Women in Collective: Redefining Networking

Now in business for more than 20 years , I’ve lost count of how many early mornings and evenings I’ve spent in the presence of other women in business.

Over those many years, I’ve also had the opportunity to speak to many groups of women (professional groups, corporate groups, personal growth conferences, wellness conferences, etc.) and engage with them, post presentation.

I’ve belonged to a wide range of women’s groups, originally local in nature and then eventually, with the advent of technology, ‘virtual’ in  their reach.

I’m not who I used to be and, truth is, I’m grateful for that.  Along the way, I’ve discovered, evolved and become much more an expression of what is meaningful to me rather than seek to be what is  familiar to or comfortable for another.

I’ve changed my mind about what I hold as meaningful about this notion of ‘networking’.  Call it experience, wisdom or the simple passage of time, I know that my world is mine to create as I see fit.  The outcome of this shift in my own perspective now translates to a different set of perceptual filters in place when I consider what calls to me to engage.  I share these with you that you might reconsider the possibilities for yourself.  Here are five simple thoughts I keep in mind when making the meaningful choices for myself, around networking.

* Go to give –  not to get.  The ‘getting’ will happen all by itself.

Rather than playing the ‘business card shuffle’ or looking outside myself for the next client or the next sale, I focus on looking inside myself and ask:  what can I bring to the party?  When I look back at the end of the evening, how will my having been there make a difference in the world that I care about?

* Go to listen – not to talk.

In hearing others, I come to discover more of myself.   What better way to discover my personal biases, limitations, judgements or filters, than to expose myself to all that moves inside ME, in the presence of others.  As I listen and engage, I stay mindful of what’s happening inside of ME rather than detach from myself and seek to consider how I am being perceived/evaluated/judged by others:  ”Do I look good?  Am I doing it right?  Are they impressed with me?  Do I stand out as a cut-above my competition? “

* It’s not a numbers game.

How many groups I sign up for is not a measure of my ability to be successful at my job/business/life.  I am selective about where I want to spend my precious time.  I talk to people who already attend; look back over their events list and then, I look around and ask:  Is this who I want to become?  Does this collective represent that which I aspire to express in my world?  Not good/bad, right/wrong… just a deeply personal and relevant enquiry.  Then, I choose and engage.

* Listen for those who are searching.

I don’t need to have the answers – I just need to be willing to stay in the discomfort of the questions, as those around me slowly (and often, cautiously) reveal the places where their challenges lie.  For most of us, we know we’re capable – we just don’t always want to have to go it alone.

*  If I’m not eager to be there, don’t go!

I don’t sign up until I’ve been on the floor a couple of times for the dance.  There’s nothing worse than being part of a group because I think it’s the ‘right’ thing to do; or because I’ve already paid and ‘want my money’s worth’.  If I’m not looking forward to each opportunity to engage, I’m in the wrong place.   I walk away when it does not call to me , no matter how many others are going there.  I seek to be myself, and choose accordingly.

I no longer go to ‘network’ – I go to enrich my life; to be in the good company of other women who share a passion for the underlying values of ‘being’, recognizing  work/business as a natural conduit for its expression.  I seek to engage with others in discovering just how good our lives can be.  In that shared exploration, I get to meet and spend time with so many different women, each of whom contributes greatly to my own evolution – as a person, as an entrepreneur and as a woman.  From that natural order of connection and rapport, all else falls into place.

For myself, I discovered the Company of Women (Ottawa Chapter) three years ago and have slowly inched my way into engaging regularly and meaningfully with this growing collective.  I know the power of women in collective – I’ve been working with women for more than 20 years.  And beyond that, I am coming to know – personally, viscerally and unapologetically – the power of women in a non-competitive business collective; creating a low-to-the-ground web of interconnecting points of light, recognizing that when the web vibrates, we all awaken to the ‘more’ of us that awaits!

I eagerly anticipate the next opportunity to connect!  And when I get into my car and head out to a dinner or a breakfast meeting, I look forward to being there… and when I arrive, I quickly recognize in the faces of others,  so are they.  In that moment, I know I’ve chosen well.

Women and Business

I’ve noticed that my interests are all over the map!  It is less knowing what moves me and more about discovering ‘what else’ might move me, into action or the desire to engage in some way.

