The list of powerhouse speakers at Emerging Women Live just keeps growing! This week we are thrilled to announce Sera Beak will be joining us in Denver, October 5-8th. We can’t wait to see what hot new truths she brings to this year’s event.
Sera is a Harvard-trained scholar of comparative world religions who spent years traveling the world studying spirituality with Sufi dervishes, Tibetan monks, Croatian mystics, shamans, and more. She’s given tender and wise keynotes (including In All Fears and Trembling Boldness) at past Emerging Women Live conferences. Here’s a tidbit:
“Our soul’s voice reveals our deepest wisdom and our deepest wounds, which is why unleashing our soul’s voice is often our deepest desire and our deepest fear. We ache to be self-expressed, to be authentic, to totally let ‘er rip and yet we are terrified of being that vulnerable, that raw, that real. So we edit, shape or even shut up our unique soul’s voice in order to be accepted, successful, and even loved. But deep down in our bellies, where our power burns the brightest, we know we cannot be of service, we cannot be free, we cannot truly come alive if we aren’t sharing the truth of who we are.” – Sera Beak
Amen, sister! And have you heard her Emerging Women podcast Red Hot and Holy? She vulnerably speaks to the double-edged sword many of us have faced while trying to make an impact:
“I know for me, in my own experience, it’s been through delivering my truth to the world that I have most often lost my soul. That’s the kind of crazy paradox, that it’s been through trying to actually serve other women and serve the diving feminine in this modern day that… I thought I’d been in contact with my soul, but the reality was there was actually some part of my own spiritualized ego kicking in, or there were other aspects of me that were really more at play than my own soul.” – Sera Beak
Sera will lead us in creating a more intimate and expressive relationship with the universe, in trusting our unique paths, in becoming our own spiritual authorities, and in creating some delicious, divine mischief along the way. A community Q&A/spot-coaching sesh with Sera will follow. Save your virtual seat now and receive a 30 day free trial to the Emerging Women Leadership Platform.
If there’s one thing I know to be true, it’s this: One of the bravest and most important things you can do to be successful in your business and hone your personal leadership style is to own your story, and share it with the world.
Dropping your armor and revealing who you are isn’t easy—but it’s necessary, especially if you are committed to living and leading in an authentic, powerful way.
Sharing our stories gives us the courage to dive headfirst into the truth of who we are, and to take ownership over our lives, our choices, and our unique purpose. More than anything, it lets us know that we are not alone. Our stories validate our core truth and connect us to other people in magical ways.
Sharing this truth sets the groundwork for personal and business relationships that are based in authenticity and acceptance. It ensures that we draw to us exactly the right friends, partners, mentors, team members, clients and customers. It helps us get to the heart of what we stand for and reconnects us to our intrinsic motivation.
As the founder of Women For One—an organization whose mission is to empower women from across the world to share most powerful, life-changing personal stories—I have enormous respect for people who choose to come out from behind closed doors and let other people see the world through their eyes.
In the last five years, I’ve worked with a global community of women who are courageously taking off their masks and baring their hearts and souls to the world. Along the way, I’ve picked up three essential tips for women leaders who wish to tell their story in the most authentic, powerful way possible. I’d love to share them with you.
1. Dive into your shame and secrets.
Most of us have secrets that we’d much rather take to our graves than disclose to anyone else. For close to three decades, I kept one of the biggest secrets of my life: at the age of five, I was sexually abused by my father. It was such a devastating experience that I buried the memory until my early 30s.
Saving face and hiding an experience you’re ashamed of can help you feel safe and in control (at least for a little while), but by doing this, you end up losing more of who you are. You become disconnected from your truth. In fact, when you hide the parts of yourself that are too difficult to face, you also end up hiding the parts of you that are meant to shine brightly.
More often than not, the things we’ve hidden away out of shame or fear hold the keys to our freedom. Counteracting shame doesn’t necessarily mean that you throw all caution to the wind and give other people the nitty-gritty details of your life, however.
All the same, the most powerful leaders are transparent about the experiences that shaped them, and they use these stories to illustrate their success and share the specifics of their breakthroughs with others. By being brave enough to go “where angels fear to tread,” and to drag our shadows into the light, we give ourselves and other people permission to do the same—and to heal in the process.
2. Be YOU.
The best way to share your story isn’t to cover it up with impersonal details or spreadsheets full of statistics that will drive home your point. The greatest gift you can give to your peers and the people your serve is your realness.
When you are open, honest, and vulnerable, you have the power to truly touch others.
