Episode 31
The Essence of Lift As You Climb - The 5 "E" Themes | LAYC31
The original recording and release of this episode took place in March, 2021. Now merely 3 years later... So much has changed and happened, that I felt it was time to re release this episode for you. Additionally, technology has provided us with better tools to improve. So we're updating this entire episode.
This also gives me an opportunity to update you on the reason for this podcast... The inspiration behind it, and an explanation on the 5 themes that are constant throughout the episodes that will follow. You already know that the podcast is called the Lift As You Climb Podcast. It was inspired by the Lift As You Climb Movement, which is a Facebook Group that I hope you will join.
Enjoy this episode, please... If you find something of value in this, if it resonates with you, or if you feel that it might resonate with a friend or lift them up. Share this podcast. And always, I encourage you to come into the Facebook Group... Lift As You Climb Movement, and share your ideas and suggestions for other topics. Have an epic life!
About the Host:
Isabel Alexander
Your Next Business Strategist and Transformation Catalyst
Isabel Alexander's journey from modest beginnings to global recognition epitomizes entrepreneurial resilience and innovation. With over five decades of experience spanning diverse industries, she has become a driving force in shaping economic landscapes worldwide. Noteworthy accomplishments include founding a multimillion-dollar global chemical wholesale business and earning accolades such as Canada's Top 100 Most Powerful Women.
As a mentor and advocate, Isabel empowers women entrepreneurs through initiatives like the Lift As You Climb Movement and podcasts, guiding them from startup to maturity. Serving as Chief Encore Officer of The Encore Catalyst, she dedicates herself to coaching and educating emerging entrepreneurs. Her involvement in organizations like RenegadesReinventing.com and Femme on Fire underscores her commitment to leadership and business development.
Additionally, Isabel's advisory roles with government bodies and trade associations, such as Chair of the Canadian Association of Importers & Exporters, highlight her influence in shaping trade policies and fostering international relations.
Driven by her mantra, "Lift As You Climb," Isabel embodies the ethos of mutual growth and empowerment. With dual citizenship in Canada and the United States, she values her extensive family and embraces global connections through travel and professional engagements. Isabel Alexander's narrative serves as a beacon of inspiration, illustrating how visionary leadership and strategic advising can drive global entrepreneurship and economic independence forward.
Founder:
The Encore Catalyst Facebook page ( https://www.facebook.com/TheEncoreCatalyst )
and
Chief Encore Officer, The Encore Catalyst (www.theencorecatalyst.com) – an accelerator for feminine wisdom, influence, and impact.
also
Author & Speaker ‘Who Am I Now? – Feminine Wisdom Unmasked Uncensored’ https://whoaminowbook.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isabelannalexander/
Thank You for Listening!
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If you have questions about this episode, please send me an email at Hello@TheEncoreCatalyst.com
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Transcript
Episode number one of the Lift As You Climb podcast.
Speaker:It's surreal for me to hear my voice saying those words out loud.
Speaker:You know, I've always had a dream to have a TV show, a radio show, or well...
Speaker:now a podcast.
Speaker:And here it is, the day has arrived.
Speaker:I'm 66 years old...
Speaker:And never say never, because the adventure continues.
Speaker:I feel like I've got the seasons pass for a trip through Womanhood Wonderland.
Speaker:I am always experiencing something new.
Speaker:Adding to my lifetime degree, which I call QBE...
Speaker:Qualified By Experience.
Speaker:Bringing me here to this day...
Speaker:After having written and published a book 2 years ago, called Who Am I Now?:
Speaker:Feminine Wisdom, Unmasked and Uncensored.
Speaker:And it's that book that is the catalyst for this podcast.
Speaker:Because in sharing my story about how I grew up into womanhood and
Speaker:how I continue to grow into my super powers and my CEOness in my life.
Speaker:That a marvelous thing took place...
Speaker:Other women started to share their stories with me too.
Speaker:And it was in that sharing that we all discovered.
Speaker:It wasn't just us.
Speaker:We were not alone.
Speaker:In fact, there were a lot of things going on in silos, and isolation
Speaker:that we were not aware of...
Speaker:That together collaboratively, collectively, we can move
Speaker:forward at a much faster pace.
Speaker:That's a bit of the underpinning of Lift As You Climb, which
Speaker:is a personal mantra of mine.
Speaker:It has been for decades, and it hints at the story of my life.
Speaker:I will talk to you more about how that shows up, what it means to me, and
Speaker:why I created a movement called Lift As You Climb; Live your legacy and
Speaker:empower others to create their's.
Speaker:But going back to the idea, the origins of this podcast, are thoughts about my
Speaker:own values, and life experience, and learning, that I wish that someone would
Speaker:have shared with me, earlier in my life.
Speaker:Or more candidly, more truthfully...
Speaker:And that's what this is for...
