Choosing Courage Over Comfort | My Galentine’s Talk with El Paso Women’s Network

Download my free mini-ebook: It's About Damn Time: The Self Check for Women Leaders Who Work Their Ass Off, Play By the Rules, and STILL Get Passed Over.

I’m so honored to have been invited to speak at 1810 Taqueria Tradicional for the El Paso Women’s Network Galentine’s gathering.

What an incredible evening spent surrounded by strong, driven, and authentic women who are building, leading, and choosing courage over comfort every single day.

I had the privilege of sharing my story, but the real gift was listening, learning, and connecting with so many women committed to growth, integrity, and lifting each other up.

This is Valentine’s done right.

Community. Leadership. Real conversations.

Thank you to everyone who showed up with open hearts and bold energy. Keep leading loudly, honestly, and unapologetically. ❤️

Special thanks to:
@elpasowomensnetwork
@nontoxboxgirl
@soldbyzerelda
@lifewithgaby
@1810taqueriatradicional

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Thank you so much. Yeah. So shaky. All right. So I wanted to say good morning, but now it's afternoon. El Paso Women's Network. Like, how cool is that? Um, who was here last month for their very first meeting? Wow. See, that's building community. I already met April. I've I've tackled my number one. I'll share it a minute. When I come out and I speak, it doesn't matter to me where I'm speaking, to whom I'm speaking, um, or what the message is. I give it everything I've got because you never know who's in your audience, right? Now, what I'll say is, I mean, yeah, it'd be awesome if there was like a, I don't know, a scouting agent for stand-up comedians, or if I turned around and Bad Bunny Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin were sitting at a table. But what I'm talking about is you never know who is sitting in your audience that needs to hear exactly what your message is that day. That it makes a difference in their life, gives them a little bit of spunk, gives them a little bit of belief, helps them navigate something that they're working their way through. So when I came out initially, what I was saying was, Good morning, El Paso Women's Network. All right. Now, I'm not gonna pretend to be able to imitate Robin Williams because that was pretty lame, but I tried. And there's a reason for that, a couple of them. One, it's my talk, and I like it. Number two, he was battling internal resistance and demons that none of us, I don't think anybody on the planet knew anything about. And number three, his battle cry, his rallying cry, his call to action at the beginning of the movie every time in Good Morning Vietnam. Keep in mind the idea of a battle cry. All right, so we talked about who was here last month, who came today by themselves, who showed up alone. Yeah. Didn't know if you were gonna know anybody, didn't know for sure what it was gonna be about. Should I go, shouldn't I go? I mean, the airport closed, what the hell's happening? All of these things, right? But you showed up anyway. That takes guts, or as I say, chesticles. Very good. Third, who brought somebody? Love it. And I know you. What I love is that everywhere you go, every person that you meet has something valuable to share with you if you're patient enough to get to know them and to listen. And so my first takeaway for everybody today, and keep in mind there's three. Takeaway number one is that before you leave here today, you make a point of meeting someone in this room that you did not know before you got here. So I heard Gabby try really hard to get people to not sit with their friends. I get it. But do that for me, okay? So takeaway number one, meet somebody you didn't know. Number two. And this one, it's a good one. So when I have an opportunity to talk in front of people, whatever, like I said, whatever the topic is, whatever it is that we're discussing, I take it seriously because you don't know how you're gonna be able to impact somebody. When I was asked to come today, I was asked to talk about basically shattering the glass ceiling, right? I was asked to talk about what work-life balance is, which if you know me, it's it's bullshit, is what it is. It doesn't exist. Um, and last but not least, I was asked to talk a little bit about how you know what it is maybe you're supposed to do, right? So you're looking at your options, you're weighing your options, you're trying to figure out what your path is. Last month, who was here? We talked about those. Who was here last month that did the vision board? Okay. From talking to Zerelda, which she came on the podcast, if you haven't listened to the podcast with her on it, I would encourage you to do so. But from what Zerelda shared, everybody in the room was from a completely different walk of life, right? We have stay-at-home moms. I don't know how you do it. I'm sort of doing it right now, and I'm failing miserably, so kudos to you. We have corporate people in the room, we have entrepreneurs in the room, we have overachievers that are all of the above. But at the end of the day, one of the diff most difficult things about being a woman is being real, being secure enough and confident enough in yourself and in your gifts to be authentic. And it's also, in my opinion, the most powerful thing you can do. So look at me. I was, I'm a nurse, I'll be a nurse until the day I die. And I do feel like that was my calling because I wanted to be able to help people, support people during their time of illness and