Ep. 54 - Why Your Legacy is Today Not Tomorrow: A Construction Executive's Take on Stepping into Your Power with Erika Rothenberger

Ready to break free from people-pleasing and reclaim your authentic self? In this inspiring episode, we dive deep into building resilience, embracing boldness, and cultivating emotional wellness—especially for women feeling stuck after years of over-giving and emotional suppression.

Host Kathy Washburn is joined by powerhouse Erika Rothenberger, a civil engineer, keynote speaker, and founder of multiple women’s empowerment groups, who shares her transformative journey from perfectionism and burnout to audacious self-leadership. Together, they explore how to build resilience before crisis hits, why auditing your personal “board of directors” accelerates growth, time management tricks for busy women, and the life-changing impact of embracing your true essence.

Packed with actionable strategies for overcoming Type C traits, setting healthy boundaries, and experimenting with “thriving” in midlife, this episode is a must-listen for anyone ready to stop living a muted life and start honoring their deepest desires. Tune in to discover how cultivating courage, community, and resilience can propel you into your most vibrant, empowered chapter yet!

Topics Discussed in this Episode:

• Cultivating resilience through audacious action
• Building empowering female support networks
• Experiential thriving for personal growth
• Emotional wellness in midlife transitions
• Healthy boundaries and intentional time management

View extended shownotes here

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Transcript

Ep. 54 - Why Your Legacy is Today Not Tomorrow A Constructiion Executives Take on Stepping into Your Power with Erika Rothenberger

[00:00:00] 

Introduction and Guest Welcome

Kathy Washburn: Okay, we are going to jump right in. Oh, I can't wait. We're gonna have so much fun. I am here with Erica Rothenberger and I just recently met her and. You'll all feel the same zesty vibe that I felt immediately. And we're gonna jump in. We'll have her bio and everything, but I'm gonna ask her first to introduce herself by answering the question or filling in the blank once upon a time.

Oh. 

Erika Rothenberger: Goodness. I mean, we only have a few hours for the podcast, so I don't even know where to begin. No, I will give you a once upon a time. Let's try to make this into a two minutes quick story before bedtime as we used to. There we go. I used to do with my kids. I first and foremost, just wanna say thank you.

Thank you so much, Kathy, for having me here today. I'm just so excited to be on your podcast. So excited to hopefully drop a few golden nuggets today. 

Erica's Background and Career Journey

Erika Rothenberger: And [00:01:00] once upon a time, I was a little girl living in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where the good old pilgrims landed in 1620. And yes, my mom even made me participate, Pilgrim's Progress in the middle of August, walking through the streets of Plymouth as a pilgrim.

So that probably explains a lot of things, but I was born and raised there. Creative childhood and you know, as I left, quote unquote the confines of Plymouth or the safety net, I went to school at Villanova. I got my degree in civil engineering, went back and got my MBA, I ended up climbing the corporate ladder in a really male dominated world in the construction world with a hard hat and still toe boots.

And I've been in that world for the last 20 years. Just really staking my claims. Doing everything from getting the seat at the board table to putting on a pair of steel toe boots, which I did today, and everything else in between starting two women empowerment groups because of it. 

Empowering Women in Male-Dominated Industries

Erika Rothenberger: 'cause less than 10% of us are actually women in the construction industry.

[00:02:00] Wow. And it's an industry that needs. More people needs diversity, needs different ways of thinking, and just because you didn't hold a shovel doesn't mean you can't get in that industry. So check that box. I'm a mom of two kids. I have an eight and 11-year-old pride and joy. Amazing husband. We live in Pennsylvania.

And I always say, listen, I wear this other big sombrero on the other side beside my Facebook app and my dance hat for my kids. I wear sombrero on the other side in the entrepreneurial space. I have an international wellness business. My husband and I have a real estate business. I have wrote my first book.

You've got this mom. I'm writing my second book right now. I'm a keynote speaker. Have a podcast. Well, actually 140 ninth episode got released today. What? And yes. 

The Power of Audacity and Resilience

Erika Rothenberger: And you know, I just love the word audacity and that's been a big part of who I am. The last, especially two and a half years, I went through, you know, a really tumultuous event that happened to me two and a half years ago.

