Expand Your Fempire Podcast #141 Transcript

The Power of Community: Meet the Women Behind the Book

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

[00:00:00] Caterina Rando: My friends, blissing to be with you. This is Caterina Rando. I am so excited you are with me today on the Expand Your Fempire Podcast. We have five amazing guests right now, all in the same place. And these amazing women are all co authors in the phenomenal book, The Power of Community.

[00:00:47] This book started as a idea on the Bliss Retreat for Women Leaders on a Mission. You probably heard about that. That’s something we do around here in the Thriving Women in Business Community. These ladies were all on our bliss retreat, which was this time last year.

[00:01:09] And do you know what? These gals are talking every single day for over a year, they have become friends. They have become clients of each other. They’ve started all kinds of offshoot groups to do all kinds of interesting things. They’re very good BFFs. And all of this prompted this idea of writing a book called, “The Power of Community.”

[00:01:33] And Seema Giri, one of our guests, is the publisher. Let me also introduce the other four co authors we have with us. Narelle Sheehan, Elaine Williams, Tracie Root, and Kat Mitchell.

[00:01:44] Seema, why did you want to do this book and get this party started?

[00:01:49] Seema Giri: Thank you, Caterina, for having us today. You know, I’ve seen so much value in being in part of community. And one of the exceptional communities I’ve been part of is Caterina, yours.

[00:02:00] And we’ve seen when you’re in the right community, amazing things can happen. You can really let go of your limiting beliefs and thrive and become the person that you’re really meant to be.

[00:02:13] And we felt that as a group, it would be so important to showcase this to other people and really teach them the values of having a community, whether you’re part of one or creating your own.

[00:02:26] And the amazing thing is that this is happening, our book is releasing in the month of International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month. We thrive in community. So we wanted to share that with everyone.

[00:02:39] Caterina Rando: Absolutely. And you know, Seema, my birthday is March 8th, International Women’s Day, which makes me feel like I’m divinely appointed to do the work that I do.

[00:02:49] And yes, Women’s History Month is March, and there’s so many amazing women in history, and you all, I’m sure, will be in the history books as phenomenal, amazing women. Now, Seema, thank you for your vision of this book. I want to hear from Narelle and Elaine and Tracy and Kat. Why did you jump on board?

[00:03:09] Narelle, let’s start with you and then we’ll go around.

[00:03:12] Narelle Sheehan: Hi. So I have to give you a bit of background here because, and I’m going to be a bit cheeky, but you know, that’s just me. So about a year and a half ago, I prayed, I literally prayed to God that I found a group of powerful women. And I mean, how do you do that? I was 56 at the time. And how do you just go “Dear God, bring me a group of beautiful women.” So I did do that. And I went to an event and I met Caterina and Elaine.

[00:03:45] And to tell you the truth to everyone who’s listening, I just basically very quietly stalked Caterina and Elaine very nicely, very quietly. And then when I talked to Caterina later on privately, I thought, “Oh my God, I want to. I want to live with this woman. I want to be with this woman. I want to hang out with her.”

[00:04:05] And then Elaine, the other half of the year, I could live with her. And I don’t know what my husband would think, but you know, anyway, and then Caterina said, “come on our cruise. We have a cruise.” And I was like, “yeah, okay, I’ll go.” And then she’s like, “it’s 10 days with about 20 women.”

[00:04:22] Oh. Listen, I could have vomited seriously. 10 days of women, like I was laughing with God going, you know, I wanted friends, but not 10 days of women on a cruise on a boat I can’t get off. Anyway. So then I shared my soul with Elaine and Elaine went, “Oh my God, we’re not going to cope.” And I said, “We have each other. We can get off at any port. We can leave.” Okay.

[00:04:49] So the moral of the story is, as Caterina mentioned, I am in love with these women. There was such profound, profound change. And I spoke on the cruise and, and I accidentally told all this really, really deep stuff. And I’m so pleased I did because then the floodgates opened and Man oh man, I know more about these people than, you know, it’s quite priceless. If you want to bribe me, I’m here. Anyway, 10 days, 20 women. Oh my God.

[00:05:23] So at the end of the cruise, I said to Seema, “let’s do a book on community.” Here we are.

