Claudia Chan and Lessons in Leadership

07/15/20 • 54 min

Who is a leader? What is leadership?

Can you only lead if you’re an owner, founder or a C-suite executive?

According to today’s guest, Claudia Chan, absolutely not.

And as a leadership and culture change expert, she’s made it her mission to provide the world with a more holistic, inclusive, and purpose-driven definition of leadership.

One that doesn’t discriminate against gender, race, economic background, or even your job title.

In the cut-throat world of business, entrepreneurs are taught to be ruthless, cold, and enigmatic to be successful. In the white male-dominated view of leadership, there’s no room for spirituality, empathy, or humility.

Clearly, in our present day, these definitions just don’t work. Businesses all over the world are learning the importance of inclusive workplaces and empathetic messaging.

And leaders simply cannot thrive by embracing outdated ideals and definitions of ‘effective’ leadership, taught by an overwhelmingly male and caucasian demographic through books, TV appearances, and conferences.

In today’s episode, listen in as Claudia describes how opportunities to lead are all around us, why women need to embrace their intuition in business, and why it’s so important to change the definition of what makes a good leader in our society.

Claudia’s message is an important one right now. We NEED new forms of leadership in a world that’s going through metamorphosis.

And we hope this episode might steer our listeners to it.

Here’s a peek at what else you can expect:

Why 2020 is the year of innovation
How current definitions of leadership can be rectified
Why analyzing your past is important to be a good leader
How being aggressive in internal growth helps
The people who are most affected by the pandemic
Why intuition and ‘gut instincts’ aren’t poor business decisions
How to relabel mistakes

RESOURCES

This is How We Rise - Claudia Chan

She Globl - Website

Wayne Dyer Audiobooks

Claudia - Instagram

She Summit - Website

This Week’s Joy:

Like many during this time, Claudia has been finding joy in the small moments she spends with her husband and two kids, tickle monster and all!

This Week’s Hustle:

Claudia’s hustle comes from a Wayne Dyer audiobook - don’t sell a product, sell what you love.

The true hustle comes from doing what you love so it doesn’t feel like work at all!

This podcast is brought to you by Namastream

This podcast is brought to you by the Namastream software platform. Namastream is an easy to use platform that helps you build and sell your own courses, memberships, and live-streamed programs. Go from idea to open for business in just minutes. Unlike other startups, Namastream was created by women for women. If you're looking for a simple, streamlined way to build and grow an online business. You can learn more at Namastream.com

Know Your Numbers

In our business, we're big fans of financial literacy and accountability. Knowing your numbers is an essential aspect of building a successful business and inherent responsibility for any entrepreneur.

What you focus on grows, so pay attention to your money.

We use Bench for our bookkeeping. It's simple, elegant, and saves us so many hours that would otherwise be spent neck-deep in receipts on the other side of a spreadsheet.

Each month our transactions are automatically imported into Bench and we get on-demand financial reports. We even enjoy opening up our profit and loss statement to review each month. When tax time comes around, we are up to date and ready to go. And this is what Financial Empowerment feels like.

Use this link to save 20% off your Bench Accounting plan for the first six months!

Who is a leader? What is leadership?

Can you only lead if you’re an owner, founder or a C-suite executive?

According to today’s guest, Claudia Chan, absolutely not.

And as a leadership and culture change expert, she’s made it her mission to provide the world with a more holistic, inclusive, and purpose-driven definition of leadership.

One that doesn’t discriminate against gender, race, economic background, or even your job title.

Clearly, in our present day, these definitions just don’t work. Businesses all over the world are learning the importance of inclusive workplaces and empathetic messaging.

Claudia’s message is an important one right now. We NEED new forms of leadership in a world that’s going through metamorphosis.

And we hope this episode might steer our listeners to it.

Here’s a peek at what else you can expect:

Why 2020 is the year of innovation
How current definitions of leadership can be rectified
Why analyzing your past is important to be a good leader
How being aggressive in internal growth helps
The people who are most affected by the pandemic
Why intuition and ‘gut instincts’ aren’t poor business decisions
How to relabel mistakes

RESOURCES

This is How We Rise - Claudia Chan

She Globl - Website

Wayne Dyer Audiobooks

Claudia - Instagram

She Summit - Website

This Week’s Joy:

Like many during this time, Claudia has been finding joy in the small moments she spends with her husband and two kids, tickle monster and all!

This Week’s Hustle:

Claudia’s hustle comes from a Wayne Dyer audiobook - don’t sell a product, sell what you love.

The true hustle comes from doing what you love so it doesn’t feel like work at all!

This podcast is brought to you by Namastream

Know Your Numbers

What you focus on grows, so pay attention to your money.

We use Bench for our bookkeeping. It's simple, elegant, and saves us so many hours that would otherwise be spent neck-deep in receipts on the other side of a spreadsheet.

Use this link to save 20% off your Bench Accounting plan for the first six months!

Previous Episode

Femily and Ethical Allyship

Lately, we’ve been paying a lot more attention to bias around us - gender bias, wealth bias, and of course, racial bias.

As white women, we’ve never really had to face the burden of racial bias.

It’s on us to check our privilege, continue having these important conversations, and educate ourselves on how to dispel bias by being the best allies we can.

And do ALL of that in a way that goes beyond posting a black square on social media.

Today’s guest, Femily, has made it her mission to help businesses get allyship right.

A feminist thought leader, management consultant, and organizational change expert, Femily is familiar with teaching male-led and majority male organizations about gender equality, inclusiveness, and gender allyship.