[00:03:00] We might wanna dig that or dig that up a little today, but really that was. Deciding, like, Hey, listen, deciding. We've talked a lot about that to say, listen, it is time to play big. It's time to stop playing small. Stop wondering, waiting, and really open this floodgate for me, with the word a day audacious and audacity, and just going out there and being bold and being brave, and being badass, and not being scared to do so.

And living in the form that I wanted to live in versus what. The white picket fence set, or where I was supposed to go to school or what I was supposed to wear, and just everything else in between. 

Kathy Washburn: Woo. I love what I learn when people answer that question. Right. That is so fascinating and I, we could unpack just that two minute story, but I wanna just highlight these inflection points.

One being, being a woman in a male dominated industry, which I [00:04:00] was as well in the investment world, I don't think our statistics are as low as yours, but then to give a hand up to other women to empower them. And I see this happening in the investment industry and it's not something we're doing to like.

You know, beat up men. No, it's, and I don't like when it's seen that way. It's really a rising up because we have stuff to share. We have, yes, we have skill sets that are really valuable that counterbalance those male those male containers. And when we can be feminine inside a male container, magic happens.

So that audacious spirit. That was what first hit when I pulled up your website. I thought, oh my God, audacious. Now you're a seasoned speaker. You talk about resilience and the ability to be audacious. Like what, how does audacious catalyze. [00:05:00] Resilience. 

Erika Rothenberger: Ooh, I love that. Well, I believe it's kind of like the chicken before the egg, right?

Like, like I don't think there's like one before the other. I truly believe that when we. 

Building Resilience Through Challenges

Erika Rothenberger: Work on the muscle of resiliency, which we all need to work on. 'cause at some point we're all going to have quote unquote, the punch. We're all gonna have something that's gonna knock us down. So how are you working on building that muscle every day?

So when it happens, you are prepared to handle. And I truly believe that part of building that muscle is being brave and being bold and being audacious and being willing to get up every day and, you know, assimilate to going to the gym, right? Like you can decide to press snooze, or you can decide to get up and go get stronger.

You can decide to press snooze or you can decide to get up and do your meditation. You can decide to press snooze or you can decide to say, I'm gonna [00:06:00] get up that hour early and work for that passion project. It's all a decision. And by working on that layer of resiliency, to me, it's something you build, not something you just get or pick up or buy at the store.

By working on it, you instantly, I believe that it becomes easier. You know, they always say the, there's a song out there about breakups. The first cut's the deepest. Oh 

Kathy Washburn: yes. 

Erika Rothenberger: Right. The first time something happens, it feels the hardest. But then after you've been through it, you are like, Ugh. Muscle memory, been there, done that.

I'm ready to snap back. Right. And I'm not saying that everyone needs to get back on the saddle and start life like perfectly again, but what I'm saying is it becomes easier for the setbacks to really recognize that they're really set ups for us to go to that next level. Those obstacles truly become opportunities.

Kathy Washburn: It's so true. And I wish this was taught. I am sure you're teaching this to your children and I think I've. [00:07:00] Tried to do that, although mine are 28 and 29, so the horse is out of the barn. But I really think that idea that it's not always gonna be perfect. There's not, it's not a rainbow.

There's not there's not a nirvana, in fact, to one of my friends introduced me to the concept of amor fate. Ooh, to love your fate. Ooh. No matter what comes your way. And I think after, you know, after I had cancer, which my kids were a little younger than yours, when I was diagnosed with cancer, I did not love my fate.

In fact, going back I just, I didn't let it build resiliency because I thought, okay, people show's over, look away. I'm fine. I'm fine. We're just. Back to normal, but there really was no normal right inside, inside my head it was like, this all feels wrong. So then when my marriage [00:08:00] blew up 15 years later, ah, I see what resiliency can actually do.

And it took me, I was kind of building the boat as I was in it. Because I was learning all about positive psychology. I was diving into this new life. I retired from investments and I would've had loved to have had the boat built that resiliency boat built, instead of trying to do it at the same time, I was trying to survive.