Recently, Anne Day, Founder of the Company of Women, posted her opening remarks in the latest Newsletter… which led me to discover something about myself, as a business person.  I then shared these thoughts with some of the business women with whom I engage, which prompted further exploration from Sheila Winter Wallace of BodyGateways.  These thoughts and expressions of intention feel important to me, and so I share them with you.

If they touch something inside you, you may want to check out Sheila’s Facebook Group on ‘Entrepreneurial Women in Powerful Conversations‘ and join in.  With many voices and choices, we could offer a new perspective on an old way of doing things!

As always, your comments are welcome.

My comments:

Let me begin by noting that ‘business’ is a nominalization; a label that we put on something (and it may well be different for us all!) that becomes a short-hand expression intended to facilitate communication and intention.  In truth, that it is so, more often than not can lead to confusion and feelings of failure and inadequacy rather than the celebration of a life fully lived!  Women, in particular, know intuitively this truth.  Is it the size of my business that matters?  Or is it the magnitude of gratification that I experience that spells failure or success?

I started my business in 1990.  Over the last two decades, it has been the conduit for the quality of life that has fed me – body, mind and soul – as well as nurtured my now-adult children.  It has been my gateway to discover who I have been capable of becoming, while making a practical difference in my world and a contribution to the lives of the people I care about.

Over the last 20 years, I have watched it grow and expand.  Were I to identify more specifically how that growth took place, it would not be most accurately reflected in the ‘standard’ metrics of numbers (i.e. clients, dollars and cents, etc. ) but in a more elusive and difficult-to-calibrate  one of ‘metamorphosis’ – an essential yet often overlooked requirement of transformation of a business through the evolution of the ‘self’.

Banks and other outside lenders tend not to be ‘attuned’ to such metrics, often overlooking a committed, creative and ingenious business woman for one that is more ‘traditional’ (i.e. numbers) in her considerations/measures of her world.  That is not to say that numbers are irrelevant – and it is to say that they are not the only testament to one’s creative presence; and its impact/expression in the world.

In my experience for the last 20+ years, I have become mindful that I do not seek to create a monolithic structure that towers over all around it and emanates from the core.  My own evolution has resulted in the desire to ‘grow’ through the creation of a web of interconnected ‘points of light’ (other business women) in a non-competitive business model, for impact.  This low-to-the-ground and accessible (i.e. anyone can be part of it) structure is inclusive and invitational, rather than exclusive with performance measurements to qualify for participation.  It is a mode that is both launched from and fed through dissemination of information/education both to and for the business women as well as their clients.  We do not hold our own needs as separate from those of our clients.

Perhaps women have been perceived to be ‘risk averse’ for very good reasons – most of which having nothing to do with traditional metrics.  In my experience of working with other business women, it is not that we do not want to succeed, or have an impact, or make a difference; or create an abundant and sustainable life – it is that we want that sustainable life to be meaningful; to weave easily into an overall quality of life; and to be a conduit for our own evolution and growth, ensuring that I am nurtured by my business process rather than creating one that feeds off my entrails.   And as far as I know, the banks and those who set the ‘standards’ for what constitutes a ‘successful’ business have not yet found the metrics to calibrate for ‘meaningful’.  Fortunately, women have and are carving out these paths, for themselves.

I look around me and I see women – both now and with the intention of – creating businesses that are a reflection of that which is authentically meaningful to them; and as such, are becoming conduits for social change.  Not that they set out to create that social change – it is simply a natural by-product of having created something that was true, to and for them.

Perhaps we would be well-served to trust ourselves outside the box of historical thinking about business and do it the way it feels right, to us.

Sheila’s thoughts:

Thanks for sharing this, Louise. I believe it says it all. For me, it has been a long time coming to and arriving at this place of meaning for and sustaining of mySelf; I am now realizing the impact of simply being mySelf and giving voice to what is meaningful and to what does sustain me… and I keep choosing to be in that place of realization. I keep arriving in every moment; it is a pretty sweet place to be.

