254: The Impact of Leading Lady Ambassadors in Business with Lisa Van Wormer, Chrissy Rey, Julie Blamphin, and Maria Winters

Hi there. You’re listening to the Leading Lady podcast. I’m your host, AliceAnne Loftus, and I’m a certified professional coach specializing in leadership and work-life balance. I work with clients to shift their limiting beliefs, insecurities, and self-doubt. This podcast will be filled with tools and strategies to help high-achieving women like you feel connected, empowered, and in the lead of your life, both personally and professionally. Let’s transform your life starting now. Lead yourself, the rest will follow.

AliceAnne: Hi there, Leading Ladies, and welcome to today’s episode. I am joined by four of our Leading Lady Ambassadors for 2025, and we’re continuing the conversation as to who the ambassadors are and how they are the experts of the Leading Lady community, and how you can gain access to them in the Leading Lady Hub.

Ladies, thank you for joining me today. I’m so excited to jump right into this conversation with you.

Julie: Thanks for having me. Thank you.

Meet the Ambassadors

AliceAnne: Yeah. All right, so I’m just gonna start with Lisa. Lisa, go ahead and tell us who you are and what industry you’re in, and how you support the Leading Lady community.

Lisa: Great.

AliceAnne: Sorry. Actually, hold off on how you support the Leading Lady community. Let’s just do a quick intro, because I’m gonna go really deep with each of you on how you’re a resource in the community.

Lisa: Okay. So my name’s Lisa Van Wormer. I own a company called Abrado Analytics. It is a government contracting company, and we do a lot of service support contracts, federally and state, where we work with developers, technology solutions, and maybe some state or federally driven support services as kind of a user advocate to help big companies when they develop these super hard-to-understand, very important things that everyone has to use, so the user knows how to press start properly.

I also do government contract consulting. I’ve been in and out of the government in some way or another, as a military person, as a civilian, as a contractor, and now as a business owner. So I understand the government contracting process and the language. It really is a translation activity to understand, when the government asks you to submit a proposal, what they’re actually asking you to do.

So I do government contract consulting for business owners to help them get their certification for set-aside contracting dollars, and also to help them understand, find opportunities, and help them through the proposal process.

AliceAnne: Thank you. We’re gonna go so far into that, because I feel like all of that’s kind of blowing up right now. So thank you. Chrissy.

Chrissy: Hi, I’m Chrissy Rey with Pongos Interactive. I am a web developer. Been doing it for 30 years now, as of 2025. And so…

AliceAnne: You started when you were eight?

Chrissy: Five. Yeah, I was five. My first computer, I just started making websites. But yeah, I’ve been doing it for a while. Started Pongos in 2008, because I’d been working freelance for a long time and just kind of wanted to formalize the business.

And I help a lot of different types of organizations. I have sort of a split between very large nonprofits as some of my clients, and then also very small nonprofits and small locally owned businesses, and we help them with their websites. We help them do SEO. We do content development, mostly creating content to help them with their SEO.

And as you know, AliceAnne, we are able to get a lot more traffic to websites with the work that we do with the search engine optimization, and getting more feet in the door, more people in the door for local businesses with the local SEO that we also do.

AliceAnne: Yeah. I can’t wait to share how you have made my business explode. Thank you. Julie?

Julie: Yes, hello. My name is Julie Blamphin. I’m a yoga pro and author, a speaker, a retreat leader, and the founder of Stretch Your Spirit. I inspire midlife and menopausal women to feel joyful, stable, and sexy through movement and stillness. And I am thrilled to be part of this community, supporting women and their wellness: physical, mental, emotional, and sexual.

And I do that through yoga and meditation, and you can find me to book me to speak. You can find me to practice yoga, and you can find me to go on retreat to pause and feel peace and reduce your pain and stabilize your core and pelvic floor and balance your energy. There are so many things that we can practice through our life to help support our lifestyle, our schedule, and our career.

I like to say that the one thing we all have in common in our business, the most important priority, hopefully, is our body. So I’m here to help you.

AliceAnne: Yeah. Working with Julie has changed my life. The minute I met her, I knew I needed more of her, and I’m just really excited to share all the ways that we have worked together and how our members can get access to you.

Julie: Thank you.

AliceAnne: And last but not least, Miss Maria.

Maria: My name is Maria Winters, and I am a licensed mental health therapist with over 20 years of professional experience helping individuals navigate emotions, build resilience, and improve their wellbeing. I’m the founder and owner of The Coaching Therapist LLC, and also the founder of the Emotional Fitness Studio in Annapolis.

Right now, my business focuses on offering corporate trainings or educational events or workshops for schools, again, corporations, business owners, to really open those important conversations about the importance of mental and emotional wellbeing in any area of our lives.

The Strategic Wheel and the Whole Woman

AliceAnne: Yeah. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And Maria and I met… Actually, her children went to my first business, my preschool. So I’ve known Maria a long time, and I’ve gotten to see kind of the evolution of her business from idea to implementation, and it’s just been beautiful to watch. So I’m looking at the screen and who the guests are today, who the ambassadors are featured today, and I’m thinking, “Wow, this is, like, a very diverse group of skills and resources for our community.”

