My husband John and I are building our dream country home outside of Austin. It’s a dream that has been in the works for 10 years. The vision is to create a beautiful home that seamlessly integrates into nature, is self-sufficient, and a beautiful space for our entire family to be able to come stay and spend time with us.
That’s the sexy part.
The decorating, the vision, and the most authentic reason we are building this amazing space.
But that’s not what this email is about.
This email is about the foundation: the ground and the dirt. And what it is reminding me about leadership.
When I started the International Women’s Leadership Academy five years ago, I had a vision to completely break the mold of how women leaders rise in their careers.
To show women that their leadership success will be because they are women, not in spite of it.
And I knew that to achieve that, we would have to go deep.
To get into a room – in person – where I could touch, hug, feel the women who showed from the inside out. In person to rebuild them, and launch them back into the world to own the fucking room.
Every.
Single.
Room.
But I got pushback from most that I was going too deep. That it was too intense, too raw, and overwhelming. Women had to leave the room by lunchtime because they needed a break.
I learned a lot about delivering this transformation in the last five years, which has helped ease the intensity and increase the impact of the deep work.
But one of the main things that I’ve learned, and that my house reminded me of, is that laying the correct foundation is essential if you want to build anything of meaning on top of it.
John and I came into this experience of building our house blind. We’d never done it before. We were excited about the vision, the design, and the finished product.
We did not expect to spend so.much.time. on the foundation.
We spent more than 100 days with land experts, tree experts, survey experts, and experts that I don’t even know what they’re called because I’d never heard of them, studying the ground that is going to HOLD the house.
It wasn’t sexy at all (although I happen to find this very sexy). It wasn’t what I imagined when I thought of building my dream home.
Most people are thinking about the paint, the decorations, the countertops, and appliances. They’re thinking about the furniture and the dinner parties they’ll have on their porch. I was, too!
But those things are irrelevant if the foundation isn’t laid correctly.
The way I learned to think about building my dream home is the same way you must think about building your dream career.
You want to know the strategies and tactics that will help you rise in leadership. You want to know what to do, step by step, to be heard, seen, and respected. You want to spend time strategizing your career plan.
All of these things are definitely important. All of these things are sexy.
And every one of them is irrelevant without the proper foundation.
The deep inner work.
The work that ensures, with certainty, that when you walk into a room, you will be seen and heard because you see and hear yourself.
The work that roots you so deeply into your confidence that you’re not worried about whether or not there is a seat at the table because you know that if there isn’t one, you’ll break the damned table, or build a bigger one, or bring your own chair.
Working on the foundation of your leadership is essential if you want to rise in your leadership impact, visibility, and advance in your career.
Unshakable confidence in who you are, clarity on what you bring, and a resilience so strong nothing can shake you – these are the critical factors that will in fact take you to the heights that you’ve been reaching for.
“I have had chronic pain in my shoulders and migraines for the last 4 years, and I came here with that, and they went away. Not because you solved all my problems but because *****I didn’t know anyone would understand what I was going through.” Academy participant year 2021
This year at The Academy, we will lay the foundation for your leadership career in a way you never imagined possible. If you have attended in the past, you must attend again. We’re going to go deep in a way that surprises you, opens a world of possibility, and ensures that the woman who walks out of that room is forever different than the one who walked in. And yes, we’re going to go deep so that your foundation is so strong you can build a global career on top of it.
The doors to The International Women’s Leadership Academy are officially open.
It’s time to end the idea that being a woman is a handicap to your rise in leadership. You will rise because you are a woman, not in spite of it. Step out of trying to win the man’s game and learn to lead like a woman.
With love,
Mari Carmen
