Finding Your Glow with Saren Stiegel
Founder of the Glow Effect, Saren Stiegel is using her knowledge and expertise to challenge what the words leader and leadership really mean.
Show Notes
What picture appears in your brain when I say the word leader? Do you see a leader as someone just at the top? What if you shifted your idea of who a leader is and recognized the leader within yourself?
Through the Glow Effect, Saren Stiegel is redefining what leadership looks like. Much like my conversation with Nichole from Mommy’s Home Office, Saren loved the idea of online business. So she took her knowledge and previous experience and launched the Glow Effect.
Saren has helped women partner across the globe to develop leadership skills horizontally versus vertically. The emphasis being that a leader is not a hero. A leader is someone who leads from behind. Who leads from within. Recognizing that everyone is a leader.
Horizontal leadership is mirrored in Glow Effect events like Give Growth. Instead of panel discussions speakers sit at round tables and facilitate discussion with you versus speaking at you creating the opportunity for deeper and more meaningful conversation.
Through this style of coaching and mentoring instead of being told a path to follow you are given the tools and encouraged to figure out your path for yourself. Ultimately recognizing the leader already inside you.
In this episode, Saren shares inspiring insights and her professional expertise leadership and starting your own business. Here are a few of my favorites:
- A true leader makes sure everyone who is participating feels like a hero
- Micro impacts are vital to society. They also help you build confidence and make a difference where you are already
- The most powerful thing you can do is create a shift within yourself
Episode Links:
Glow Effect – Website
Glow Effect – Instagram
Glow Effect – Facebook
Glow Effect – Twitter
Glow Effect – Book
Glow Effect – Podcast
Finding Your Glow with Saren Stiegel – Transcript
Intro: Welcome to “How She Got Here – Conversations with Everyday Extraordinary Women.” It is my belief that every woman has something inside her only she can do. The more we share the stories of other women, who have already discovered their thing, the more it inspires, encourages, and empowers other women to do the same.
Susan: Hey pod sisters, I am thrilled to have with me today, the founder of The Glow Effect, Saren Stiegel. Saren is a 30 something retired attorney who found herself burnt out, loads of self-doubt, fear of failure, and playing small with everything she had, a great education the perception of an amazing career, a decent income. She wondered if she felt this way, how do others with her same privileges feel? How did others feel who did not have her same privileges? In our conversation, we talked about starting The Glow Effect and how in the beginning a toxic ego, her words, lost her some of her best people. She shares valuable lessons she learned in the beginning and her definition of a true leader. We discussed the importance of micro impacts, the significance of internal shifts, and how to see our own blind spots.
Hint: You cannot do this alone.
A quick note to those of my listeners who might be listening with younger ears around: at around 35 minutes and 30 seconds into our conversation, there’s a word that’s probably not suitable for younger audiences, so just be aware and maybe lower your volume for a second or two. I would also like to apologize for the lawnmower and leaf blower you might hear in the background. My amazing lawn team came at a different time than usual, so just pretend we’re having the conversation in the backyard this week instead. So with that said, please welcome Saren Stiegel to the podcast.
Susan: Hey Saren, thanks so much for joining me today. How are you?
Saren Stiegel: Oh, I’m doing so well. Thank you for having me Susan.
Susan: I am really excited for you to be here and tell us a little bit more about what you are doing now. Walk us through a little bit how you got on this path. Where did you start and where are you now?
Saren Stiegel: Absolutely, so I started as—wow, how far should we go back? I started in international sustainable development and social justice, and I was traveling a lot, I was working with social movements, I was working with the most amazing organizations and then I decided to go to law school because, you know, we have this thing in our society about all the rules and what we should do, and in my family, you know, lawyer, doctor or medical school is really the path. So I chose the path, the only one that seemed viable for somebody who doesn’t love numbers and I went to law school and I realized in law school that, you know, that wasn’t really my path but I just kept going. And I pursued social justice initiatives and I worked in criminal defense and I did civil rights work, and when I got out of law school I had to get a job really quickly.