And I think that perfectly shows just how there are so many parts of us as whole women that need to be supported in our business. We cannot compartmentalize what’s happening in our business and who we are as individuals. And that’s why I created the Strategic Wheel and the Leading Lady Business Hub.

It’s the tool and the resource that I needed when I was starting my business. And we look at the operations, the visibility, the customer experience, our financial hygiene, but we also have to take into consideration our mental health, our physical health, how we’re implementing self-care, the relationships that we have, our personal and professional development.

All of those things fully support who we are as women entrepreneurs and women leaders so that we’re able to show up as our best self. So I just wanna go through what each of you do and how you may fall into one very specific area, but chances are you touch on several aspects of the wheel. The wheel is a wheel because it’s all connected.

It’s not a line where everything is just kind of standalone. You literally cannot improve one area of the wheel and not have it directly impact the satisfaction that you feel in other areas. So I just wanna jump right in, and if you know what specific area you target in the wheel, awesome. If you don’t, we’ll hash it out together.

But what I hope our listeners take away from this, and as women join the Leading Lady Business Hub, is that there are just so many resources available to them, created by you, who I have vetted. I’ve personally worked with each and every one of you, but you’re here to support these women and to support each other.

I know I’m consistently, continually learning from each of you to be the best business owners that we can be. So I’m gonna start with you, Lisa. We just had a meetup in the Hub about thinking outside the box, and you’re kind of an outside of the box, but definitely in the wheel, ambassador. Where do you fit?

Lisa Van Wormer: Thinking Outside the Box

Lisa: Yeah, I think that’s kinda what I love about the Leading Lady community and being an ambassador. When I first met AliceAnne, I just connected with her, and I wanted to be a part of whatever you’re doing, like, “I’m in. Let’s do it. Tell me when to be there,” whatever. But I think that it took me a year or two to see where I fit, because some women, and definitely some of the ambassadors on the call today, have their place.

Like, they are so strong, and they are like, “I am this person.” And I think that I’ve never really felt that way in business. I’ve always been a, “Well, let me figure out how to do this,” or taking a step back and looking at the overall goals and then figuring out where I want to fit best. I’ve told this story before, but my mom always had me unpack the groceries and put them away, and I said, “I hate putting groceries away.”

And she’s like, “But you’re so good at it.” I said, “Okay, well, that doesn’t mean that’s what I want to be doing.” So I think being able to take a step back and look at the bigger picture, then I’m able to jump in the place I want to fill, not the place that maybe other people want me to fill or what they need me to do.

And so I think that it just crosses a lot of different wheel areas, even if it’s not straight in one or the other. So I mean, I kind of see myself as just constantly trying to, not fix, but improve things around me or make things better. Even if they’re not my things, how can I help your business see more opportunities?

How can I help you find more things? How can I help you leverage your business in a way that other people can see you, even if it’s not your normal business? I definitely need help in a lot of wheel areas all the time. It’s a constant learner mindset for me when I’m talking about the Strategic Wheel.

But yeah, I kind of see myself as jumping around. My area really just depends on how we’re talking, I guess.

AliceAnne: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think for me, I always immediately see you in visibility, because you help people see that they can show up in places where they wouldn’t normally think they could show up. And talk about the whole government contracting, like people wouldn’t even think that’s a market for them.

Lisa: Right.

AliceAnne: Right? And so why would they network in that? Why would they put proposals out for that? Why would they show up in that space when they’ve never even considered government contracting?

And so that’s my knee-jerk reaction, of course she fits right there. But then I think you also kind of fit in the personal and professional development, because you do have that learner’s mindset, that thinking outside the box. You’re constantly challenging me, and I won’t speak for the other ladies, but I’ve heard, just saying, that you kind of challenge us to learn new things.

Lisa: Yeah, I love learning new things.

AliceAnne: Yeah. So I’ll let the other ladies chime in. How has Lisa been a resource to you, and how do you see her supporting the Leading Lady community?

Julie: Lisa has been so helpful for me. It doesn’t matter what I’m talking about or what I’m bringing to just a casual conversation with her. Lisa, your perspective on my business… I’m in the wellness world, and I’m in a field that is totally different from your expertise, and for you to have something just at the drop of a hat, I can just mention something, not even be specific in asking for feedback or advice, and just hearing your feedback and your perspective always just blows my mind.

It blows my mind, and it makes me laugh uncontrollably. So Lisa…

AliceAnne: She is quite funny.

Julie: She is very funny. So funny, but such a delight, just such a delight on thinking outside the box and giving me some really curious and wonderful, delightful new ways that I can think about what I’m working on. So helpful.

AliceAnne: I think we shared in the meetup, and anyone who’s met you in person will know right away, that you’re just a really great problem solver too. So people can come to you and share, and just like Julie said, you give perspective. But because you have the ability to zoom out, you help people see opportunities that they didn’t even think were possible.

