Why International Women's Day Means SO MUCH to Me this Year as a Female Founder

Posted by Ali Powell on 3/8/19 10:37 AM

Why International Women's Day Means SO MUCH to Me this Year as a Female Founder

Posted by Ali Powell on 3/8/19 10:37 AM
Ali Powell
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What does International Women's Day mean to you? Whether you are a man or a woman I hope you take a few minutes today and think about the meaning of this day. 

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I hope you take a moment today and reflect on the strong, smart, powerful and amazing women in your life. I urge you to tell any woman in your life why you are proud of them. Tell any woman in your life why they are doing a great job. If you know a woman who runs a business or is building a business please reach out to them today and encourage them. It will mean the WORLD to them!

I woke up this morning and wanted to scream from the rooftops about how thankful I am for being a woman who felt empowered ENOUGH and brave ENOUGH to take a chance on myself and start a business. 

Not everyone does this and I am so proud of what I have done so far and where we are going.

I wanted to scream from the rooftops about how proud I am of all of the women in my life who impact me everyday in a positive way.

I wanted to yell out how happy I am to give women a job (side hustle) that they truly enjoy doing and makes them money. 

I want every woman and girl out there to know that they are ENOUGH and can do anything that they want to do.

I want to walk up to any woman I see today and hug them. Tell them that they are inspiring to so many people everyday. That they are doing great things in whatever they are doing and that is amazing.

I have always been a huge supporter of other women. I love supporting women. I love the feeling of community. I love bringing women together to connect with each other. I get a high off of that feeling of bringing smart, powerful women together to learn from each other and connect with each other.

That is the thing that stemmed my Women in Sales community and Slack channel that I built while working in software sales for 8 1/2 years. SIDE NOTE: If you are a woman working in sales in any kind of role or industry you can join our community of other women working in sales roles here. That was my first taste of what it was like to create something on my own. I created that community from an idea. That little idea has brought thousands of women in similar roles together to support each other, connect with each other and learn from each other. I am so thankful that an idea did that.

Here's the thing with ideas. We all have them.

Every person out there has ideas everyday that could become more than just an idea. Some women take those ideas and put fire on them and that fire builds businesses. For every woman who has ever taken an idea and thought they were ENOUGH to go ahead and just do it- thank you. You inspired me to take a chance on myself. Seeing women owned businesses around me inspires me to do more for myself. 

We all know the statistics. We all know there are less female founded businesses than male owned businesses. But, why? How can we change that. That is the part I care about. Not the why - that could take hours to explain. But here, here is how we change those statistics. I care about how we change that. 

We decide to empower women in our lives EVERY single day. Not just today. 

We make a decision to support the women in our lives who have an idea and want to run with it.

You make a point to tell the women in your lives that they are ENOUGH and that they can do it.

We STOP making excuses and just go for it.

You must support the women in your lives who are taking chances.

When you see a friend starting a hobby- encourage them to do it. If you have a woman or girl in your life who is toying with a side hustle - encourage them to do it.

Encourage people to take chances on their ideas. We all can come up with excuses that we are not enough. That we can't do it and that we won't succeed. That is very true. You might not succeed. But you have to try. Encourage the women in your lives when they have ideas to go for it. Help them and support them. Build them up to a point where they know they are ENOUGH and can do it.

When we see more women feeling empowered ENOUGH to take chances like starting side hustles we will over time have more women owned businesses.

Empower the women in your lives to take their ideas and make them something more than just an idea.

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Today is very important to me this year. I am finally a REAL business owner. I guess I have been a business owner for over a year now. But this is the 1st year where this is my full time job now. That is HUGE. I have employees. I have a real company where people rely on me and I rely on them. I am so unbelievably proud of that. I am proud of this small business that I have built. I am proud of myself for taking that idea and doing more with it. For not just letting it fester and be just that, an idea. 

I am not one to congratulate myself. I never have been the type to celebrate wins long. I guess that's because I was in sales for so long and you just learn to move on to the next deal fast. But, today, TODAY, I celebrate this.

Here is how it works, ladies. I had an idea. I thought hmmm, could this work? I too told myself I was not enough. That won't work. Will it?

Then I took all of those fears and said, screw it - let's just try it and see what happens. I took an idea and marketed that idea. That idea worked. I then had a hobby that I did on nights and weekends. That hobby turned into a true side hustle. That side hustle turned into a business. That business is now something that I run full time. I made decisions to do that. I believed in myself and I knew that I was enough.  

So next time a friend of yours or a woman in your life tells you about an idea they have. POUR your FIRE on to them. Push them ahead. Push them forward.

Tell them that they are ENOUGH and that they can do it.

Those ideas are what will help our world have more women owned businesses. Our world will be a better place because of your ideas. We need more ideas to turn into companies.

You can do this. You are ENOUGH. 

 

Topics: women owned business

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