Right, 

Erika Rothenberger: and I always say, listen, like you have to work on it when times are good, just like building relationships, just like building yourself, like I think sometimes we wait till you hit rock bottom or you have had the punch happen to then try to work on it when if you're working on it proactively instead of reactively.

It makes it that much easier. Right, right. And so I, you know, when I said the chicken before the [00:09:00] egg, like yes, you can also, you can work on resiliency to become more audacious or you can work on being bolder and braver through the things that happen to build resiliency. And I really believe they flip floop back and forth like a seesaw.

Kathy Washburn: That's such a beautiful vision. Now, for you, I know a little of your story and you can share as much of it as you want. What part of that seesaw were you on when it flipped for you? Had you already been bold and audacious leading up to that, or was that a result of it? 

Erika Rothenberger: So, that's such a great question and you really like making me really think about that.

But I'll be honest with you, I know myself well enough that during that time I was already. Working on building the layer of resiliency without recognizing I was working on the layer of resiliency, if that makes sense, Uhhuh. But looking back now and unpacking it, [00:10:00] I was like, wow, I was already building that muscle.

Like different things that happened in my childhood, different setbacks that happened in my career path. You know, broken relationships, like two miscarriages, two parents that were alcoholics like, there were so many things that I was already working on to build that muscle of resiliency. So I truly believe that when my incident happened.

I had already had that layer of resiliency that I didn't realize it was even in me. And looking back, I think I was always a strong, you know, person, but it really took me to the next level and said, Hey, listen, now you have to take this and shine this on to others. And in order to do so, you're gonna be brave and you're gonna have to be bold and you're probably gonna have to do some things that don't feel so comfortable.

And that was kind of challenging for me at first, like initially to be like. Okay. This is a big thing that just happened to me. How do I be big and [00:11:00] how do I be brave and how do I share it without seeming like it's about just about me? 'cause what it really was, it was, Hey, listen, part of my therapy was how could I help other people?

And by sharing those words, and by having that muscle of resiliency, by being bold and being brave, I was like. Oh my goodness. I can actually really start to move mountains. I can speak on stages, I can coach people. I can write the book where maybe all of that would've eventually happened in my life, but I think it just accelerated it.

Kathy Washburn: Yeah. What a beautiful picture of the hero heroes journey right there. Yeah. Of going through. And I know that, I shared with you that I've kind of tripped over this arch Women's Architect article back in Montana a couple of years ago, and it's always stuck with me. And when I met you, I just felt like, God, that article was for her.

And it talked a lot about. [00:12:00] The round table of rebuilding especially for women like this, the power of women architects, so to speak. Yes. And I wonder through that process. Who was at your round table? Did you have people, I heard you say a therapist, which a lot of people think, oh, I can't get one. Or I don't just, or they have this.

Erika Rothenberger: Yeah. 

Kathy Washburn: I think everybody should ask one. There has to be 

Erika Rothenberger: something so wrong with me, or, oh, I must be like, use the C word, the crazy word right. 

Kathy Washburn: Yeah, no that, and I 

Erika Rothenberger: say, listen, would you like a therapist is like a financial planner. A therapist is like, a personal trainer. A therapist is like a good teacher or a good professor.

The Importance of Mental Wellness

Erika Rothenberger: Like a therapist is not like, to me, it's an aid to make sure that we're working on our mental wellness, which is so critical. 

Kathy Washburn: Right? It's another lever that we can pull that nobody talks about. Right. And it [00:13:00] actually drives every single thing that we do. 

Erika Rothenberger: Everything that we do, our mental capacity is so important to what we do in our lives and nowadays, especially with depression on the rise, suicide, mental illness, I mean, everyone playing this imposter, TikTok comparison, you know, syndrome.

A lot of people you know, and including myself, I've been in dark places that way. Like when you are not mentally taking care of yourself, I mean, I know there's the whole physical side, but if you're mentally not okay, I don't care. Nothing else is gonna go right. 

Kathy Washburn: Elizabeth or her name Elizabeth, her Dr.