Lisa: Yeah, I think a lot of it has to do with the areas I’ve worked in, like the military, the government or whatever. They’re so high level and wide-reaching. I cannot solve world hunger, right? But what I can do is listen to the conversation and find one thing or two things that might just bend a perspective or might add a little influence there, or might help just this one part.

And I think when you get comfortable with taking a step back and getting out of the weeds and looking at the bigger picture, then you get an opportunity to just try to improve little, little, little, little, and then it just ends up improving on a whole scale. On a larger scale. I’m not solving world hunger. I wish I could, but I don’t know how.

And it’s working with people like Chrissy, who are highly technical people, and it’s not my skill set, but it doesn’t mean that I can’t learn the process or learn enough about the process to help try to improve it and make it better for everyone, and that’s really it too.

I’m not trying to be better than someone. I’m not trying to be the person who does this thing. I’m just trying to help everyone improve together. We can all win together. We can all be successful businesswomen together. We don’t have to compete. There’s enough government money around that we can all win in that scenario. It’s not me versus you, it’s us together.

Opening Doors to Government Contracts and Grants

Chrissy: 1,000%. Can I jump in? I’m taking Lisa’s workshop series. She’s teaching us all kinds of interesting things about government contracting. She helped us get set up on the Maryland Business Exchange, is that what it’s called? And I’m now getting the emails from the State of Maryland for government contracting opportunities in the categories that I signed up for.

And just the other day, Lisa sent me a possible government contract for making a website. So there’s lots of opportunities there, and she’s a really good resource, and very, very helpful with getting started with that. So if anybody’s interested in government contracting, she’s the person to check with.

AliceAnne: Yeah. Maria, you had something you wanted to add.

Maria: Yes. Lisa showed me a whole new world, okay? Like, a whole new world that is out there that I had no idea about, okay? And once that world opens, your possibilities open. So out of nowhere, she sends me a message one day, and she’s like, “There’s this grant out there, it’s perfect for you.”

I read it, I’m like, “It is perfect for me.” She helped me apply, and that got me a meeting with these people who actually guided me on little changes that I could make in my business to make it more possible or probable for me to get different contracts and grants. And so if it wasn’t for her, I would…

You know, which is okay if you still wanna stay on one level or in one world, but if you’re ready to open your brain to other worlds, Lisa is your tour guide.

Lisa: That’s funny. And also, with Maria in particular, talking about grants, the language grants are written in is so strange. If you’re familiar with how the state writes a grant or how the government writes a grant or how the Department of Defense versus NIH writes a grant, once you understand the language… Maria was like, “Oh, well I would do this for free,” or, “I only charge $10.”

And I was like, “Okay, but this is government funding. That is not market value.” So I think a lot of it was helping her see value from a government funding perspective in what she’s doing. Yeah, go ahead and ask for $2,000 to do your program, or you could ask what it’s worth, which was not $2,000.

So that’s it too. I always look at government funding as, they have to give the money out. They are going to give the money out, so why not to me? Why not to you? And let’s make them give the money, right? I want it. You want it. We all like money.

AliceAnne: Yeah. And so Lisa, I know you’re working with several Leading Ladies currently on helping them get their set-asides and things like that.

In the Hub you’ll have tons of resources on how people can learn more about the opportunities and possibilities that are out there, but again, I’ll encourage our listeners, just reach out to Lisa. Drop her a comment in the Q&A section. She also runs the veteran circle of the Hub with two other ambassadors.

She is just a wealth of knowledge and a true problem solver, a strategic thinker in that. So thank you, Lisa.

Chrissy Rey: Visibility, SEO, and Customer Experience

AliceAnne: Chrissy, can we move to you? And I’m kind of fangirling. I’m always fangirling over Chrissy. She’s so smart and she never makes me feel dumb, and she’s done all things web, SEO, and even helps me when I forget my login for something that’s not even connected to my website.

Chrissy: Yeah, every once in a while I get an email, “What is this credit card charge for?” And we figure it out.

AliceAnne: For like a month, I had this weird Squarespace charge, and I could not for the life of me think what it was attached to. And I send Chrissy the email. 45 seconds later she’s like, “Sounds like it’s connected to this.”

Boom. There it was. There it was. And you know, I reached out to them, Chrissy, and they refunded me for the whole year.

Chrissy: Nice.

AliceAnne: So there you go. That’s why she’s a Leading Lady Ambassador.

Chrissy: Yeah. So I’m looking at the strategic planning wheel, and I think I fall under a few things. Obviously, visibility, that’s a big one.

One of the biggest things about having a website is being visible to your target audience, and just making sure that you’re in front of them. Also, with SEO, that’s a really important part. The visibility is the point of it, making sure that you’re coming up in the searches when people are looking for a business like yours or for whatever it is that you do, your products, your services.

I think I would also fall under personal and professional growth because, you know, part of me not making you feel silly when you ask a question is that I teach a lot of this stuff. I know that not everyone can afford to hire me to do everything for them, so I do have opportunities for people to learn how to do it themselves.

