Empowering Women 2024 Conference - Resilience in Life and Leadership Episode 057

Stephanie Olson, CEO and founder of the Set Me Free Project, discusses resilience in life and leadership, emphasizing its importance in overcoming challenges. She shares her personal journey, including her work in preventing human trafficking and her experiences as a survivor of sexual and domestic violence. Stephanie highlights the significance of identifying and utilizing strengths, acknowledging weaknesses, and prioritizing tasks. She stresses the importance of celebrating successes and maintaining a positive mindset. Stephanie encourages women to embrace their flaws and view them as opportunities for growth, urging self-empowerment and resilience in the face of adversity.

Everyone has resilience, but what does that mean, and how do we use it in life and leadership? Join Stephanie Olson, an expert in resiliency and trauma, every week as she talks to other experts living lives of resilience. Stephanie also shares her own stories of addictions, disordered eating, domestic and sexual violence, abandonment, and trauma, and shares the everyday struggles and joys of everyday life. As a wife, mom, and CEO she gives commentaries and, sometimes, a few rants to shed light on what makes a person resilient. So, if you have experienced adversity in life in any way and want to learn how to better lead your family, your workplace, and, well, your life, this podcast is for you!

https://stephanieolson.com

Transcript

Stephanie Olson: 0:00

Welcome to resilience in life and leadership with your host, Stephanie Olson, CEO speaker, author and sexual violence and addiction expert, we're glad you're here. I am Stephanie Olson, and I am so glad to be here with you empowering women in industry. 2024 it's very exciting. I am just going to pretend I am here with a fabulous group of women, because I know I am, even though I am by myself, here with my dogs somewhere, but I know you're here with me. And so we are going to be talking about some great stuff. We're going to be talking about resilience and resilience in life, resilience and leadership, because when we are working in whatever industry that is, we need resilience in everything we do, and so that's what we're going to be discussing today. So if I were to ask you the question, what kind of pain do you want in your life? What would you say now, I'm guessing most of you right now are thinking, I actually want no pain in my life whatsoever. And you know what? That's exactly what I would say, too. I buy that I do not want pain at all. But what if I were to ask you a different question? And that is, what are you willing to struggle for? What are you willing to struggle for if I were to ask you that question, what are you willing to struggle for now, my guess is that we would probably say something very different if I were to ask you, what are you willing to struggle for us, as opposed to what kind of pain do you want in Your Life? And the reality is we are willing to struggle for a lot of things. I know for me personally, I am a mom of three adult children. I'm willing to struggle for them. I'm a wife of an extremely supportive spouse, willing to struggle for him. I'm a mom of a furry dog. Sure, I will struggle for that baby, but there's a lot of other things too. I'm the CEO and founder of a nonprofit. I'm willing to struggle for that and the hard work and the people we serve and the things in my life that matter. And I'm guessing, if I were to be able to ask you all of those things, you would say the same exact thing, maybe not exactly what I'm saying, but you'd say things that you're willing to struggle for that means something to you. And that's what it's all about, that's resilience, whether we're talking about resilience in our life or in our industries that we work in, that there are things that that make a difference in our lives, there are things that help us do better. But when we're talking about resilience, and I think resilience is an extremely important word, I've heard people say things like, Well, I don't like to be called resilient, because that implies that I'm already arrived, when, in fact, I think just the opposite. When I think of the term resilience, I think it means getting knocked down and getting right back up, and maybe taking two steps forward and then two steps back. That's That's what I think when I think about resilience, and if we could look at our own lives, we know absolutely that that's what it's all about. I run a nonprofit that we do prevention education on human trafficking. It's called the set me free project, and I had no intention of starting a nonprofit and doing this work, and I had personally been working in the area of of women in sexual and domestic violence and addiction and things like that. I am personally a survivor of of sexual and domestic violence, and so that was on my heart. Women were on my heart. It was something I wanted to do. But when I started to see some of the things that were not being done in the counter trafficking movement, one of my coworkers said, let's help women who have been trafficked, really having no idea what that meant at all. And so we started to do some research, and what we found is it looked very different than what we thought. Right? And in that moment, we realized there was this huge gap that was not being filled in the area of counter trafficking, and so we decided to fill that gap. We now have a curriculum today from kindergarten through 12th grade for youth and curriculum for adults of every facet of of the the every industry, because every industry sees it, community members, parents as well, and we do trainings, but that was never my intention. My intention was to continue to