This past November, it was my honor to conduct an intensive, three-day workshop with 24 women in New York City geared toward empowering them to become more centered, more aware and purposed driven.
I held the retreat in a beautiful Manhattan penthouse on 5th Avenue because I wanted these leaders to feel pampered and cared for during this powerful experience. They were treated to delicious, healthy food, and we even brought live Broadway performances into the space.
I’ve been to corporate seminars before (probably more than 50 in my life) and I pledged to myself I will never re-enact the kind of soul-less seminars I’ve sat through. Having read all of the women’s goals and struggles beforehand, and with each one sharing different levels of intimidation and skepticism, I crafted a schedule of teaching, coaching (both individual and in groups), networking, movement, and introspection.
I acknowledged to the women, that you can’t change a lifetime of patterns in three days, but we could lay the foundation to begin full-time change. I described it as going to a physical fitness boot camp for three days. It’s intense and you’ll learn what needs to happen next, but if you go back to the same situation: behaving and performing the same way you did before, you’ll never see long-term results.
There were three phases to the workshop that each woman had to tackle: Assess, Remove, and Rebuild.
The Assessment section begins with a leadership assessment tool that establishes an attendee’s preferred operating style and how it affects their influence at work and their relationships with others as a leader. I also have them assess the needs of their teams so they can understand how to serve them better and empower them to higher levels of performance. I needed every woman to be able to understand with 100% clarity what was holding them back from getting where they wanted to be from a personality and communication perspective.
The Removal piece is all about getting the negative self-talk out of our heads. Instead of telling ourselves we aren’t good enough or that we have to work harder than men to be noticed, we learn strategies to replace those misguided thoughts with a series of questions that allow us to awaken a more positive thought process. It’s not easy to rewire the brain, but it is absolutely possible; especially if we begin to notice the natural urge for the old patterns to emerge once the workshop is over.
Rebuilding is taking what they’ve learned in the assessment and removal pieces and crafting a plan to integrate the concepts into their real lives. We crafted a personal purpose statement understanding that purpose is not something we need to find but rather it must be created once we are clear on what we really want as a leader. A well-crafted personal purpose statement is the foundation for success.
To lend some insight: about 10 years ago I was the woman who would laugh at something like this because we mock what we don’t understand. We make fun of what frightens us. Thankfully a neurologist who eventually became my mentor explained the science behind what happens in the subconscious and how when we access parts of the brain that are dormant, we can start taking charge of our lives in powerful ways. I just needed to know there was scientific research to support these kinds of events and I was sold. And then transformed.
I’ll admit, even though I’ve worked with hundreds of clients, mostly within their organizations, I was nervous going into hosting my own event. What kept me sane is knowing that I created an experience that would open a door in these women’s minds that had never been accessed. Once I got going, I could feel the door further opening in my mind as I shared and we practiced techniques such as mindfulness, gratitude, visualization and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) to name a few. To me, guiding the inaugural workshop for the International Women’s Leadership Academy was a revelation!
I walked away excited about the group’s success, the concept of a two-day follow-up workshop in May 2020 and the recognition that my company, Whole Leadership Systems is on the path to revolutionize the corporate seminar industry.
Hold on baby, there is no stopping now!
You may have missed out on our November 2019 inaugural International Women’s Leadership Academy, but no worries! You can get in on our May deep dive coming to Philadelphia in May 2020.
We are beyond excited about it and you can see more here: https://maricarmenpizarro.com/may-2020/