I do workshops, I’ve got courses, I’ve got a membership on SEO for people that either don’t want to hire me because they wanna do it themselves (I know some people just want to have that control over their business), or if they don’t have the funds at the moment to hire me, then they can learn how to do some of it themselves.

And I have some clients where we do a combination of that, some of the things I do for them, and some of the things they wanna do themselves. So I guess that would fall under the personal and professional growth. I’m a lifelong learner. I didn’t start off as a web developer. I started off as a zoologist.

I learned how to make websites when I was in college, and it just sort of took off after college, and I did that and had to teach myself a lot of the stuff that I do. So I think those are the two main ones. I guess also customer experience and product.

AliceAnne: I was gonna say, you definitely fall into the customer experience and product, because nothing shuts a customer down faster than not being able to use your website. Like when people were complaining about my calendar, my event link, and things like that, when they couldn’t find it, it ruined the experience.

Chrissy: Yeah. For a lot of people, the website is the product. I’ve got some clients where we do e-commerce sites, and the customer has to have a good experience on that. Like you’re saying, the events for your site, that’s an important part of why people go to your website, to find out what’s going on at the Collective and what events they’re offering.

So that customer experience is pretty important. And then for my e-commerce clients, their website has to work, and it has to be easy for people to buy things on their website in order to make money and bring in the funds to pay for everything else. That customer experience is really important with them.

Growing Traffic With a Weekly Blog

AliceAnne: Yeah. I wanna open it up to any of our other ambassadors. Chrissy was one of our OGs, our original ambassadors. I think Julie Blamphin also. So you’ve known each other a long time. I know that you’ve attended each other’s workshops and things. So does anyone have anything they wanna share or add?

Julie: I’ll share. Learning from Chrissy is like, I have to practice what I preach. I have to be in the moment. I always teach, “Be in the moment. Be in the moment.” If I am not in the moment, if I am not paying attention, woo, it’s gone. Chrissy, you’re brilliant, and so I have to be paying attention, taking notes, and just on my game, because I will learn so much from you, Chrissy, in like two seconds, five minutes, one hour.

It’s like, oh my gosh, my brain is exploding. It is fascinating. It is otherworldly. There’s some of the information that I’ve taken from you, and some of the information that I’ve tried and I just can’t get it, so I gotta come back. But it’s so helpful. Oh my gosh, it’s just over the top hearing how you’ve just exploded AliceAnne’s website, how you’ve exploded every Leading Lady’s business who you’ve worked with, how you’ve helped me. It’s just out of this world.

AliceAnne: Yeah. Chrissy, do you happen to have the statistics or the data on that? I should have that, but when we talked last month, was my reach up 8,000% or something like that? Something ridiculous.

Chrissy: It was something like that. It was very large. Over a one-year period, I wanna say, I can’t remember, but it was something like 8,000% growth in your users on your website.

There’s a combination of things, but it was from adding a blog and really focusing on that blog. That was really the only big difference in your website, and we can see the growth in your organic traffic. For anybody that’s not sure what that is, that means when somebody goes and searches for something on Google or Bing or whatever, and the website comes up, that’s organic.

So you’re not paying for that. You’re not doing an ad to show up on the search engine results page. You’re showing up there organically from the content on your website. That was really how we did it. We do a blog post just about every week. I took a week off in December, but every week we do a blog post.

AliceAnne: Yeah. Lisa, did you have something to add?

Lisa: Yeah. I think one thing that I really like about the way Chrissy delivers information is, one, she doesn’t make you feel stupid, which I love, but also I am one of those people that needs to try it myself. I need to try to make it work myself first.

It is just the way my brain works, and so she’s so flexible with, “I could help you just a little bit, I could educate you, or I could go all in.” And I think that, one, that is not normal for the type of business that she does. I think that when you try to have someone help you with your website, they wanna take it over, and then they’re in charge, and then you feel like this thing that is supposed to represent you and your business, now you don’t have any control over.

And so that’s why I really love her approach and attitude towards it. Also, I think SEO is one of those acronyms or initialisms, I guess, that is its own kind of dirty word. Most people who use it don’t really understand what it means. And if they do understand what it means, they understand it from when they learned it.

And because we’re in such a high technical age and everything is changing all of the time, Chrissy gives you updated information. She’s constantly learning, too, and I think it’s what we were talking about before. I think people get so panicked to be the best in their field that when they know something really well, they don’t evolve.

They don’t learn more. They don’t try to change, because they’re the expert in this one thing, in this one way. And Chrissy is always learning. There’s things that are always changing, and she’s always educating us on the differences and the changes, and I just really love that, because it’s not my expertise, and I know if I need help, I can go and ask her.

I even asked her for information about training an AI model to help me read proposals faster, and then maybe building an analytic tool that people could then use that helps pre-read proposals for them, and she was so great in talking me through that to just try and understand the concept. So she has such a wealth of current technical knowledge, more than I think is normal. And so I love that about her.

