And She Spoke: Women. Money. Power.

We’re a female-owned software company, and take a LOT pride in what we’ve built.   And we love supporting other woman-owned ventures, which is part of the reason we were both big fans of THINX. This was a product developed by women, for women, and it helped to change the public conversation about women’s bodies.   Good for women, and good for the environment? Consider us sold.    So when we heard about what went down with THINX and Miki Agrawal, we knew we needed to talk about it.    Investigative journalists did a little digging and found that both THINX underwear, and their work environment, were toxic.    As consumers, we felt duped. But as business owners, we were curious to see how this would pan out.    As female business owners, this sparked a lot of conversations about the ethics of branding, the reality of female-owned business, and why being female-owned doesn’t necessarily imply feminist.   Here’s a peek at what else you can expect:   The strict standards for female business owners Cancel culture and the space to fail Our main takeaways from THINX Taking ownership of our failures The ripple effect of the failure of one female-owned business Can you be a feminist company and still be aiming for rapid growth?   RESOURCES   Patriarchy Proof: Thinx and the Perils of Emphasizing Female Founders The rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes A Culture of Failure: The Story of Elizabeth Holmes: Episode 119 of And She Spoke My Menstrual Underwear has Toxic Chemicals In It Taylor Swift - NPR Tiny Desk Concert Disrupt Her: A Manifesto for the Modern Woman   Know Your Numbers In our business, we're big fans of financial literacy and accountability. Knowing your numbers is an essential aspect of building a successful business and inherent responsibility for any entrepreneur.    What you focus on grows, so pay attention to your money. We use Bench for our bookkeeping. It's simple, elegant and saves us so many hours that would otherwise be spent neck-deep in receipts on the other side of a spreadsheet. Each month our transactions are automatically imported into Bench and we get on-demand financial reports. We even enjoy opening up our profit and loss statement to review each month. When tax time comes around, we are up to date and ready to go. And this is what Financial Empowerment feels like.   Use this link to save 20% off your Bench Accounting plan for the first six months!   This podcast is brought to you by Namastream   This podcast is brought to you by the Namastream software platform. Namastream is an easy to use platform that helps you build and sell your own courses memberships and live-streamed programs. Go from idea to open for business in just minutes. Unlike other startups, Namastream was created by women for women. If you're looking for a simple, streamlined way to build and grow an online business. You can learn more at Namastream.com This Week’s Joy: We’re big fans of Taylor Swift as a person (‘Shake it Off’ is still the best advice ever) which is why this week’s joy and hustle are all about her!    We recommend watching Taylor’s NPR Tiny Desk concert, especially with your little girl if you want to show her what a great role model looks like.   This Week’s Hustle: Seriously, we cannot get enough of Miss Americana, Taylor’s Netflix documentary. We love that we get to see Taylor evolve from this people-pleasing girl, to a woman who’s  not afraid to speak her own mind. 

Remember when you’d work your tush off just so that you get handed a shiny gold star in front of the whole class?  Yeah, us too. Our theory is that this behavior is why so many women in business identify as perfectionists today.  When we had a show of hands in our community, there were SO many of you who identified as loud and proud perfectionists. And, we can definitely relate.  But, perfectionism has a dark side. And that’s what we’ll be exploring in today’s episode. Tune in to learn more about how to reign in your perfectionism and find the courage to fail (with pride).   Here’s a peek at what else you can expect: Our own struggles with perfectionism  How the quest for perfection can damage your business Baby-steps to help you get over wanting to be perfect 24/7 Why we embrace the ‘B minus’ Method  Why the perfectionism you picked up at school and uni might not work in business  RESOURCES Seth Godin - Linchpin (and the concept of ‘Ship It’) Know Your Numbers In our business, we're big fans of financial literacy and accountability. Knowing your numbers is an essential aspect of building a successful business and inherent responsibility for any entrepreneur.  What you focus on grows, so pay attention to your money. We use Bench for our bookkeeping. It's simple, elegant and saves us so many hours that would otherwise be spent neck-deep in receipts on the other side of a spreadsheet. Each month our transactions are automatically imported into Bench and we get on-demand financial reports. We even enjoy opening up our profit and loss statement to review each month. When tax time comes around, we are up to date and ready to go. And this is what Financial Empowerment feels like. Use this link to save 20% off your Bench Accounting plan for the first six months! This podcast is brought to you by Namastream   This podcast is brought to you by the Namastream software platform. Namastream is an easy to use platform that helps you build and sell your own courses memberships and live-streamed programs. Go from idea to open for business in just minutes. Unlike other startups, Namastream was created by women for women. If you're looking for a simple, streamlined way to build and grow an online business. You can learn more at Namastream.com   This Week’s Joy: It’s Peloton Bike! (Tune in to hear about Jeni’s newfound love)  This Week’s Hustle: Two words - Inbox. Zero. This week, we finally cleared out our inboxes to zero and are actually surprised by how clean and visible our mailbox looks. Mental peace is an added bonus.

