Creating Momentum for the Future Generations

This week, we had the pleasure of launching our first Becoming BOLD Leaders program with the the Forum Communications Co. and WDAY. I'm always so excited to meet the women who join our program, because when I creep out their LinkedIn profiles, they are women I want to be!

They're already intelligent, gritty, resilient, strong, creative, collaborative leaders that I want as my friends and confidants. Above all else, they understand the idea of a 'becoming' mindset that embraces continual growth.

And that's the reality about good leaders: they're humble with commitment to continual growth. None of them feel as if they've arrived. They are people you admire and want to be around, because they take the time to self-reflect, adjust where needed and keep moving forward. They are always looking for ways to lead with dignity, strength, honor, empathy in ways that inspire creative collaboration.

I've heard once, you can't give away what you don't have. These women are determined to be sure they lead their teams, families and lives with congruence of mind, body, soul and spirit. Congruence is the thread that ties this program together.

Congruence in psychology, is when someone’s outside behaviors match their internal core values. As the ADA Dictionary of Psychology says, it’s the real-ideal self congruence, which in part means, “the degree to which the characteristics of a person’s ideal self match their actual characteristics. The discrepancy (or incongruence) between the two, when large enough, creates psychological pain.”

The Becoming Bold course was written with embracing the way we see ourselves, the way we actually are and the compassionate journey to our destination: generating and accelerating momentum toward the future. And not just for us, but for our teams, colleagues, families and legacy for the community.

So, when you see a cohort member and graduate, here's who you're going to see:

• A leader, mentor, teammate and friend

• Someone committed to continued growth and a strong investment into their craft and professional journey

• A woman who know's that she becomes who she surrounds herself with, so she is intentional to join communities, teams and thought leaders who are invested building momentum for a legacy and future

• A leader, who doesn't shrink when someone else shines - she's not afraid of someone else's light - as a matter of fact, she shines a light on their successes because she knows success is not a scarce resource

• She is not afraid of the future or the upcoming seasons, because she knows her strength, worth and value is not dependent on the circumstances around her. She is a powerful person, not because she yields harsh words or controls a room, but because she leads with humility

• An influencer, committed to the holistic journey of leading with integrity, kindness, empathy, grit and joy

Thank you to our friends at WDAY and the Forum Communications Co. for empowering your leaders to be the brightest influencers in the community and for joining us on this journey of becoming our boldest selves.

Self-worth vs. self-confidence

I recently began studying the difference between self-confidence and self-worth and was a little surprised at the results.

SELF-WORTH: the internal, identity-driven, deep rooted belief that you are enough and worthy of love and belonging, just as you are.

SELF-CONFIDENCE: while also an internal trait, is usually linked to your assessment of how you compare to the outside world.

HERE’S WHY THIS MATTERS:

Self-confidence can be taught. It’s external and subject to change basted on the amount of hours practiced and is a performance-based trait.

Self-worth, on the other hand, is an inside job. This has nothing to do with what’s in your bank account or a performance review. Self-worth is based on your identity and is foundational in growth so that your validation doesn’t come from anything or anyone but the knowing you are worthy of belonging, love and community. Just as you are.

Why does this matter at work?

When someone doesn't understand their value of worth, they don't understand that they make powerful choices that impact the entire team. If that person feels powerless or worthless, they are often driven by fear of what people think, fear of losing control, fear of looking foolish and fear is a very poor motivator for making good choices at work and in life.

Most people won't say, "Wow, I feel worthless. Help me, I'm broken," in the middle of a one one one with their boss. Most people hide these thoughts OR they aren't even aware that those thoughts are driving the ship. These thoughts are called an Automatic Negative Thought. And guess what:

If a leader is unconsciously believing a lie, or an automatic thought driven by fear, insecurity, low self-worth, it will impact the entire culture of that organization. These sneaky thoughts are seeds that grow into full blown crisis’ at work, impacting hundreds and sometimes thousands of people.

