The Female Thought Leadership Movement: It’s starting, and I want you here with me

Pre-COVID my life was always on the move. Speaking in different states, running workshops, training, working book events, consulting and more.

With all due respect for anyone who has suffered with COVID or had a family member/friend who has, I actually think of COVID as a blessing. It made me pause and, as Michael Gerber says in The E-Myth, it made me determine a better way to live.

I’ve spent the last year significantly changing many priorities in my life. I reflected on what kind of impact I have already made and, going forward, what kind of impact I want to make. This led me back to why I got into speaking in the first place.

I wanted to be the female speaker I never had.

In four years of university, I never once had a female speaker come to my campus. I just wanted to get my voice out there and represent the woman who I wish I had as a speaker when I was in college, so I started doing speaking events free of charge. And then I realized, “Wow, you CAN get paid to speak!” But I wouldn’t have known because no one told me that speaking could be your career, much less one where you can earn a living.

I loved speaking, and I built my reputation and business around it. At my peak, I was doing 70 events a year. I was doing both college and corporate speaking. When COVID hit, I transitioned my whole business to be accessible virtually. Since March 2020, I’ve been doing virtual speaking events, workshops, training and, at the beginning of 2021, we launched the UNprofessional podcast.

We’re about a year and a half away from the start of COVID. Here’s how it went for me:

• I built the platform.
• I have the book.
• I have the brand.
• I get paid to speak.
• I have an agency.
• I have products, a speaker profile, pricing modules and consulting.
• I have a podcast.

I have not held back. I got what I wanted by being bold and stepping out of my comfort zone. But what if other women could have this too?