So I took a job in family law which means divorce and child custody. And it was absolutely debilitating in terms of my values because it’s all about separating families and it wasn’t aligned with what I believe in and I was seeing women kind of take a backseat to the needs of their husbands and partners and, you know, in the law firm. And so there was a moment where I thought to myself, you know, if I’m feeling so misaligned, if I’m feeling so outside of my value and my worth, how are other people feeling that don’t have an education or have less education or less opportunities than I do? And that’s when I decided I needed to create something different. I had been writing a blog for years, I was also a yoga teacher, so I was really fascinated with the online business seen. So I quit my job and I started The Glow Effect.
And The Glow Effect at the beginning was your average—I don’t want to say average—but it was a coaching company and I was working with powerful women who didn’t really know their power and didn’t know their potential, and so I created programs and I wrote a book. And it was so fulfilling for me and these women but at a certain point I realized it wasn’t as expansive as it could be and it was, you know, when you focus on women, when you focus on one lane of diversity, you privileged the already privileged. So I was privileging the wealthy, whiter lighter women and so I really wanted to expand on that. And at the same time a couple of the international—so bringing back all my international work—a couple of international organizations reached out to me. And so I started partnering the local executives that I was working with, with women in rural communities in Uganda, and together they fund raised and they co-created curriculum and we ended up creating what’s called The Glow Effect Center for Women and Girls in this small village in Uganda. And it was all done what I like to call horizontally, so it was co-created where it doesn’t mean, like, the Western women weren’t doing the work for the Ugandan women. I think that’s a really big problem in a lot of charity and development work where we assume that the West knows better and this was a co-created initiative. So we worked together in creating this center.
And so now that center has been off the ground for about two years and you know, the income levels have risen, children are back in school or going to school for the first time, domestic violence rates in the village have gone down, you know all these amazing things. But what was also really fascinating is what it did for the Western women, their capacity to see that they can go beyond the nine to five, you know, linear path that society prescribes for us. So, you know, I became a lawyer and I thought that’s the way I had to go and that’s my skill level, but sometimes we don’t see how transferable these skills are and really what our talents are because society really wants to put us in a box of lawyer, doctor, business owner, all these things where you can create things that don’t necessarily have a title.
So since then we have a podcast, we’ve created events, but more so I think what’s really unique about The Glow Effect is that we now offer programs that allow women in the western regions: UK, US, and Australia, who are executives who want leadership development to partner with women in rural communities. So we have partners in Nepal and in India, so virtually we connect these women to do leadership development together. You know, again, horizontally, not the top down, you know; Western women are going to be training the other ones or mentoring. It’s that we’re doing it together and it really expands the vision of what leadership is.
Susan: That is really cool. You are the second guest I’ve had that somehow found themselves in Uganda and working with women. What is it about Uganda? How did you end up in Uganda?
Saren Stiegel: Well, Uganda reached out to me—not the country. A woman in the rural community found The Glow Effect. So she reached out to me, but…
Susan: That’s so cool.
Saren Stiegel: Yeah, I’d done a lot of work in Africa: South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Zanzibar and I think because of my familiarity with certain countries in Africa and the work that I’ve done there, I was a little more—I don’t want to say popular, but like I started to build up a little bit of a following. And Uganda is also a country that’s really, really kind, really open to international development, and I think there’s a double edge sword, and I don’t know how much you want on Uganda but they’re so open to development and so eager for development and Ugandan people are just the most welcoming, generous, like, I feel more comfortable in Uganda often than I do in like downtown LA or New York.
Susan: Wow!
Saren Stiegel: Yeah, it’s an amazing country. The challenge is that because they’re so open to international development, there’s a little bit of a complex in terms of like of the white savior. So if, the white savior or if Westerners aren’t well educated and well informed and aware of it, it’s real easy to fall into that hero syndrome and that you can just come there because a lot of Ugandans think, you know, they’ve been taught like white westerners are going to come and save us and that’s the only way we’re going to get out of this poverty debacle. So a lot of the work is training Westerners and training Ugandans in that we can’t be reliant on each other whatsoever.
