Expand Your Fempire Podcast #167 Transcript

Unleash Your Inner Sparkle to Shine in Business and Life!

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] Welcome to another episode of the Expand Your Fempire podcast. I’m Caterina Rando, and I have something very special for you today. As you know, I do a ton of speaking, live and in person, virtual, on cruise ships, sometimes even in exotic locations. Well, recently, I got invited to speak at the Sparkle Summit, hosted by Kristy Parry and [00:01:00] Chris Dyer.

I put together a fun presentation all about how to sparkle more in your business. I think you’re gonna love it, and we have made it a podcast for you to enjoy. Sending you much love I hope you take away some great ideas to sparkle more in your business.

Caterina Rando: When Kristi and Chris asked me to speak at the Sparkle Summit, I had no idea what it was. I knew I wanted to be involved.

I was an insta-yes. Now, let me tell you something. Sparkle is a strategy. It is a strategy for two things: a strategy to show up more, it is also a strategy to [00:02:00] uplift you.

I’m gonna talk to you today about some guiding principles to up your sparkle for not only your own professional and business success, but also for your own personal uplift.

The first guiding principle is to choose sparkle. Choose sparkle. Now, when you think of sparkle, maybe you think of our friend Kristi, who is the super sparkle gal, or maybe you think of adding a little bling to your ensemble for the day, or maybe you think about having, uh, pom-poms like Elena has showed us during this time.

Yes, that is sparkle. [00:03:00] That is doing sparkle. That is the doing side of sparkle. What I wanna encourage you to choose right now is to be a sparkler. Are you with me, my friends? I want you to choose to be a sparkler.

Now, what is a sparkler? A sparkler is not only a gal that does sparkle. A sparkler is a gal that chooses to spread her sparkle all over through how she is being in the world.

My friends, I have a guiding principle for my whole life, which I’m gonna share with you right now, which is very aligned, very aligned with our Sparkle Summit, and that is that it is my intention to uplift [00:04:00] every single person I come in contact with.

Yesterday, the guy delivers my flowers from Costco. I’m saying to him, “Oh, my gosh, thank you so much for bringing me flowers.” He lit up. He got so smiley, and he left that interaction way more uplifted than when he showed up. It was a quick interaction, and it uplifted his day.

But you know what else happened? It uplifted my day. And in fact, you may or may not know that when we acknowledge others, when we compliment others, when we smile at others, not only does it impact them, but my friends, the science will tell you it impacts us, and we are now more uplifted.[00:05:00]

In fact, HeartMath, the Institute of HeartMath, they measure what’s going on with your heart energy, and your heart actually has a, a energetic field.

And if you’re just going through your day like blah, blah, blah, seven feet of energy out from your heart. When you acknowledge others, when you intentionally choose to be sparkling and happy, when you choose joy, when you amplify your joy, your heart energy isn’t at seven. It goes all the way out to 30 feet.

And you know what happens in that 30 feet? It’s like a sonic wave, pshew. Everybody in the wake of your heart energy is impacted by your positive heart energy. Are you vibing with me right now? Bing, bing.

Okay, so everyone take a deep breath. Woo-hoo. And right now, I want you to [00:06:00] say to yours- you don’t have to unmute. Say it to yourself. Let me see your lips moving though. I want you to say, “I choose to be a sparkler.” I choose to be a sparkler. I choose to be a sparkler.

Diana18: I choose to be a sparkler.

Caterina Rando: Yay. Diana, I heard that. That’s beautiful. All right. Now, my friends, I love it. Diana’s been I should say we’re sparkles side by side. There we go, Diana. We’ve sparkled side by side for many years. I am blissing to have Diana be my friend for more than 30 years.

In fact, Diana, I’m gonna talk about you. You’ve heard it too many times. We met at this women in business event, and she walked in the room with her beautiful white three-piece suit and her big smile, and I said, “That is a gal I want to meet.”

She was embodying sparkle then, [00:07:00] and it was her sparkle that had me say, “I wanna meet that gal.” And we’ve been friends for over 30 years, and I am blessing. Bing, bing. I’m gonna give you some love, Diana, right now during my speech. Bing, bing, bing.

All right, now, my friends, that was the first one. Choose sparkle.

The next thing, my friends, is to own your sparkle. Now, the reason why we’re gonna hang out here, and I know we talked a lot about different ways to own your sparkle, but what I wanna touch on with you right now is to eliminate sparkle zappers. Okay?

