More Than Your Business Card - Lead, Thrive, and Love Every Stage of Your Life

Thanks for joining me on Seasoned Women Serious

Business - Wise enough to want more.

Before we dive in to the content and the heart of this program, I wanted to take

a moment first to establish who this program was created for, when I named the

show, Seasoned Women, Serious Business.

because if it isn't for Where you should be, although you may find us all highly

entertaining, and I guarantee you there are applicable life lessons to be learned

from all of my guests and all of the episodes; I want you to know for sure.

That this program was designed for you if you are a woman entrepreneur,

you are in the age range of 45 ish to 75 ish and beyond.

It does not mean that you are excluded if you are younger.

Nor does it mean that you are excluded if you do not identify as female,

because again, the lessons, the wisdom, the lifetime experience, the incredible

collective wisdom that will be presented on this program will help anybody.

The demographics of this group, generally speaking, is that if you're in the 45

to 54 year old bracket, you may still be balancing your family responsibilities

changing dynamics with your own physical health, maybe some changing relationship

issues, and really on the first part of the curve that we're talking to.

And if you're in the mid tier of our audience, you're probably 55 ish to 64.

And this is the time when you are starting to really think about legacy and

succession planning and your priorities may be shifting from accomplishments, task

oriented, to more personal fulfillment.

If you're in the top tier of age of this audience, generally speaking,

65 years plus, then your focus is a little different in that

you're in that curiosity phase of, "Hmm, what might I do next?"

"Hmm, what have I put off that I may now have time for?"

And you're very, very decisive, about what you don't want to do anymore.

Predominantly, this program will be based on evidence and experience

in North America and Europe, because, that's my larger life

experience and my larger network.

However, I am delighted to say, each and every year, and this is very purposeful

on my part, I expand my network.

I very consciously have expanded and curated my network over the past five

years to include more seasoned women and entrepreneurs on other continents

and other cultures, and really adding to the richness of the diversity

of the collective wisdom of my life experience, my own resources, but also

to bring that to you on this program.

The stats say that generally most women owned businesses are in the professional

services area, retail, e commerce, big growth in that area, health and wellness,

creative, education and coaching.

But hold on, I'm going to be bringing to you Many guests who are outside

of that traditional statistic group of business type and category.

And how great will it be to invite conversation with women who have

grown businesses in the exceptional or traditionally non female sectors.

I had an industrial chemical business long before it was, evident that other

women were there that I could network with and I could grow with in the industry.

Also, our audience is likely to be categorized as small and medium sized

businesses, small and medium sized enterprises, or SMEs, generally the

annual revenue of our audience and the clients I work range from half a

million to five and ten million dollars.

The interesting thing is that, the bigger the business, same problems.

They just tend to grow proportionately to the size of the business.

And sometimes there's an inverse rule in effect.

Also, statistically speaking, our audience in North America, the majority

have been in business for over 10 years and I certainly can relate to this,

have experienced various market cycles.

We have a wealth of practical experience from hands on.

We're going to talk about how those cycles affect our appetite for continuing to

stay in business and how it's helped me and others change and transform our

business and our roles in our business.

Who is the seasoned woman we're talking about?

Who is she?

I think if you're here listening to the program, she's you.

The thing that I have noticed that seems to be consistent that runs

through the veins of the seasoned women that I know is an unquenchable

desire for knowledge and learning, an irrepressible curiosity a great

humbleness in terms of being of service, but yet passion and drive to do things

well and to really make a difference.

Pretty much uniformly, all of you are very strongly motivated to be

financially autonomous, so that you are paying your own ticket.

You are not dependent on anybody else.

And most of you are also providing the bread ticket for many other

people, whether it's staff, family members, or contractors.

We also tend to be generalists in our business because our

businesses are small to medium size.

it means that we do a great deal of most things, which leads us to feel overwhelmed

often by business demands and not enough time in the day to get enough done.

Consistently, the conversations are about, Oh my God,

technology, I can't live with it.

I can't live without it.

And it is always changing.

That combined with the changes, the ebbs and flows of market and competition

really keeps us on our toes All the time.

And so it's a sense of never feeling really solid, but always, needing

to be nimble, and not ever having a chance to go, let me take a few weeks

off and just contemplate my navel.

Of course, also, we share that most of us are balancing our business

responsibilities with our personal health and our family needs.

and not necessarily in that order.

Generally, what's coming first is either the business or other people's

needs, and we leave ourselves to last.

And I'm happy to say that as we come together and we talk about this, more and

more of us are recognizing that is not sustainable and we're becoming more aware

of opportunities to put ourselves first, recognizing the value in doing that.

Unfortunately we all have this t shirt, and that is concerns about financial

security, and planning for our futures.

And so talking about that, and certainly, the model of a few decades

ago of "We'll just work hard for a few decades and put away some money, and

then we retire, and there's no worries."