According to Bob Hasson and Danny Silk, co-authors of “Business of Honor: Restoring the Heart of Business”,

“Many people in business, including leaders, feel insecure about who they are, and as a result, they feel powerless, mistrust people, refuse to show vulnerability and honesty, make bad decisions, avoid confrontation and responsibility, and end up undermining relationships.

Cultivating the mindsets and behaviors of courage, trust, power and wealth allows us to move toward people with honor.

Learning to overcome fear, embrace our identity and cultivate honor creates a total shift in the beliefs, motivation and values of our heart.”

ANTS around identity, self-worth and value are almost exclusively driven by fear.

Here’s a couple quick questions to ask yourself, to see if your (or your teammates) ANTS could be steering the ship:

1. Do you or your team struggle to have honest conversations around problems and solutions to the problems?

2. Is it difficult for your teammates or for you to be transparent when someone has made a mistake?

3. Is the culture one that walks the long road to restoration when someone screws up, or is your company culture a punitive space?

4. On a scale of one to ten, is there alot, a little or NO political game playing at work?

5. Do people on your team lack the ability to take responsibility and follow through? Is there a lot of blame-shifting or almost none?

6. Does your organization allow bullying or bad behavior with little to no restorative measures?
   

If you answered yes to these, it’s likely you have someone on the team who struggles with mindsets that are prohibiting their and your team’s full potential.

Don’t let fear, low self-worth and confidence steer the ship. If you’re ready to learn how to lead your team to discover and discard those ants, be sure to apply to our Becoming Bold Cohort starting on September 26th!

Becoming BOLD

Becoming BOLD Leaders 10-week professional and personal development.

Someone once told me that you write the book you needed.

It rang true to my spirit but also frustrated me. Ten years ago, the book I needed was something full of compassion, empathy and encouragement because I’d gone through such a tumultuous season of learning really hard and expensive lessons. As a business owner and in my personal life.

I wanted so badly to believe I deserved more, but I was so focused on all of my failures, I believed the lie that I was the failure. But I also needed a little bit a gritty, somewhat self-deprecating, but honest correction. I needed to hear: “You can do this. Stop crying on the couch and GET BACK UP!” (With love, and a kick in the a$$, of course).

I distinctly remember sitting in my car, outside an interview, trying to force myself to believe that I belonged there. That I was valuable enough to apply for this position, even though I didn’t fully understand the ever-changing industry I was hoping to enter into, the job description (which was delightfully vague) or skills required to execute it well.

All I knew, was that I was an internal hot mess. I couldn’t let my interviewer know about my anxiety attacks, the depression or panic because of the constant uncertainty I was in. I needed to portray confidence. Self-assurance. Integrity. Grit. An unshakable mask that says, “I can do it!”

In the silence of the front seat of my Honda Pilot in downtown Fargo, I recall reaching up to pull the review mirror down to look directly into my green eyes. Pleading with myself not to suck. As a creative, an artist and former interior design consultant, I knew the color red was bold and portrayed confidence. This was the mask I wore that I hoped would communicate that I was bold and unafraid.

Carefully lining my lips with bright red Sephora Lipstick, Color 10: More is More, I thought of how to be the person I thought they wanted. I patted down my black pencil skirt, pulling off some Yellow Lab dog hair, my sweet puppy Samuel left behind.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breathe. Inhaling for four counts, 1…2…3…4…and then exhaling four counts, 1…2…3…4…

Slowly opening my eyes, I looked at myself again in the mirror and mustered up the most authentic and honest affirmation I could think of:

“Ok Melanie, don’t be ridiculous!”

Today, I laugh at this image. It feels like yesterday. Later, I was told that I looked like a young Cruella DeVille. I took it as a compliment…sort of. If you want to look like an emotionless sociopath. I digress.

Creepy Instagram filters…Emotional mask wearing…same thing I guess.