We gotta eliminate those sparkle zappers. And you know what gets in the way of your sparkle, what diminishes your sparkle, what smooshes your sparkle?

Well, the one thing is not having good self-care. Let’s just tell the truth, okay? Not enough sleep, [00:08:00] that’s dulling your sparkle. Eating too much stuff you know is not good for you dulls your sparkle. And, , you know, I’m not the health and wellness advisor, but you get the idea, right, my friends? Okay? You gotta master your self-care to have your sparkle stay strong.

But you know what else gets in the way of sparkle? Comparison. Comparing ourselves to Mary, Jane, and Sheila. Following all the gals, Now I’m gonna tell you something.

Last night I spent way too much time looking at all the gals in their Met Gala gowns. And then, you know, I said, “Oh, they look so beautiful.” But you know what I did? I admired their gowns. I didn’t compare. And you know what’s so awesome with ChatGPT? I made my own gown. I put it on my page. Oh my gosh, it’s so beautiful. Charlie, he’s my [00:09:00] ChatGPT partner, he made me the most gorgeous gown and I love it.

My friends, be inspired by other people’s sparkle. Don’t compare. Are you with me on this? And I really want you to pay attention to this, because comparison will zap not only your sparkle, it will zap your bliss. And we don’t got time for none of that.

And the third thing that zaps our sparkle is that voice sometimes in our head that says, “I know you wanna do that, but what will people think about that?”

And we worry about what Mary, Jane, and Sheila, Tom, Dick, and Harry think. And guess what? Mary, Jane, and Sheila, Tom, Dick ,and Harry, [00:10:00] they’re not living your life. They’re not paying your bills. They don’t have your dreams.

And I really want to encourage you to start to pay attention when you’re holding yourself back because you think others won’t approve.

Oh, you know, I was on a cruise ship last week, bing, bing, bing, with all my gals. We were on, the Bliss Retreat for Women Leaders on a Mission. There was a lot of sparkle flying around, I’m gonna tell you right now.

You know the most fun thing we did? I’m taking a, I’m taking a sparkle sidebar right now.

The most fun thing we did for me is we twirled ribbons like they do in the Olympics. You know? The gals run around and they do all the gymnastics with the ribbons. Well, we didn’t do the gymnastics. We just twirled the ribbons. It was so much fun.

And guess what? Swag super tip alert, okay? I got the ribbons on Amazon for like 12 bucks with the [00:11:00] sticks and the everything, that everyone loved it so much. Okay, that was my swag sidebar, which I know some of you appreciated, and some of you said, ” what’s with the swag sidebar, Caterina?”

I’m on this ship last week- And I’m talking to the comedian on the ship. His name was Rob, and actually he came and did a comedy segment with my gals to talk to them about using humor in their speaking. And we were blah-blah-ing after, and we were talking about this whole idea of, you know, worrying about what other people think.

And I said to him, “You know, when I first started to train women how to use speaking to grow their business, I had these two guys come up to me that were very seasoned speaker trainers. They’d been training for many years. And they said to me something like, ‘Who do you think you are?'” And I remember in [00:12:00] the moment feeling that depression, that deflation.

And then I thought to myself, “You know what? It doesn’t matter what they think.” I had this little conscious convo with myself. And guess what? It’s many years later now, I’m blissing with my speaker mastermind retreat, I’m blissing to watch the gals that have been through it speak, and it doesn’t matter what Bob and Ben thought. Are you vibing with me, my friends?

Now, there is gonna be the people that are gonna want to diminish your sparkle, and I’m giving you the permission right now, but also encouraging you to embrace this guiding principle: own your sparkle.

With me, my friends? Okay. Good.

[00:13:00] Choose sparkle. Thank you, Elena, for the fireworks.

Own your sparkle.

And then the next thing is let’s amplify our sparkle.

Let’s amplify our sparkle. And, you know, when Chris and Chrissy said to me, “Hey, Caterina, we want you to speak at Sparkle Summit,” I thought, you know, I love, Kristi with her glasses and Chris with her beautiful bold hair, and I thought, “Well, you know, I don’t know. Am I, am I in their league of sparklers?”

And then I started to look at my business And let me tell you something, sparkle is standard operating procedure around here. We got standard operating sparkling. That’s standard operating sparkle.