speak and to continue to work with women in these areas and do what I was doing, but I knew nothing at the time about human trafficking, nor frankly, in all honesty, did I really want to know anything about human trafficking, but that is exactly what I ended up doing. I had been working with youth in the area of healthy relationships and speaking to them. And after talking to a couple of educators, I thought, Gosh, this is so needed that the targets of trafficking, and I'm not going to go into that in detail, but those are relationship buildings, and those targets are youth, and they don't know they're being targeted. And as I said, I'm a mom of adult children. At the time, my kids were in in public school, and I thought, if they don't know that they are targets, I don't know that they are targets, there is something missing. So we stepped in to fill that gap. Well, that wasn't as easy as we thought it was going to be. In fact, we came up with a ton of resistance. And frankly, if I had known how difficult it was going to be, I wouldn't have taken the next step. But fortunately, I didn't, and we built this nonprofit from tiny, tiny to a national organization that is serving youth, that is serving people who are serving youth, and just amazing stuff that is going on. But that didn't happen overnight, and it wasn't easy. And in fact, when I think about how many times I just wanted to throw in the towel and quit, but I didn't, and that's what resilience is. Resilience is getting knocked down, and it's getting right back up and doing it over and over and over again. I think one of the key things in resilience is, as women, we are pretty hard on ourselves. I know personally I struggle with, I'm my own worst critic. I struggle with things like imposter syndrome. And I think, you know, here I am a CEO of a nonprofit, and frankly, what am I doing in this role? Because often I think I have no idea what I'm doing now. When I sit back and I really look at myself and I look at what I've accomplished and who I am as a strong and independent woman, and in the workplace, I can step back and say, okay, you've done you've done a good job, but most of the time, that's not how I view myself. Most of the time I think, okay, I need to get through this, or I'm not even viewing myself. And so that's where sometimes the struggle comes in. I think about imposter syndrome a lot, because, let's face it, so many of us have it, and I don't think we ever get to the other side where we're just like, No, I am 100% in charge of who I am, and I'm constantly doing it right. Yay. Me. That's not me anyway, if it's you, more power to you. But for me, I struggle. I will never forget I was speaking to a group. I do a lot of conference speaking, and I travel. And I was speaking to a group on imposter syndrome, and it was in Atlantic City, and I was really excited to speak to this group, a group of leaders, emerging leaders, leaders who have been in their positions for a long time. And I rolled up to Caesar's Palace, where the conference was right by, and I got to the front desk, and they said, You know what, we've upgraded you. No reason I did nothing. Maybe smiled and I got upgraded. Well, I. Walk up to these double doors. Now, let me tell you, I cannot remember the last time I have walked up to double doors in a hotel. Actually, that was it so. And as I opened these double doors, I walk into this foyer that overlooks this huge living room with windows all over. I go into the bedroom because I want to see what that looks like, and it's gorgeous, but that was not the piece de resistance. Okay? I took French for five minutes in high school. Actually, I took it for four years, and I know nothing, but I walk into the bathroom now that's where it was at in the bathroom was a shower with a steam room and a Jacuzzi. That's where I wanted to spend all of my time. I go downstairs. I decided I'm going to treat myself today, and I walk into Hell's Kitchen, Gordon Ramsay's restaurant, and I eat amazing food, and I'm thinking, I'm living the life. I don't know who's life, but I'm living somebody's life. And the next day, I walk into the conference room and I'm thinking, I don't know if anyone's going to show up here. I'm talking about imposter syndrome, and I'm starting to think through all these things and feeling like that. So I go to the bathroom, get ready for my conference, and I come back, and the room is packed. In fact, it was so packed that there were people standing in the back, sitting in the back, sitting in the front, all wanting to know about imposter syndrome, because you know what? We all experience it, but when we understand what resilience is, that it's not being perfect, it's not arriving, it's not being Yes, I have done it all, and I am good. I've overcome. I'm on the other side. It is about getting up again and again and again and keep on keeping on. That's what that's what resilience is. And we do that in every aspect of our lives. And I want to show you a couple of things, because I think a lot of it is how we are, our character as women, and our mindset. How do we think about things? I was I was traveling once, and I do travel a lot. I'm on airplanes a lot. I'm driving a lot, but this one time, I was headed off to somewhere in a plane, and I had to park my car. So I park in the first cheap lot that I can find so that I can park for a couple of days. And I realized that the cheap lot that I'm used to parking in was actually no longer there. So I drive next to the next cheap lot, and I pull in and there's a woman standing at the kiosk with a huge file. Now I don't think I mentioned it's 430 in the morning. Kind of know if people smile at 430 in the morning? I know I don't, but this woman had a huge smile on