[00:05:29] Caterina Rando: Wonderful. And I love, I love that you were a yes to jump on the ship for 10 days. And one of the things you shared my friends, let’s underscore that self disclosure creates intimacy. And that’s one of the things women do when we get together is we share our stories and people relate and they resonate and we get to know each other and that creates trust and that is part of the power of community.

[00:05:57] Thank you Narelle for that. Elaine, let me hear from you, on why you chose to be a part of this project.

[00:06:06] Elaine Williams: Well, thank you, Caterina. And thanks for having us and just being our fearless leader in so many fun ways. I, I felt very similar. Like I, I love women. I love supporting women in, in the ways that I serve them.

[00:06:18] And I was like, “yeah, Caterina, I’m an instant yes.” And then I was like, “wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, 10, 10 day…” like the whole idea of like a 10 day thing when we were going to be together all day and then have dinner together all night. A part of me was like. “Ooh, this sounds so intimate.” And I was really heavily not, you know, I was worried.

[00:06:39] And I fell in love.

[00:06:40] And I realized that this was a carefully curated group of women with huge hearts and big stories and really committed to helping shift the world on so many different ways. And so, and I saw like, I had some magical shifts. And I don’t even still know exactly what happened, but it was a very transformational trip for me.

[00:07:02] And I get asked to do books all the time, but I just felt compelled to say yes, specifically because of the other women involved in the book. And so it has been such a great journey. And I love sharing our stories because if you’re a woman who’s craving community or you feel like you’ve outgrown the ones you’re in or whatever, there’s hope and come play with us.

[00:07:24] Caterina Rando: Thank you. And yeah, you know, I think a lot of women don’t even realize that they are craving community until they step into a situation like this retreat or like our Thriving Women in Business Community so that then they see, “Oh my gosh, this is what I’ve been missing.”

[00:07:41] And they go all in. And one of the gals that’s all in with building community is our friend, Tracie Root, who has her own community. Tracie, you have your own community. Why did you choose to be a part of this exciting project?

[00:07:56] Tracie Root: Honestly, how could I not? You know, the Gather Community, which is my main business at this point, was created out of the pandemic when we all realized that We had to stay connected to people because we were all alone in our houses. And it was such a challenging time, and it was also kind of a gift to be able to connect with new people and build new community on the computer.

[00:08:27] So, 4 years later, here we are with this thriving community, and 3 years later, actually a year ago, On that cruise is really when it all like, it just all starts to make sense. When you jump all in to the things that are changing your life, it all starts to make like, it doesn’t always start off making sense. But eventually it all makes sense.

[00:08:49] So when I was approached about being a part of this book, the power of community. So first I had already done a couple of multi author books, one with Seema previously. And honestly, I was like, “I don’t know if I want to do another multi author book. Maybe I want to start thinking about my solo book, blah, blah, blah.”

[00:09:10] And, but when I found out who was in it from our bliss sisters from the cruise and that it was going to be called Power of Community. Like I said, how could I not? I was a hundred percent yes, because I’m passionate about reminding people that it matters to stay connected to other people and women connected to women and around no matter how afraid you are of meeting people that are just going to disappoint you again.

[00:09:41] Like that’s something that we’ve all gone through, right? And And strangers, stranger danger. Once we allow ourselves, like you said, to be vulnerable in conversation and to be open to what could happen, everything can change. And so I couldn’t say no to being part of the Power of Community. Absolutely.

[00:10:05] Caterina Rando: I love that Tracie. Well, you know, I, I do agree that there’s a lot of women that think that when women get together, you know, they are not uplifting each other up that they’re doing the opposite. That’s really not my experience, not only here, but in the other women’s communities I’m involved with. And we really do a great job of supporting each other, loving each other.

[00:10:30] As you all know, we’ve had gals that have had tragedies befall them and this community has really lifted them up during those challenging times, not to mention fun things like Angela, who’s in our group, who’s in the karaoke contest right now. And everyone’s voting for her and, you know sharing people’s videos and going to people’s workshops and all those other ways that we support each other. Thank you, Tracie.

[00:10:59] Kat Mitchell. Kat, I am blissing that you’re here. Now, why did you choose to step in with Seema and the other gals for this project?

[00:11:09] Kat Mitchell: Well, when you said that some women don’t know that they need a community, I was one of those. I said yes, and then I said no, and then I said yes, and then I said no, because I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that much community and the power of all these women that I had no clue who they were, except for these little boxes on a screen once in a while.