Susan: Wow. Wow.
Saren Stiegel: Good question.
Susan: So with us talking about how they’re—basically, it sounds like they’re training each other, is that…? So this brings up a good point that I think you and Monica Marquez from, I think Google had a conversation about this same kind of redefining what leadership looks like.
Saren Stiegel: Yeah.
Susan: Talk to me about that in what you guys were discussing.
Saren Stiegel: Well, I don’t necessarily recall that conversation that was in early February, but what I think is important in terms of redefining leadership is, you know, as a human race, the kinds of leaders that we’ve seen and revered are often the dictator hero-like leader and dictator has a pejorative term–it is a pejorative term whereas like heroes like, “Oh yeah, I want to be the hero.” And I think business and leadership is starting to evolve beyond the hero form of the CEO, and if you’re not aware of that, you’re in for really rude awakening. I mean I can only speak from experience because even running a leadership development organization, I quickly fell into that because, you know, I read somewhere the woman called it the recovering charismatic leader. So I’ve naturally been good on stages. I’ve naturally been a public speaker, that’s come very easily to me, I’ve naturally had charisma. So when you do something that changes people’s lives, it’s really easy to grow a toxic ego. And I did at the beginning of our work in Uganda; I really started to think, “Oh, I know better. You know, like I’ve done this. I know better.” And it’s so toxic.
So what ended up happening is I lost some of my best, best people because I didn’t understand what being a leader really is, even though I was teaching it. It’s such a, such a common paradigm and archetype in our society to see a leader as a hero, and the leader is not the hero. There’s no such thing as that anymore, and can be a hero in your own life. But if you’re acting that way in an organization or on a team, you’re going to lose your team. So I think what Monica and I were alluding to or speaking about was that this new paradigm of leadership that’s emerging is the leader that leads from behind that leads from within and that everyone’s a leader, you know, everyone’s the hero. And a true leader makes sure everyone who’s participating feels like a hero, and not seeing themselves as singular but operating in a whole. And so it’s a very feminine form of leadership. I think the masculine wants to think power over. Whereas the feminine, there’s an understanding of power with.
Susan: I like that “Power with.” I think there’s a flip side to this and I think as women who are about making a change or who are fed up with where they are, I think something—and I don’t know if men are bad about this or not because I’m not one—but women in making these changes, before you think I know better, before all of that happens, there’s a period I think where sometimes women are asking for permission, like we’re almost looking for that hero like we need that hero and so I guess my question to you would be, are you seeing that in your people? Have you seen that? And then how do you flip that and help them find it within themselves? Because I think that’s a hard thing to do.
Saren Stiegel: Yeah. No, I think that’s a brilliant question and kind of caveat to what I said because, you know, for women to even call themselves leaders in the first place was a huge leap, right? The challenge is that we think that to call myself a leader, I have to be a hero and I have to be on top right? And I think this is what created this wave of like Girl Boss, you know, and we see in social trends for the past however long it’s been, maybe since Sophia Amoroso created Girl Boss and that whole hashtag; it’s become this revered thing to be a boss. I want to be the boss, I want to have my empire, you know. It’s cool. And I think it’s pushing the toxic paradigm. On the one hand I get it, you know, it’s for women that permission is really important.
So that’s a lot of why we do this work internationally, and we expose women to communities where they don’t have the option of being the top dog. They don’t have the option of being the boss, if you will, right? They have to lead from within. And when you’re exposed to that, you start to see where you held yourself back. And also what we do is a lot of the work that we put women through is starting to shift perception. You know, we have so much self-doubt of women, we have so much lack of self-trust and questioning whether our ideas are right, all of it. So the work really starts with shifting that perception and getting those self-doubts out of the way so that you can start to see the everyday problems and challenges that the people just like you are facing that can be solved with a simple shift in perception. But the challenge is that we’re so blinded by the self-doubts that we think, “Oh, if I don’t go and save Uganda, then I’m not worthy. ” or , “If I don’t go and like cure homelessness, I have no value or I’m not making an impact.” and that’s so not true.
