Catch & Release—Ready to Launch!

Catch & Release—Ready to Launch!

By Michelle Meyer|2017-07-10T09:42:33-05:00July 6th, 2017|Blog|

Want to understand the heart of Girl Authentic and how together we can bring about a new work equilibrium? Read on.

I have always wanted Girl Authentic to serve three purposes:

Talk to women about building their own businesses and building a different model for all of us to work in
Help women shape their business ideas and approach
Invest in women-led business development

Today I get to share how, for the first time, Girl Authentic has provided support in all three ways.

I am thrilled to announce the launch of Catch & Release, created by Jennifer Cook. Jennifer took an idea she’s had for a long time, believed in it, and believed in herself enough to make it a reality.

Are you wondering what her idea was? Jennifer is an outdoor enthusiast. Her activities mostly revolve around fishing, boating, and camping, as well as other outdoor activities she and her kids do. From this love, she decided to create a way for outdoor enthusiasts to exchange their equipment and accessories directly – thus, Catch & Release.

I am so proud of Jennifer. She never gave up—she just kept quietly working on her idea, continued working her “day job,” found support where she needed it, and made it happen.

I know this is just the beginning of a very exciting venture for Jennifer and the community that will begin to take shape as they buy and sell their equipment and accessories through her business. Look for Catch & Release to become THE place to find the best equipment available.

I also have a purely selfish reason to be excited, too, since Catch & Release represents the first time Girl Authentic has provided the comprehensive support I noted above. It’s what I have always hoped Girl Authentic would become in the long term—much sooner than I ever thought I would have the opportunity.

Jennifer told me how supportive and helpful she found the GA blogs—and then she shared her idea. I knew right way she was going to make this a success. Her passion made it feel right. She used words like love and committed and community and confident. I am proud to be a part of Jennifer’s story and will be supporting her in her continued success.

So…here she is—almost a year after she first started working on Catch & Release to launch a new way for outdoor enthusiasts to create a marketplace exclusively for their needs. Please join us. If you have a need to sell something or want to try something new using top equipment without plunking down top dollar, 1) download the app, 2) put your wares up for sale or search for what you want, and 3) tell your friends. The app will let you buy and sell directly with easy payment options so you don’t have to figure out how to get paid or pay someone else.

Jennifer envisioned her dream and then put in the hard work to make it reality. Catch & Release is the real deal, and Girl Authentic is happy to support another business building work equilibrium!

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A podcast with Leaders of Transformation

A podcast with Leaders of Transformation

By Michelle Meyer|2016-03-11T09:50:49-06:00November 20th, 2015|Blog|

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I met Nicole Jansen from Leaders of Transformation at a Small Satellite Conference. Nicole interviews successful Leaders of Transformation to help you gain the inspiration, education, resources, and leadership skills to transform your life and the world around you. I was thrilled with the opportunity to meet with her and talk about bringing forth the feminine in the workplace. It’s podcast #28 on her site.

[button colour=”accent” type=”squarearrow” size=”large” link=”http://leadersoftransformation.com/podcast-2/” target=”_blank”]Head over to Nicole’s site to listen![/button]

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Bye-bye to the Long-Hours Culture

Bye-bye to the Long-Hours Culture

By Michelle Meyer|2015-05-19T14:43:59-05:00December 11th, 2014|Blog|

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The title above was the subtitle of a recent article by Lucy Kellaway, a columnist for the Financial Times. This full-page piece ran in the Business section of “The World in 2015,” by The Economist. I was so excited to see a global periodical dedicate a full page of commentary to changing attitudes on work hours.

Why? Because women have been leading the way on this issue for years – but it’s not actually a women’s issue.

Kellaway says it will soon be “cool” for executives to put a stop to unhealthy work habits and start working more efficiently between 9 and 5. Her piece describes the future like this: “Holidays will be holidays. The out-of-office email will no longer be followed by a reply from the ski-slopes. A spare jacket will no longer be needed on the back of the office chair, as going home will be all the rage. To get your work done by a reasonable hour will not be a sign that you are a slacker, but that you are working efficiently.”

I’ll take it! And Kellaway isn’t alone – there has been a lot of writing this year about how we need to adjust the culture that rewards workaholic behavior. I think the conversation starts by asking “why”: Why should taking time off work (for anything – children, sabbaticals, taking care of a sick parent, simply taking a break, whatever it may be) mean you automatically get dinged in terms of salary or promotions? Why do we assume that if you forego those activities you deserve higher pay or an earlier promotion? That simply reinforces a workaholic reward culture – or worse, it actually rewards a person for being less productive and less efficient with their time.

Of course, this piece was published in The Economist – a European periodical. Our friends across the ocean have been leading the way for a long time on healthier attitudes toward work. European workers take more vacation and work more reasonable hours than their American counterparts. How flabbergasting for us that they still manage to have global economies!