Speaker:I'm here now to just share it all with you!
Speaker:Like the book cover says, Unmasked and Uncensored.
Speaker:Now you can imagine after 66 years of living full-out...
Speaker:And I'll tell you how I justify that...
Speaker:That I have a lot of stories to say.
Speaker:And a lot of things to share with you...
Speaker:So that you could compare, and vet how those are in your life.
Speaker:I thought about the values in my life...
Speaker:Now, because I believe that our values grow with us.
Speaker:The values of trust and collaboration, and uplifting and beauty, are very important.
Speaker:When I really thought about the most important things that
Speaker:I wanted to share with you...
Speaker:And I'm going to guess that you're a woman, maybe in your 40s, 50s, 60s...
Speaker:You're an entrepreneur...
Speaker:Never too old to do something new, never too young to start.
Speaker:The themes that are most prevalent for me, are the themes of...
Speaker:Experience...
Speaker:Evolution...
Speaker:Essence...
Speaker:Economy...
Speaker:and Encore.
Speaker:And so, here I am, in my home office...
Speaker:Speaking to you, out there, wherever you are in the world...
Speaker:And I am about to share a very intimate, but truthful exposure to what I believe
Speaker:I have learned in my lifetime...
Speaker:And what I still would like to learn more about.
Speaker:So in terms of thinking about...
Speaker:Experience....
Speaker:And you'll notice that those 5 themes for the podcast, all begin with the
Speaker:letter E, and I'm not sure why...
Speaker:But since my last name is Banerjee, which sounds like energy...
Speaker:perhaps, that's how that came to fruition.
Speaker:Experience is what I consider our vault of lifetime value.
Speaker:The ability to stop and take stock periodically, and remind ourselves
Speaker:of just how much we do know.
Speaker:The tacit knowledge that we have accumulated, the strengths that
Speaker:we have refined and grown, and the skills that we have acquired.
Speaker:The knowledge that we have from everyday living and doing.
Speaker:Equal to, considerably greater than, education in a formal institution.
Speaker:And I'm not saying that...
Speaker:Just because I graduated from high school at the age of 16, and walked away.
Speaker:I'm saying it because I do believe that there are many forms of
Speaker:education, and they all add up to the sum total of our lifetime value.
Speaker:Evolution.
Speaker:We build on our experience and the knowledge that we have,
Speaker:and the life experiences.
Speaker:And we continue to evolve and grow.
Speaker:It's extremely important to me, to always feel like my life is expanding...
Speaker:another E word...
Speaker:That I challenge myself to learn...
Speaker:To associate with others who can teach me...
Speaker:To share what I know with others as well...
Speaker:And to always have a bigger vision for my life, and what I can do to
Speaker:impact others, and live my legacy while I'm here, now, to enjoy it...
Speaker:To be a role model for my children, and my grandchildren, and my nieces and
Speaker:nephews, and the people around me...
Speaker:My family and my community, and the business community that I am in, and
Speaker:the philanthropic duties that I have.
Speaker:All of that learning and growing and evolving then...
Speaker:Brings me to the next realization...
Speaker:And that is that...
Speaker:I'm continually changing.
Speaker:No wonder...
Speaker:I have reached several pivotal times in my life when I've said, quite emphatically...
Speaker:Who am I now?
Speaker:Because I am no longer that person.
Speaker:I have evolved and transformed and reinvented...
Speaker:So many times in my life.
Speaker:And how grateful for that am I.
Speaker:Even though...
Speaker:candidly, truthfully...
Speaker:Some of those transformations, I have resisted.
Speaker:I clung on to what was familiar for me in the past.
Speaker:The identity that I felt safe in.
Speaker:But to continue to explore and refine who I am now...
Speaker:It's really a privilege.
Speaker:I get that.
Speaker:And I encourage you all...
Speaker:Gee, the "E" words are just coming out of everywhere today...
Speaker:Exploring, now encouraging...
Speaker:To know that your identity is not fixed.
Speaker:It is not frozen in a period of time in your life, or career that you have...
Speaker:Or a last name that you had, a relationship that you were involved in.
Speaker:It is fluid and expansive, and growing all the time.
Speaker:The essence of you is there...
Speaker:But it gets to be more refined as you get older...
Speaker:And as you are open to that exploration of yourself.
Speaker:No, I'm an entrepreneur...
Speaker:Again, the "E" letter...
Speaker:And so, entrepreneurial factors are extremely important to me,
Speaker:the economy, to be able to empower myself, as an entrepreneur, to be
Speaker:independent economically, and to have the power to grant wishes.
Speaker:Starting with my own, but have the ability to have enough to share,
Speaker:and plenty to spare, and be able to help and influence others.
Speaker:Which is always a part of Lift As You Climb...
Speaker:Being able to support and invest in others as well.
Speaker:Economy means influence for me...