[00:11:35] That final yes, and coming on that cruise. And meeting all these women and learning from everyone and just the, the power of community and not really understanding that coming into it as a caregiver, as one that has been, you know, doing so much alone for so long with everything that I’ve experienced. It was just so powerful that Even though I had been a co author once before, this was a book where I knew, I suddenly knew everybody and I felt connected to everybody and like Tracie said, how can you say no?

[00:12:22] It’s like, oh my gosh, it’s just the love that pours out with these women whenever everyone is together. I had to say yes. And I’m still learning and growing through all of this, and it’s still scary at times.

[00:12:38] Caterina Rando: Well, yeah, and guess what, Kat? That’s life, right? You know, life is dynamic, and it’s our willingness to be uncomfortable that I think really supports us to grow and thrive and bliss.

[00:12:50] And I love that you said that there’s So much love here. You know, one of the things I say is that just because we’re not little kids doesn’t mean we can’t use encouragement ,you know? That we’re kids in adult bodies and Encouragement and love and support is an important ingredient for us to bliss and thrive in our lives and our businesses. Bing bing bing.

[00:13:13] Okay, so my friends I want to hear a super tip to support our listeners in building community.

[00:13:20] And I do want to say, you know, you’re all mentioning the cruise. I want to say, I’ve been studying this because, you know, I just got off a cruise ship five minutes ago and was on two cruise ships in this last month with one of my retreats and with someone else’s retreat.

[00:13:36] And I study, why does it work when you’re on a cruise ship? And I’m going to tell you why, because nobody can come late. Nobody can leave early. And even though the ship has a lot of people on it, you mostly just hang out with your people. And because you’re hanging out with your people and you’re going to places and you’re doing activities, it really facilitates relationship and conversation and connection like nothing else.

[00:14:05] So for listeners, we got a lot of those on the horizon, and I hope that you will come and join us for one of them. Okay, I want you to share what’s one of the things that you do or that you wrote about to help our listeners cultivate community. Elaine, let’s go.

[00:14:25] Elaine Williams: Sure, Caterina and I’ll just say one more thing about the bubble of the cruise. It’s, it makes me think of camp. Like I used to go to summer camp and the relationships would be so much deeper. Even though we were together for like a month or six weeks compared to my school friends, because we were in this bubble together and living, sleeping, you know, riding horses, all the things that we were doing. And so it’s kind of like you get to go to summer camp again. So that’s a fun way to think about it.

[00:14:53] So I talk about the power of healing through laughter. And I know mental health is on everybody’s mind these days. And one of the best ways to burn calories, take in more oxygen, release toxins, get the feel good chemicals going in your brain is to laugh out loud. And so I say, “here’s your homework, go on YouTube and watch five minutes of something until you laugh out loud.” Or maybe it’s Fisk. There’s a crazy Australian sitcom on Netflix called Fisk. It is hilarious. I watched that. I love that one. So clever, right?

[00:15:31] And everybody has different things. Maybe you like the Three Stooges. Maybe you love Wanda Sykes. You know, there’s so many brilliant people. Maria Bamford is a character comedian. So you know, it’s okay if you’re the only one laughing, that’s okay.

[00:15:43] But find something that’s going to help you giggle five minutes a day. And it will help you with your positivity, your outlook, and it’s contagious. And when somebody smiles, it’s contagious. And so give it to yourself and then see, how can I share a laugh today?

[00:16:02] So those two things, a comedic mindset and trying to share the laughter and the love. And just because you’re laughing does not mean you don’t care about all the crazy stuff that’s happening, but it helps you have resilience and be able to deal with it better.

[00:16:17] And so I love preaching laughter and comedy and humor because I need it, but because the world needs it and we can help spread it. So that’s what my chapter is about and those are my super tips.

[00:16:29] Caterina Rando: Elaine, that’s beautiful. And you know, for all of the listeners doing their own workshops or their own retreats, having gals laugh for a few minutes in the middle of the workshop or the retreat is also a great way to have people connect and, and vitalize the room. Beautiful. Thank you, Elaine. Tracie, let’s go to you. Give us a super tip for you with cultivating community.

[00:16:53] Tracie Root: Yes. Well, my chapter is called Building Community is a Bold Act: Collaboration, Courage and Midlife Dreams. People think of community as just like people being together and in the business world, it’s networking and things like that.