whatnot. I think I'm doing that now just in a very different way by supporting other women and helping other women find their passion and maybe journey their path with a little less pain than I experienced. But at the end of the day, if we would find a way as women to work together instead of against each other, imagine the difference in the world. Right? Really? So you go to conferences and you hear about the glass ceiling. Does it exist? Yes. Yes. If you've read my book, I experienced some real fun stuff with men in corporate America. But the reality is the person that made me want to get out of it, the person that made my life miserable, it wasn't a man. It was one of us. It was another woman. That the first time she met me, she deemed me as a threat. I was confident, I was not quiet, I'm sure you're shocked. And I spoke up when I disagreed with things. And she didn't like that. And so I stayed as long as I could, I put up with it as long as I could, and then I did something that shocked a lot of people. I wrote a book, and then I published the book, and the book has the word vagina in the title. So, yeah, airing out your vagina. Being a real woman in an unreal world. So you can imagine, first of all, it took a bit because Amazon insisted on categorizing it as adult content. I, I mean, we're not gonna get into that, but I don't write adult content. What it boiled down to was a woman speaking up and using anatomically correct language for a female body part, and it was really hard to get past that. It was really hard to get that going. When I was asked to come and speak today, first of all, you had me at tacos. And what's better than tacos? Tacos and margaritas. And I'm seeing them be delivered, so I'm gonna have to do that. Yeah, absolutely. And third, tacos, margaritas, and a room full of women supporting other women. Right? Yeah. So we talked about takeaway number one, meeting somebody that you didn't know when you showed up here today, taking advantage of that opportunity. And if you can do a step further, go up to somebody that you don't know that you maybe normally wouldn't approach. Somebody that looks different, sounds different, talks differently, thinks differently. At the end of the day, I don't care if you wear a pussy power hat or if you wear a MAGA hat. If you're a good human, you're my people. So if we can approach things that way, open-minded, give everybody a shot, we have an opportunity to really change things. And that's what this world needs. So I wanted to come in, and I know I threw a little bit of an audible with what I was asked to speak about, but I wanted to come in today and talk about love. Because it's a Galentine's event, it's the week of Valentine's Day. I wore black heart earrings, which says a lot about my sex life and my love life, but whatever. The reality is this as women and as men, because they're they're my poor photographer. I I love him and he's amazing, and he's always the only dude in the room. But today there's two photographers that are male, so you're not alone. But when I talk about this and I speak about women and love, I'm not talking about the partnership love. I'm not talking about the lifelong, you know, found my soulmate love. I'm talking about the kind of love that can change the world. I'm talking about the kind of love that can shift things, that can move mountains, that can really make change. And that is self-love. Right? We talk about self-care, which, you know, mannies and petties and facials and all of that stuff go get them. I do. It is definitely self-care. But when I speak about self-love, I'm talking about this. The word genius. The word genius comes from a Latin word gen, not the alcohol, starts with a J. But it comes from the word gen, and it's talking about your internal gift, your internal warrior, protector, the reason that you're here, that all-encompassing essence, that innate you. That's your genius. Now, how many women in this room have because of roles assigned, roles desired that you took on, you know, knowingly and wantingly, and some that we take on because that's what life gives us. But how many women in this room have lost themselves to a role? Yeah. Because, and I'll pick on Anna. Always. So Anna's not Anna, Anna's Jojo's mom. Right? So as moms, we lose our identity as mom, as the daughter. Many of us are, and I'm sorry, middle-age-ish. I don't, I'm very middle-aged, but middle-age-ish. We lose our role as a daughter because now a lot of us are serving in caregiver roles for parents that are older. We lose ourselves to our job because I was a nurse, I was a hospital CEO, I was a VP of operations, I was traveling all the time, I was an alley, I was the CEO. And an ex-husband that would say to my son, I don't know, go ask the CEO. That's why he's my ex. But anyway, if you think about it and you look at how we lose ourselves to our roles, here's the second thing I want you to do from today. I want you to leave here today. Some of you may know what your genius is, some of you may know what that passion is, some of you may know what that path is supposed to be for you. Many of you don't. So take one uncomfortable step towards figuring out what that is. If it's journaling, who'd have thought? A counselor that said, you should really try journaling. It'll help you get some of that out. Now, Ali being Allie was like, Well, how the hell is that gonna help me putting all my junk on paper? That's ridiculous. Changed my life. And at the end of the day, who'd have thought that journaling for mental health and to get some