Well, that went out the fucking window, didn't it?, with repeated

attacks on the world economy and, other events that rocked our boats.

I also feel that, our priorities, mirror each other.

This is why we are here.

We recognize that we now want more.

We've done probably decades of really putting everything all in to

building our business and raising our families and supporting, our

extended families in our communities.

One day, all of us started waking up from this exhaustion and going, wait a second.

Is this all there is, Alfie?

When is it my turn?

I'm really not feeling fulfilled with what I'm doing right now.

And I have a longing inside me to figure out what I want and how to get to that.

I feel the other uniform condition is this challenge of having clarity

and making time, to come up with a solid vision for what we want our

future to be, or at least the next phase of our lives and our businesses.

We've been homogenized as seasoned women with our businesses, haven't we?

When we think about, I want more and what does that more include?

It must always include personal well being and reducing stress and certainly

having a lot more fun because oftentimes we had to sacrifice that while we

were chief cook and bottle washer.

Not only do we have our business and our family life, but we also tend

to be very involved in community and philanthropy and helping other

professional or charitable organizations.

Pretty much consistently, I feel that we share a desire to travel more.

have more rich cultural experiences.

I'm pretty sure the majority of us would say, I wish I had more time

to read, to call up friends that I haven't talked to for a long time,

to just reflect quietly and meditate.

You're not alone, and we're all working at getting better at that.

The other very cool thing about us, gals, is that, oh my god, can you

imagine what our life would have been if we had not embraced technology?

And that even thinking back to when we were in high school, life

did not include the computer in our hand or a purse or a pocket.

In the past three years.

there's been a lot of change and transition in my life, as, I divorced.

I stopped and started some businesses.

I coached some very diverse client businesses, traveled quite extensively,

globally and met and became friends with other seasoned, women and business owners.

I got to think more about what was important to me and really

what I wasn't going to tolerate anymore and what I wanted to pursue.

Five years ago, I published my first book, about this evolution

as a woman, figuring out after reinvention, after reinvention, after

reinvention in my life, who I am now.

In fact, that's the title of the book, "Who Am I Now?

Feminine Wisdom.

Unmasked, Uncensored".

At the time of that publication on my 65th birthday, I thought, well,

that was, pretty comprehensive and pretty conclusive work.

But five years later, I am wiser, and I know a great deal more, and I've

experienced a great deal more in terms of loving me more for who I am at this

age and stage of my life and recognizing that rather than retracting and slowing

down or stepping back, I feel very motivated, very inspired to expand and

to grow in different and greater ways.

I am thrilled to say I'm not alone!

What I am discovering there is a wave effect that happens, with

women entrepreneurs in their 50s where they go, "okay, if I can just

make it to this date, that's it!

Sister, I am selling this business, closing it up, walking away, letting

other people run it, whatever."

And thinking that will be a satisfactory milestone.

And then there are so many of us that rode that wave and came out the

other side, me included, because I sold my largest business in my late

50s thinking Hallelujah, Easy Street.

Life of Leisure Time, Here I Come!

Turns out that was way less satisfying than my imagination.

In fact I've found that now m My big adventure of every day is

recognizing there is no playbook.

This me never existed before, and this way of living as a woman who

is approaching 70 now has a vision for the next decade of my life.

I would never have guessed that 20 years ago that I would want to be starting

more businesses and expanding and.

podcasting and youtubing and writing more books, etc.

All of this and more was the catalyst for creating this new

podcast specific to seasoned women.

with entrepreneurial experience and ambition that also have realized what

I have, that thinking that, well, it's, it's over, it's done, the parade will

be leaving town and then we can just relax and chill, would be satisfying

enough, would be enough, for us.

It's not true.

That is definitely a fallacy.

even if you say, well, it's okay, I have a lot of hobbies.

Fine.

As long as you recognize that you cannot be who you are, without being mentally

stimulated, purposely stimulated, feeling like you have value, which

was my great awareness when I sold my business, I realized that I was having

an identity crisis and I did not know really who I was, what my value was

anymore, who would value me and why they would value me, when I didn't

have a purpose every day to go after.

I am gathering a community of women who are in, or have been, in each of those

stages of awareness as a seasoned woman, and we'll have conversations with you,

for you, about our experiences and what we learned through each of those experiments,

if you will, some successful and some not.

The good news is that for some of that you can learn from us and not

have to, or at least shorten your own journey there, or perhaps Which is

even more exciting, to think you will learn and be inspired in a way that

you have not yet even contemplated.

So, as you can see, the opportunities for topics are limitless.

And I'm pretty sure that we will never run out of wisdom to share, or

laughter or ideas to invoke or provoke.

And some days, maybe there will be tears and some days there will be, irreverence

and profanity, but what I can tell you is that every single day, it will be

generously from the hearts of the women who come on this program to share and, to

collaborate and lift as we climb together.

So I do hope you will join me and stay with us as we build this community.