According to the National Women’s Business Council, female-run businesses will increase 50% over the next five years.
Any entrepreneurial venture has so many aspects to consider. You have your product, you have your capital funding and you know your target audience, but how do you connect to customers, suppliers and funders in a way that truly counts? There isn’t a magic one-size fits all formula that brings clients to the table and builds lasting business relationships. Each small business owner must forge their own path and creates their own business and the most successful entrepreneurs are engaged and passionate about their product or service and know how they can bring solutions and innovations to the table.
As the trend of female owned and run businesses increases, the things that make a person competitive and successful in the business environment are changing. It used to be commonly accepted that to succeed, you had to shut off feminine traits and behave like a man. Yet recent studies increasingly show that traits that are traditionally considered ‘female’ are important elements to driving success. With the advent of the internet, the world has changed immeasurably. Jobs are much more multifaceted and complex. With real time communication, people can no longer wait two days to talk to customers or suppliers. Almost every interaction happens in a few hours or a day at most.
As a whole, women are much better at multi-tasking than men and are also more empathetic and nuanced communicators. They can do multiple things at once, but they can also take the time to relax and contemplate what needs to be done. The skills that the modern world values and uses are those that women naturally possess. The competitive drive that women have is not cut-throat but it is harmonious and is much more likely to enable all sides to walk away from the table as winners. Women are diverse and it is this diversity that makes them able to enter niche markets and lead their businesses to financial success.
The Meditation & Margaritas Philosophy helps women identify and harness the qualities that make them unique. Many are feminine qualities but just as many are things that a person brings both through nature and through nurture and real world experiences.
A critical element in profit growth and long-term sustainability is identifying who you are and the direction you want to take your business. While large corporations have ingrained corporate cultures that have often solidified after decades, the force that drives small business success is the passion and competence of the entrepreneur themselves.
For females this process has traditionally been fraught with advice that tells them to play hardball, to downplay the fact that they are a woman and to cater to a male-dominated business world. Those days are over. While the glass ceiling certainly exists, women are currently shattering it. More women are going to college, more women are getting highly paid jobs and more women are starting their own businesses. It is a trend that more women are realizing that not only can they proudly be a woman and an entrepreneur, but that they must do so to succeed.
The Meditations and Margaritas approach has helped many women who have had lasting impacts in their chosen fields.
One client recently landed an important publishing contract with Simon & Schuster. She is a corporate consultant but was struggling to actualize her financial goals and humanitarian passions. I helped her use the aspects of her history and life trajectory to come up with a business identity that was true to herself and allowed her to harness her talents to push her careers to new heights. She increased her day rate by 400 percent and made $80,000 in two weeks from a few new templates that I gave her that boosted her confidence to get paid her true value. What Margaritas and Meditations did was enable her to both discover and create her identity and market herself to clients in a new and highly effective way.
I’ve worked behind the scenes with New York Times Bestselling authors, Grammy award winning musicians, highly paid TED Talk presenters, others who have started women’s movements, neuroscientists, famous artists as well as young females just launching their careers. One thing that all these women have in common is that they know who they are and use that to build the careers they deserve. The most successful women are the ones that use their feminine strengths to blaze their own trails.
Meditation and Margaritas was born out of my personal journey. I began as a Korean orphan raised as an adoptee in the US, a world traveler, a talent scout and producer and a year as a Buddhist nun in Myanmar. After whirlwind years jet setting the world with celebrities and living the high life, I took a step back and decided to ground myself. I made the decision to shave my head and enter a Buddhist monastery for a year. It was during that time with no computers, cell phones or outside contact that I truly reflected on my life trajectory. I thought about what made me unique, what my experiences had been and who I was in the present moment. I also thought about the changes I wanted to make to balance my life and identified the goals I had for my future.
The important things I learned were the experiences that shaped me were important to who I was and that I had to have balance in my life to succeed. The Margaritas side represents that driven people oriented parts of us that help make and maintain relationships and keep the high energy, multitasking windmill churning. Margaritas was what I was drinking when I was jet setting. It was the hype and high octane business drive.
Meditations is that calm and contemplative side. It is the part that takes a step back to analyze life and the current situations. It is the part that quietly looks at all aspects of a project and creates long-term goals. It is the side that rests but not idly. It is the quiet moments that let us shape our vision.
After realizing these things for myself, I began to research women’s experiences and the different skills that men and women have. I looked at what made females successful both in business and in life. The multitasking and communication abilities are key cornerstones of the philosophy. Women have talents that they must identify and develop. The coaching programs I’ve created based on this concept are designed to help others actualize their goals and abilities.
The first step in the program is helping you identify the life experiences that make you unique. Many women don’t have as extreme experiences as mine, but we all have the little particulars that shaped our characters. Those should be used to create a holistic image of who you are at the present moment. Then, you need to identify the talents that you bring to your business or work environment and help them develop those talents. A crucial element to the process is identifying goals. To quote Yoggi Berra “If you don’t know where you want to go, you might not get there.” Once the goals are identified we create a particular unique image that represents who the woman truly is.
Like the Simon & Shuster client I spoke of above, this helps you show the world who you are. It helps you actualize the short and long term goals that you have by using your feminine strengths but also your diversity. Know yourself, accept yourself, identify what you bring to those who want to work with you. This is essential to creating a business and personal reputation. It is essential for driving the bottom line.
The key is balancing all aspects of your life with ease. You can define your what you your driven fast paced Margaritas side means but also embrace the Meditation side that lets you relax and think. It creates purpose and an understanding of who you are. In the end, we’re all here for a bigger purpose to make a difference in the world but it’s really hard to focus on others when you’re worried about paying your bills, overworked, underpaid, and settling for less. Before you know it, years pass while your professional and personal goals fade away. Research shows that 96% of businesses fail, and you know you’re better than becoming another statistic.
This means there is no time to waste. The Meditation and Margaritas way of life gives you the dynamism for continual growth by staying true to your core self. You must take charge of your free time, finances, and schedule. Sometimes you have to buckle down and do the things that you don’t like to do and other times you need that bubble bath and girls night out. Your business is a reflection of you so keep developing yourself and your business and profits will grow along with you.
Go out there, make money, make a difference. Sit back, meditate then drink a Margarita and ponder about the good things in your life.