Su Strain, her book is called Emotional Inflammation, and when I heard those two words together, I thought, oh my God. Goodness. And she, the way she describes it is it's very similar to physical [00:14:00] inflammation. You don't always know what the cause is. You know, if somebody's inflamed physically, there's always this idea of like, bring your diet down to basically nothing and then add things.

'cause you don't know what's causing the inflammation. Right. Well, with emotional inflammation, because of the onslaught that we've got, this constant onslaught. We don't really know what's causing the inflammation, but it's happening and it inflames everything We touch, every connection we have, every every feeling, every emotion.

And I, I think that's why I find these round tables of humans, like I call them my advisory board, and sometimes they're just. Prior versions of me or future versions of me, I'll consult the boarding room in my head as I'm trying to process something, but I need other people to validate or to [00:15:00] reality check.

Like, Hey sweetie, that's the story you're telling yourself. Let me tell you what the honest truth is, and that takes some brave. Beings to sit beside you and give you that reality check sometimes. 

Erika Rothenberger: And just like a board of directors in reality, right? Like for any big firm that has a board, right? Like you're not hiring them to cheer you on, you're not hiring them to give you, you know, rah in around the board table.

You're hiring them to challenge you. You're hiring them to make them, you think outside the box, you're hiring them to. Test your limits. You know what I mean? And like to me, if your board of directors is not doing that for you and not putting the mirror in front of you and making it transparent about the things that you need to work on, you might need to find a new board.

Kathy Washburn: Right. Which brings me to a beautiful inflection point. 

The Impact of Your Inner Circle

Kathy Washburn: I do think our boards need to change at times when we're stepping into different versions of ourselves. [00:16:00] I witnessed you on the stage at this unstoppable event recently among stunning women who I believe all probably have changed their board. A couple of times, and certainly you guys were surrounded by each other for the last year and a mastermind, which is so crazy powerful.

Can you tell me a little bit about that experience of having that like board that, that you really have to kind of rise to almost? 

Erika Rothenberger: Yeah. You know, there was a a stat put out the other day and I love. A good fact. And they said, when you surround yourself by people who are higher performers than you, your performance, if you are within 25 feet of them, or like, you know, in again virtual world too, you raise your performance by 15%.

Okay. So, I mean, right off the bat, just by sitting in the same room with it, being on the same calls as [00:17:00] them. Right. Not even doing any of the work yet. However, you also sit within 25 feet of a low performer, your performance lowers by 25%. So you've gotta think about your board. If you are around people who are just status quo or always cheering you on or never challenging you, you are lowering your performance by 25%.

Ooh, so. We have a cho, so it's more contagious to be around someone who's lowering our limits, right? It's why people sometimes go down a bad path. They're like, oh yeah, I won't work on this. I'm just gonna go out for the weekend and forget about life for a while, or whatever it may be. We get to decide who those people are.

And to me, your question was, yes, your board needs to change because if your board's not changing, it means you're not changing. Oof. And what I recognized is I was in [00:18:00] a mastermind two years ago, this past year. I was not in the Mastermind. 

Kathy Washburn: Okay. 

Erika Rothenberger: And what I realized is I needed to expand even more.

The Mastermind served me phenomenally. But what I recognized is I needed to expand and by staying in the same place, I wasn't growing. So I did some other things and joined some other groups, and that really. He accelerated some other things in my life, and it would've been easy. Status quo, rah, we love each other.

You know? It had nothing to do with the women in the group. It had nothing to do with the leader of the group. It had to do with, Hey, am I challenging myself enough? And if I stay in the same room, how am I gonna grow? Right. I know it, it brings up an example of when I was running for marathons, right?

And I would run with like the same group. And I got really good at that pace, comfortable. I could talk all [00:19:00] time. It was so much fun. It was an easy run. Even those 18 mile runs were easy. 

Kathy Washburn: Wow. 

Erika Rothenberger: But my pace was the exact same. So I asked three gentle men that were at the gym if I could run with them, knowing I was completely out of their league.