You know, micro impact is absolutely vital to our society right now and helping your coworker vocalize her opinion is hugely impactful. So starting to move your self-doubt out of the way and seeing how you can create that micro impact will start to build your confidence and then you realize that there’s so much to be done right where you are. So you start to expose the challenges locally to you, and when you expose those challenges, you see, “Oh, my, gosh, I have so many skills and talents that can solve this right here. I don’t need to go out and cure homelessness. I can create an amazing impact right where I am.” Does that make sense?
Susan: Oh, it absolutely does. In fact, your mission, I think it’s written on your website, I could be wrong, or maybe you’ve talked about this. I found this in your stuff somewhere that “It became making sure every woman and every girl has the resources to access her world changing potential to lead the way for her community,” I think it’s how you have it written or you spoke about it somewhere. So tell me about this. How does The Glow Effect do this? How are you accomplishing this?
Saren Stiegel: Well, we do it in a bunch of different ways. I mean, I think that the most powerful thing we can do is create that shift in ourselves. So we set up platforms, we have programs; we have events that are designed to expose that for you. So it’s not, you know, I’m coaching you to find it. It’s, I’m standing with you and supporting you as you uncover it for yourself. And then the confusion I think there is, “Well then I’m just going to go out and do it by myself.” And the challenge is yeah, you could technically I guess, but we are so blinded by our own blind spots. If you don’t have someone next to you exposing those for you, there’s virtually no way you can see them. So to me that’s like, I don’t love the term coach but technically, I guess that’s what it is. So our programming really creates the platform for you to uncover your blind spot. And by platform, I mean with coaching, with mentorship, with a really strong community. So you know, as other women are going through this training, you gain the skills to challenge each other to find those blind spots. But again, we can’t see our own blind spots. So I need a support system. I don’t feel like I’m better than others, you know, I still have so much learning and growth to do. So it’s really about creating a platform with powerful mentors and coaches that all see the potential in each other.
Susan: Okay, I didn’t prep you for this question but I’m going to ask you anyway, and if it’s horrible, we’ll just delete it so nobody will ever know and I’m leaving that in. So if it stays now, you know my trick.
Saren Stiegel: Okay, great.
Susan: Tell me how you’re finding these women. Are they coming to you? Are you seeking them out? Is there a secret code to get in?
Saren Stiegel: I believe in the law of attraction. And by law of attraction, I don’t just sit on my hands and wait. I mean I put my material and my content out for free, like you can find everything that I do in some form or another online: in a blog post, in a podcast. And when you put it all out there, you will naturally get people coming to you. And so with our events, which are completely different than other people’s events, so I made sure that they’re not a panel of speakers sitting on a platform above everyone else. Our speakers sit at round tables with the attendees and they facilitate conversations. So it’s not about them speaking at you; it’s about them speaking with you.
Susan: Woo.
Saren Stiegel: Yeah, it just completely changes the results of the event right? And so everyone there starts to feel like they could be a leader and they could lead a conversation. And what that does is, you know, some women say like, “Okay, that’s cool, but not for me.” cool, I’ve no problem with that. But you know, I’ve had so much education, and I say that in a good way and a bad way. I think it’s off putting to some people, like they don’t want to go deep—it’s a lot. I don’t sugar coat, I’m super direct, I like to go super, super deep. I don’t like surface level conversations. So if that’s not for you, cool. Totally fine, it’s okay. But what’s beautiful is that it really filters out the people that do want something more and who are ready to make a huge change.