Yes, in my holographic universe, my metrics, now, for ‘business’ are different… and they can only be measured by how I feel inside, in being fully me, living my life. Traditional metrics only serve me, now, as guide posts to better decisions that I choose to make for mySelf… not as the deal-makers/deal-breakers, in and of themselves, that used to be true in my world. The 24 months leading up to this new acceptance were undeniably chaotic for me… after 30 years of both conscious and unconscious modelling of parents who were self-employed and another 35 years of self-employment, mySelf.

I don’t know that the ‘banks and outside lenders’ of old will ever consider the new metrics of which you speak. It won’t matter. There will still be those who will, when the final financial fall is complete and if they are still alive, be running around looking for the old gauges by which to measure… ‘what’? Those old gauges and the ‘what’ will be gone,  permanently extinct.

Some of us, the world over, now, are waking up. Some of us, I believe, are realizing that there is a difference between rescue and assistance… the first insults, profiles and renders others as indistinct, unremarkable and incapable in the tyranny of not that… the latter respects, supports and potentiates others as remarkable, capable and unique. All we need to do is to look at the resulting evidence, the consequences, of our choices.

The monolith is a metaphor for the disconnect of ourselves (small ‘s’) from ourSelves (capital ‘S’) and our disassociation from each other. On the other hand, the low-to-the-ground, accessible web of interconnecting points of light is the metaphor for our undeniable connection of ourselves (small ‘s’) to ourSelves (captial ‘S’) and our distinctive associations to each other. In these natural associations, ‘competition’ knows no language, no vocabulary.

I guess my metric – and the only one that counts as the feed for me manifesting my life – is my own Self-trust; that is, ultimately, what determines the quality of my own life – by me, for me.

As we are now witnessing in Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan, there is a rising up of souls, coming together, in reclamation of their lives and personal dignity. In collective, these souls can each know personal autonomy and the Self-respect that evolves itself in that.

The weather pundits are speaking to another storm, this day and tomorrow, of potentially historical proportions. The weather is rising up. Gaia is rising up; I see it in her volcanic eruptions, her melting ice flows, her tsunamis, her earthquakes, her disappearing lands… her earth is rising up, her fire is rising up, her air is rising up, her water is rising up. Impact. I, too, AM rising up… in RIIG – respect, integrity, impact and generosity of spirit – as Ancient Space that Awakens and Provokes the Sacred. I have no more need or desire to hide from mySelf. Hiding breeds competition and disconnect. Visibility encourages connection; in that, eternally and internally, lives the question, ‘Who else?’

In that, all competition dissolves.

Such metrics know no equivalence, no calcualtion, in the language of traditional measurements. They can’t. Only I can measure the God Force that I AM… and, LOL, she is immeasurable.

Consider where YOU stand, as you engage your business in a meaningfully sustainable way.  What say you?

Breathing is good….

A Meaningfully Sustainable Life/World

It’s been an incredible few weeks.  Lots of ‘stuff’ going on; so much creativity and innovation; so many new ideas, projects, conversations, programs, experiences, etc. coming into expression, leaving me breathless with the potential revealed… ready and waiting for me to engage the next wave!  Does it get any better than this?

Last week, I spent two days in exploration with three other women, in a beautiful and enriching environment that fed body, mind and spirit.  I discovered words for what has been sitting inside me, for so long.

This past week-end, I spent my days with the women who have self-selected to be WEL-Systems Institute Affiliates, in what I know has been a powerful and profoundly accelerating conversation for us all.

I have always had new thoughts and ideas emerge from the tissue of my being.  Mine was never the challenge of not knowing how else to live – it was always more about the limitations of hours in a day to live that large!   In the last two weeks, I have found a higher-order platform from which to look out across my expanding and burgeoning life… and world.

Now, I know without a doubt, that I am here to create a meaningfully sustainable life.  Mine is not to create and grow a monolithic life (i.e. business, world, etc.) but one that is much closer to the ground… and far more accessible… as it weaves its way through my ever-expanding world.  Mine is to create a life/world whose very essence is growth; grounded in a living, organic and ever-changing wave of as-yet unmet potential, always beckoning to the ‘more’ that lies in wait.

My intention is to create… to BE the expression of this living creation… of a meaningfully sustainable life/world.

My direction is to weave and expand and interconnect… seeking to call to and awaken those other  Self-emanating STARS… those points of Light, both willing and able to reach out and touch,  willing to be touched… that we may create this living, organic web large enough.. and visible enough!… that others who choose to, may be able to engage.

