During the event series we ran a competition to win a one hour mentoring session with Business Chicks CEO, Olivia Ruello, and we’re thrilled to announce Hayley Phillips is the winner of that prize. Hayley, we’ll be in touch.
At Business Chicks, we know that when women come together, incredible things happen – and we saw that amplified from our recent Make This Your Year event series.
As women, we often spread ourselves too thin, and giving more than we take. This event series was akin to hitting a reset button. A moment in time to take stock and to hear from some incredibly motivating speakers who were willing to be vulnerable, speak their truth and in turn, help as many of us out there who might be feeling a little bit lost in our personal or work lives.
Our emcee for the series, Jessica Rowe set the intention early talking about how she recently changed tack in her career.
“I took a swerve because I thought it’s time to lean in for my girls, but I also wanted to look at building my brand.”
“I’m a huge believer in sharing our stories, and as women we do that so well. That’s how we connect, that’s how we inspire and that’s also how we feel heard, when we hear other people’s stories.”
We learned to back ourselves
“I refuse to let someone’s opinion change where I want to be or who I want to be.” – Moana Hope.
Moana Hope is arguably one of the fiercest athletes both on and off the field going around. You know her as a prolific AFLW player, but Moana also runs her own company – which employs 85 people we might add, is a full-time carer for her sister Lavina (who has Mobius syndrome) and a brand ambassador to multiple brands.
Listening to her story at our Melbourne event you can’t help but be inspired by this incredible woman who continues to defy stereotypes and propel herself and the organisations around her, forward.
But to also step back and be kinder to ourselves
“We’re not swimming in our own lane, are we? We’re not comparing ourselves to who we were yesterday, we’re comparing ourselves to each other. Gratitude brings us back in the moment.”
“Practice gratitude just once, and not much is going to change in the brain. Do it consistently for two months, and I can promise that area in your brain becomes bigger. You become more resilient, you get out of you own ego, you start to become more grateful for what you have in this life. And it brings you straight in the moment.”
There’s no doubt that in this time of massive pivotal change for women, we’re often juggling multiple roles and stretching ourselves too thin. Chelsea Pottenger is on a mission to help us be the best version of ourselves. She was previously at where many of us are now, living a high-paced life in the corporate world, doing gruelling 12 hour days, then socialising hard with friends and clients, trying to fit in some kind of exercise after which in Chelsea’s case she’d “drive home to belt out tunes on the piano with one hand, downing tumblers of Hendricks gin with the other.”
Sound familiar? Chelsea’s incredible mindfulness session allowed us to step out of our daily grind and really reassess what’s important to us, and where we could start to prioritise the things that really matter in life – and be kinder to ourselves in the process.
To prioritise our financial well-being too
“There’s such a gap in understanding money, and understanding making small decisions or habits with money that make a huge difference that take so much pressure and stress off your shoulders.” – Canna Campbell
“We are tapping, we are swiping, and our money is literally evaporating in front of us, yet we’re still exposed to do wonderful things with money and proactively take those opportunities and create a financially stable life.”
How many of your female friends do you hear say the words, ‘I’m bad with money’. Our financial speaker Canna Campbell wants to turn that around. A marriage breakdown and subsequent divorce proved the catalyst for Canna to become better than good with money, but she doesn’t want other women to hit breaking point before they prioritise their financial security. Canna outlined how she created the $1000 project, and educated us on passive income streams, where she invested and why, how shares and dividends work, and how we can be more mindful with money.
To be brave enough to keep going
“I didn’t set out to start a company making augmented and mixed augment reality, I kind of fell into it. I didn’t know how to run a business, I didn’t know how to do business.” – Mikaela Jade
Entrepreneur Mikaela Jade showed us how showing up for yourself can play out in a big way. Mikaela was (and still is) a park ranger working in remote areas of Australia, but once she discovered her passion for wanting to share indigenous storytelling through digital channels, she really went for it. She didn’t know how to get funding, she didn’t know how to get clients, but she empowered herself by surrounding herself with communities who did. She signed up to be a Business Chicks member, and asked for help. The takeaway here is you can’t do it all on your own, there may be times where you want to, but allowing yourself to be vulnerable, and surrounding yourself with like-minded people will give you the energy and knowledge to be brave enough to keep going.
A huge thank you to our event partners for the Make This Your Year series, Virtus Health. We couldn’t have done it without you. If you want to find out more about Virtus Health, go here and if you’re interested in understanding more about fertility, IVFAustralia & Melbourne IVF are hosting webinars on egg freezing. You can visit the the following links to register:
