Promise Phelon Blows Up the Stage at Power Night Boulder

Do you perform and pretend? Promise Phelon does, and raises millions while she’s at it.

The instantly engaging CEO of Boulder’s TapInfluence rocked the crowd of over 200 entrepreneurs, executives and creatives at June’s Power Night Boulder. And though there’s nothing quite as electric as feeling the feminine power flow from the stage in person, we hope you enjoy EW’s recap of her magnetic performance:

Promise2Promise Phelon gets real the second she steps on stage.

“There are a lot of things that you can learn about me on Google,” she says. “Lots of billions and millions being thrown around. But what Google won’t tell you is that I’ve pretended and performed my whole life to get here.”

For 7 years, Promise Phelon thought of herself as a stutterer. She avoided speaking in public and hid herself and her feelings because of feelings of inadequacy. Her whole perspective changed when a teacher told her, “You are not a stutterer, you stutter. Pretend through the fear. Start getting over it. Don’t make it pathological.”

This advice changed her life, but it didn’t evaporate her fear. “When I wake up,” Promise says, “the first thing I think is How’s my hair? and the second is Will I stutter today?” But visioning allows her the confidence to get over it. If you can visualize the outcomes, it’s easy to act because the scary stuff has already happened and it turned out okay.

While working toward her 3 degrees at Southern Methodist University, Promise was fascinated by the sorority girls she passed on campus. They smiled and bounced when they walked, they waterskied on weekends,  they partied and networked. They had BMWs and pearl earrings, and Promise had a Ford Escort so crappy that she abandoned it on the side of the road when it broke down. But she wanted to know what it was like. She wanted to be elite. So she became the first African American in that all-white sorority.

She had to pretend to be a part of something she wasn’t because she wanted the opportunities that they had. She needed proximity to the people who were going to influence her growth and success.

“We’re all guilty of micro-analyzing too little info, and extrapolating too much from it,” Promise says.

When she first began pitching to raise $5 million, she was met with a wall of no’s. And after each rejection, she would “Molly Ringwald” – Promise’s term for crying in the parking lot of her husband’s work about how terribly everything was going. Her husband asked her, “How many meetings can you have if after each one you have a breakdown? What if you didn’t analyze every meeting, you didn’t decide it was about you, and you just went meeting to meeting to meeting. Would that make it faster to raise the money?”

400 meetings later, Promise had raised $5.9 million.

“Start pretending into the communities that you feel that you’re not allowed,” Promise says. “It is time to get out of criticizing ourselves and each other. It’s time to stop overanalyzing situations. It’s time to WIN.”

*MIC DROP*

Want to experience the real thing for yourself? Join Promise Phelon and the whole Inner Circle at Emerging Women Live 2015, featuring Jane Goodall, Brené Brown, Elizabeth Gilbert, Tererai Trent and more.

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Why We Leap – #EmergingNow

Dear Friends,

With just under two weeks to go before our national event in New York, you can imagine how busy and excited we are. Of course there are a lot of details and loose ends to tie up, but what is really taking up most of my attention is the inner landscape of how it feels to take big leaps and reach for the stars.

“Is there anything better than leaping?” Eve Ensler asked at EW Live 2013 last year. Well, honestly, sitting home under a cozy blanket with 5 episodes of Game of Thrones ahead of me sounds mighty fine right about now.

And yet I choose to leap. Why? Because this is where my emergence is taking me, and I am allowing myself to be led, no matter how much it pushes me against what I perceive to be my edge.

And I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I have learned to trust in my unfoldment, that everything happening is for my expansion. I have learned to really lean on the people around me, instead of putting the pressure on myself to have it together all the time. I have learned to ask for help. I have realized that none of the spiritual principles we learn about can actually exist until we experience them in the body – that they are mere concepts until we live them.

Trust, authenticity, vulnerability, the body. Sound familiar? These big leaps I am taking are allowing me – forcing me, really – to rely on my feminine powers. And now I know more than ever how powerful these principles really are.

Most significantly during this process I have come to realize that Emerging Women is not just a business or an event. We are a network of extremely powerful women that can move mountains. This is truly a movement. A movement of self-actualizing ourselves on an individual level, but also as a collective.

One woman who has been instrumental in sending me and supporting me on my path as Emerging Women’s founder is Tami Simon. Her ability to love and listen to the people she comes in contact with, coupled with her belief that we are always, always emerging, every moment, makes her a wise mentor who is tremendously sympathetic to the fears that come along with leaping. Be sure to listen to our Grace&Fire podcast “Emerging into Being” to hear her advice for making the most of our eternal growth and evolution.

We can’t wait to feel the out-of-this-world energy as we come into being together in NYC – I am so grateful for the opportunity to dive into my bravest self while surrounded by many amazing and inspiring women. Thank you, and see you in two weeks!

Big love,

Chantal Pierrat

Founder, Emerging Women

 Listen: Emerging into Being with Tami Simon

Watch: Beautiful Videos from Our Connect4Change Contest Winners

Impact and Inspiration from the Women We Love

Emerging Entrepreneurs – #EmergingNow

Dear Friends,

So many of us have felt the call to create new ways forward in this world, ways that support the depth of who we are as conscious women. At work, at home, we want to feel that we are using our energy and resources in a way that creates meaningful success, not only for ourselves but for as many others as possible.

Entrepreneurship is proving itself to be a fantastic way to tailor careers authentic to our individual passions, skills and values. How many of you have chosen this path? It takes a huge amount of courage to set off into uncharted territory – there’s no shortage of fears to be faced as an entrepreneur – but the rewards, both spiritually and financially, have the potential to be more than we could have ever envisioned. Continue reading “Emerging Entrepreneurs – #EmergingNow”