It isn’t just Europeans leading this conversation – it’s women. We’re lucky in a way – because this has mostly been framed as a gender issue or a women’s issue in the past, we’ve gotten to frame the conversation, ask the questions, and create something new.

What’s the something new? The idea that this is not a gender issue after all. This is a labor issue. Many men are looking for as much freedom from the old behaviors as women are – women have just been more vocal about it thus far. But this isn’t a “women’s issue” – it’s a human issue.

I love conversations like these, because they help us create a better future. But I still believe it’s going to take a long time to actually change the culture of unhealthy work habits – and I’m impatient.

That’s why, over and over at GirlAuthentic, we’re proposing a shortcut. Instead of waiting for the old businesses to change, we need to be about creating new businesses with healthier cultures that will bring sanity for those who want it.

Who’s going to create those businesses? Women, we need you to lead the way again.

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You want a horse? Go get a horse.

You want a horse? Go get a horse.

By Michelle Meyer|2015-05-19T14:42:30-05:00August 12th, 2014|Blog|

I wasn’t even 6 years old when I discovered something I really wanted: My own horse. My family had just moved to a much more rural area where EVERYONE had horses – well, except me. I knew I wanted a horse.

My parents got me lessons at the local stables, and many of the neighbors were kind enough to introduce us to their horses and let us ride. But, I refused to stop bugging my parents. So my dad came up with a deal he figured would put off the need to get a horse for quite a while. He told me, “When you can saddle and bridle a horse all by yourself, I will get you a horse.”

Six months later I showed up in the yard with my friend Debbie’s horse all saddled and bridled. My dad asked, “Why do you have Debbie’s horse?”

“You told me when I could saddle and bridle a horse by myself, you’d get me a horse,” I told him. “So I got him ready all by myself and rode him over here.”

My dad just looked at me. “I did say that, didn’t I?” he finally said. And I had my own horse not long after that.

I was only 7 years old, and I knew what it meant to be authentically powerful as a girl. I wasn’t questioning my abilities or worrying about how others would respond to what I said and did. I knew what I wanted and what I was capable of. It felt natural. It felt like me.

Remember that? That’s “GirlAuthentic.”

Every once in a while someone will ask me about the name “GirlAuthentic.” They might have noticed the dual meaning in our logo (tie, dress) or our tag line (Equilibrium at Work; Equilibrium at work). Then they often move on to our name – because words do have power, and do shape things.

For me, “GirlAuthentic” is a call to remember.

For working women of all ages, or for those still in college or younger, it’s a challenge to never forget what it feels like to be authentically powerful as a girl. The workplace needs more of the feminine, not less. So “GirlAuthentic” is a challenge not to hide or mask what comes so naturally to you – no matter what well intentioned coaching, (but bad advice), you might receive to do the opposite.

For others, like myself, “GirlAuthentic” is a challenge to remember what we have forgotten. Today, too many women are trying to be empowered through a masculine vibration, not a feminine vibration. Some of us have gotten very good at it! But there’s a price we pay for doing so.

Three years ago, as I was reading Barbara Marciniak’s “Earth,” I realized that I had mastered the masculine vibration. But I had lost my own true voice along the way. In fact, my “success” was so complete that I am having difficulty finding that authentically powerful girl. I’m having to work to bring her back.

But I know I will. She’s in here, somewhere. I remember her.

And she wants a lot more than a horse.

When do you remember feeling authentically powerful?

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We See What We See

We See What We See

By Michelle Meyer|2015-05-19T14:48:12-05:00November 12th, 2013|Blog|

Look at the Girl Authentic logo above. What is it?

We see what we see. Until last week, every person I asked told me they saw a man’s tie first. That’s what I saw first, too. Moments later, I also saw a woman’s dress.

Some people never see the dress until I point it out. Did you?

We see what we see. We are conditioned to see a certain way – by our media, by our historical structures, by our societal structures. If most of us see a tie first, I believe that indicates something specific about our cultural norms. We see what we see every day. We see what we are told. We see what, historically, we are used to seeing. It’s what we are conditioned to see.

Guess what? Conditioning can change.

There’s been a lot of buzz lately about the historically high rates of young girls enrolling in forensic science programs at school. It’s being attributed to the strong, powerful, female roles in various forensic science programs like “CSI”, “Bones” and “Crossing Jordan.” We see it in art and media – then we see it in real life.

See Jane, the programming arm of the Geena Davis Institute, has done the research to show what we actually see in the media. The numbers are not particularly stellar – the percentage of women shown in professional roles in television and film is disproportionately low. But it’s creating a deeper discussion about having more television shows and movies that portray women as computer scientists, engineers, and in other professional roles we don’t see a lot of yet. A change in what we see on the screen could mean a change in what we see in real life. The art often comes first.

I’m ready to see that. Are you?

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