I was asked to speak at Brewpoint Coffee’s “Empowered Women, Empower Women” badass female panel and networking event.
Melissa Villanueva, the owner of the cafe, prepared us for the panel by saying,
“This panel discussion isn’t meant to make people feel like they have to be their best self, but it is meant to be a discussion that empowers them to unlock their true self. That overall honesty with who you are what you care about is the most badass thing a person can do.”
I’m going to give you 15 tips on how you can become a woman that empowers other women then dive into my story on how I empower women!
Depending on what you currently have will determine the type of assistance you can provide;
- If you have TIME you can help by providing education and mentorship.
- If you have CONNECTIONS you can help by creating and maintaining relationships.
- If you have MONEY you can help with investing in small business owners.
EDUCATION
- Mentor a girl close to home
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Help ladies build a new skill set
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Create and support public leaders
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Help build self-esteem and confidence
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Support independence and mobility
RELATIONSHIPS
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Use your voice and platform to help the voiceless
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Tell the women in your life that you care
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Help a new mom and walk alongside her
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Build networks for other people to join
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Create a safe space and invite people in
MONEY
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Invest in a small business owner
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Donate to a charity close to your heart
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Purchase necessities for women in need
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Provide startup cash for a woman-owned business
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Train and hire women in need
BADASS WOMAN PANEL INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:
1. Introduce yourself and give the cliff notes version of the things that are important to know about you.
IDENTITY
I grew up in Taiwan, I’m half Chinese, half German. I moved to the states when I was 17 and have stayed because I love America!
RELATIONSHIPS
I’m married to a wonderful man named Oscar whose persistence still impresses me today, he asked me out 5 times over the course of 8 months until I finally caved and still pursues me each day!
CAREER
I am the founder of LadyBossBlogger, a blog, and resource for women who want to start, grow and scale their own online businesses.
2. How would you define success in your life?
Success isn’t a place that you stay at forever because your definition of success changes as you go through life and your goals get bigger.
But currently for me, success boils down to having three things in place;
- TIME: Having freedom over my time and how I decide to spend it, which I have with my blog.
- MONEY: Having the means to support my friends and family, which I do through my blog.
- PEACE: Having peace of mind and oneness with God.
Right now I’m at a good place, but am always aiming for more!
3. What are one or two defining moments that shaped who you are today?
The most recent was;
- When I moved to Honduras
- When I moved back to America from Honduras
Before all that, I had climbed the corporate ladder in the wedding industry and thought it would be my career path.
I loved where I was in my career and was making tons of money as the National Wedding Sales Manager, however, I was definitely spending just as much as I was making!
Then one day my fiancé called me from overseas and told me his brother had just been murdered. I immediately asked my boss if I could go to the funeral, even promising to work while there, yet he said NO… because it would affect sales.
So I quit, packed up the life I had made in Chicago and moved to Honduras to be with my fiancé and his family.
The transition was extremely hard, a lot harder than I had anticipated, and I hit rock bottom.
I had no support system, no job, and no stability. It didn’t help that I didn’t speak Spanish so I couldn’t really talk to anyone around me either, which further isolated me.
I tried to work a few remote jobs because there was no work to be found in Honduras, but those all fell through because of my lack of motivation.
NOTHING impressed me, NOTHING sustained me and NOTHING interested me.
I was borderline depressed and had no purpose in life… so I decided to start a blog about who I wanted to become – a female entrepreneur.
I didn’t even know entrepreneurship was a thing until a year before my blog when I met a few of them in Chicago. I grew up in a home full of academics, both my parents are professors, so they had their careers carved out for them and I simply thought that was how things were.
I was dead wrong – thankfully!
I dove headfirst into my blog and worked on it from dusk to dawn every single day.
My blog opened up a new avenue of communication and connection that I had never experienced. It’s one thing to connect with friends and family online, it’s another to network online and form close friends with people that you’ve never met that you admire.
A week into blogging, I knew I had to start making money somehow otherwise it wouldn’t motivate me, so I sent out 100 emails asking if people would pay me to get featured on my blog for just $5!
10 people responded and 1 agreed and that day I made my very first entrepreneurial dollars! That was all the motivation I needed to keep going. That year I grew and developed my blog in Honduras, then we moved back to the states.
Once we moved back to the states, things became difficult again.
In Honduras, I made good money from my blog, but in the states with all our brand new bills, it was nothing.
I felt like I had to start from scratch again and learn a whole new skill set… and it turned out that I did, but that wasn’t the defining moment.
I was on the phone with a business mentor telling him all my grand ideas of what I wanted to accomplish and all the people I wanted to help and all he asked me was this;
“How is your business impacting the world?”
I was stunned because I thought I was helping people, but he opened my eyes to the “bigger world” outside of friends and family. That very day I dedicated my blog to serving The Micah Project, which is a home from street boys in Honduras.
That charity was the place that took my husband in when he was a teen, gave him a home and education, and was also the place where the blog was founded because they helped us as we transitioned into our own living quarters.
That night after I got off the phone with my mentor, I couldn’t sleep. There was a voice in my head that kept telling me to donate, so at 2AM I decided to dedicate a portion of all my proceeds every month to The Micah Project regardless of how I personally felt like I was struggling.
That was a huge move in faith for me and instead of looking inward to see how to help myself, I started looking outward to see who I could help. A few months later I was able to quit my job and work on LadyBossBlogger full time.
It’s so crazy how turbulent yet successful these two years have been and I can’t wait to see where this road takes me!
4. What motivates you to do what you do?
My internal desire for more as well as my desire to bring about change in my husband’s family and take them out of poverty.
The only way to help people out of poverty is to give them the funds they need for their basic needs, then the education to help them succeed.
I want to be able to bring my husband’s sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews to the states so they can have a better life.
5. What are you currently afraid of, and how do you handle your fears?
I’m scared of something happening to my health. I try to eat healthily, not do anything too dangerous, and maintain a healthy balance of work and play, but anything can happen! I handle it by giving my fears up to God.
Another fear I have is 5 years down the line having to go back to a “normal career” for whatever reason. I’m handling it by working harder than ever to make sure that won’t happen.
6. Who do you hope to be in the next 5 years?
I hope to make LadyBossBlogger the go-to place for women to learn how to make money on their own time in their own home.
I want LadyBossBlogger to continue growing as a publication and get to become a household name like the Huffington Post, Forbes, or Entrepreneur – but for female bloggers and entrepreneurs.