[00:17:09] But as we’ve talked about earlier, courage is a big factor and a lot of people you know, hold themselves back from the things that are scary. So, you know, while, yes, we want to have an uplifting, lighthearted, you know, throughout the day to help us be resilient. Elaine, I’m 100 percent about resilience.

[00:17:30] I think that also recognizing that being resilient is courageous because you have to allow yourself to work through what’s scary to get to the other side. So when you do that with other people, you feel supported, you feel connected and not alone. And it allows you to be more brave.

[00:17:53] And collaborating with other women, especially in business, but also personally. Maybe you’re volunteering together or working at your kid’s school together or something like that. Collaboration also fosters that opportunity to feel less alone, to know that if you’re doing something that’s a little uncomfortable, maybe the person next to you totally has it and can help you go through or maybe they’re also feeling a little unsure and you can be unsure together and you feel less alone.

[00:18:22] The value of building community, it’s not easy all the time, but it’s the thing that will change the world. Women connected is what’s going to change the world. So I want you to be brave and be bold in connecting to other people so that you can move forward and so can they.

[00:18:43] Caterina Rando: I love that Tracie. Tracie, I’m going to capture something you said, which is a Tracie-ism for you to write down.

[00:18:49] When you are in community, it allows you to be more bold. You said that, you said brave, but I’m putting bold because that’s your business, but brave also applies. And that’s something that I want you to be really loud and proud about that because that is absolutely true.

[00:19:06] Have you all found that? When you’re in community, you are more likely to be more bold because your bliss sisters, your friends are encouraging you to take action. And the other thing they do is they remind you how awesome you are, because sometimes we forget, right? That’s another important thing that happens in community.

[00:19:27] Kat, let me go to you next, let me hear one of your super tips as well. And what was your chapter on, Kat?

[00:19:34] Kat Mitchell: So, my chapter it’s Fueled by Self-Love: One Woman’s Path to Navigating Life’s Challenges. Because I’ve experienced a lot of those challenges, much like a lot of us.

[00:19:45] And I found through community, not knowing that I really needed the community, was that accountability, that ability to learn to trust others. When you’ve been on these paths that feel lonely or like there’s nobody else that really understands everything that you’ve experienced and then you realize when these doors open to community and you get to experience that you’re not alone in this world and you can be vulnerable and you can be trusting and you can Receive the love rather than always giving.

[00:20:32] And one of the things that I talk about in my chapter a lot is really saying yes to yourself and really feeling the happiness and joy within so you can be around so much beauty and love, you know, that is received.

[00:20:51] Caterina Rando: That’s beautiful. And you know, some of you have mentioned the pandemic and, and when the pandemic started my divorce was just final. My ex husband actually just passed away right before then.

[00:21:05] One of the things I did Elaine was I watched all the seasons and all the episodes of Frazier again, because that show is so incredibly funny, at least to me. And that was very healing, but yes, alone in the house. And if we didn’t have our Thriving Women in Business Community, I would have been a psycho woman.

[00:21:28] It was the Thriving Women in Business Community that really made my heart full during that time. And Kat, you know, loneliness is another epidemic that we definitely will address when we’re in community. Thank you so much for that. Beautiful. Seema, let’s go to you. What’s one of your super tips?

[00:21:50] Seema Giri: WHen I think of power of community I think of parachute. A community’s parachute. When you finally have the courage to Jump off that plane of trying something new, something different that you’ve been afraid to do, your community catches you, right? The parachute opens up and you have a safe landing and that’s what the community does.

[00:22:11] But we always think when we’re joining a community, we think, “what is this community going to do for me?” Number one part is what’s important is your own engagement. You’re only going to get out what you put in.

[00:22:24] So if you’re not getting what you’re wanting to get out of community, look at how much of engagement are you putting in, what value are you bringing to the community, because it’s a trade off. So engagement is key. Find the right community, engage as much as possible to get that value that and have your parachute opened up for you.

[00:22:46] Caterina Rando: I love that. That is so true. Over the years being involved in different groups I’ve had women say, “oh, well, I didn’t get anything out of it.” Yeah. But did you show up mama? No, usually they barely showed up and they’re, you know, “Hey, I didn’t get anything out of it.” And they’re not looking at their own engagement and their own stepping in and connecting and reaching out and supporting the other women in the community.

