Lessons on how to live successfully, if you plan to do so; are important.
Successful business owner, coach, leader, accomplished executive and world traveler Kathy Andersen’s book “Change your Shoes – Live Greatest Life” is not only a great read, but a great work book for any leader looking to have a more meaningful, successful like experience. MyCity4Her Founder and CCO Monyka Berrocosa interviewed Kathy on MyCity4HerRadio back in the early spring, and discussed the concept of women, leadership and how one “lives greatly and successfully” and can go about “Living their Greatest Life Today” on 3/29/2013. MyCity4Her Media caught up with the dynamic, and visionary author and asked her to share more about her particular journey, as well as her advice for women leaders to help them live their success more meaningfully…see below
What made you decide to write the book?
I wrote the book because I experienced the power of sharing our stories, and was compelled to help others by sharing mine. I experienced that sharing our stories can set us free, and can help to set others free. I only started sharing my story of growing up in a childhood filled with sexual abuse about six years ago. I was most struck by how many people came to me after hearing my story and told me their same story, and also shared that they had kept their story a secret. I saw how many of us trap ourselves in the pain of our stories because we keep them to ourselves. I learned that the way we tell our story can unleash our power—we can tell our stories as victors, rather than as victims—with triumph, resilience, strength, and freedom that we overcame our challenges, and we are now free to make choices to be all we want and choose to be in our lives ahead. So, Change Your Shoes, Live Your Greatest Life, is all about how we can tell our stories, free ourselves from all that holds us back, and leap into all we want to become.
You’ve had a very varied life experience – rough issues as a kid, high powered executive, adult graduate student, world traveler – what do you think is the biggest lesson you’ve learned about yourself through all this?
My greatest learning is that we each hold all the power we need within us. I had spent so many years of my life searching around me to find things to make me feel valid, valued, worthy, and secure. When I literally changed my corporate high heels for hiking boots at a peak in my corporate career, I realized I needed to give up so many things on the outside to get to know myself from the inside—the child who had been lost, and the spirit that had never soared. Through my journey, I allowed myself to play, I allowed my spirit to be lifted in the vast space of Mother Nature, and I allowed the unimportant things to slip away. Once I allowed myself to be kind to me, I felt more at home in what had been a very unfriendly world. I began to relax, and I allowed myself to listen to the messages from within to guide me forward. That became my most trusted, authentic, and easily-followed compass, and remains my greatest and most valued discovery today.
You work with Leaders and Change Agents – helping them actualize – what are your four top tips for living success authentically?
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Know the vision for your life. If you don’t, take some time out (even half an hour a day) to uncover it!
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Know what thrills and excites you, and what gives you a sense of greatest purpose. From there, you will see you are full of the gifts you need to bring your passions and purpose into your life.
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Take one step every day, and know that you have the choices each day to take 100 percent responsibility for all you want to create in your life.
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Throughout your journey, be kind to yourself. Forgive yourself for anything you hold against yourself, and set yourself free to be all you deserve to be. It is why you are here, and you should accept nothing less than all you desire.
When you started on your leadership development journey – what were you hoping to gain from the experience mostly?
My journey was really one of letting go of all the directions from the outside and tuning in to the guidance from within me, once I realized the “outside” didn’t fulfill the “inside.” I accepted that I needed to discover what was truly meaningful to me beneath the things I had allowed to define me—my job, my car, my salary, my house, my address. I also needed to let myself simply “play” after struggling through my childhood. I had never really allowed myself to play. What I gained was a new definition of myself that came from deep within me, rather than from the things around me, or from the things that had happened to me. Then, I found I could start to “lead” myself to areas that were most purposeful and deeply fulfilling, based on my choices, and not on being a victim of others. All I knew when I embarked upon my journey was that I needed a “break” and I needed to discover “something more.” What I found was the more I let go, the more I gained.
The ability to tune into the inner wisdom that we each have, I have found, is the most powerful “leadership” experience, whether it be leading yourself, leading a corporation, or leading a country. We often become stressed and anxious because the “answers” we seek are not instantly provided, especially in the technology-driven and knowledge-based environment in which we live and work, where every answer is just a Google away. The pressure for immediate answers is extreme. Yet, the answers that will lead us, and allow us to lead others, to the greatest places, cannot be found in cyberspace. Those answers require insight and intuition from our “inner space.” In addition to tapping into the knowledge around us, those answers require us to give ourselves a “break,” and tune into the wisdom that is waiting within us to guide us to our greatest places.
Why do you think women struggle with being effective leaders? Is it a nature or nurture issue to you?
I believe women, on average, are natural nurturers. Therefore, I believe the more women tap into their nature of nurture, the more they will become the greatest leaders. The combination of nurturing along with intelligence, resilience, insight, and intuition is a combination that women can call upon to be the most effective leaders, and affect the greatest change and a better world for all. Here are three suggestions for women to reduce the struggles of leadership:
1. Believe. I believe our nature is to be our most passionate and purposeful manifestation of our being. Many debate “nature” versus “nurture.” The only debate that matters is the debate we have with ourselves. If we believe, we can transform our world, and the world around. Then, we must simply make our most intuitive and insightful decisions, and act each day following that “higher wisdom.”
2. Detach. Women, and men, struggle with leadership when they allow themselves to be pushed and pulled by all of the competing forces around them, and are unable to detach from those forces, and tap into a higher wisdom that moves people to a better place. A leader has an ability to inspire people to follow a path that leads to “something greater.” Once a leader loses the ability to move people to “something greater,” or inspire people in the hope of “something greater,” a leader becomes inefficient and ineffective. Developing the ability to constantly detach in order to tap into that higher wisdom will make the path of leadership much less of a struggle.
3. Rejuvenate. We are only limited by the extent to which we nurture ourselves, and the extent to which we allow ourselves to be nurtured. Women, in particular, struggle when they put the nurturing of themselves behind the nurturing of others. Women need to take time to rejuvenate themselves so they have the fuel to rejuvenate others. Women leaders need to schedule self-nurturing in their calendar every day!
What is the best business advice you’ve been given and why?
“It depends.” The closing statement of a lecture series from one of my favorite Harvard professors when asked for his most insightful advice, was “It depends.” When you consider those words, there is actually enormous wisdom in them. Those words call for conscious and thoughtful evaluation of every question, and every situation, taking into account all perspectives, “realities,” implications, and considering the “greatest good” that can come from any decision or action. It requires a careful combination of intelligence and wisdom to take action that will take people to a better place.
If you were given 1 Million Dollars to use for philanthropy – how would you spend it and why?
I am currently involved in a number of philanthropic projects, so I would use that money to contribute to those causes, which primarily focus on poverty alleviation, including clean water, food, and shelter for the two-thirds of the world living in poverty. However, I would create “challenge” projects so that for every dollar spent, another $10 is raised so we transform $1 million into $10 million.
When you’re not working how do you like to spend your time?
In quiet and tranquil places by the ocean or deep in Mother Nature.
What is your definition of success?
Living with passion, purpose, and fulfillment as you create a life and a world that takes everyone to greater places.
About Kathy Andersen