Hey everyone and welcome to this 6th bonus episode!!  How have you been?

I’m going to start off with some exciting news for Women Taking the lead, I’m going to thank my reviewers, highlight a member of our community and then I’m going to dive into the topic for this week – It Starts with You.

Okay, so some background – I belong to a community of podcasters called Podcast Paradise. There are currently has about 2300 members. I found out this week that Women Taking the Lead was nominated for a Podcaster Paradise award for “Best Interview-Based Podcast. I was blown away and incredibly honored and I wanted to be sure to thank you for listening and making this podcast so popular. You inspire and motivate me to improve as an interviewer to provide the best content for you.

So Yay us!

At this time I feel it the right time to start bringing on sponsors for the podcast. I want to be more creative with the podcast and try out some new things but that’s going to take more support and more support is going to take funding. If you’d like to be a sponsor of Women Taking the Lead shoot me an email. I’m at Jodi@womentakingthelead.com. More to come on that!

Ratings and Reviews

First let me say I am so appreciative to those of you who have left me a rating and review on iTunes. Each rating and review, each new person who subscribes to the podcast and downloads previous episodes, they make the podcast more visible in iTunes and thus easier for those like you to find it so THANK YOU.

I wanted to share some of the ratings and reviews I’ve received recently:

Eddie Donato – “A fantastic podcast for inspiring you to break free and have a go at doing something that makes you want to jump out of bed each morning. This is why I love podcasts - I can feed my brain positive shows like this that will make a difference in my life!”

Alex B-P – “Jodi does an incredible job at creating a show with tangible takeaways and compelling insights. She asks great questions and charts a unique path with her shows. If you feel that it’s time to step up and take the leading role in your life. Needed conversation. Excited to see this continue.”

If you haven’t already, I would be honored if you would go to iTunes to leave a rating and review, and next time I’ll give a shout out to you.

And if you have already left a review, thank you, thank you, thank you!!

Community Spotlight

For the longest time, I've turned to complaining --- because I didn't know any other way to release that energy pent up by being frustrated about an outcome (or behaviour of certain people). Now that I've realised that there is always a way to channel that energy in a positive way.

The main frustration that helped me put in a lot of energy in [this] project was that there are a lot of people that think that behaving like a jerk (or worse bullying others) is acceptable behaviour. But because I had come across one of Simon Sinek's talks --- I realised that one way I could help was finding ways to encourage others (that these people are likely feeling disconnected). And isn't life more fun when you do it with others? So, I created this project to bring in people who are similarly frustrated about the same things as me --- and want to do something about it.

The best place to find all about the 10,000 Notes of Encouragement project is through the official page gofundme.com/10knotes) and there will be a link to learn more about me.

~ Leigh (Lay) Lim 

Do you have a project that inspires and is making the world a better place? Email me Jodi@womentakingthelead.com and let me know what you have going on. I’d love to share some of these projects in my newsletter, on social media and perhaps in a future bonus episode.

Topic for this week – It Starts With You

When I was interviewing Alexandra Black-Paulick of the Positive Impact podcast in episode 77 she hit on a theme that I love and it was summed up in the quote she shared from Mahatma Gandhi, “be the change you’d like to see in the world.”

What this quote is saying is it all starts with you. This is something I often talk about with my clients.

If you want to have more peace in your life you need to take on being peaceful. If you want people in your life to be more considerate you need to practice being outrageously considerate.

I was laughing with a couple of women in my BNI chapter when we gathered recently for a holiday partly. We all shared personal examples of how we on occasion do the opposite of this.

For instance, it drives me crazy when other people are being judgmental. But it only drives me crazy because I’m judging them for being judgmental. Have you ever found yourself doing this?

It can look like getting angry at people who are easy to anger, being intolerant of intolerance, gossiping about people who gossip, or complaining about people who complain. The list goes on…

Let’s all laugh at ourselves and our humanity. Let’s take a breath. And now let’s commit to practice being what we’d like to see in the world. It starts with us.

What would you like to see in the world? It all starts with you.

That’s it from me for now.

If there are any topics in particular you would like me to cover you can shoot me an email, Jodi@womentakingthelead.com or send a message through the website or any social media platform. I am a click away.

Have a great week and here’s To Your Success!