I would see them every morning at the gym, getting there, running sprints, going outside, coming back in, doing long distance like I knew they were. No joke. I asked them yes, I think there was quite a few chuckles in between, but I started running with them. I shaved over a minute and a half off my mile for that next marathon just by working with them for three months.

I was like the dog running behind them, trying to keep up panting. But it was like I wasn't gonna get better by staying with the group that was I was comfortable in. It felt good because I was one of the faster runners. [00:20:00] Now I was the slowest with the fastest group and I was like, okay, well if I wanna challenge, if I wanna grow, 'cause if we're not growing, we're dying.

Kathy Washburn: Right? Yeah, it's so true, and we're meant to be growing. We're meant to continue to grow. I love my mom. You know, I love her to pieces, but she's very fixed mindset and it's a very, it's a well, it is what it is that chant, it makes me crazy. Or an old dog is not gonna change. Like mom neuroplasticity.

That's what I work in every day. Yes, you can change. Yes. And then I, one of my favorite clients is 80 years old, and she said, you know what? You know why I came to you, because I do not wanna go to the grave being known as a bitch. I wanna change that while I'm here, so help me change that. Oh, love it. She's, she shows up every other week and she's doing the work and she's [00:21:00] trying to change her relationship with her daughter-in-laws, and she really is adamant about changing her legacy.

It's such a beautiful thing to watch at any age. Yes. But finding the people, but you need to be like, 

Erika Rothenberger: no one else is gonna come and rescue you. No one else is gonna do the work. No one else is gonna change. No one's gonna take, Hey, I wanna be on your board. You have to go and find it. And I think so many times people get into that victim mentality.

Well that's just the way my mother-in-law is. That's just the way my sister is That just the way they can still be in your life. Right. But Biden knows people that are really gonna bring you to that next level, if that's what you're looking to do. 

Kathy Washburn: Right? 'cause there's a board out there to serve you. 

Introduction to Experiential Thriving

Kathy Washburn: Yes.

To help you do the serving that you're meant to do in this world. Yes. Yes. One of the things I tripped over on your website, and I just love this verbiage of experiential thriving. Oh, what does that mean? And how 

Erika Rothenberger: do we do it? I want it all day long. 

The Importance of Experimentation

Erika Rothenberger: So I always say, listen, [00:22:00] like I'm not a victim. I'm not a survivor, I'm a thriver.

But we have to constantly experiment. We constantly need to almost be like children. Like, is the water too hot? Is, how's this toy gonna work? If I put the Legos together without the direction, what is it gonna come out like? And if we're not willing to experiment with ourselves, we never know. And I think that the older we get, sometimes the more fixed mindset we have of now that it's never worked before.

Okay, well what if it does this time? 

So we're not constantly experimenting with ourselves, our capabilities, our skillsets, our language, the people we're around. How do you thrive? How do you get to that next to me? All you do is really survive. You gotta stay in that middle, which is fine, but if you, people that are on this podcast wanna go to that next level.

And in order to really thrive and get to that next level, [00:23:00] how are you experimenting every day, trying the new reel, writing that post that feels edgy, picking up the phone and asking that person to be on your podcast.

Doing the things that kind of feel like the, a little bit, that sandpaper gets a little more gritty. How are you willing to go and really start to shave those edges and start to say, okay, listen, I'm ready to step into it because I'm born here to thrive. You have one in 400 trillion chance of being on this earth.

God didn't put us here to play small. God didn't put us. Just decide. Right? Like he said, Hey, I'm putting Kathy here and Erica here because I know they have a mission. And a legacy. And your legacy is not something that you think about after you pass away. Your legacy isn't 20 years from now or 50 years from now.

Your [00:24:00] legacy is today. How are you being a legacy leader every day? I think we think of legacy. We're like, oh, what is, so we gonna say at our funeral? Right. Okay, great. But how am I being a legacy leader today? 

Kathy Washburn: That is so powerful and all, I have this really clear image of little kids learning to ski versus adults learning to ski.

Yes. Like little kids just, they just send it. There's not even a hesitation. No balls like. Just flying down there and the adults are rigid and gripping, so of course they're gonna get hurt. The very fear that they have of getting hurt is gonna happen because they're gripping. 