AliceAnne: I have to echo that. I mean, that all pulls back into that learner’s mindset. Chrissy, you’re not stagnant. You’re not building websites like you did 30 years ago. In 2025, you’re the best in 2025, which means you are up to date on that, and I love people who love learning and love sharing that learning.

And you’re absolutely right. It falls into that personal and professional development piece as well, because you pull us alongside you. You’re helping us to be better at that as well.

Chrissy: And I do have to add, shout out to my family. I am the only one that was not a teacher. My mother was an elementary school teacher. My brother is a high school teacher. My sister-in-law is a teacher. My father was a college professor. My husband’s not a teacher. He’s a cop, but…

AliceAnne: He’s definitely teaching lessons. He’s definitely teaching.

Chrissy: Yeah. But I’m also the only one in my family without a master’s degree. Everybody is very highly educated. My dad had a PhD. I’m halfway through a master’s degree, in instructional design, ‘cause I like to teach and I wanna make sure I’m teaching correctly. So yeah, I’m definitely a lifelong learner. I’m 50 years old, and I’m working on a master’s degree. So yeah.

Maria: You’re amazing.

AliceAnne: I know, Maria, you wanted to add something.

Maria: Yeah, just to piggyback, because you guys said it beautifully. I mean, I’m sure there’s many people who create websites out there, the same way there’s many mental health clinicians. Chrissy really, really knows her stuff, and when you bring somebody into your team that you can trust 100% to take care of that part of your business, it’s like a relief.

It’s really teamwork, and you know that you have somebody on your side that is really gonna help your business grow, and that’s priceless, and that’s Chrissy, and everything else you guys said.

Chrissy: Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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Thank you for listening to the Leading Lady podcast. I’m Erin Harrigan, a Leading Lady Ambassador, and the founder of Erin Harrigan Coaching for Christian women who want to integrate their faith and business without compromising their values or their priorities. Tune into my podcast, Redefining Hustle, or download my free audio devotional at erinharrigan.com/devotional.

Julie Blamphin: Our Body Is Our Business

AliceAnne: Julie, let’s move to you. Like I said, we had some technical, tactical stuff, and then we go into the ooey, gooey, groovy Julie.

Julie: Groovy, groovy. Thank you. So I’m looking at the Strategic Wheel, and obviously my expertise, my assistance, falls into health and wellness. And yet I feel that it also sort of slithers and slides over into personal life.

I believe wholeheartedly, and you know this, AliceAnne, because this was the title of my chapter in your book, We Lead, volume one, I believe that our body is our business. It’s not going to be separate from anything we do. That is just a fact, and it’s something that we’re carting around and maybe ignoring the whispers of the body sometimes.

And you know what I like to say: listen to that body when she whispers, ‘cause you don’t wanna hear her scream. I’m hoping that the women who are learning from me and working with me are not only benefiting in their health and wellness. I hope that they’re also recognizing how they can pause during their days, whether it’s sitting at their desk and tap, tap, tapping away trying to get those emails written and contracts read.

I am really hoping that even if you’re not learning from me or working with me, some of my phraseology that’s out there, some of my preaching on social media, some of my emails (you might be part of my email list), I’m really hoping that you’re taking some of these teachings and some of these reminders into your day while you’re working.

Because not all of us have time to buy the $100 yoga pants and the yoga mat and all the blocks and all the things, and set aside the time and show up for a, quote-unquote, class. I want you to be practicing these techniques and these tips and tricks as you’re living your life, because I believe that it’s all connected.

AliceAnne: Yeah. Lisa put in the chat, and obviously our listeners can’t see it, that you also dip into the personal development. I know for me, yes, you’ve helped me with my health and wellness, but you’ve helped me also in my relationship, being raw, being vulnerable, expressing needs, boundaries, things.

But the personal development piece, and I would say it’s personal and professional development, is not gonna be what people think. It’s that I actually experienced growth because you taught me to slow down.

Julie: Exactly. It almost sounds counterintuitive, right? But we almost have to pause to push. We almost have to pause to progress. I truly believe that if we just push and strive and are busy, we’re going to eventually crash. It’s almost a given if we act in the badass self, and trust me, we can pause and still be totally badass and get a whole lot done.

However, according to the yoga tradition, if we don’t bring in moments of stillness, if we don’t intentionally pause, we’re going to maybe even experience pain associated with our personal and professional life, and pain sucks.

Lisa: Yeah.

Julie: Nobody wants that, and typically that’s when women come to me and say, “Help. What can I do?” And I’m like, “Well, let’s press rewind and go back a couple years.” But that’s obviously a moot point, and that’s not what I say. But I definitely want to encourage you listeners to practice now. I mean, now or later, now is better. Now is better. To just close your eyes, take a deep breath, and pause.

Walk away from the computer, especially when you feel like you can’t. “Oh, I’m so busy, I have to get this done right now.” You know what? That’s not true. You can lean back in that chair, reach your arms out to the side, stretch your fingers, close your eyes, lift your face up toward the sun, toward the sky, take a deep breath, smile, give your ribcage a little bit of freedom, let your diaphragm drop, relax your pelvic floor, take a nice deep breath, then keep writing that email.