[00:23:12] That is so key. Thank you, Seema for that. Narelle, you have gotten so much value as you’ve shared with the power of community. What did you talk about? And give us one super tip for our listeners.

[00:23:27] Narelle Sheehan: You know, I’ve had all these glamorous careers and glamorous things and glamorous clients and, you know, clearly I myself am glamorous.

[00:23:36] So I decided to write about nothing got to do about that. And I wrote about the ugliest, most scary community I belong to because that’s what people need to hear. So what I found out about community is that one way we can be successful in community is look into your life and see truly what scares you the most, what scares you the most, where you don’t feel accepted. What can you do to change that?

[00:24:04] So as we’ve said before, you either build a community or you become part of a community. So most of the time, like I was in my community for about 35 years before I knew that it was a community that I needed to have influence in. So my chapter is all about, it is called My Big Fat Community.

[00:24:25] And yes, go there, read it. So it’s about the joyful world of bariatric surgery and being fat and being thin. And fat, I’ve defined in the chapter is F. Full stop. A full stop. T full stop. For Americans. F period. A period. T period. And go and look at that because every single woman in the world in their community has conscious and unconscious thoughts about self image and their body image.

[00:24:58] And you know, just to make myself even more sure that I got this message, I worked in entertainment and for many years, still in entertainment. And, you know, so I was the only person above size two. It was stressful, really stressful. And so I tell a few funny stories about that in my chapter, but what I think the most important thing about finding a community is that it’s the scariest place you want to be. That’s where you can share. That’s where you can have most success. That’s where you can be an influence and be bold. I, I know more people that are terrified of being with other people and they have amazing you know inclusive communities.

[00:25:43] So my biggest suggestion from reading this book and reading these chapters is contact one of us. if you want to be a standup comedian, that’s amazing. Contact Elaine. You probably are already making people laugh. You just don’t know the tools. Contact Tracie if you want to set up your own community and you live in a place where there’s no people, she’ll help you find people. Talk to Kat about everything in life cause she’s really smart,.

[00:26:12] You know, all of us in our book, I want to say this particularly, we’ve all put our personal contact information at the end of our chapters. I think that’s what’s missing in community and in life in general is reaching out to the person directly.

[00:26:28] You don’t want to go through 27 assistants, 27 agents, publicists, whatever. You might read a book and the publisher puts up a big gate or the agent puts up a gate or the manager puts up a gate. If you’re reading our book, contact us directly, please. I’m I’m really want to put that on every podcast we talk on, because if you need help setting up a community, ask for help.

[00:26:54] That’s what a community is. So go and be horrified at my chapter, My Big Fat Community.

[00:27:01] Caterina Rando: Thank you, Narelle. Well, you know, Narelle, one of the things you made me think of with this, and I love that you said, “please reach out to us,” is that a lot of business mentors and coaches and consultants, they say they have a community, but really what they have is a group of people that they’ve gathered together to edify them as a leader and that it’s very important to consciously curate your community to be a community culture and not a celebrity culture.

[00:27:35] And how do you do that? And part of it is exactly what you said is accessibility, being available to everyone in your community, not having the meter running every time somebody talks to you and not being afraid to be personal with your clients and to be friends with your clients and to love on your clients. Because just like we can all use encouragement. We can all use more acknowledgement. We can all use more love. And those are values I encourage you to bring to any community you create.

[00:28:14] And I will also say my super tip is that values matter and consciously pay attention and write down and choose the values by which you’re going to run your community because that will also make a huge difference.

[00:28:30] My friends, we have only gotten a glimpse today into this amazing book, the Power of Community. You are absolutely gonna run, don’t walk, to wherever you get your books to get this book. The Power of Community. The voices in this book are incredible. The women are all leaders, community builders, and women that will uplift and inspire you to create what you want for yourself in your life. And hopefully that includes a community.

[00:29:04] My friends, Thank you so much. I am blissing to have had you with us today for this exciting conversation. Listeners, please go get this book. Also, please join us in the Thriving Women in Business Community. We have a Facebook group. Please look at my website, caterinarando.Com, where you can also listen to the other over 150 episodes of this podcast. And we will see you again on the Expand Your Fempire Podcast. Remember you got massive value to bring. Be loud and proud. Be bold. Go bring it and we’ll see you next time. Thanks, everybody.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando.