WHY WOMEN?

This question came up the other day. Why is your networking only for women?

I never asked myself ‘Hmmm shall I set up a networking community for men, women or both?’ It wasn’t ever a consideration for me. My passion, lies in helping women grow successful businesses. And we all must focus on our passion, otherwise why else would we run our own businesses? After all it’s not a walk in the park!

So I’ve started to look deeper at the why. Often we find digging into our why quite difficult. The first response is ‘it just feels right’ or ‘it just feels good’.

To help me jump start my thoughts I attended Hazel Weyman’s Blogging Brainstorming session with a group of other like minded women.  I really did need to inject some life into my blogging activity, or lack of it!

After a brilliant online session with Hazel and her guests I sat down somewhere quiet and peaceful and created my own brainstorm & voila here it is! All my why’s blurted out onto a page, I hadn’t realised there were so many. Nor did I ever think Margaret Thatcher would feature either!

So here goes pulling it all together into a concise and comprehensive fashion!

I grew up in a wonderful family environment with caring and amazing parents. Typical for a 70’s baby my Dad was at work and Mum was the one doing all the parenting and when Dad was home from work or at the weekend, Mum was kind of still the one doing the parenting! Dad was, and still is a great Dad but I don’t think the role of parenting came so natural to him.

Anyway I was used to this strong independent brave and amazing woman as my role model. She followed her dreams of being a nurse & midwife. She was my world, and still is. A phenomenal woman, who inspired me to be brave and follow my dreams. Being very lucky and having this influence in my life from day 1, I never doubted that I’d find my purpose & be happy in this world.

But not every woman has a role model like this. Not every woman feels brave or confident. Not every woman believes she deserves to have the business, money, happiness she wants.

Where does this lack of self belief come from? Society has told us we’re the weaker sex, we can’t achieve as much as men, our place is in the home, in the kitchen, we’re not as strong as men physically or mentally, we’re not assertive enough to get to the top…

This discrimination kills my soul. The injustice of these words hurts my heart, I feel physical pain. This. Is. Not. Ok.

I want to shout to every woman ‘I BELIEVE IN YOU!’ Whatever you dream of, you can do it, you CAN do it!

So this internal fight to support other women has been a fire in my belly for a long time. But until 2014, when I launched my own business organising wellbeing events for women and supporting other small business owners in the process I hadn’t probably quite realised HOW I was going to channel this fire.

Then networking came about. It’s obvious really - support women who run small businesses right where it matters - from the beginning all the way through with mentoring, encouragement, group support and bucket loads of courage!

And of course you can do this in a mixed environment too. But the women I want to help might find a male dominated networking experience intimidating and uncomfortable. The women I want to help might not enjoy networking full stop. And quite often they’ve tried different networking groups and so far nothing has felt ‘quite right’.

I meet women who believe they are not good enough. Not worthy enough. Afraid to charge more & fearful of rejection or being judged.

Feeling empowered to know we can confidently charge more and that we are worth it, is fundamentally the first step to a new positive future.

‘Come Network With Me’ isn’t for everyone. We celebrate diversity and difference. If you’re someone who likes to fit in and follow the crowd, you’ve chosen a business path that follows the norm and you’d choose traditional over innovation then I’d be honest and say another networking group will be a better fit.

In business it’s all about the right fit. The right fit for your clients. The same is true for your networking choice - find the right fit and you’ll never look back and it’ll be your No1 resource for every business question and dilemma you ever have.

You see women have many roles that we’re responsible for, & we face many questions and challenges each and every day. Having a close trusted network to rely on means we feel reassured and better informed with our decisions. 

Women are experts at managing the different parts of our life, supporting our family & friendship groups. It’s what we do.  Women are the ones who build communities. Women are the ones that connect and support others in our family, our neighbourhood. Bringing people together & strengthening communities.  Women are the cheerleaders.

And so to me women are strong, amazing, incredible beings. We may be the underdog sex but when we unite together we truly can’t be beaten. This is not a fight or a war. This is not to prove anything to anyone. This is about equality for women. This is about following our dreams and doing it with other women following their dreams too.

If this strikes a chord with you then get in touch to see if ‘Come Network With Me’ is the right networking fit for you.