It took you, what, 11 seconds to do that, and I dare say it’ll change your day.

AliceAnne: Yeah. I just wanna open it up to the other ladies. Go ahead, Maria. She’s like, “Please, please, please pick me.”

Maria: So listen, everyone, okay? This is what Julie has done for me, and it was backwards. It started personal, and then that had an impact on my business.

Meeting Julie made me think and learn about, for example, my sensuality as a woman, okay? Or all this information about pelvic floor. Nobody talked to me about any of this until I reached my 40s and I met Julie, right? And I’m like, how is it that I haven’t had these conversations with other women? And therefore I started exploring myself as a woman and how I wanted to show up in the world independently from what I do as a professional, right?

Oh, and the other thing is the concept of joy. Meeting Julie, I mean, just seeing her in life is joyful, right? The importance of feeling joy. And now we host dance parties together, and it made me confirm the importance of liking yourself, loving yourself, finding joy, and how that impacts my business, how I now show up for my clients, how I show up as a therapist.

So that’s what Julie has brought to me, besides everything you’ve said, the pausing, the yoga, the knowing my body and connecting deeper with my body. It’s me as a woman walking out in life and how I wanted to feel. So thank you, Julie, I love you.

Julie: I love you too, and that brings tears to my eyes. I’m so grateful to hear your feedback, and it means so much to me to know that you’re feeling this impact personally and professionally, and it made me think about one of the reasons why I do what I do.

You might know that I was raised in a school of gymnastics, and I’ve been teaching yoga since I was 12. So I do this because it comes to me naturally. I feel it’s why I’m here. My mother was my mentor, still is. We bounce ideas back and forth. And yet, why do I continue? I continue because I hear feedback like you just said, and it’s not about me, it’s about you.

And this is what brings me to tears sometimes, because I really wonder and I really hope that this is what you get from what I’m bringing into the universe, into my classes, into my retreats, into the words that I write on the page.

And yet I see statistics out there that tell me that I still have a lot of work to do. We still have a lot of work to do. We women still have a lot of work to do when it comes to celebrating our bodies, minds, spirits, celebrating our sacred energy as women. There are statistics that say that two-thirds of us are really struggling with pelvic floor instability and sexuality, and I dare say that statistic is bullshit.

I think it’s higher. I think that it’s just about every single one of us who in some way is struggling with our physical and sexual and emotional body and energy, and there are very simple techniques that we can practice that can help us to reconnect. There are a lot of women who actually verbalize this, and there are so many more who would never, ever share it and just let it sort of swirl and whirl deep within and stay in that darkness of shame.

So I thank you for sharing that, Maria, because that shows that you’re working on that sparkly light that I love to talk about. So yay, yay.

AliceAnne: That makes my heart sing.

Lisa: I also feel like it’s kind of rare to talk to somebody and have their full attention. They’re fully present with you when you’re talking to them.

I literally was trained by the military to listen to multiple conversations at the same time, independent of the conversation that I’m having. And so I can get really scattered, especially in busy rooms that have a lot of people there. And whenever I’m talking with Julie, she has this way to check in when you’re having a conversation that quiets everything around you, because she’s so fully present, and she’s just drilled in on you.

My whole focus goes to her, and it’s pretty rare, in my experience, to find somebody who can do that effectively and not aggressively. So it’s always just a pleasure to talk to her about anything, just because she’s fully present. She’s there. She’s listening, and even if she doesn’t understand the whole situation or what you’re going through or whatever, she’s there with you in that moment, even if it’s just to listen, which is just so amazing to me. It’s always worth just taking time with Julie to talk with her.

The Power of Laughter

AliceAnne: Wow. Beautiful. Thank you, Lisa. Beautiful. Chrissy, I know you have a comment.

Chrissy: Yeah. I just wanted to add, one of the first things I remember from Julie, and we’ve known each other for a while now, is reminding us to laugh. I wanna say during one of the events you had everybody just laugh for 30 seconds.

AliceAnne: It’s horrible. It’s so uncomfortable. But it’s so good for you.

Chrissy: Yes. Yes.

Julie: Thanks for mentioning that, Chrissy.

Chrissy: The serotonin boost that we get from just taking that time to laugh and find joy… Some days you just gotta do it, and sometimes you have to force yourself to do it. But I know whenever I do it, I feel better after doing it, taking that time to let it go.

Julie: Thanks for mentioning that. Love that. It is that simple. I’ve taught so many women, and so many children, and men, and families, and couples, and there’s nothing that benefits us more than laughter.

I mean, yoga’s great. Breathwork is great. Meditation’s great. I’ve taught that for over 30 years. And laughter, the list of benefits is endless. And one of the reasons why I teach it, yes, is to tickle your joy and to spark that light within, but it’s also because years ago, in one of my first workshops on core and pelvic floor wellness, one of the women walked up to me and I could just see in her energy that she was on the verge of tears.

