About Lisa Danforth Lisa Danforth is a business strategist and firm believer that business doesn’t have to be so hard. She helps women navigate obstacles & struggles that are specific to women in business so they can create the impact & income they desire with less overwhelm & more joy.
How important are boundaries in business? “I think of boundaries as the bridge to whatever success that it is that you're looking for. And if we don't have boundaries in place…”
What is the double-bind for women and how does it get in the way of their success, personally and professionally? “The double-bind for women is a well-known phenomenon that women are either perceived as warm or competent but rarely both.”
What’s the best way to achieve work-life balance? “I actually don't believe in work-life balance. I'm going to be totally honest with you. I don't think that we want everything in our lives to be weighed out evenly.”
Can you share with me your most successful or favorite networking story/experience that you’ve had? “I would have to say it is with a woman that I met online, sort of peripheral. There was a group of people that I spent time with, but there was a woman on the periphery, two layers out, right, and we kept sort of bumping into each other and talking, talking, talking, you know, just sort of bumping into the groups. And she finally reached, she reached out because she is in social media. We set up a conversation to chat and we have over the years become best friends…”
How do you stay in front of or best nurture your network community? “There's a couple of things that really come to mind and the first one is being intentional. I think we need to be more intentional in anything that we do and who we are in order to be more effective…”
What advice do you have for the professional on growing their network? “Be very intentional about what you're looking for. What will support you? How can you support other people?”
Digital networking or traditional networking? “For me, it's hand down traditional. I don't know if it's just because of my age. I'm 54. I can jump into a conversation and not rudely like ‘Hey, what are you doing?’ Really just sort of ease into a conversation.”
If you could go back 20 years, what would you tell yourself to do more or less of regarding your career? “I would say two things. One, relax. Rubbing a square peg in a round hole is not going to work, right? I mean, I refer to it as the white-knuckled grip. It's just ‘push, push, push, push’. Which, may I say, was how I was trained in business. It's a very masculine, dominant push energy, ‘go, go, go’. The more I have relaxed and leaned into my feminine energy and how I do business, my businesses have flourished.”
We’ve all heard of the 6 degrees of separation… Now, who would be the one person you’d love to connect with and do you think you could do it within the 6th degree? “One of the women that I've been following, and I adore her because she is strong, confident, brilliant, puts herself out there and takes no bull from anyone. But is all of service in the work that she does. The name is Nilofer Merchant. She wrote a book called, um, what is it...The Power of Onlyness.”
What book are you reading right now? “It’s called Psycho-Cybernetics. It is all about the mind and focusing on what is working for us and not re-living our past, moving into the future through our thoughts and behaviors of the past. Not allowing them to control what we do in the future.”
Any final words of advice for our listeners? “Just be very intentional on the business that you want, the life that you want, the relationships that you're looking to build.”
You can get in contact with Lisa at:
Email: lisa@lisadanforth.com(link sends e-mail)
Website: Click Here
LinkedIn: Click Here
Comentarios