Episode 4

Womanhood Wonderland | LAYC04

Alice in Wonderland isn’t the only one having trouble fitting into her circumstances and environment frequently.

As a woman, evolving, transforming, and growing to fit the part for my next stage of life, business idea, personal reinvention or relationship change, I think I could write a sequel to Lewis Carroll’s story and title it “Womanhood Wonderland”.

My story isn’t finished so I hope you’ll stay in touch to see how I turn out!

I’d like to hear your stories about the adventures you’ve had as you embraced transformation!

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/

 

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Transcript

Hello again, everyone. Today, I'd like the opportunity to talk with you about a place that you may have visited – or - if you're like me, I seem to frequent this location a lot. Coming back again and again, to revisit the very interesting environment of Womanhood Wonderland.

Yes, yes. It's not just Alice that went to Wonderland. I do it regularly. And if the truth be told, I bet you do as well. It is the interesting thing about our life as evolutionary women; women who continue to evolve and transform and grow and find ourselves faced with making choices to do, to be, to change things up, that the landscape, the environment that we are in each time we make a decision to expand our life, add to our experience, is a wild and wonderful place.

And sometimes it's a weary place.

And other times, it's a scary place.

Womanhood Wonderland; I think back to Lewis Carroll’s story with Alice in Wonderland, and really how much I can relate to her as a character and her experiences. Always throughout my life, how I was, you know, felt like I was falling free falling into something that was adventurous and scary and unknown. And so very frequently, and still to this very day, that I am not fitting in quite right where I am at the moment, I'm always being challenged to either shrink, or grow, or I'm expanding to exceed the space that I am in. And that's part of this magic of womanhood Wonderland that we do. We morph and change and alter all of the time, if we choose.

Or, if we don't choose, then we could sit around like that toad stool and just smoke those hookah pipes. But really, I feel that the adventure as fearful, and as it is, is far a better option for me anyway, than living a life of safety and contraction; Wondering, what if I had done that or tried that?

So, most recently, I have just gone through a brand new experience. Yet again, in my life, when you thought I couldn't figure out something new to try or to become, you know, after all, I am the author of ‘Who Am I Now”. So that I, I live up to my my book title, not to disappoint.

So recently, my new experience was learning the online world and terminology and technology and lingo of the online summit are the summit launch, which is a method for reaching more customers with your product or service. By creating these large summits, with speakers, I mean, varying sizes, could be a couple or could be thousands, and having them come together with their expertise to speak on your platform.

It all sounds, in concept, pretty straight forward. Just follow the instructions. But what I have found is that there's a lot that you only find out by living through it. Not everything is sequential in process, and not everything is going to perform the way it's supposed to. For example, just this morning, I was supposed to get an automated sequence of emails going out to the people on my list, to let them know that as another aspect of my summit process, that I was going to be hosting a free retreat and mastermind series.

I was letting my people know, wanting to share a little bit about what that might mean for them, and to invite them to register and get the zoom link and show up and participate, you know, live - as live as we can today on zoom, or watch the replay later.

Well guess what Alice! happened this very day? When all of that automation was supposed to take place, my service provider had a major technical failure. And all of those automations, at least for many clients, did not happen as they should have. And in fact, there's still a whole spaghetti mess going on behind the scenes. And frankly, I just thought, what can I do? What can I do about this? Except, say it's part of the learning process, I will be adding to my vault of tacit knowledge and wisdom.

What do you do when technology fails? You? How do you go to plan B, C, D, or E, and carry on with a smile and with confidence that you're still giving value in the world? - just not quite at the time or in the way that you anticipated?

My friend Jackie Ulmer says life is 50/50. And that you know that things aren't always happening to you. That often you can look at the other side of the looking glass, dear Alice, and say, Hmm, maybe this is happening for me.

So, I'm trying very hard to hold on to that positive side and look at the reflection that will come from this experience that I will now know. Oh, yeah.

Well, first of all, it doesn't work to always do things at the last minute, as much as you are a spontaneous lover of life, and that you are the quintessential quick start entrepreneur. Having your system and process set up with a little more slack in the timeline is an advisable idea. Yes, dear Alice. And much like the queen of hearts in Alice in Wonderland, the truth be known, this morning, I was saying some really bad words about people out there in the URL land and wanted to go off with their heads, because they were not letting me get what I needed done in the manner that I wanted to do it.

So, what's a girl to do if she doesn't have a rabbit around what the pocket watch to keep track of the time that is elapsing? Will the retreat that I had planned to host tomorrow morning on a global scale, may now have to be rescheduled, or will I just go ahead with the adventure in my own little imagination in my rabbit hole.

And things will turn out the way that they were meant to be an afterall. We never really do know, the end of the story until we get to that last page.

Even more reassuring for me is knowing now, after living this long in my crazy world, that I get to write a new chapter every time I want to. And so if this first retreat was much different than I expected, okay. I'm going to call that my practice retreat. And I get to do a second and a third and a fourth and one thousand and one - if I choose to do so!

What I can do within my control is show up for this retreat with all of the intention that I first had, and that is to share as much of my wisdom and value as I can to my audience. And really, that's all we really can ask of ourselves, isn't it? I know it's difficult.

As an entrepreneur, as a woman, as a femmepreneur, we want to be perfect. We want everything to work out correctly. But I recently heard a suggestion from another colleague of mine, and accountability partner in a class that I'm taking, that it's far better for us to exchange the word ‘perfect’ for the word ‘excellent’ in our attempt to learn new things. So that's what I'm going to do. This isn't going to be perfect, I'm sure. But it will be excellent to the extent that I deliver enthusiastically and stay committed to the original purpose of the event. And that was to help women entrepreneurs, understand truly why most of us underpay ourselves? What's the motive behind that? What's the mindset, and then to share the strategies and the tools that I have learned as an entrepreneur for many, many decades.

I'll make sure that I include the information here with the podcast on what really what happened with that retreat and where you might find the recording so that you can see how Alice did after the tea party.

For now, I wish you great adventures and know that you're not the only one that's feeling kind of mad when you are trying to accomplish something new. Do it anyway, do it with fear and do it with a sense of humor. And there will be a happy ending I promise you!

By bye for now.

About the Podcast

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Seasoned Women Serious Business
Wise Enough to Want More

About your host

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Isabel Alexander

Dynamic, self-made entrepreneur who overcame obstacles with an unrelenting positive nature, a farm girl work ethic and a conscious choice to thrive rather than survive, Isabel Alexander Banerjee cultivated an award winning, $10 million+ global chemical wholesale business and grew it from dining room table to international boardrooms.

Isabel’s strengths include the ability to initiate & nurture strategic relationships, a love of lifelong learning and talents for helping others maximize their potential. An inspiring speaker within both industry and community, she is a driving force behind those with the courage to follow her example of thriving against the odds.

With 50+ years of business experience across diverse industries, Isabel is respected as an advisor, a coach, a mentor and a role model. She believes in sharing collective wisdom and empowering others to economic independence.

Isabel Alexander
Your Next Business Strategist and Transformation Catalyst