Your vulnerability cannot be underestimated in its ability to inspire and mobilize people, move hearts, and change minds. When we offer others a genuine glimpse into how something in our lives affected us, we give them an experience that every single one of us craves: connection with the raw truth of another human being.
Think of the leaders who have deeply touched you. It’s more than likely that they are self-aware and genuine—that they are just as knowledgeable about their limitations as they are of their strengths. They are also consistent, meaning that they don’t put on a mask for the public and act differently in private. They embrace their mistakes as part of their wholeness. More often than not, they are willing to share themselves unabashedly, without covering up the details or glossing over them with the paintbrush of perfection.
“Perfect” is boring. But you in all your real, raw, messy, human glory? That’s the leader people are yearning to see.
3. Remember that we’re all connected.
Above all else, there’s one big reason you’re telling your story. Our stories serve to remind us of one essential truth: we are all connected.
In sharing your story, think of the people who have gone through the same thing and will be affected by your account. Also stop to consider those who have little to no context for what you’ve been through, but who are still capable of being touched and changed by it.
When we share our specific personal stories with other people, we assist in revealing the beautiful diversity of the human experience. We contribute to the gorgeous, intricate tapestry of history (and herstory!). And as leaders, we do one of the most important things we possibly can—we create and facilitate more connection, dialogue and community from our simple but profound act of self-disclosure.
If you’re ready to dive into the next chapter of your life and to share your story, you might be interested in Women For One’s debut course, Truthteller: A 5-Week Course for Boldly Sharing Your Story. By the end of the course, you will have a brand-new take on the stories that have defined you—and you will be ready to embrace your wholeness, harness your unique voice and leadership style, and show up in your own life in a way that is authentically you. Learn more about Women For One and the Truthteller course HERE.
“Find out who you are and be that person. That’s what your soul was put on this Earth to be. Find that truth, live that truth and everything else will come.” ~ Ellen DeGeneres
This week in Juicy Bites, we hear from:
Gloria Steinem, mother of feminist activism
Layla Shaikley, Muslim hipster
Yoko Ono, pioneering conceptual artist
Debbie Sterling, engineer and founder of GoldieBlox
Maysoon Zayid, comedian, actress and advocate
At the end of this post, we encourage you to join us for a conversation. This week’s Juicy Bites question for you, dear emerging women, is:
Gloria Steinem’s 80th birthday made for such a beautiful week of stories about feminism online. Watch Gloria talk about the beginnings of the movement and the momentum that led to her life of activism in this inspiring MAKERS profile video.
“In my heart I think the only alternative to being a feminist is being a masochist.” – Gloria Steinem
2. The Surprising Lessons of the ‘Muslim Hipsters’ Backlash via The Atlantic
Have you seen the #Mipsterz viral video yet? MIT Media Lab alumna Layla Shaikley made the music video to express her own experience as a young Muslim American. It’s awesome. And so is Layla’s reflective and insightful response to the mixed reactions the video received from the Muslim American community.
“I made a music video to share my own story as a Muslim woman in America. In doing so, I was expected to share every other Muslim woman’s story, too.” – Layla Shaikley
3. Yoko Ono show at Guggenheim shines light on pioneering conceptual artist via The Guardian
Yoko Ono is a woman who has never let public opinion steer her away from her personal truth. The artist, peace activist, and musician is unapologetically herself as she explores and experiments through her visionary work. Read this article for a vivid picture of Yoko’s charm, mystery, and mission.
“Most people didn’t want to know and I wasn’t about to explain about it. My art was different from what was considered as art. My idea was that maybe one day 50 years later or 100 years later people might discover it.” – Yoko Ono
4. GoldieBlox’s Debbie Sterling on Changing Gender Stereotypes and Taking Big Risks via Fast Company
When Debbie Sterling told her mother she wanted to study engineering, her mother said, “Ew.” Since then, Debbie has not only become a successful engineer, she has made it her mission to tackle the gender gap in science, technology, engineering and math. Have you seen the awesome Beastie Boys “Girls” parody video that went viral last year? That’s her, living her truth.
“We get fired up about these incredibly audacious goals, and what’s surprising is you can actually hit them. When you hit a goal like that, this whole thing becomes all the more believable, that what we’re doing is going to work.” – Debbie Sterling
5. A Gorgeous Woman Shakes Her Body On Stage… And The Crowd Goes Wild via Upworthy
Where has this woman been all our lives? We’d describe how Maysoon Zayid, disabled Arab-American comedian, is living the truth of who she is, but she does it so much better herself in this TED Talk. Watch it now!