My process follows the reliable stepping stones that lead me to that gateway… to mySelf; those same stepping stones that thousands have now followed, that they may return to themselves (the WEL-Systems® body of knowledge).

Recently, the Company of Women opened a line of discussion about:  Why are Women-Owned Companies Smaller than Men-Owned Companies?  Below, I share what I wrote.

Thank you for your work and for the opportunity to share my thoughts on this topic.

When I first read the presenting question, I actually heard it inside myself as : “Why don’t women build companies as big as the ones men build?” (all my own inner dialogue and translation, of course… And to that thought, my response was: why would I want to?

My business is now 20 years old… and expanding. Note that I did not say ‘growing’. I think of it this way: my interest is in having my ‘business’ be a reflection of what matters to me in my life. For that reason, I am seeking to create a meaningfully sustainable world – which happens to include my work; and in so doing, to create that world large enough to make it possible for others to step into it and engage with me.

For me, that requires creating a business that is non-monolythic in nature (which I believe men-owned… and many women-owned.. business are); and what I seek to create is more in alignment with a series of inter-connecting webs. As a result my business does not grow up and stand out.. it grows out and low to the ground (where so many others can participate in it) and yet, holds the potential to encompass the planet.

It also requires creating something that makes room for and recognizes that each of the points for interconnecting threads is in truth, what holds the web together. As strong as the threads may be, without those unique interconnecting points, they will not hold.

So… in short… size is in the eye of the beholder and is not always evident.

Meaningfully sustainable. Low-to-the-ground interconnecting webs that can encompass the planet; with lots of room for others to access and become part of, without losing their individuality.

Thanks! I appreciate the invitation to put words to my own life!

In this moment, it is as if my eyes have opened to a new world of my own choosing and design. More than ever,  I know that it is not about how or what others perceive, but my own perception.  It is not about my time, it’s about my life.  And it is indeed, about how I perceive my life and this simple question:  how good am I willing to have it???

There is so much more to come!  And as much as I know that the culling has begun, I also know that the future invites us to create the world we know as possible.  Not next week… next month… next year – but  now.

It is as simple as opening my eyes.  And no matter how much I care; no matter how much I have the desire to help and support and contribute, I cannot tell you how to open yours.  That you must do, by yourself and in your own time… AND it does not require that I keep mine shut until you do.

Breathing is good…

(Visit  Scorecards for related post.)

Money and Manifestation : Follow Up

After posting this, Noreen Mejias – a contributing author to Sekhmet Rising: The Restlessness of Women’s Genius and accomplished Financial Advisor – shared her thoughts on the Women Gathering Google Group .  

Take the time to read Noreen’s unique and profoundly enlivened way of engaging with others!  As you scroll down to the bottom of the posting, what emerges is access to an attachment that offers wise counsel in these turbulent economic times.   In what lies ahead, awakened consciousness and enlivened presence will be essential to creating the world of our own design. 

Enjoy!

Business is personal

I’ve recently been nominated for Businesswoman of the Year in the Entrepreneurial category, sponsored by the Women’s Business Network of Ottawa.  In addition to my appreciation for what I know is the honour of being nominated, I have also become very mindful of my own thoughts about what, exactly, my business is about.  

Many years ago, when I started the first company (Partners in Renewal Inc.) that eventually spawned the WEL-Systems Institute, I was keenly aware of my motivation to do so.  It was not about making money.  Nor was it about making my mark in the world.  It was about finding a way to change the way children are treated in the world.  

Long story – short version:  I discovered that one of my children had been abused at the babysitters.  Great turmoil in my life ensued as I went from child protection services to police reports to the discovery that not much was going to happen.  I sat stunned, telephone in hand, watching my very young son  playing on the floor in front of me, as a child protection services person (who two days earlier had interviewed my son and was very clear that he had been victimized) asked me to call and comfort the woman whose care my son had been in during this incident since ‘… she’s such a nice person and is very upset about all this”.  Stunned… shocked… sick… and filled with a wave of immense force that screamed NO in every cell in my being.

