Women Who Lead by Bloom

Random analogy, but I think it fits, WDYT?

Have you ever noticed what men are more likely to do on the motorway when another car is going faster?
They race it. Even quietly to themselves.

Have you ever noticed what women are more likely to do?
We move over and let them pass.

(And yes, I know there are MANY outliers to the above, but stay with me)

…and then we wonder why meetings feel icky.

Because we find ourselves in a room where people are trying to “overtake” each other.

Why the room has an energy we can't quite name but definitely feel.

Why we leave having said less than we meant to.

It is because we are playing completely different games in the same room.

They are racing. We are yielding. And nobody told us that was even a choice.

WDYT? Am I on the something?

Once I cracked this, leadership team meetings just hit different.
I stopped arriving thinking I needed to know everything. I stopped bracing. And because I wasn't spending all my energy managing my own nervous system, I could actually be present.

I was calmer. More grounded. And something unexpected happened.
I got playful.

More of my personality came out. I started interjecting easily, speaking to how things landed for people, bringing my perspective without the edit. And the magic of being the person in the room who sees the human impact of every decision, that started to land differently too.

And I noticed something.
When I wasn't there, they felt it.

Oh my gosh, you're away? The levity, the different take, the thing that only I brought. They missed it. They said so.

That is what happens when you stop trying to fit the room and start actually being in it.
Your absence becomes noticeable. Not because you performed something. Because you finally stopped hiding.

Are you ready to be the person whose presence is genuinely missed?

❤️‍🔥

I have worked with over a hundred women now and the pattern is unmistakable.

Yes, we have a challenge within ourselves. The self doubt is real. The belief that we are not quite enough is real.

But there is something else that is also real.

We have been quietly, intentionally, deliberately taught to see women as inferior to men. Not in one big moment. In small ways, across the entire landscape of our lives. So subtle and so consistent that most of us never even noticed it happening.

Think about how clever that actually is.

To take the creature who gives birth to all of life. And convince her that she is somehow less than her male counterpart.

No, my darling.

We have always been equal. We have always been extraordinary. And this is our time to claim that.

Not fight for it. Claim it. Because it was never not ours.

Does this land? Tell me in the comments.

If you are looking for a program that transforms your confidence and leadership overnight, that is not going to come from me.

This work takes time. It takes time to unpick all the misunderstandings you have made about yourself over the years. To reassemble yourself as the truer version of you.

But here is what I will say.

Within three months, you are like a brand new Mr Potato Head with all the accessories on.

You are nailing it. You are getting the jobs. You are showing up differently in every room.

We keep you for six months because that is how long it takes for it to really land in your body. To become who you are rather than something you are trying to remember to do.

It is not overnight. But it is real.

And honestly, real is the only thing worth having.

https://ourtimetobloom.com/wwl

❤️‍🔥

We have such a culture of FOREVER summer that we forget the potency of the other seasons.

Deliver deliver deliver. Go go go.

But there is so much magic in the other three.

In fact, we deeply need them.

Autumn is magical. Things fall away. Things dissolve. You do not always know what comes next.

But what if not knowing is actually the most perfect place to be.

After I left my marriage I spent eighteen months in one of the most powerful seasons of my life. I did not know which country I needed to live in. I did not know what I wanted next. I just held myself in the not knowing.

And yes it was hard. And yes every part of me wanted certainty.

But that season of discernment gave me everything.

If you are in transition right now, if things are falling away and you cannot yet see what is coming, I want you to hear this.

You do not need to know yet.

Your only job is to ask yourself one question. What is my next step. Not the whole plan. Just the next step. The one thing that gets you a little closer to your knowing.

That is enough.

What season are you in right now?

❤️‍🔥

By the time I became Chief People Officer I had become a genuinely different person.

And I got to see just how different in one particular moment early on in that role.
I was working with some fairly colourful characters. As we often are. And instead of shrinking, instead of managing around it or hoping it would sort itself out, I did something that would have terrified the earlier version of me.

I invited one of them for a relationship reset conversation.
I shared feedback on how our dynamic had been landing for me. They shared theirs with me.

Not only was I able to say what I needed to say clearly and truthfully. I was able to hear their feedback without spiralling. Without going home and replaying it for three days. Without making it mean something catastrophic about who I was.

I just heard it. And we moved forward.
We went on to build a really solid partnership.

That conversation only happened because I had done the work to get out of my own way. To breathe into something bigger than the fear.

That is what becomes possible on the other side of this work.

What would you do if you weren't afraid of the conversation...?

One of my mentors dropped this on me and I have not stopped thinking about it since.

Think of your body like a bathtub.

Right now everything is flooding in. Work. Family. Caring commitments. The world being the world. And life is always going to be life. Your bathtub is always going to have things coming into it.

So the question is not how do I stop things coming in.

The question is how do I let a little water out.

What creates space for you. What makes it feel like a whole mood. What does your nervous system actually need to not be constantly full to the brim.

That is the work.

What lets the water out for you? Tell me in the comments.

🛁

When a woman is standing powerfully in her leadership, everything shifts.

That contraction in your body. Gone. That sick feeling in your stomach before a hard conversation. Gone. The tightening in your throat when you want to speak and nothing comes out. Gone.
The Sunday scaries where you cannot get to sleep because Monday is coming and your mind is already there.
The 3am wake up. Oh my gosh I have to have that conversation. Oh my gosh I didn't do that thing. Oh my gosh they are going to find out.

All of that chatter. All of that overwhelm.
It ends.

Because you start to walk differently. You walk in your leadership energy. You trust what you have to say without the spiral. You know the value you bring to a conversation, to a room, to an organisation. And you are not afraid to ask for what you want. The pay rise. The promotion. The bigger job. The seat at the table you have already earned.

But the biggest shift of all is not any of those things.
It is inside your body.

It is a feeling of freedom. Of calm. Of peace. Of knowing exactly who you are and finally letting her show up.

That is what we are building inside Women Who Lead.

There is still time to join the June group: https://ourtimetobloom.com/wwl

❤️‍🔥

Yes I am aware of the irony of wearing this dress while telling you to stop begging to be seen.

I am off to a wedding. Work with me.

Tomorrow I am hosting a LinkedIn Live called Stop Begging to Be Seen and Heard.

Because there is a version of showing up in your career that feels like pick me, see me, notice me, develop me. And it is exhausting. And it does not work. And most of us have been doing it for years without realising.

There is another way.

Sinking into your sovereignty. Being seen, heard, and valued not because you are performing hard enough for it but because you have stopped organising yourself around earning it.

Come and join me tomorrow. It is free.

Drop your questions below yo 🫡

https://www.linkedin.com/events/stopbeggingtobeseenandheard-sto7455675181722742784/