of that out would have turned into a best-selling book, a podcast, and now me doing public speaking engagements and sharing my path, my purpose, my not calling myself a genius, I'm saying my internal genius with other women to empower them. So take one uncomfortable action. Sign up for a class. I don't know, if you're a painter that doesn't paint, paint something. You're a writer that doesn't write, write something. But take one uncomfortable action towards finding what your genius is. Right? So we've got two of them. One, you're gonna meet somebody, yes. Two, you're gonna find your genius. If you already know what it is, you're gonna fan it. Right? Alright, last but not least, number three. I started this with a battle cry. Here's the big one. Here's the game changer. Women are one, our own worst enemy. Who has an asshole that lives in their brain? Right? That says, you're not smart enough to do that. Oh my god, don't do that. Oh my god, you just said that. They're gonna think you're nuts. What did you do? You put vagina on the cover of a book. What are you thinking? The reality is he thinks he's protecting us. He thinks he's helping us. He's not. He's shutting us down and he's silencing or turning off our genius. Women to other people, women to other women. We're awful. If you're a single woman, you know, there must be something wrong with you. Oh my god, she's 47 years old and she's single. What the hell's wrong with her? Oh my god, she's married to that man still. How many times has he cheated on her and he stayed? I mean, it doesn't matter. You're a stay-at-home mom, oh, must be nice. I wish I could afford to do that. You work an 80-hour week, oh, her poor kids don't even know her. I mean, it doesn't matter what you do, you're going to be criticized. So my ask is this we talk about the glass ceiling. The glass ceiling is not still in place for the most part because men are holding it there. The glass ceiling is still in place because we're fighting each other. We're busy kicking each other off that ladder, making sure we pull the ladder up behind us as we climb, instead of supporting each other and raising each other up as we rise together. So if you have an opportunity to suggest somebody in this room for a job, for a promotion, for hey, did you know that so-and-so does such and such? Do it. Do it. That's the whole point in networking events, in meeting other people, in growing that network, because it's also the day that hell freezes over or something terrible happens, or whatever it is, you know somebody that provides X service because you went to this meeting. So my third ask, and the biggest one, is retract the cat clause, ladies. If we would just retract the cat claws and start collaborating with each other instead of competing with each other, that will shatter the glass ceiling. And so my last thing that I'll say today, I'm gonna end you, end it with something for you all to think about. And I don't know where I heard it, but I fell in love with it and I wanted to share it with you guys. SW. So what? So what? They're gonna think you're crazy. So what? You said vagina in a room full of people. So what? You got fired from a CEO position and now you're rebuilding something that means something to you, and God willing, in time, will do things for other people. So what? So, yes, there will be some people that show up and criticize. Sometimes that's gonna be the asshole in your brain. But tell the asshole in your brain to take a seat. And tell the person that's criticizing you, thank you so much, and in your head goes, so effing what? Because at the end of the day, guys, as far as I know, at least for now, we got this one life. And I'm 47 years into mine, and I tell people all the time it took me 47 years to figure out some of what matters and what never frickin' did. And what I'll tell you right now is all the money in the world, all the titles in the world, all the prestige in the world, you fall just as hard and just as fast and just as painfully as the person that never climbed that ladder. So take the message how it resonates today. I appreciate you guys coming out here and listening to me yap for a little bit. I would love to meet you all. Um, I'd be happy to be your person if you want to meet somebody that you didn't know before you came today. But there are some incredible women in this room. And when you look around, I love the story, and I'm gonna tell her anyway, too bad. Zerelda. So I met Zerelda because I dated her cousin. Is that an El Paso thing or what? Now I ditched the guy, but I kept the cousin. And that's been like, I don't know, six years or something. Yeah. And so, really, really, thank you for showing up. Thank you for being here today. Thank you for listening to me up. And at the end of the day, don't forget your three things. Because they're game changers. And if you really put your heart into doing those three things, we really can not just improve our own lives, but improve the lives of everyone that lives around us. I'd love to meet you all. I have a few books here for sale. We don't have very many left we need to order, but I'd be happy to sign them if you're interested in purchasing. Please, if you don't follow me on social or if you haven't subscribed to the YouTube channel, I would suggest that you search by my name. Do not search YouTube by airing out your vagina. That's a no no. Trust me. But if you can find me on there, please subscribe. The more I'm able to share these messages and get it out, I think the better for everybody. Thank you so much.