture of how can I make a difference in the world? And the fastest way for us to create change in our world today is to give women those resources and those tools, because they'll go back and they'll make a difference.

You know, it's interesting. My wife is the CFO of my company, and when our daughter turned 21 years old, I have four children, one daughter. It all of a sudden struck me that, wow, I need to think about how can I empower her and help her to be an entrepreneur? Because I'm an entrepreneur. I come from an entrepreneurial family. And I thought, how can I do that, and I guess what I came up with was that I just wanted to support her in whatever she loved to do. And it happened to be photography. Now, two years later, she just turned 23 just a couple weeks ago. She has her own photography business because she loves photography. She is pretty much sold out all the time. I can't even hardly hire her to work in my company anymore. And it's only happened in the last two years. And all I did for her is. Was the simplest thing in the world. I just encouraged her. And I think a lot of times that's all it takes, whether it's male or female. But I must say that being a man, we don't think about how do we empower women. We think about how do we empower ourselves. And so for me, it was kind of like a aha moment when my daughter turned 21, and I was like, wow, I better start thinking about her future and how to. How to empower her to be independent.

What's the best. What advice you could give to men who are in partnership with women in entrepreneurial environments?

Good question.

I think looking at those women and men as, again, they are putting the pieces of the puzzle together from a team standpoint. So it's really important. When you look at just the demographics of the group, do you have that balance? Do you have individuals that represent different backgrounds? The best teams are the teams that have the diversity. So that's the feedback that I would get. It's not so much, oh, I've got to hire a female. It's. I need that representation. And I look at it too, even with various boards that are out there, you know, when they don't have women on boards, they do the board a disservice, you know, and if it's one female, I mean, you might as well be talking to yourself. You know, if it's two, it's a little bit better. But it really. It goes Back to that 33.3% of the representation of women on boards. Then you get the great, great resources.

It seems to me like women naturally have certain inherent talents, like attention to detail. The women in my life do such a great job. I have to tell you that. I'm so impressed. And it kind of opens my eyes. And. And I do really want to go to your event in December, December 7th and 8th. But you also have International Women's Day coming up, right?

We do. I'm really excited about our partnership. It's with unified.org and they do Earth Day, they do World Peace Day, and I Just had a chance last week as I was coming out of super bowl parties the next day, to spend time with their CEO and their leadership. And what we're doing is we have International Women's Day. We are creating the largest live streaming event. It will actually be held out of UC Irvine, the COVID and if you can imagine. So we're creating these circles. So they're circles that consist of anywhere from 5 to 50 individuals. We released it yesterday. We just passed the 300 mark. So within 24 hours, we have 300 leaders for these circles signed up, and we're anticipating.

That's so cool.

A couple thousand. So get on board. Go to womennetwork.com and be a part of this historical event.

I have one more question. If you could give one piece of advice and that was it, one piece of advice to women entrepreneurs, what would it be?

Okay, so that's an easy one. And that is take the time to create your best life book. Okay? And what that is, is. And whenever I go into a meeting, whenever I go, even if it's date night with my husband, I will sit down and consciously decide, and I ask these three questions. So are you ready for these three questions? Is what is the desired outcome? How do I want to be perceived?

And then what are the next steps and follow up needed? So I answered those three questions.

Awesome.

And what happens is, oftentimes we go into these meetings where I refer to them as like a Howdy Doody meeting. It's, you know, how are you doing? How am I doing? And it's great. But what. What are we accomplishing? What are we getting done? What are we moving forward? And so being able to go in and have that very specific, you know, information and a very focused meeting so that you leave that meeting with a clear idea of what you want to do. I did that with an investor meeting that I had, and I sat down, I was racing in. I took five minutes to write down what I wanted to see happen, how I wanted to be perceived, what did I want as the outcome and the follow through. And I revisited that after the meeting, and every single one of those answers came to fruition.

International Women's Day is March 8, so make sure you watch out for that. And also your event in December 7th and 8th, what is that called again?

And that's the California Women's Conference. And then we've actually, we've gone global, so we've had Women Network Nigeria, Women Network New York, Women Network Oregon. So I love what you guys are doing. And we utilize technology so we film everything so that we can push that information out. And I also want to give a shout out to my friend Scott and definitely Alan. Excited to run with you. But we went through some tough times when we first started the conference. And you know what I love about this is when the cameras are going, everybody's kissing babies, and they're happy, happy, happy. But when the cameras go off, how are people showing up? And I gotta tell you, my friend Scott Duffy, he showed up in full force. There was many, many, many meetings that we had where it was just the two of us going in, raising funds. So when he talks about launch and he talks about his book, which. What chapter? I know I'm one of those chapters.

You are one of those chapters.

Perseverance. So that goes down to the last piece is just, again, ask for the help. Women ask for the help. People want to help, but oftentimes they don't know what your vision is. They don't know where you're headed. And I'll say to people, I'm. I'm stuck in this area. And Scott, you and I had this conversation. I need help with my funding. Help. What should I do? And Scott helped me. So that's what this is about.

You know, I think to your point, Michelle, as entrepreneurs, you know, we tend to be the leaders of our company, and as a result, our job is to put on a brave face. And so sometimes what happens is it can be very lonely because there are things that we don't want to necessarily talk to our investors about or our team about or our family about. But one of the most important lessons that all great entrepreneurs share is, like Michelle is saying, is to ask for help. Because what happens is when you ask the right mentorship, the right people, you have the right mentors around you, they never ask questions like, why do you. Why did you do this? Or how could you do that? Or make you feel bad about the situation? Instead, what they usually say is something like, you know, I've been through that in my life. I've experienced that myself. Or, why didn't you come to me sooner? And I would have helped you.

Yeah, well, I'll tell you what. I stand on the shoulders of some really powerful, strong women, and they're in my family and working in my company, and I personally thank them for helping me to be the man that I am today. And, Michelle, I want to just tell people where they can find your website. It's www.womannetwork.com. dame Michelle Patterson did a great job.

Well, I actually I argue with that because I want to be called Knight.

They told me no, and I'm like, come on. How about Sir?

Sir? Michelle Patterson, thank you very much.

Thank you, Michelle.

Thank you. Thank you. Well, we're celebrating National Entrepreneurship Week presented by Microsoft, and I hope that you're enjoying it again. MSFT launch. And we'll be back with more Scott and I here on the Microsoft Launch Podcast.