We do the pom-poms. [00:14:00] We do the crowns. And I don’t get the, you know, kid crowns. I get the VIP crowns with all the fancy crystal.

We do the fascinators when we have afternoon tea. In fact, afternoon tea is standard operating procedure with fascinators at my retreat. We do a jewelry exchange, an accelerated jewelry exchange, at every one of my retreats. Here’s the theme for that: love it, never wear it, time to share it.

And you know what the most fun thing is after the jewelry exchange? When all the gals are wearing their new jewelry sparkle loot that they got from other gals, and the other gals say, “Oh my gosh, that’s from my personal collection. It looks so great on you.” That is standard operating sparkle.

So everybody take a deep breath right now. [00:15:00] And I want you to look at where can you add more sparkle as standard operating procedure?

We send out birthday boxes every month for the gals for their birthday, and before it used to be like a wooden box. Every year we have a different one with a different affirmation. It says, “You’re inspiring, you’re amazing,” something like that.

And you know what we added last year? Of course, we always have chocolate, which by the way, chocolate is sparkle even though it might not shine so much. I just want you to know that chocolate is sparkle. We added these sparkle sashes that say Birthday Queen. That’s standard operating sparkle procedure.

Where can you add more sparkle as standard in your business? I want you to write that question down. Because I want you to be looking at that. Where can you add more [00:16:00] sparkle as standard?

And ’cause by the way, especially if you’re like me and you work with women, I think you’ve gotten the message pretty heavily the last two days.

Women love sparkle. Yes? Bing, bing, bing. And you are the sparkler of your business. Bing, bing, bing. Love it. Okay, now, let’s take another deep breath.

Now how do you take the idea of amplifying your sparkle and bring it into your business? You know what you’re gonna have to do? Again, you’re gonna you’re gonna have to not worry about what anybody else thinks, because you know what?

Your sparkle sisters will be attracted to you. And not everybody is a sparkle sister. Now, some gals are sparkle sisters, some gals are wanna be sparkle sisters, and [00:17:00] some gals are get that sparkle away from me sisters. Okay? Now, who are your gals?

My gals are the sparkle sisters and the gals that wanna be sparkling more, and I think those are your gals too. Would you agree, my friends?

Okay, I remember once I did a workshop. Every month I do a free workshop, and I hope that’s standard operating sparkle procedure in your business too, because then you always have something to invite people to so they can get your sparkle vibe.

Anyway, I remember some time ago, I’m doing this workshop, and the first three minutes of the workshop I start popping the hearts on the screen, and I was like, “Yeah, bing bing. Give Sheila a heart. Bing bing, da da da.” And this gal has the biggest faccia lunga. Faccia lunga is Italian for long face. Christine knows what I’m talking about, right? I can’t even do it. It’s a long face. [00:18:00] And, she’s like… She was giving the me the big, like this, and then she was out of there, and I thought, “That’s okay. She is not a sparkle sister.” At the time I thought, “She’s not she’s not my gal.” Are you with me, everybody?

Okay, so what I’m saying to you is as a sparkle queen, by the way, we’ve just been, we’ve just been promoted from sparkle sister to sparkle queen, okay?

As a sparkle queen, not everybody’s gonna vibe with you. That’s okay, because you will attract your sparkle sisters, and your sparkle sisters will not only wanna work with you, but you know what else they’re gonna do? They’re gonna uplift your life.

You know, many of us are Polka Dots, and Shannon was, the speaker earlier. I love Shannon, love dots so much, and you know when people ask me about dots I say It will uplift your life [00:19:00] in so many ways.

And what I want you to know is that when you decide that you’re gonna be amplifying your sparkle, you know what you’re amplifying? You’re amplifying your bliss. And You’re amplifying your impact on others. Please hear that.

You’re amplifying your impact on others. That’s what we do when we set an intention to uplift others. And when you’re sparkling, everybody is uplifted. Are you vibing with me, my friends?

Okay, so let’s, let’s recap what we’ve discussed so far before we continue.

So the first thing is you’re gonna choose sparkle.

The second thing is you are going to own your sparkle, [00:20:00] and owning your sparkle means looking to eliminate those sparkle zappers. First you gotta notice them, then you gotta eliminate them.

And by the way, let me just jump back to owning our sparkle.