“If a wheelchair user can’t play Beyoncé, then Beyoncé can’t play a wheelchair user.” – Maysoon Zayid
Tell us who inspires you so that they can inspire the tribe, too! Join in the conversation with a comment below:
Like what you’re hearing? Dive deeper with us this October at Emerging Women Live 2014. Special discounts when you register before July 31st.
Chelsea Brookshire
Executive Assistant and Relationships Manager
Chelsea has over 15 years of experience in administrative and executive support. After her years of working in the legal and oil and gas industry, Chelsea has made it her passion to fill her life with creativity and incorporates that into everything she does. Her position at Emerging Women allows her to expand on that creativity and assist with empowering women around the world. She is a native of Colorado and enjoys spending time with her husband, her son, bonus son, family, and friends. In her free time she loves camping, painting, and all things creative.
Michelle Caggiano
Online Business Manager
Michelle studied Marketing and received her degree from Metropolitan State University of Denver. Her passion for marketing, combined with great attention to detail, and over 7 years of experience in the tech-world makes her a valuable asset to the team! In addition to Emerging Women, she is also a solopreneur and works with a number of different clients in the online business realm. She is an experienced Online Business Manager and Virtual Assistant who specializes in marketing operations, project management and online course launch management. She is a Colorado native, mother of two dogs, a cat, and a turtle, and step-mother to an amazing little girl. In her spare time she enjoys live music, good food, traveling, and spending time with her friends and family.
Jen Jefferson
Power Circle Administrator
Jen comes to Emerging Women with over 25 years of experience in event operations and volunteer management. She has worked various types of events as a Volunteer Manager for Integral Life conferences and as an Event Coordinator for various large arts and sports festivals throughout Colorado. Alongside her passion for creating and producing events, she worked as a hospital administrator for over a decade in one of Denver’s largest hospitals helping make care affordable to hundreds of patients. Jen was born in Lima, Peru but has spent most of her life in Colorado. In 2016, a year sabbatical morphed into a life living abroad. Jen has been living in Cusco, Peru for the past four years and cherishes her life in the Andes mountains. In her spare time she enjoys exploring the world, playing capoeira, and deepening her yoga and meditation practices.
Nicole Fegley
Director of Power Circles
For over 13 years, Nicole has been a producer and connector in the field of personal and professional growth and transformation, creating diverse content, life-changing curriculum, and exquisite live and online experiences. She loves to unite and facilitate people in their work to live more good, true, and beautiful lives. She’s honored to bring this diverse expertise to Emerging Women. For the past two years she has been the lead producer for Emerging Women Live, and now is bringing her extensive production, coaching and facilitation skills to EW’s Power Circles. Nicole works in private practice as a Certified Integral Master Coach™, through her company, Unabashedly You, and has worked with hundreds of women (and men) individually and as a group facilitator. She also creates programs and interviews fascinating teachers and wellness experts in her role as U.S. Content Producer for Conscious Life. She is the co-founder of Core Integral, an educational company offering a comprehensive and accessible approach to learning integral theory. Prior to this work, she owned a large and lively restaurant and brewery in Pennsylvania. She has studied extensively and worked alongside Ken Wilber (Integral Theory), Daniel Brown, PhD (Tibetan Buddhism, Self-Development, Attachment, and Positive Psychology), and Sofia Diaz (Hatha Yoga and Feminine Embodiment). She holds a Masters Degree from Lehigh University. She regularly delights in the sunshine and mountains of Colorado with her two dogs and her partner Clint, and is a new mama to her daughter Truly Golden.
Chantal Pierrat
Founder & CEO
Chantal’s mission is to increase women’s leadership across the globe. After earning an MBA from the University of Colorado, Chantal left a career in medical device manufacturing in search of work that would align her dedication to transformative leadership with her passion for living an inspired, impactful life. In September 2012, she founded Emerging Women, a global leadership and media platform that serves over 70,000 women worldwide and has advanced women’s leadership within Fortune 500 companies such as HP, Oracle and more. Chantal’s ultimate vision is to weave feminine leadership and authenticity into businesses, and to create a world where women have a strong voice in the shaping of our future. Prior to Emerging Women, for over a decade, Chantal served on the executive team as the VP of Sales and Marketing for Sounds True, a multimedia publishing company focused on spirituality, personal growth, and holistic living. Chantal is a sought after speaker delivering keynotes at The Grace Hopper Celebration, Wisdom 2.0, and many other stages where women’s leadership is critical to the conversation. When she is not dancing or working to empower women around the world, Chantal enjoys family time with her husband and two sons in Boulder, CO.