20 Seconds of Insane Courage

Kathy Washburn: You also remind me of I used to do this thing that I think I need to reinstitute and I can't.

It came from the movie we bought a zoo, or if we bought a zoo it was this line in the movie that said it just takes. 20 seconds of [00:25:00] insane courage. So when I first started my business, I was like, okay, 20 seconds of insane courage. Most of the time it was hitting send on an email. I think I've probably sent a hundred emails to Gwyneth Paltrow, have not received it yet, but it just hasn't been time.

But one of the 20 Seconds of Insane Courage was sending a note to Dr. Lydia Tamock, who was the one that introduced Type C personalities to me, which is what I finally realized. Oh my goodness, this was part of my cancer cocktail. This emotional suppression, this unhealthily emoting, people pleasing, conflict resistant.

It was actually hurting my immune system to the point that it played a part in my cancer. So I reached, I, I found her research, I found her email in the back of a book. Her research came out in 1970, [00:26:00] so I thought, maybe she's alive, maybe she's not alive. So I lob out this email, just send it her love for the research and what it meant to me, and asking her to be on my podcast.

She sent me a note back and said, I'd love to, but I didn't have a podcast yet. I was like, I had just been collecting interviews. My son said, you have to have at least 10 in the bank before you even think of starting. So I had to send her a note back and say okay, this is great, but I need to be come clean with you.

I don't actually have a podcast yet. And she said, I said, it was my Someday podcast. She's like, well, it looks like it's today. So she was my first interview and that 20 seconds of insane courage and that is that experiential thriving. It's like you gotta push yourself over the edge. Yes. 

Erika Rothenberger: Mel Robbins talks about her five second rule.

Right? Like just get off the damn ledge and do it. Yeah. Jump and the action, [00:27:00] they always say like, I heard someone say this the other day and I've used it like so many times, so whoever I stole it from let me know. But they said the heaviest weight at the gym is the front door. Oh, that is good. Right.

It's not a, once you're there, you're like, all right, I'm here. I already decided I committed, but it's actually getting to the front door to say I'm ready to walk. And it's such an analogy for anything we do in life. Right. Writing that, starting the first podcast, writing the first line of our book, like deciding to like drink that first protein shake, like it's just that first action and how crazy is it to me?

Action is the recipe. For building that resilience. Like once you start just doing, you exponentially feel better. 

And even if you're doing the wrong thing, you're at least doing something. 

Kathy Washburn: That's true. Action does lead. We stay. 

Erika Rothenberger: Yeah. We stay stuck and do nothing. [00:28:00] It's like paralysis. We're just like frozen.

Like these statues. 

Kathy Washburn: Yeah. You can't have audacious without action. No. 

Erika Rothenberger: And we need energy, like the energy that keeps us going. And I can tell you, I mean, we could be on this podcast for six hours. I could tell you all the things in the last year that I've done wrong, right? By taking action, but at least I did it right simultaneously.

Now I'm building the muscle of resiliency because I'm like, okay, listen, it didn't go right, but I still did it. 

Kathy Washburn: Right. Fail fast. Can I try it again? 

Erika Rothenberger: Fail for it. Fail for it. Fail for it. 

Kathy Washburn: Yes. Yes. Gosh. I'm minding the time 'cause I know you got a good baseball game to go to with your sons. We're good.

We're good. 

Harnessing Time Effectively

Kathy Washburn: Before we hop off, I have to ask you you've described yourself as a professional time manager and I just wanna. Dive into that, but tell me how you harness [00:29:00] time. 

Erika Rothenberger: Oh my goodness. Well, I always say everyone has the exact same 24 hours in the day. It just depends what we wanna do with them, right?

And some of us are better at dealing with it than others, and some of us, you know, work on it. But for myself, I think being project manager, especially for the first 15 years of my career, I learned the skillfulness of managing time well and. I always say, listen, you have to know what your swim lanes are.

You have to know when to say no. 'cause many times there's 13 things on your calendar in a week that you said yes to, that you should have said no to. Right. How can you get that time back? And I truly believe in time blocking 'cause we as humans are actually really horrible multitaskers. We think we're really good.