Speaker:What am I doing, that will influence the quality of my life, my growth...
Speaker:And how will that allow me to influence positively other people.
Speaker:And the 5th "E" that I want to focus on in this podcast
Speaker:for the next while is Encore.
Speaker:Because for me...
Speaker:It's all about that realization...
Speaker:That when I didn't know who I was for a period of time
Speaker:in my life, and I was lost...
Speaker:Feeling like...
Speaker:Who am I?
Speaker:That I realized with great joy, that I had the opportunity
Speaker:for an Encore role in my life.
Speaker:That if I looked at my life as that opportunity to be the star...
Speaker:Of my own life, center stage...
Speaker:That I could choose the script, write it for myself, produce it, choose the cast
Speaker:and crew that is going to support me in that next and best role in my life.
Speaker:That's been absolutely the joy of freeing myself up...
Speaker:To going...
Speaker:No, I don't have to fit in a box, that society said, at some time in
Speaker:the past, that I should fit into...
Speaker:When I'm a white, female in my sixties, living in North America,
Speaker:and that I am a grandmother...
Speaker:That I should, you know, be ready to slide into retirement.
Speaker:NO!!!
Speaker:Another "E" word...
Speaker:Expiry...
Speaker:I don't have an expiry date.
Speaker:I'm looking forward to now imagining and executing...
Speaker:Oh my gosh, "E"s are flowing...
Speaker:What I'm going to do for the next...
Speaker:10, 20, 30, 40...
Speaker:Who knows?
Speaker:Maybe 50 more years of my life, and how do I have a greater vision all the time?
Speaker:Growing, setting examples, influencing others, creating greater impact.
Speaker:For me, for the people close to me that I love, but also having that impact...
Speaker:Ripple out around the globe.
Speaker:So that, more women and children, are economically empowered and independent,
Speaker:and that affects all of the population.
Speaker:My conversations and my thought, and my heart, are not excluding men...
Speaker:On the contrary...
Speaker:We're all holding an equal responsibility on the planet.
Speaker:I believe each have feminine energy and male energy, and we need both
Speaker:of those for success in all areas.
Speaker:My heart does belong to helping other women, supporting them, and
Speaker:encouraging that growing attitude...
Speaker:That women empower each other, and create a very wonderful ripple of
Speaker:positive impact around the world.
Speaker:You know, I began as a girl on a farm...
Speaker:Didn't have the story book, childhood relationship with my father.
Speaker:I had a challenging relationship there, and domestically, there
Speaker:were reasons to want to walk away at the age of 16, and not go back.
Speaker:Even after, I found out at 16, that I was already pregnant...
Speaker:after I'd left home.
Speaker:I had $75 in my pocket and one suitcase.
Speaker:And I thought I had one shot to figure it out.
Speaker:Who was I going to become?
Speaker:Because I was presently, in that moment, a child...
Speaker:And I was about to be responsible for the life of another human being.
Speaker:Fortunately for me, growing up on that farm, equipped me
Speaker:with a lot of strong skills.
Speaker:I had a strong work ethic.
Speaker:I observed my parents in entrepreneurial capacities.
Speaker:I worked for other entrepreneurs, and I had acquired a lot of skills...
Speaker:Even though I wasn't cognizant of it at the time that I was
Speaker:learning customer service, and cash management, and teamwork and reception
Speaker:skills, and bookkeeping skills...
Speaker:And on and on and on.
Speaker:Fortunately those helped that skinny, scared 16 year old...
Speaker:Stand up straight, look more confident...
Speaker:Seem much more mature, than my actual years.
Speaker:And it enabled me to get employment and be able to provide for myself,
Speaker:and my growing little family.
Speaker:Continuing through that experience...
Speaker:I learned as I took on each new job, to ask for more work,
Speaker:more than I was capable of...
Speaker:More than maybe I was ready for.
Speaker:But the fact that I keenly asked to take it on...
Speaker:And did my best to learn, and do really well for my employers.
Speaker:They continued to give me more and more responsibility.
Speaker:And for that, I'm very grateful, because that was the underpinning for me to
Speaker:be able to become an entrepreneur...
Speaker:To build my own company, just a few decades later.
Speaker:So for now, I'd just like to leave you with the thoughts that we are.
Speaker:Evolving constantly in our lives.
Speaker:And that every time we do something new, we take on something new...
Speaker:Like starting a podcast at age 66...
Speaker:That we've never been that before.
Speaker:We've never been that me before, but each and every time...
Speaker:That we take on this new role, this new identity, this new...
Speaker:huge goal.
Speaker:Our life before our skills, our experience, our strengths, have
Speaker:been preparing us for exactly that.
Speaker:And each and every time we figure out how to be that next us.
Speaker:I'll leave you with that today.
Speaker:I look forward to sharing more!
Speaker:I invite you to take a look in the mirror, and see who you are now.