So, I get women from, like I said, all walks of life, all layers—and we have such a tiered society— but all income levels, all a job professions, you know, women in wellness, women in consulting, women in accounting, women in marketing, women in coffee shops. I think these leaders that want something deeper, that want to make a bigger impact are everywhere. It’s about, you know, creating the right call to action that has them say, “Oh yeah, okay, that’s me. I want that,” and it’s not for everybody.
Susan: Just putting people, leaders, speakers at a round table instead of a panel up in front, you’ve literally blew my mind. I mean, I am thinking back to all of those things that I have attended before in the past. And I’m like, “Yeah, the questions are canned, they’re very surface level.” It’s like, great, I’m glad you got there but there never really is a, “How do I do this?” like there’s not real good conversations. You just blew my mind.
Saren Stiegel: Oh, I’m so glad. Well, we’ve been hosting these events. They’re called ‘Give Growth’ for two years. We just had one last week actually in Orange County and they’re super successful. Like I get everyone it, but just like, I’ve never seen anything like this before, which blows my mind because it seems so freaking obvious. Like it’s so easy. It’s not, you know, you just don’t set up the chairs in stadium seating, you get round-tables, like not rocket science, you know. But the challenge, I guess, you know, the way we format the event is that I feel three questions. So over the Course of three hours, you know, it’s a very limited format; three questions. So the first question, you know, I think last week was what kind of impact you currently make? So then the round-table talk for about 15 minutes as a round-table and these featured leaders facilitate the conversations.
So I guide them and give them a ton of material beforehand on how to facilitate and listen and they’re there to call you out, to challenge you, and you go around the table and everybody speaks and then we come together as a large group. So we don’t usually have more than 75 people. And then as a large group, I facilitate a big conversation so everybody starts sharing their insights. You know, and some people don’t feel comfortable to share in that large group and that’s totally fine because they’re going to get the opportunity to share in their small groups.
Susan: That’s so cool. That is such a great idea. I love it. I want to go. So let’s shift just a little bit on some questions and then I’m going to come back to all of that. I want to talk a little bit about you. So you left a firm, you left the real world, if you will, you left a corporate job, even though you were burned out, there were things you were giving up by leaving 401k opportunities, healthcare potential, an income. So how do you bolster your confidence in moments—and maybe your past this, maybe you aren’t asking yourself this, these questions anymore—but what was I thinking? Like how did you get through those first couple of months where it was like or years where it was like, “Am I crazy? Why would I leave security?”
Saren Stiegel: Yeah. I mean I’m not over that, but I will say I will never—like in the beginning I would have urge people to do what I did, you know, like I’m so much more fulfilled. I’m absolutely poor, but fulfilled! You know, and that is poor coaching, and if you’re reading that anywhere, like just disregard it because it is so freaking naive. So I will never coach people to jump out of a corporate job like I did because I did it blindly, I did it without a cushion, you know, I mean I had a relatively—I had a saving because when I was an attorney I literally did not do anything but work. So I spent my money on car insurance and rent so I had money but not a lot and it didn’t carry me very long.
But I think the trick—and this is now what coach my clients to do—is two parts: You have to create an exit strategy. So if you don’t know what you’re jumping into, like don’t leave. If you hate your job, if you absolutely hate it, then get a job at a coffee shop, humble yourself, you know what I mean? Like get a side gig. Get something that’s going to bring you income because if you jump ship and you don’t have some kind of income or some kind of safety, there is no creativity. Don’t think that like, “Oh, I’m going to quit my job and then tomorrow I’m going to start my six figure business.” You know, like I’ve never heard of that. No, you need to know so many way—or being a business owner is not something that you are taught in school and not even if you go to business school, right? Like I’ve heard this from so many MBAs. The real world of business looks nothing like we learn in school. So you need to have a very crystal clear understanding of how whatever you’re going to do is going to bring in income like sooner than later if it’s not already. Like I would only tell somebody to jump ship if they are already bringing in income that is mostly sustaining their lifestyle. So that’s part one: is you need a strong exit strategy.