her face, and she I pulled in, and she looked at me and said, Have you ever been here before? And I said, No. And she said, prepare to be amazed. Prepare to be amazed. It's 430 in the morning. I'm in a cheap parking lot, but you know what I was because she told me that I was going to be that's mindset. It is all mindset and how we think about things, how we're looking at things, how we feel about ourselves, how we're talking to ourselves. So I want to share a few things here with you, because it's all about our character and integrity, how we look at life with resilience. It's going to encompass all of this stuff. So how do you have resilience in your life, in your workplace. How do you have resilience in everything you do? Well, I think one of the main things is identifying your strengths, knowing what things that you have that are your true strengths, and go after those. Utilize those you want 80% of your time to be done in your strengths. It's important that we are learning to use those and really develop those and. What catapults us to the next level, but we also have to acknowledge our weaknesses. I mean, we all have them, and we can't get away from them right now. The idea is we don't want to use our weaknesses more than we use our strengths, but we do have to acknowledge these are weaknesses of mine, and so maybe these aren't things that I should be doing over and over again, and that goes down to prioritizing tasks and responsibilities and delegating appropriately. What are the key things we need to do and we need to get done and do those first, and then, what are the things that we shouldn't be doing at all? I think we should all have business coaches. And one day, my business coach and I were talking about prioritizing tasks and getting things done, and I said, I am struggling to get this simple task done. It was something that I had done many times before. It was something that was easy to do. It was time consuming, but it was easy to do. But this day that I sat down to do it, I just couldn't get it done. I couldn't process it in my brain. I couldn't make it work. It was the most interesting thing. And I was telling my business coach this, and he said, Stephanie, this is not something you should even be doing. This is something somebody else should be doing, and that is exactly why you're not getting it done. It's not your task. It's not your responsibility, I think often, especially as women, as leaders, as people who are go getters, we have a tendency to do things that we're not supposed to do because we're good at it, or we might get it done faster, but sometimes we need to let those things go and delegate those things, and we need to communicate clearly. We need to make sure that everybody around us knows what we need them to accomplish and what we're going to accomplish, we need to communicate other people's roles and our roles so that people understand what that is all about. And we need to focus on continually growing. I think some of the most successful people are the people who are lifelong learners. And if we are willing to continue to grow and continue to learn, that is where we continue to develop. That's where our growth continues. And finally, it is so important that we celebrate successes. Now I want to talk about this for a second, because I recently was speaking to a group of primarily women. There were some men there, but they were doing a staff celebration, or staff appreciation, and there was this group of leaders, and I talked about celebrating successes, and one of the women there said, but isn't that prideful? I mean, if we celebrate our success, isn't that prideful? Aren't we? Aren't we supposed to be humble? Well, yes, humility is a great thing. Humility is important to continue to grow, too. But I don't think celebrating successes is prideful. I think pride is when we focus and center everything around ourselves, whether it's great, whether it's negative, but it's all about us. But to say, Hey, I accomplished this, and I am proud of this, and I just want you to know that is a positive thing. When you fall down and you get back up and you're doing a great job. Celebrate that. That is a huge success. When you get a promotion, celebrate that. It's a massive success. You sell to a big client, or you get a huge project done, celebrate it. Those are things that help you move forward. And when you do fall down, and you remember those successes, those come back to mind, and you think you know what I did, that once I can do it again. I think that's what resilience is all about. Now I want to tell you a little story as we close, there was a woman who had two jars, and these jars were. Beautiful One, however, was much more beautiful than the other, and every day, this woman walked into the village carrying these two jars with her. All of the time now she would walk into the village, and she would fill these jars with water, and she would walk back home, and every day, she did this routine consistently. Now one of the jars had a huge flaw on one side, and there was just a crack down down the middle. And when the old woman would fill that jar with water, well, that jar, she would just drip water all the way back to the village, and she felt really bad. She felt like she wasn't completing the work that she needed to do. And every once in a while, she'd look at the jar on the other side, and she'd say, this jar is so perfect. It's beautiful. It has no flaws, and and it does its job. When we go into the village, it it fills up with water, and they come back and, oh, I wish I could be like that jar. And so one day, the woman looked at the jar with the flaw and said, What's wrong? You just don't look happy. And the jar looked up at her and said, Now, if your