Category Archives: eWomen Network

11Aug/16

Confidence Grows Inch by Inch

Brave, confidence, empowerment, eWomen Network, , ,
It's your best pair of heels for sure! Your confidence!

It’s your best pair of heels for sure! Your confidence!

To be confident, you also need to be brave.  Last week I was at eWomenNetwork International business conference and expo.  The theme of the conference was all about being confident.  I did something for the first time in 5 years of being at the conference.  I spoke in front of 900 plus business women and men on the microphone, sharing something personal.  I have been growing my confidence and bravery for many years now.  Was I scared to stand up?  Yes.  Did I do it with my knees shaking and teeth chattering?  Yes.  I took a breath, looked over at a few friends I could see near by and went for it.

Confidence grows inch by inch, just like being brave.  Let’s look at it this way.  Caring adults, grab your tween girl in your life, and take a look at this!

Have you ever wanted to try something new yet were scared?  Maybe your Mum suggested giving a try of a new sport or class after school?  Yet you’re afraid to meet new kids?  Or you’re worried what the other kids will say when you do meet them.

Perhaps though you REALLY want to try the activity.  Being a Wonder Girl is knowing that you’re scared about something and doing it any way.  Growing your confidence and believing in yourself takes work, and practice.  Maybe you’re reading this right now and there’s a test coming up in school.  And maybe it’s a subject you don’t like.  Or it’s a subject that is challenging to you.  Do your best to study for it.  Create a way you can remember stuff easy.

Think back to when you were in grade one or two.  Is there anything you did then that you don’t do now?  Did you stop something that you liked to do because other kids were making fun of you?  Why not doing that something again?  Be brave feel your confidence rise and go for it!

Being brave also means trying something again when you failed at it for the first, second, or even third time.  Just keep trying until you get it completed or right!  Keep going with putting one foot in front of the other.  Every little step towards that something you want gets you closer to it, not further from it.  And doing nothing just gets you nowhere.

Someone told me once that it’s confidence that makes a woman sexy.  This is so true!  Feeling confident enough to walk down the street with our heads high, feeling amazing and confident in our own skin.

Take a look at this video below by Demi Lovato, it’s all about being confident.  What’s wrong with that?  Nothing!!  Tell me, below, how will you grow your own confidence today?

07Sep/14

Teeth chattering and knees knocking

Brave, empowerment, eWomen Network, Uncategorized

What is it about new experiences that make you excited?  Nervous?  Dare I say even fearful?  Think back to a time where you were to embark on a new experience.  How did you feel?  What was it that you got you excited?  Were you short of breath?  Were your hands sweaty?  Did you follow through with the new experience, or did you back out last second?

I want you to picture this…..imagine it is 2011 and you are sitting at your computer.  The sun is shining through the screen window on a crisp winter morning.  Snow has freshly fallen and there’s a twinkle on the snow.  You open your e-mail and you see a message from your dance coach.  She explains that she doesn’t want you to be a part of the performance troop any more.  You are devastated, you had been with the company for three years.

However, when all seems lost you hear of an event happening the first day when your classes were supposed to begin again.  You attend this new event.  Knees knocking and teeth chattering you stand up to speak.  Feeling like a deer in the headlights you stammer out your name and a quick sentence of empowering women through dance.

It’s an event that will change your life for the better.  It’s a group of women who are all in business for themselves!  After you sit down a warm hand comes on your shoulder from a friend who says “Good job.  There’s someone I want you to meet.”

This was my new and exciting experience I was embarking on.  I took another breath and followed my friend who had grabbed my arm and lead me over to a short woman who had a big teethy smile like me, yet she had a cowboy hat on her head with her black wavy hair coming out from under it.

This woman shook my hand and said “Hi Aime, I know who you are.  I’ve been watching you.”  I am pretty sure my eyes went as big as saucers and a tear ran down my cheek because she quickly said “Oh!  No!  Not ‘that’ kind of watching you.  Come to my meeting in two days.  I want to help you.  And I believe the women there will want to help you too.”

Two days later I was at her meeting.  I paid the entry fee at the door and went and put down my purse at a table.  The woman with the cowboy hat saw me and came over to me almost at a run even.  She embraces me in a huge hug and welcomes me.  She then says “I want to help you.  I want to help you grow and glow.”  Tears start streaming down my cheeks.  I have never had any one tell me that before.  She hugs me again and says “Aime, just smile that awesome smile I know you have, and everything will be just fine.”

This was my first introduction to eWomen Network and to Jo Dibblee.  I joined eWomen Network that month with the extra money I made from house sitting.  I joined because of Jo.

I went into this new experience with a whole lot of nervousness and even fear.  Yet the women (and men) of eWomen Network have embraced me, and want to see me climb higher and are right there cheering me on.  Even though Jo Dibblee has passed the torch to leading our chapter I know she is only a message away.

So I invite you to keep truing new things.  New experiences.  Your guides and femtors/mentors will appear.  If I did it.  I know you can too.  What new experience will you dive into next?

 

 

29Aug/14

“Let me be brave!”

Book, Brave, empowerment, eWomen Network, ,

Earlier this month I went to Dallas for eWomen Network International Conference.  The speakers were amazing, and the connections I made were fantastic.

One of the speakers Sean Smith spoke about attitude, and the masks/coats we all wear after something happens that hurts our hearts.  The one thing that I took away from his talk was about not being afraid to do something.  So many people want to do something, yet are afraid of doing that thing.  Perhaps something happened to them in their past like Sean Smith talked about, being teased, hurt, death in the family.  Yet time and time again we can rise, and take off that coat and open our hearts again.

As for me, I at one point wore many coats/masks.  I didn’t want to get hurt again by others.  I stayed quiet, didn’t rock the boat, or dance to the beat of my own drum.  Server verbal bullying for 6 years by my peers in school, on top of being told that I would never write well by my teachers in grade school was a hard one to swallow. Below, it’s me in Grade 8, dancing the lead in the ballet.

Me Grade 8, bullying was crazy.

 

When was the last time you did something that scared you?  When was the last time you did something for the first time.

I am reminded of the quote from the Special Olympics:  “Let me win.  Yet if I do not win, let me be brave in the attempt.”  The Special Olympics are for adults who live with a developmental disability.  During my day job, I work with adults who live with developmental disabilities.  A few of them participate in the Special Olympics.  They win every day at life.  They keep going no matter what.  Many times they are my inspiration to keep going in my own life.  They are willing to do their best, to try new things, to make new friends, to be themselves.

-Let me win.  Yet if I don't win, let me

 

How are you being brave?  You deserve to live and be brave in your life.  How am I being brave you maybe wondering?  Well by living, by stepping outside my box, and compiling a book about children overcoming adversity.  Allowing myself to be seen, and heard by a global audience.  I’ll admit it, it is scary at times.  Yet I keep going inch by inch, I will get to my goals and dreams.