Part two is, and this is a touchy subject, but stop seeing being a business owner or having your own business as dichotomous with, if that’s a word, with corporate or a law firm or whatever. So I think for the first maybe year or two of my business, I was like, “I’m getting out of corporate. Like I hate corporate.” you know, “I want nothing to do with corporate and I’m just going to own my business and I’m going to make a ton of money and I just want nothing to do with corporate.” that’s so naive. That’s so naive to believe that you can have one or the other.
The reality is 1: 99% of my clients come from corporate, right? So why would I not find a way to partner with corporation, to partner with organizations that may be a little weak in their learning and development and work with them instead of being against them, right? So I think the real, like, my business opened up when I started to see it all as a partnership. Now I’ve never, and I will probably never partner with the law firm that I left, you know, I don’t want to put them down, but they’re not an open minded learning and development geared organization that would be open to this, so I’m not saying that you have to go back to your company and partner with them—that might be really, really toxic, but there is so much you can learn about what the corporations and organizations are looking for. Number one, they have a shit ton of money, not always, but corporate is where most of the world’s money is. So if you can find a unique way to stall their challenges, you will have a leg up in creating whatever endeavor you want to create.
Susan: That’s really good.
Saren Stiegel: Kind of a long-winded answer.
Susan: No, that was great. That was great. And I totally understand not necessarily going back to the place you left.
Saren Stiegel: Yeah, but not as like…
Susan: The enemy.
Saren Stiegel: Yeah, I left the corporate firm or whatever and now I will never go back to any of them. That’s only going to hurt you.
Susan: Yes, I agree with that. That’s very wise, very wise thing to say.
Saren Stiegel: It’s taken a lot of learning the hard way.
Susan: That’s fair. That’s fair. I think anytime you go out on your own that there is some of that figuring you’re always figuring things out, right? I mean that’s just life. So obviously, going out on your own is hard. How do you motivate yourself to keep going when it gets a little overwhelming?
Saren Stiegel: Well, I guess the number one way is rest a lot. And I say that because I learned the hard way. If you’re burnt out, don’t burn yourself out more because you think you should be doing more and you should be motivated. Respect what your body’s telling you and rest. And that’s been a really hard lesson for me. It’s just continually a hard lesson because I think there’s something about us where we just—when I say us, I mean action-oriented type ‘A’ people that I talked to literally every day and drove. I rarely talked to non-type ‘A’ people because non-type ‘A’ people don’t really want to do much of this stuff. You know, it’s type ‘A’ people that want to change the world. So the natural inclination is take more action, do more, do more, do more, and that’s not where we find inspiration and motivation. So much of inspiration come in, the quiet moments comes in the yoga class that you don’t quote unquote have time for and I really resisted that. I need to say that again where I’ve had mentors who say to me like, “You need to take a month off.” and I’m like, “Never! like what? Like that’s a nightmare!”
And when I say take a month off, it doesn’t mean like I cancel my clients, you know, maybe I just minimize and I don’t actively seek more clients, but I’ve been in those times when, you know, maybe I take a course or like I stepped back and I’ll take like an accelerator program, and the learning and the growth is absolutely exponential in those times and it helps you clarify what in your business is draining your motivation because it’s not always the day to day, I mean there’s the day to day motivation, but then there’s the possibly not running their business as a effectively as it could be running a because models need to pivot. They have to and if you are entrenched in the day to day, there’s no way you can get that perspective, you know what I mean, like macro perceptive, but you have to back away from the day to day and it feels like pulling teeth and that backing away but I promise, promise, promise that it’s going to be the best thing that you’ve ever done for yourself and for your business and for the people that you’re supporting so that’s kind of one thing that I do.