And I just opened my arms and took a deep breath and listened, and she said, “I leak when I laugh, so I just stopped laughing.” And oh, in that moment is when I decided to bring laughter into everything I do. Everything I do. And that doesn’t mean sarcasm and jokes. I’m English. I don’t tell jokes. So just laughing for no reason.

I’m literally a certified laughter yoga leader. Yes, it’s a thing. And so in every workshop and every retreat… And yes, AliceAnne, it’s awkward.

AliceAnne: It’s hard.

Julie: It’s so ridiculous and hard. It’s just ridiculous. And so allowing yourself to be that vulnerable and step into that space of, “All right, I’m being silly right now. I can do that. I did that when I was younger. Why don’t I do it more often?” Because I’m so successful and I’m so focused on my career, and I’ve got a to-do list so long, and I’m so important.

Well, yeah, that’s all true, too. Trust me, I get it. I’m just that busy, and I’m just as much of a badass as the rest of us. But laughter and silliness and play, that is our energy of sexuality. That is our sacred feminine. And that is what makes us, us.

Maria Winters: Mental Health as the Foundation

AliceAnne: Yeah. Thank you, Julie. Thank you, thank you, thank you. All right, Maria, close us out. How are you showing up and supporting this community, being you?

Maria: So listen, I worked in an emergency room for 12 years, and I saw firsthand what could happen when we’re not constantly nurturing our emotional and mental wellbeing, and also saw what can happen when we as a community don’t have access to tools, simple things that we can practice to take care of our mental health. So that’s why I created my business, to bring to my community and all over tools and education and conversations, bringing conversations about mental health to the forefront.

Because here’s the thing, and this might sound a little, what’s the word? But looking at the Strategic Wheel, think about this for a minute. If we don’t have mental health, when we are not okay, it impacts your operations, your customer experience, the way you relate to your clients or to any relationship in your personal and professional life, your finances, your visibility, your product, your operations, I probably said already.

So really, for me, I truly believe the foundation of anything we do, whether it’s your relationship with your partner, your kids, your friends, or your job, is based on how we are. And if that’s the case, how unfair is it that we don’t have that support to learn things to improve this? And if we as a community don’t open these conversations on something that we all need, that we all have, because we all have mental health, right, and the ups and downs that come with it, then it doesn’t make any sense.

So what I bring to the community is those tools, and that’s why I created, in this case, the Emotional Fitness Studio. It’s free events all year round, because I truly believe that we can work on your self-care and your emotional wellbeing and things that we can do when we’re having a hard time, and it’s not an isolated thing.

Mental health is also built in community, in the sense of belonging. So if I can bring all those together, whether it’s coming to your business and talking to your staff, or whether it’s coming to a school or whatever that is, magic is gonna happen, right? Because then it is the foundation, and therefore, once we take care of that, everything else is gonna flow.

So that’s my speech. Thank you very much. Peace.

AliceAnne: Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Maria: Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

AliceAnne: Okay, but Maria, she and another Collective member have fought over who is the most important favorite member of the Collective, and I think, ladies, what Maria was trying to say here is that she’s the most important ambassador.

Maria: Just say it, AliceAnne. Say it publicly, and then we’ll have the other person listen to this episode. Just say it. “My favorite is Maria,” and that’s it. That’s it.

AliceAnne: I think that, yes, it’s all connected, right? But we are the most important part of our business. We know that, hands down. We are the most important part of our business.

Yes, we have to have all of those other things in place, but we can’t put those other things in place if we’re not well. And Maria, I love you. I love working with you. I love that when you walk in a room and I’m not feeling my best, and I know that I still have to show up and deliver, I can look at you and say, “I’m not feeling my best,” and you say, “That’s okay. So just show up as you are, and take a breath. Love yourself. Check in. Thank you for sharing with me.”

I love that every time I share that with you, you say, “Thank you for sharing with me. Thank you for coming to me,” and you always give that space. When you started the Emotional Fitness Studio, I loved the whole concept of it, that we don’t need to seek mental health resources only when we’re feeling bad.

We need to seek them all the time. It needs to be nurtured and supported all the time. And with the way that you provide our community with tools, tips, and strategies to support ourselves and to support others, it’s just a magnitude of impact that is unparalleled. And so I appreciate you and I appreciate what you bring to the community, and I know that it needs to be talked about more. Our mental health needs to be talked about more.

Maria: And I wanna say what you just said is so important, because here’s my message. You don’t have to wait until S-H-I-T hits the fan or until you’re in crisis to then take care of your mental health. You know? There’s preventive work and day-to-day work just to keep it, maintain it, make it better. So great point. Let’s not wait for that.

AliceAnne: Lisa, did you have a comment?

Lisa: Yeah, I was just gonna say, you know Maria, she just wants to help people in any place that they are at that moment. And if you get a chance to take a look at her Emotional Fitness Studio classes, you’ll see it’s a huge, wide range of opportunities.