In all honesty, it would take me a full decade to learn the lessons I wish I would have known that cold morning in my car.

Women can mask a panic attack pretty well. We’re taught how to not show or experience our emotions at a very young age. We can be who you need us to be for a time. For me, it took a while to crack that shell. You see, I mastered the red lips, but the rest of what I had to work on was an inside job. And what drove me to keep trying was that I had two amazing gifts I’d been given. My son, Carter, and my daughter, Grayce. While I didn’t think I mattered that much, what kept me trying was knowing that my kids deserved a mom who was present, emotionally, physically and spiritually. I didn’t have hope for myself, but what propelled me was that I wanted them to have the mom they deserved.

Grayce, Me and Carter dressed up as Run-D.M.C., 2014.

I’ve heard the most resilient people have a trick. It’s not how many risks you can take or even the magnitude of those risks. It’s actually how quickly you can get back up after a failure, brush yourself off, tend to your wounded ego and try again.

After ten years of some successes, and a multitude of failures, I’m so humbled to have had genuine people who cared about me, pick me back up when I couldn’t. Help me back to my feet, remind me of who I am and what I’ve been created to do on this earth. They held up a better mirror to help me see what I am capable of, when I viewed myself as broken. They’ve seen the ugly messy version of me. They’ve also seen the polished and rehearsed version.

They’ve let me be me while figuring out this process.

All of these lessons I’ve learned (and in many cases, I’ve had to unlearn) have brought me here. I’ve considered each experience, each story, each wound, each success, as if they were little porcelain dolls I remember from my great-grandmother’s never dusty shelf. Collected and reflected upon.

I’ve spent years researching and experiencing my own self-doubt and self-assurance, trust and mistrust, powerlessness and powerful positioning, insignificance and courage, shame and vulnerability, honest self-reflection and morbid introspection. I learned of the Imposter Syndrome a couple years ago and laughed out loud. This is a syndrome? Get out of my head, Forbes. I thought I was the only one.

What I have learned in some cases was this: no one else was holding me back from choosing courage to back up and try again. It was me. As Brene Brown says, I engineered my smallness by not getting back in the arena.

I’m passionate about the woman in front of me. I want to hold up a new mirror, helping her see herself as the woman she’s capable of being, the way others helped me. I’m obsessed with discarding old mindsets so that women lean into their courage, chose confidence and grow to become the BOLD leader they’ve been created to be.

So with that…(and WOW. If you’re still reading. Kudos. I never read blogs this long.)

I’m SO FREAKING EXCITED to be accepting applications to our first Becoming BOLD Leaders 10-week program. I’ve taken a decade of overcoming paralyzing perfectionism and fear, feelings of insignificance and insecurity, and a ridiculous tendency to want to hide in isolation until I’m shiny again…and packaged it into ten, three-hour sessions in a small group format to help other women (re)discover their purpose, passion and voice.

If you are or know a woman who would benefit from practical teaching and applications on becoming her BOLDEST self, please send her my way.

If you run an organization and want to host this course for a small group within your company, email me at melanie@sheovercomes.co

Melanie Iverson Rudd

Founder of She Overcomes and co-Founder of the She Overcomes Community Foundation

Becoming Fearless

In July of 2023, I was asked to speak at the FMWF Chamber Women’s Connect Event. My topic was on fear. It’s one I’m deeply connected to, which isn’t something that I am necessarily proud of, but I’m also not ashamed of it. This idea of doing life scared and building confidence is one that has been intertwined in my experiences professionally and personally.

Photo Credit: Fargo Moorhead West Fargo Chamber of Commerce

Fear has gripped me for most of my life. I can trace back interpretations of my experiences as a child or events in my life that triggered this fear. While the origin story may not matter as much, the reality is that what I did to overcome is what I’m sharing today.

In 2016, I took a whole year to do the things that terrified me. I wanted to be done with fear, once and for all. Additionally, I was working for an organization where my job was to publicly speak about the work our nonprofit was doing. It frustrated me that my boss was ‘forcing’ me to speak from a podium. The truth was that it was part of my job requirement and he saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself.