But then the next thing is once you have a clear vision, a clear business model, but some revenue coming in, by that time, it’s likely that you have a strong-ish network. It was only maybe like a year ago when I have so many people and mentors and like my network–that is the key to running a business these days is having a strong network. So I have these amazing people in my network and someone said to me, “So you have a formal advisory board, right?” and I don’t have a board and she was like, “But you have an advisory board.” and I was like, “Well, I have advisers.” She’s like, “No, no, no, no, no, no. You need at least three to five people who you get together maybe quarterly.” you know, and so now I have four women. We get together quarterly for brunch and we rotate who hosts the brunch and these women are just the most exceptional people and they hold me accountable. And it’s so scary because when you have random advisers, you know, you may meet with them like once every six months and you tell them about your accomplishments and maybe some of your challenges and then you go on and you write them a follow-up email and see ya! But with an advisory board, no, they’re going to hold you accountable, you know, regularly. And at first I was really freaked out about that, but you know, that they’re not there to beat me up they’re there to, “Okay so you didn’t meet x, y, and z goals. Let’s figure out why.” And before you have a big team, they’re your team and to get a diversity of thought into your business is so vital—so vital. So you know, strategically pick this advisory board and it will work wonders on your entire life.
Susan: I really appreciate that thought process or those words. That’s really helpful. That’s helpful to me and I know a lot of other women listening will find that helpful as well. And I also really liked what you said about self-care and how your body responds to the lack of it because I have definitely, you know, the breakouts, the, yeah, all of it. It’s just I’m horrible about that as well sometimes and when I am, my body tells me so it shows
Saren Stiegel: Totally, and it’ll show in your business.
Susan: Yeah, you’re absolutely right.
Saren Stiegel: If your business is breaking down, it’s highly likely that you’re breaking down.
Susan: Yeah, absolutely, and you’re so right that you’ve got to find your core support people and put them around you advisers or what you need, you need to find because when you’re in it and you’re in the weeds, especially in the beginning, the perspective is definitely something you can’t get on your own. It’s too easy to duck in and get stuck in the muck.
Saren Stiegel: Totally, just know that that is our go-to, like that is our instinct and our natural urge is to work harder, and that is counter intuitive to what’s needed. So if you feel like if I just work harder then I’ll, get out of the muck. Wrong
Susan: You’re getting deeper in the muck.
Saren Stiegel: You’re getting deeper. Mark my words.
Susan: Well that is very good advice. I have one last question and I hope, I hope, I hope you go back to The Glow Effect on this one, but if you don’t, that’s cool. I always like to leave our listeners with an action step. I know these women are hearing this and they think it’s great and it’s much like that panel sitting in front of you, you know, that’s kind of where we’re at a little bit with the podcast. There’s a panel, we’re talking, we’re having a great conversation or somebody’s sitting at the coffee shop and they’re overhearing us talking about life and whatever. What is one action step or a few action steps that you could leave our audience with to roll the ball forward, move the ball forward with whatever it is that they are thinking of doing next especially if they’re thinking about leaving their current role?
Saren Stiegel: The challenge of that question is we’re all at different places, right? So I’m going to say like, you know, for the people who are in a job that they hate, this is such a great opportunity to learn in terms of like, so you have income coming in, then great, get yourself a coach, take a program and I will happily offer up our program and specifically our aspire program. Our aspire program helps you kind of uncover what it is that you are just craving to do and what’s going to create the most value and fulfillment for the world and for yourself simultaneously. So find, you know, and again, like I said, it’s not for everyone, but if what I said so far resonates with you, please, please reach out because this is such an opportune time to hone in on that exit strategy that I was talking about. If you’ve already left your role and you’ve started a business, depending on where you are, I mean I would again say feel free to reach out into our aspire program because it can still help you get that perspective to see where you need to go next and how to shape your trajectory.
