Lisa Wang, CEO of SheWorks, contrasts sustainable growth with endless achievement-chasing. Only 3% of venture capital goes to female-founded companies, though closing the gender funding gap could add $50 trillion to global GDP. She shares being mistaken for an assistant during a pitch, one of many micro-biases female founders face.
Chapters
So, this feeling, I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not rich enough, I'm successful enough. You hear about all these stories where people have the fancy apartments and the fancy jobs, all the dates in the world that they could want, and you have to ask yourself, In what part of their lives are they feeling like they're not good enough? Because the grass is not always greener. And so, for me, it all comes down to a choice. I had defined my entire life by external metrics of success, by what other people, what my parents, What my coaches said was successful, and I checked off all the boxes. The choice is, are you ready to be enough for yourself and proud of yourself for being on this journey and for just being you? I've had one question asked to me of, well, if you feel like you're good enough, doesn't that make you complacent? And to that point, I want to clarify, no. Because for those of us who are striving, who have that natural desire to achieve, you're not going to become complacent. But the power of enoughness is simply having that confidence and assuredness next to you, even while you are striving and achieving. So, as you look towards your journey, I like to think of a story between the bucket and the tree. This first choice is as this bucket. And if you imagine yourself as a bucket, and you're walking through life and you're just filling your bucket with all of these achievements and money and press and fame. And you can choose to always be empty. In contrast, imagine yourself as a tree. A tree, as it's growing, is not reaching for other trees trying to take their fruit. The tree realizes that in order for it to grow taller and stronger and to reach its maximum potential, it needs to focus first on its roots. Those roots are Water, nutrients, love, connection to others and the earth. And in the process of its growth, it's not— it's saying, I am proud of myself for being me and for being on this journey, and I'm enough. Thank you. Thank you. And just as a little backstory on what I— what it is that I am working on. So currently I am the CEO and founder of SheWorks. And SheWorks democratizes access to top mentors and investors for female entrepreneurs so that women can build and scale their companies. Currently only 3% of funding goes to companies with a female CEO. Only 17% goes to a company with any female founder on the executive team. The investor landscape is 94% male. And we want to make sure that women get access to that. And it's not a female problem. It's something that we all need to work on. Because if we get to economic gender parity, we'll add over $50 trillion in GDP. That's right. to our national economy. Yeah. And so we have SheWorks events that are happening in 7 cities affecting over 20,000 female entrepreneurs. We're in New York, SF, London, Tel Aviv, Singapore, Toronto. And we have events now that are happening in San Francisco. So our events are led by 50% male mentors, 50% female mentors. And you can learn from everyone. And one of the things, especially I think if you guys are following the news, you're seeing a lot of things that are coming out about sexual harassment in startups, bias in startups. And one of the things that we talk about is often it's not about the big egregious stories we hear in the news. It's about the small paper cuts that happen every day. That's being brushed off, being assumed to be an assistant. Because I remember when I came to San Francisco for the first time and I was raising my seed round for my first company, I walked into the room with my 35-year-old white male COO, and I was the CEO, and the investor walked straight over to him, shakes his hand, and brushes me off as the assistant. And so these are the little things that happen to us every day. And all I ask Yes. Is in this talk about enoughness, I think what it comes down to is that we, no matter who we are, we all have certain struggles that we go through. And they might look different for each person, and these insidious paper cuts might look different for every person. But simply asking someone and validating them about their experience and saying, I'm here for you, And I will speak up for you, goes a long way. So if you want to follow any of my work, I'm at lisawang.co or sheworks.com. I'm on Twitter and Instagram as Lisa Works. And I am launching a podcast called Enoughness that will be coming out in about a month where I interview people of all genders and races and ages and industries, leaders that you might think have, have their shit together and feel like they're good enough. But what you'll hear is not the stories that we hear in the news every day about how successful these people are. You'll hear about their internal struggles as well with enoughness. That's it. Welcome.