It took an entire year of practicing public speaking, hyperventilating, crying, and then doing it again. Scared.

That year, not only did I do work ‘scared.’ I did my personal life scared. I decided that I would force myself to go be quiet, write, journal and teach myself through repetition how to quiet myself and learn the practice of peace. Inherently, I knew that if I could learn and practice these principles, I would be able to rewire my brain and build the practice of courage. Things I did outside the walls of my work included: hiking, camping, traveling and staying places alone. The fear of being alone was impacting my confidence at home and at work, so I became ruthless in my choices of forcing my brain to change.

What happened after that year surprised me. All the little steps in doing it scared brought me to say yes to an international humanitarian project in the Middle East. The practice of learning courage never felt ‘courageous’.

Admittedly, there were times that I was scared. It was in learning how to overcome that fear that my personal confidence was built. It was practicing courage when I wanted to run and hide that brought some of the most amazing experiences to my personal and professional life.

This is why I’m so passionate about helping women overcome their fears of failure, their anxieties of inadequacy and build an authentic community where we can do life scared. Together.

Why are Women in the Workplace Questioning their Worth?

By Melanie Iverson Rudd - March 2024

In 2019, She Overcomes launched to empower female founders to grow and scale their businesses after an alarming study was released from Mastercard regarding the state of women in business. Our Masquerade Gala that celebrated our pilot program was a hit, and marked the scalability of local women business owners in the community. We had the privilege to offer partial grants to three separate women who presenting their ideas for growth to a panel of judges.

Today, we couldn’t be more thrilled to announce our new program, which is laser focused on building confidence and courage in community. At a glance, here’s why we updated our mission and vision to include all women pursuing career growth and community:

Confidence and courage in community isn’t a luxury. It’s an absolute necessity.

• 75% of women indicate they struggle with the imposter phenomenon - which is primarily made up of four mindsets that prohibit growth, confidence and security in the workplace. This results in higher levels of anxiety and depression. (Forbes)

• Many women won’t apply for a job unless she’s 90-100% qualified (Harvard Business Review and LinkedIn).

• The Surgeon General released an article in May of 2023 indicating that while we are the most digitally connected, but the most disconnected generation. This isolation and loneliness pandemic has a simple solutions that include implementing opportunities for social connection.

Equipping and educating women with skills necessary for their personal and professional development impacts your company’s bottom line.

We have created a new program to overcome fear and focus on building and growing confidence in women. When you invest in a woman, you invest in a generational shift that has the power to change the landscape for the future. We can’t be the champion of every cause, but we can empower women to take their place with confidence and courage, understanding their purpose.

Here are three reasons why investing in your purpose driven confidence is important :

1. In times of economic downturn, one investment will always produce a return: investing in your own education, skills and development. The class, the coaching or your expanded network has the power to serve you in the future by equipping you with what you need to level up and grow.

2. Inspiration = happiness. Psychology Today reported that ‘Dr. David Rock, Co-founder of the NeuroLeadership Institute, has trained over 10,000 executive, personnel, and workplace coaches in more than 64 countries. He says:

   “Engagement is a state of being willing to do difficult things, to take risks, to think deeply about issues and develop new solutions…. Interest, happiness, joy, and desire are approach emotions. This state is one of increased dopamine levels, important for interest and learning.”

3. Retraining our brains is not only important, it can replace negative mindsets and habits with those that we need for our success. Self directed neuroplasticity leads to upgrade personal and professional beliefs behaviors and experiences. Steven Jones, Ph. D says in this Linked In report:

   “For instance, replacing an unwanted habit with a desirable one leads to new neural pathways that support the thinking and behaviors underlying the new habit. As the old habit diminishes, the neural pathways (i.e., brain circuits) that supported them weaken or disintegrate.”