I remember being when I first got outta college, and that was like the answer you gave all the interviewers, you're like, I'm a great multitasker. And scientifically we figured out over the last 20 years that we're actually all horrible at [00:30:00] multitasking. So when you do something, do it well. Like when I'm at work, I am doing work well and not thinking about, not that I never do like, but about like the baseball game or the family or the this or the that.

Like do it. Well, when you check your emails. Be a hundred percent into your emails, but then shut it off 

Kathy Washburn: and 

Erika Rothenberger: come back to it at a certain time. So what I do is every Sunday or Saturday, depending on the weekend, I look at my calendar and everything is color coded. It helps me. So all family activities are yellow.

All speakings orange, all work is a, you know what I mean? And I look at my calendar and I say, okay, what does the C look like this week? Typically? Like, what does the sea of color look like? And is there anything that's completely out of balance? Is there anything that actually could go to the week, the next week or the next month that I could move?

Is there anything on that calendar that I can say no to? Like maybe, I volunteered to bake brownies [00:31:00] for the bake sale on Thursday. I have an hour on my calendar Wednesday night and I'm like, I really need to work on something that like speaking or I really wanna go to my son's game. Where can I pick up the brownies?

Kathy Washburn: Yeah, right. There you go. That's okay. Start 

Erika Rothenberger: like it's all time, but I'd rather support another woman or man who's making their business by selling brownies and support their business. And look at it that like, hey, listen, it's not what brings me joy, but someone else is building a business and sending their kids to camp, and because they have this business, 

Kathy Washburn: that's a beautiful way to look at it, 

Erika Rothenberger: you know?

And like, same thing with like cleaning my house. I don't get joy out of like dusting and vacuuming and cleaning toilets. Someone else has a cleaning business. They're trying to grow. Well, I give them, I exchange my time. That would be spent on a Saturday, maybe writing a new keynote or working on my book or investing in the [00:32:00] summit that I have coming up and let someone else do that.

The Audacious Woman's Summit

Kathy Washburn: You have a summit 

Erika Rothenberger: coming up? Yes. Tell me more. I'm so excited. So speaking of being audacious, it's the Audacious Woman's Summit on October 17th in Conshohocken, pa, which is about. 25 minutes outside of Philadelphia, about 20 minutes from the airport. And Amber Lee Largo is actually speaking at it and quite a few other speakers.

It is gonna be truly audacious. We going to step into our power, step into our goals, be surrounded by those people that are gonna increase our productivity, not by 15%, but by 150%. And truly next level our energy. So we'll be 12 weeks out. From the year ending 2025 and making sure we're finishing 2025 really strong.

But also the cascade effect of the things that you do six to eight to 12 weeks out from the beginning of the next [00:33:00] period, which would be a new year, is really the foundation that you're building to start 2026, even. More profound. You know, it's really the building blocks of where you're gonna get there, and I think people sometimes wait, oh, it's January 1st, I'm ready to go.

Well, by the time you actually get the momentum started, it's February 15th. Let's start in October. So on January one, we're ready to go out of the gate. We know what our goals are, we know what our vision is, we know what we're working on. We are going after that aud audacious energy. 

Kathy Washburn: Brilliant. I have never heard it described that way.

Usually I spend the first two weeks beating myself up about what I didn't do the previous year. So to skip that, I mean, I've changed over the last several years of what that planning looks like. But that is brilliant. I've never heard that described that way. 

Erika Rothenberger: Yep. And that's exactly what we're gonna talk about.

That's the foundation we're gonna build at that summit. So if you're listening to this and they're like, you know what, I need to be in that room. I need to be around [00:34:00] those right people. I need to make sure that I start my January even stronger and I need to finish my year and coming up with a plan. I'm actually working with someone right now.

We're designing a planner that everyone's gonna like be able to really spell that out and say, listen, and I'm now surrounded by all these people who are gonna help me fulfill those goals. 

Kathy Washburn: If you're looking for a new board of directors, that is a beautiful place to find it. 