And with her work studying whiteness and white privilege, it felt natural for her to also advise white-led businesses on how to do things right in the current racial climate.

In today’s episode, Femily talks about why silence is violence and the danger of thinking you’ve done your part by just posting a black square on social media.

She also breaks down how white businesses should make allyship a long-term process ingrained in the core fibre of their operations instead of simply trying to slap ‘anti-racist lipstick on a racist pig.’

The conversation we had with Femily, while empowering and inspiring, was not an easy one to have.

But these conversations rarely ever are.

While serious discourse around white allyship should’ve happened a long time ago, it’s better late than ever. The onus is on us to continue it.

And this episode is the perfect place to start.

Here’s a peek at what else you can expect:

Femily’s education and how it’s helped her
What changes she’s noticing in protests and activism now
How female and male white-led companies greatly differ in their response to #blacklivesmatter
The immediate business reaction female (especially WOC) entrepreneurs have to the pandemic
How to balance social media and real world activism
Femily’s anxieties despite all the positive changes in allyship right now

RESOURCES

Femily - Website

Femily - Instagram

Future Thought Leaders - Webinar

This Week’s Joy:

Like many of us, Femily has been loving the new season of Queer Eye and the commitment of our Fab Five to helping people and making the world the best it can be.

This Week’s Hustle:

Femily’s Hustle is a nugget of wisdom courtesy of her ‘Future Thought Leaders’ webinar:

Get people clapping.

Oftentimes, the most nerve wracking part of public speaking is those first two minutes where it’s maddeningly silent and everyone in the audience is just staring at you. So if you can get them to clap and put a smile on their faces in any way, public speaking becomes a lot easier!

This podcast is brought to you by Namastream

This podcast is brought to you by the Namastream software platform. Namastream is an easy to use platform that helps you build and sell your own courses, memberships and live-streamed programs. Go from idea to open for business in just minutes. Unlike other startups, Namastream was created by women for women. If you're looking for a simple, streamlined way to build and grow an online business. You can learn more at Namastream.com

Know Your Numbers

What you focus on grows, so pay attention to your money.

We use Bench for our bookkeeping. It's simple, elegant and saves us so many hours that would otherwise be spent neck-deep in receipts on the other side of a spreadsheet.

Use this link to save 20% off your Bench Accounting plan for the first six months

Next Episode

Kelly Diels and the Pastel Pink underbelly of the Patriarchy

Picture this.

Your life and business are both stuck in a rut and you know you need someone’s guidance to get out of it.

Someone who looks, talks, and acts like you and who’s been through similar struggles.

So, you decide to get the help of a female lifestyle coach and log onto their website.

And are immediately greeted by:

A website with a background of pastels
A slim, white woman in a sheath dress and with shiny white teeth at the centre of it
A background of a perfect, sunny, customized kitchen in a large, airy house

As you continue to browse, you see something odd - at every page you’re being sold empowerment and are being advised to ‘embrace who you are’.

But, all of that is coming from someone who is wealthy, attractive, and socially acceptable.

Someone who shows none of the physical or emotional flaws that they’re teaching you to embrace.

That is what Kelly Diels calls ‘The Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand.’

Kelly is a feminist marketing consultant and coach who helps people build businesses that break age-old oppressive cycles.

And defining ‘The Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand’ archetype is her life’s work.

Kelly clarifies that most women who embody the archetype aren’t always inherently misogynistic, or even aware of the conflicting messages their branding is putting out.

However, they are ultimately selling patriarchy in a pretty pink bow.

After all, the archetype involves wealthy, conventionally attractive women leveraging their white privilege to exert power over other women by making them feel inadequate or lesser than.

And buying into it isn’t going to do much to help other women (especially those from minorities).

We all need to check ourselves (and who we choose as role models), take a deeper look at how businesses operate, and analyze what kinds of messages we’re sending out into the world.

Especially right now.

And Kelly is more than happy to help us down that road!

In today’s episode Kelly goes deeper into the Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand, discusses how and WHY we should shun traditional ways of operating a business, the differences between business and capitalism and much more!

We always love having Kelly around because we walk away from our conversations with a different perspective on things we took for granted.

And we’re sure she’ll have that effect on you too!

Here’s a peek at what else you can expect:

Why you always need to jump before you're ready
The financial benefits of adopting feminist practices to your business
How you can break the cycle of leveraging an oppressive system
What makes a business different from ruthless capitalism
How we can realize the power we hold to change the culture around us
How ‘business as usual’ is implicitly oppressive

RESOURCES

Kelly Diels - Website

Kelly Diels - Instagram

The Body is Not an Apology - Sonya Renee Taylor

Rachel Rodgers - Website

Christy Harrison - Website

Bookshop.org

This Week’s Joy:

Kelly’s joy this week is an answer to all our Amazon problems - bookshop.org. Much like Amazon, It’s a website where you can order books to be shipped to your doorstep.

The catch? A commission goes into supporting indie bookstores around you!

This Week’s Hustle:

Kelly isn’t a fan of the traditional business and copywriting formula of Problem - Aggravate - Solution. Instead, she proposes her ‘5 Step Messaging Model’ which initiates a shared vision or value with your customer and helps them make deliberate decisions to purchase your product, instead of being forced to do so from a place of shame.
Kelly is also working on an audit (or quiz!) which helps assess businesses and see if you’re either lining up with the Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand, or if your coaches and teachers are. Watch her website to be the first to know when it drops!

This podcast is brought to you by Namastream