It’s not just focused on talking about how I feel today or I’m sad about this thing. And I think for me, and I assume other people as well, if I’m gonna sit down and talk about mental health… I don’t even give myself time to brush my hair all the time. It’s one of those self-care things that always falls off the table when I feel stressed or I have so many things to do.

So what she does, which I think is so helpful, is she approaches it in a way where we’re not gonna focus on that, but we’re gonna talk about that. And it’s not sneaky or conniving, but it’s a way that she’s holistically letting you chat or talk or think about what is going on in your business, in your life, and it just makes you consider, “Well, yeah, I’m not feeling great about this. Why am I not feeling great about it?”

And she’s an amazing cheerleader, too. She also didn’t mention her super cool podcast, and what I like about the podcast is she’s partnered with an intuitive eating specialist and a fitness specialist, and what is great about that is it’s, again, this whole holistic look at your personal health to make you feel better and move forward.

And I think she’s just so good at combining what is going on in my head with what is going on in my life and where I wanna go moving forward, right? And I think that for people like me, who maybe struggle with taking the time to sit down and think just about me and how I’m feeling, she bleeds it into everything else around her, and I love that.

AliceAnne: Yeah. Great point, Lisa. Great point. Julie and Chrissy, do you have anything you wanna add? Chrissy, go ahead.

Chrissy: I just wanna add, with Maria’s Emotional Fitness Studio, I love that she’s focusing on mental health, but not just talking about therapy. She’s got events. I was just looking at the calendar, and she’s got a Zumba event, working on nutrition, and just kind of all aspects.

Emotional health is not just about talking to a therapist, it’s about your whole health and your whole life. So it’s more well-rounded than just focusing on your brain.

Julie: Yeah, I’ll piggyback on that. So Maria and I have done some events together. I’ve come to be a guest speaker at the Emotional Fitness Studio, and Maria and I have also collaborated and done some dance parties, and we’ve got some wild ideas for the future, which I’m so excited about.

It’s obvious, just listening to her talk, it’s such a joy to collaborate and to be with her in any endeavor or intention. I always feel grounded and calm. I’m always feeling like there’s something within me that is seen, but not in an, “Oh, no, she sees me,” kind of way, but, “Oh, thank goodness she sees me.”

I feel so safe and free. I feel vulnerable, but it’s not scary, ‘cause that can be kinda hard for me. But I feel just groovy around Maria. It’s okay to be my authentic self and really thrive and be proud of what we’re doing and how we’re working together and the ideas we’re sharing and brainstorming. It’s just an inspiration. You’re an inspiration, Maria.

Maria: Thank you, ladies. Love you all.

A Community That Lifts Women Up

AliceAnne: Oh. What I love about our community, and what I love about the Strategic Wheel and the Hub and the ambassadors, is, I mean, you could see even from today’s call, talking about government contracting and websites, and then ending in rest and retreating and yoga and mental health.

It’s so complex and so necessary for us as Leading Ladies, as the leading lady of our own lives, to stop trying to compartmentalize what we’re doing in our business and separate it from who we are as people, but to take the, “I am a whole person, and these are all the things that I need to have sustainable success in my life.”

I have vetted these ladies. I have personally worked with every single one of them. I know that they are the experts of their niche. I know that they offer the quality of excellence and the unmatched resources, because they show up for their clients, they show up for our community, they show up for themselves, they show up for each of us.

And I feel just honored, honored to know you all and honored to work with all of you. I know this has been a long episode, and so I thank our listeners, and I thank you ladies for showing up here today and sharing your expertise, and for continuing to show up in the Leading Lady community, and for being part of this amazing Hub that’s going out into the world.

So thank you, thank you, thank you. Any last comments, thoughts, parting goodbyes?

Julie: I just wanna thank you, AliceAnne. I mean, you’re who brings us all together. You are our anchor and our shining star, so we’re anchored, we’re grounded, we’re lifting up toward that shining star. It never feels like too much, even though it’s a lot. It’s so exciting, but it also feels so grounding and nurturing to be in this community personally and professionally. So thank you.

AliceAnne: Thank you.

Maria: And same here. Thank you for your trust, for creating this. Hopefully you know the impact that you have on each and every one of us, so thank you. You can go rest and be done, okay? You’ve done a lot.

Chrissy: I’m just gonna agree with that. Thanks for bringing us all together and being so great to work with.

AliceAnne: Yeah, absolutely. Chrissy, thanks for being with me from the beginning. Lisa?

Lisa: Yeah, I just love being a part of the community. I’m so happy that you created it and you continue to curate it, and keep it as an environment that lifts women up, that doesn’t pit women against each other.

AliceAnne: Oh, yes. Well, thank you all so much, and to our listeners, thank you. Until next time, take the lead.

Thanks for tuning in for another episode of the Leading Lady podcast. You can find all of the links and information mentioned in this episode at www.leadinglady-coaching.com. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to follow the show so you don’t miss any future episodes. And while you’re there, it would mean the world to me if you would take a few seconds and leave me an honest review. This will allow me to be able to help other high-achieving women find inspiration, connection, and develop strategies to live and lead with purpose and intention. See you here next week.