The Power of Values and Goals

Kathy Washburn: One of the things that I do with all of my clients, which is sometimes the biggest eyeopener, and I take it for granted, but values work.

And when I ask somebody what their values are and many women give me values of I want to be loving. I want to be trust. Trusting it's from the outside end. Yes. So to really understand the what's inside of me, what my values are, [00:35:00] and I'll often have them go through their calendar and see where those values show up or they're denying their values.

Because if you don't have something to stand for, then you're gonna fall for anything. Yes. And that swim lane and the boundaries and being able to articulate values into goals, into who you wanna be. Like these things are practices that need to be done. And when you're doing it in a, in environment.

Surrounded by people that are also on the edge with you trying to raise the bar. Sharing your values with another person that doesn't know you from Adam right now is a really powerful thing. Versus sharing 'em with your best friend or your husband. Yes. Where he is like, what your value. They just self-doubt.

Or 

Erika Rothenberger: they know you well enough. They're like, you're never gonna do that. And all of a sudden you have this story in your head. Yes. When [00:36:00] you're around the, it's like, why do we tell, again, when we first meet a coach or meet a therapist, why are we willing to like just say everything? Right? That person has no pre-judgment on us.

Exactly. Free we can ourselves and. Put it out to the universe that way. And that's exactly what I want to come out of that room. 

Kathy Washburn: Well I can't wait to hear what happens with that. I know for sure it'll be a success. I am gonna look it up when we get off the phone. I love, yeah. I include 

Erika Rothenberger: it in the show notes if someone wants to come.

I, yes. We still have early bird special going on. It's gonna be. It's gonna be incredible. I'm so excited. A lot of surprises up my sleeve, A lot of audacious happening. There's gonna be a lot of energy in that room, I promise you. Like you don't even need to get your workout in that. 

Effervescent Energy and Final Thoughts

Kathy Washburn: Before I let you go, if I were to crush you, your essence up and put it in pill form, what effect would you have on someone taking that pill?

Erika Rothenberger: Oh, I love this question. [00:37:00] So I was asked a word. And I actually do this in one of my keynotes. What's the one word that describes you? Like if you didn't have a title, you didn't have like your badge on, you didn't know what company you worked for or what city you were from. What's the one word you'd want someone to remember you by?

Because many times we go to these networking events or we go somewhere where we forget the actual. Name of the person, but we're like, do you remember? And it's a characteristic typically about someone, right? And I say, what's that? What do you wanna be remembered by when you leave that room? If they forgot your name, but they remembered a trait around you, what would it be?

My word that I said after my first interview was effervescent, like an ELCA seltzer tablet. So I like if it was crushed up in a pill, it would be that burst of energy. That all the bubbles, all of the goodness. Being able to like just have a lot of different ideas that like come up to the surface and then being able to execute.

I'm a manifesting generator, so I [00:38:00] love coming up with ideas and letting them bubble up to the surface and just sharing them and letting them explode. And then I want someone else to actually do the work. Like, I mean, I love doing the work too, but like actually help me execute it. Ooh. 

Kathy Washburn: I felt that effervescence, the moment we embraced, we had been talking on the phone and back and forth, but man, in your presence, that is exactly what happens.

Erika Rothenberger: Yes. And so thank you. That's what I would say. Like, you ate that phone. Like you, it was like having the tablet, right? All of a sudden, like you just feel better. The bubbles are going. I know it's like to help a stomach, but like really it's just helping to me bring that energy to life. Like all of it's in you.

But so many people keep their tablet outside the water, right? And once you put it in the water, those bubbles don't stop. And that's what I try to do, is be that catalyst for people to say, you have it. You are gonna do the work. But I'm just releasing that energy for you. Woo. [00:39:00] 

Kathy Washburn: Wow. I am so grateful for your gift of time.

I know that this is gonna be incredibly, touching in a lot of different ways, just inspiring people to step up and be the best version of themselves. So thank you. 

Erika Rothenberger: Oh my goodness. Thank you for honoring me today. It was so awesome being here, and I hope to see you in October, perhaps. 

Kathy Washburn: Yes. To be a little em and audacious.

Until then, Erica, be well.