It’s not a cheap endeavor, you know, getting a coach or doing these programs, they do cost money. So if that’s not in the cards for you, I totally get it. I would say start learning locally. So go to events, find associations and conferences, and don’t think that you need to pay the $500 ticket price to these things. Get really creative and find the organizers’ information and email them and say, “Can I volunteer for your event?” Because the more you can integrate yourself and ingratiate yourself into the industry that you’re trying to get into, it will explode your business and there’s nothing better than humbling yourself with these organizations and with these organizers. They always need volunteers, they always need support, so go do that. And then once you start to grow your network that way, find your advisory board. You know, write up a NDA, a nondisclosure agreement, and just write up the requirements of what you’re asking. So you know, to be on our advisory board is going to require you to meet with us four times a year, to have one call with me per month and in return, you’ll receive a network of people. And make sure you identify what they’re going to get out of it too because likely you’re going to be asking awesome people who need to get some value out of it and, and formalize this advisory board for yourself and create your little team even if you can’t afford employees yet or even if you can’t, there’s nothing better than having people vision the macro perspective with you.
Susan: That’s great.
Saren Stiegel: Great.
Susan: That is great and I never thought about the volunteering aspect of behind the scenes because I would think you would even get access to more people that way. Like that you wouldn’t necessarily have access to just as a quite frankly as a paying participant. So I think that’s a very creative idea. I like that a lot.
Saren Stiegel: You get access to the people but you also get access to the mechanics and the operation of the organization. I mean I have volunteered more than I have attended events and people look at me often like I’m crazy and like, “Why are you volunteering? Are you poor?” Like, no, it’s actually like, it was a best way to befriend all the people and you know, again, I’m a speaker or I do speak in engagements, so it’s so much more likely that you will build up your credibility starting at the bottom than trying to email your resume and you’re speaking to the organizer and they’re most likely going to ignore you if they’ve never heard of you, but if you’re humbling yourself and helping them, it just creates the most extraordinary opportunity. We can’t even fathom what it will create.
Susan: That’s great. Thank you so much for joining me today. Before we leave though, I want to ask you to tell us where we can find you: Online, on social media, The Glow Effect. Like how do we get in touch with you?
Saren Stiegel: Well, I mean the best way to get in touch with me is my email: saren@gloweffect.com. So please don’t hesitate to email me. I mean I read and I respond to every email I get. So that’s the number one way to find me and connect with me and get into our programs or volunteer whatever you want to do. And then you know, if you just want to learn more, go onto gloweffect.com and Instagram—thegloweffect, Facebook “/the glow effect” and then on Twitter is “you are the glow” so that you can probably search for the glow effective and find it as well.
Susan: Great. And I’ll make sure to link everything in on our transcript page for our listeners. So don’t pull off the road or try to rewind or anything. Just head on over to the website. It’ll be on the transcript page. All you have to do is click.
Saren Stiegel: Yeah, and again, put my email up there.
Susan: I will do that.
Saren Stiegel: In sharing my email address and please don’t have any shame in emailing me you will reach me, not my assistant.
Susan: Awesome. Saren, thank you so much for joining me today, I really appreciate it. This was a lot of fun and you have some amazing insight and I really, really appreciate your time.
Saren Stiegel: My pleasure. Really, this was so fun, Susan. Thank for having me.
Susan: Thanks so much Saren.
Outro: Hey sisters, so if you were still here, thanks for hanging in there until the end with me today. I know it was a little bit of a longer conversation than normal, but it was so worth it, right? Isn’t she amazing? I’ve learned so much from our conversation and I know you did too. I know you’re going to want to follow up and check her out online so we have made sure to link to The Glow Effect and Saren over on our website: howshegothere.com. I also want to say thanks so much for listening today. If you’re enjoying this podcast, head on over to iTunes and hit subscribe. And while you’re there, I’d really appreciate it if you would rate and review it in order to make It easier for others to find. I also make sure to read every review and email and Facebook posts you leave and I have always, always, always excited to hear your feedback. We also have a private Facebook group, the How She Got Here Community page, and would love to have you join us there to continue the conversation on today’s episode as well as any other fun, How She Got Here content. So with all of that said, thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening. I’ll see you soon.
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