With more and more women getting into online business, we decided that it was time  to have an honest conversation about what it means to grow an online business in 2020. Running an online business has its advantages: you can work when you want, where you want, while wearing what you want. But...there’s a downside.   People who work a 9-5 can switch off at the end of the day, but as business owners that’s a habit we need to intentionally cultivate (and it isn’t easy!). When your entire business can be accessed on your iPhone, the urge to check-in can be almost impossible to resist. If you aren’t militant about safeguarding your boundaries, all of a sudden it can feel like you’re working all the time. Tune into this week’s episode to hear about setting boundaries and maintaining work-life balance as an entrepreneur.   Here’s a peek into what else you can expect: How to spot the time-sucks in your day. The importance of disconnecting and taking that vacation! Seth Godin’s work-life philosophy.  The challenge of being truly anonymous in the age of Instagram. The pressure to always promote your brand or voice a public opinion.  RESOURCES   ‘What if surfing was your job?’ by Seth Godin   ‘Workaholics’ by Seth Godin   This Week’s Joy:    Move towards a more sustainable lifestyle by thinking about your lifestyle and recycling by trying out zero-waste products from https://notoxlife.com/.  This Week’s Hustle:  Our upcoming retreat in Wickaninnish Inn in Tofino, Canada and all our photo and video content we’re planning to do there. Know Your Numbers In our business, we're big fans of financial literacy and accountability. Knowing your numbers is an essential aspect of building a successful business and inherent responsibility for any entrepreneur.  What you focus on grows, so pay attention to your money. We use Bench for our bookkeeping. It's simple, elegant and saves us so many hours that would otherwise be spent neck-deep in receipts on the other side of a spreadsheet. Each month our transactions are automatically imported into Bench and we get on-demand financial reports. We even enjoy opening up our profit and loss statement to review each month. When tax time comes around, we are up to date and ready to go. And this is what Financial Empowerment feels like. Use this link to save 20% off your Bench Accounting plan for the first six months! This podcast is brought to you by Namastream. This podcast is brought to you by the Namastream software platform. Namastream is an easy to use platform that helps you build and sell your own courses memberships and live-streamed programs. Go from idea to open for business in just minutes. Unlike other startups, Namastream was created by women for women. If you're looking for a simple, streamlined way to build and grow an online business. You can learn more at Namastream.com

On an average day, we make 35,000 decisions. It can be as simple as deciding what to wear, or what to eat for breakfast, or something a little consequential like deciding to diversify your business revenue streams, or as tense as dealing with conflict. As entrepreneurs, our power comes from being decisive. Making a decision, following through, and knowing when to pivot.  Tune in to this week’s episode to learn more about the mindset shifts to help you take the stress out of decision-making. Here’s a peek at what else you can expect: How decisions affect the way you live and feel Learning to rely on your intuition Why there is no such thing as a wrong decision How to stop spinning out from a place of indecision  The elements of decision-making Decisions, choice, and victim-mentality Why grit’s a character-trait  RESOURCES ‘5 ways to make tough decisions faster (and not regret them later)’ by Elizabeth Grace Saunders    Joy: Cleo Wade  Hustle: Bonnie Christine’s Flourish Planner   Know Your Numbers In our business, we're big fans of financial literacy and accountability. Knowing your numbers is an essential aspect of building a successful business and inherent responsibility for any entrepreneur.  What you focus on grows, so pay attention to your money. We use Bench for our bookkeeping. It's simple, elegant and saves us so many hours that would otherwise be spent neck-deep in receipts on the other side of a spreadsheet. Each month our transactions are automatically imported into Bench and we get on-demand financial reports. We even enjoy opening up our profit and loss statement to review each month. When tax time comes around, we are up to date and ready to go. And this is what Financial Empowerment feels like. Use this link to save 20% off your Bench Accounting plan for the first six months! This podcast is brought to you by Namastream This podcast is brought to you by the Namastream software platform. Namastream is an easy to use platform that helps you build and sell your own courses memberships and live-streamed programs. Go from idea to open for business in just minutes. Unlike other startups, Namastream was created by women for women. If you're looking for a simple, streamlined way to build and grow an online business. You can learn more at Namastream.com

Welcome to the first official episode of And She Spoke. This week, we’re diving into everything that’s changed in the three years since we first launched the Soulful MBA. Entrepreneurship has been a journey of personal transformation for both of us. It’s given us a sort of unshakeable sense of self and confidence, and with it comes the comfort of knowing that no matter what happens we’ll be okay.  Tune in to this week’s episode to learn more about why we believe that entrepreneurship offers an important path to self-actualization.  Here’s a peek at what else you can expect: Looking at the biggest differences between now and three years ago. The focus of the new show; business and entrepreneurship as the path to self-actualization. Meeting adversity in life and the choices we have in entrepreneurship. Changes we have experienced; confidence, competence and appreciation. The most surprising events from our journey and how they fit into the broader picture. Our hopes and dreams for starting a company together. Cashing in on today's opportunities and online business real estate. What life was like before we started our business and how it all changed. Things that set us apart and allowed us to experience success in creating software. Avoiding burnout and quitting; why this is so common and how it can be sidestepped. This week's Joy and Hustle! Amazing bras and a must-see film on Netflix! The future of our lives; data points, advertising and weaponizing of profiles. RESOURCES Episode 1 of the Soulful MBA Third Love The Great Hack

With a new decade, we wanted to take a second to say goodbye to the Soulful MBA, it’s brought us so far, and we’ve gained so many loyal listeners in the process, but we realized that we’re now at a point in our lives and our businesses where we want to go deeper. For the last three years, we’ve been talking about all the different ways that you can grow and market your teaching platform, but now we’d like to start talking about what it takes to be the woman behind a successful business. Presenting, ‘And She Spoke, our brand new show that peels back the different layers of entrepreneurship so we can dive into the messy, the chaotic, and the heartfelt stories and lessons that define the lives of the entrepreneurs we know.  You’ll hear from successful female entrepreneurs about how they’ve grown their businesses, how current events have affected, the role money, mindset, and philosophy play in shaping the kind of business you run.  Think of And She Spoke as an inner circle of successful women in business having honest conversations about how they got there, the road bumps in the way, and their big plans for the future.  We’re setting aside the tactics, and we’re stepping into our truth. We hope you’ll join us.