My friends, I want you to pay attention to your self-talk. Okay? Because now look at all these beautiful gals here. We have got some coaches extraordinaire in this room. We have got some mentors extraordinaire in this room. But you know what, my friends? I know… Well, I can’t say I know, but I think I know they’re not sleeping in your bed. Okay? Now, if they do, I don’t know about it, but they’re not sleeping in your bed.

And what does that mean? That means they’re not with you 24/7. We have our sisters, we have our sisterhoods, we have our gal pals, we have our business besties, but they’re not with us 24/7.

Look in the [00:21:00] mirror, sweetheart. There’s the gal who has to be your own best success coach, your own best friend, your own bestie. That gal.

And just like you wouldn’t say to one of your business besties or your gal pals, you wouldn’t say something to her to knock her down. You don’t do that. ‘Cause you’re in the uplift zone. Well, how come then sometimes you’re doing it to yourself?

Now… And guess what? This is not therapy. I don’t need to know the reason. I just need you to choose to not do it moving forward. Are you following me?

This is many years ago, my friends, way back. As I talk sometimes like I’m 200 years old. I am not 200 years old, okay? But way back before I started my business, [00:22:00] you know, I had a therapist. And I’m very pro-therapy. Believe me, I’m very pro-therapy. But I’m sitting in my therapist’s office, and I’m blah, blah, blahing about how, you know, what my, ever my challenge du jour was.

And I had this moment of, like, leaving my body and realizing, Caterina, what the hell are you complaining about? What, you know, what’s so… It’s not so bad. And that’s when I stopped working with a therapist and I hired my first coach. Because sometimes we get stuck in, why am I so whatever? And really what we need is some ongoing encouragement, some ongoing support, a community, and a plan.

And I really want you to look at this. Are you putting [00:23:00] too much attention on And too much is a judgment. So you evaluate. Are you putting attention more than would serve you? And that’s really the question. Is it serving you, is it serving you or is it sabotaging you to be doing all that thinking about all that stuff?

And might it be better to get some encouragement, some support, some community, and a plan to move forward.

You know, some of you know my, my story of I was in a marriage, my husband, it’s so awesome to be able to laugh about it now. My husband, depleted my stock account and my retirement account, and took credit cards out my name and ran up my line of credit, et cetera, et cetera.

And I don’t really [00:24:00] think about it much, and I don’t talk about it much because I got all those things. I got ongoing support. I got a great community. I have got encouragement. I got a plan. And today, everything is well taken care of. I am feeling a bliss in my business and bliss in my life.

And by the way, a big part of that is financial surplus, and I wanna shine the spotlight there.

Because when you cannot pay your bills, honey, your sparkle is dim. Would you agree?

And I wanna strongly encourage you to master your money or move towards mastery with your money, and part of that is massive monetization. And do you know what’s gonna bring you more massive monetization? [00:25:00] Amplifying your sparkle.

Why? Because when you’re blissing, and by the way, when you’re sparkling, you’re also blissing. When you’re blissing, that is alluring.

But when you’re stuck in the negative self-talk, when you’re stuck in poor me, when you’re stuck in why me, none of that amplifies your sparkle. Are you vibing?

So my friends, I got a lifetime supply of more sparkle tips and more stuff to share with you, but guess what?

I’m almost out of time, so we’re gonna have to wrap it up there today. I would love to get to know you more. I’d love to support you to amplify your sparkle more all over so you can bliss and thrive more and impact others.

Love to you, my friends. Bing,

 I hope you enjoyed my presentation from the Sparkle Summit. Hopefully, you’ve taken some ideas and you’re gonna sparkle up your [00:26:00] business based on this episode. Also, I do want you to know that we host three speaker mastermind retreats at my center in San Francisco. They are intimate gatherings, 10 gals or less, to support you in amplifying your speaking to gain clients.

I have gals that come back year after year after year because they’re continuing to move towards mastery with their speaking. Take a look at my website. We’ve got all the information there. I would love to talk with you about amplifying your speaking and your sparkle in your business, or your sales, or your scaling.

Those are what we focus on around here. Remember, my friend, you got massive value to bring. There’s a lifetime supply of people to serve. I encourage you to be loud and proud about your massive [00:27:00] value. I encourage you to invite people to connect with you. I encourage you to speak more, spread your message more, not only so you can sell more stuff, but also so you can have more impact with your massive value.

Love to you. I’m Caterina Rando, and hopefully you’ll be listening to another episode right now.

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