jar ever starts talking to you, that's a whole other issue we need to deal with. But this jar looked up at her and said, You know, I don't feel good about myself. I've got this huge flaw that drips water all over the place. I'm not good at what I do. You fill me up with water and i i Come back, but I'm dripping water all over the place, and I don't bring enough water back that I should be and so the woman said, You know what tomorrow, when we walk into the village, I want you to look down. I want you to take a look underneath you and tell me what you see after we get water when we walk back. And so the very next day, the woman takes the two jars and walks into the village and fills up the water and then walks back and the jar with the flaw looked down and noticed all of these beautiful flowers underneath, and she saw beauty and green and colors. And then she looked over at the jar, and there was just dirt underneath that jar. And we when they got back home, she said, what was that? Underneath me there were these beautiful flowers, and underneath the other jar, there weren't any and the old woman said, I knew that you had a crack. I knew there was a flaw, and because of that, I sprinkled seeds on the path that you were going to drip water on. And so, because of your flaw, and because the water was dripping. You grew beauty. You grew flowers, and they grew into beautiful things that are fragrant and lovely. You think that crack is a flaw. You're embarrassed by it. You don't think you're doing the job that you think you should be but in reality, that flaw is bringing beauty to the world, and I want you to know that too, that we often take our worst and compare our worst to other people's best. We do that in person, we do that on social media. We do that all over the place. But it's important to remember that what you see as flaws are things that can help develop and grow another person. I told you earlier that I am a survivor of sexual and domestic violence, and that was a flaw or a crack in my life that I carried for years, there was so much shame and and feelings of unworthiness. But you know today, that flaw is something that I have been able to use to truly see change in people's lives through a nonprofit, through the speaking of. I do all of my flaws. I have used to empower women and men and youth in so many different areas and in a way that I would have never believed that I would have been able to to use that in a positive way. But we all have those things. We all have flaws. We all have areas that we think are not good enough. But you know the truth is that you are you are good enough, you're amazing, and you need to tell yourself that. What do you tell yourself when you fall down, do you tell yourself, I can do this. I can get back up. What is that self talk? What are those things you say to yourself? I remember when my middle child was a little dancer, we were getting ready for a recital, and I was never good at doing hair. I was never good at doing makeup. I hated it, but I did it because that's what you do. And one day, I was putting makeup on my little girl at the time, she was probably five years old, and she did not want makeup done, and it was hard to sit there for a long time. And during our time of putting makeup on, she looked up at me and said, Mommy, Am I beautiful yet? Well, just about to react with a No, not quite yet, because I'm not done with your makeup. Fortunately, I stopped myself and said, Honey, this makeup is not what makes you beautiful. You are beautiful right now, and you are beautiful before we put a drop of makeup on. You are beautiful. And I'm so glad I caught myself, because what would I have been telling her if I said not yet? Well, we need to do that with ourselves too. We need to catch ourselves. Because I have a feeling, if you're anything like me, and that imposter syndrome flares up and you fall down and you're not feeling quite resilient, yet you might tell yourself, gosh, you can't get this done. Wow, you if you were only smarter? Why are you in this role? If you were only better at what you were doing? But instead, we need to speak those words of truth, words of life, words of encouragement and empower ourselves. You are smart enough, you are capable, you are brilliant, you are good at this job, and you are empowered to do incredible work. I want to close with this resilience is something in each and every one of us, and we all have it, and we all need it, because it is never, always an easy ride. There are going to be things that knock you down. There are going to be things that you think this almost took me out, that you are resilient, and resilience is just getting back up when you're knocked down. Resilience is taking two steps forward and three steps back and four steps forward again. Resilience is continuing to do what you need to do to get it accomplished, and not just get it done, but do it with excellence, because that's who you are. I am so glad that I had this time with you, and I want you to know that you can reach out to me at any time, if you want to get a hold of me through Stephanie Olson speaking and have me speak at an event or empower your team. Please check me out at Stephanie olson.com or use this QR code. Or if you want to learn more about human trafficking in your community and how you can prevent it, how you can be a community leader in preventing human trafficking through your business, reach out at set me free project.net, or check out this QR code. I am so glad I had this time with you, and I want you to know that you are resilient and you are worth it. Thank you so much for spending time with me and I will see you next time. Go. Be empowered. Thank you. 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