I hung up the phone and my body shook uncontrolably and violently as I wondered:  ”Just how dead are we?  Just how numbed out have we become?”  In that instant, I knew where my future lay.  I knew that child abuse was not a child’s problem , it was an adult’s problem.  I knew that far too many adults had become disconnected from themselves – from the truth of their own experience – and had now become able to disconnect from  (become deaf, dumb and blind to) the truth of the experience of others. 

I also knew I had to find a way for adults to hear and see what they tried so desperately to push out of their awareness; and they needed to have access to hearing it in a way that there would be no excuses for them to NOT hear and see, anymore.  The frontline for children is always their parents and, in particular, the mother.  If a mother cannot protect herself, she cannot keep her children safe. 

Fast forward to 2008 – and here I sit, a nominee for this award.  As I revisit the roots of the creation of not only my business but the entire body of knowledge of WEL-Systems that was birthed from this intensely committed, personally driven exploration of what it is to be human and how we engage with each other, there is great clarity about a number of things.

For all the reasons that I’ve shared so many times, in so many other places, I continue to be very clear that:

* Our children are the future.  No children – no future.  Broken children – broken future. If we, as the adults that run the lives of these children, do not find a way to come to terms with our own experience of being broken, we cannot and will not find a way to create a different experience for our children.  We can’t give what we haven’t got - and the wheels just keep turning ’round and ’round, recreating what we already have in ways that are moving faster, getting smaller and tighter and less able to support life! 

* Women are the key to a different future.  Not only because women are still the ones that give birth but because an Emerging Future is a body process that demands the same abilities as does pregnancy: complete surrender to and trust in the process of the body to lead. For this to become possible, the body must be clear of hidden, trapped and ‘undigested’ experiences.

I am also very clear that work is the one place where as adults, we will spend more time than anywhere else in our lives.  Work is the one experience/event that every single one of us is and will be encourged to engage, without question, as a demonstration not only of value and meaning in our lives, but as essential to our capacity to function in a living organic collective that we call ‘society’.  If we want to reach people; if we want to connect with the adults that are shaping our children… that are shaping our future; if we want to find a way to touch the lives of hundreds of millions of people, work is the channel.

My work – my business – is intended to be a conduit for the transformation of a people.  No longer can we continue to sit back and consider that it is enough that ‘work’ is about making things, selling stuff and generating wealth.  In my world, those values are archaic and dangerously arrogant in a world that is in serious decline.

In my world, business - all business! – must become a conduit for the growth and evolution of the people who are engaged in it.  This does not mean that business does not do as it has always done (offer something of value that shapes the world in some way), but that HOW business does this transforms in such a way that the invidual lives of the people in that business; the lives of the people who are touched by this business, are in some way transformed and become ‘more’ – not just bigger, faster and richer. 

I’m not against wealth and abundance – I’m for wealth and abundance at multiple levels of being.  Not just the physical where they can be measured by the bank account and how much stuff we have, but at levels of health and wellness; at levels of insight and awareness; at levels of awakened presence and connection to Self and other; and at levels of creation of a much larger, collective experience that allows a way of moving through the world that brings life and does not destroy it.

So, as an entrepreneurial woman, my intentions go far beyond the immediate (paying the bills and keeping the doors open on the Institute), far beyond the expansive (creating opportunitues for others to benefit from and expand in and from their experiences of what the business offers) and goes to a mindful awareness that not only CAN I make a difference in the larger collective, I already DO make a difference in that collective.  No matter which path I walk, I make a difference.  The question I choose to pay attention to is am I making the kind of difference that will MATTER in a world so desperately in need of something that does?

I know that I matter.  I also know that every other person who inhales and exhales, matters.  I also know that the vast majority of people in the world do not believe that of themselves.  As a generalization, most people don’t think they matter.  They believe that their presence is non-essential in the great scheme of things; and that they are, in many ways, pawns to be moved around by someone else on the great gameboard of life.  Not so in my world.

And so, as a nominee for BYA in the Entrepreneurial category, I am very clear what I’m here for:  to create a business that will not only bring value at the level of what it offers, it will also BE the channel through which much greater intentions are created and expressed.  I believe, with every ounce of my being, that business is the key to creating conduits for massive change.  And it needs to happen now!

Breathing is good….