[E4C29] Design A Business & Lifestyle That Embraces Your Feminine Brilliance; Femvolution – Alia Hall

Ignite a Movement | Entrepreneurs for a Change with Lorna Li

This episode is dedicated to all you women entrepreneurs out there who are ready to claim your feminine power and, with fierce confidence, offer your best gifts to the world. I have a really juicy guest with me today, Alia Melissa Hall – a visionary entrepreneur, Master Coach and Liberator for Feminine Luminaries In-the-Making like you.

A graduate of Brown University, Alia was a marketing executive for top brands and companies including Saatchi & Saatchi, Delta Air Lines, Procter & Gamble, and Visa. In spite of her successes building big brands, she still felt small, unseen, disconnected and unsatisfied in her role as a corporate marketer. During this time, she weathered a series of devastating emotional blows that prompted her to question her life. A part of her recognized she was here to serve a greater purpose than to work in a dissatisfying job as an unrecognized cog in the wheel helping large companies get richer.

With courage and blind faith, she left that world behind to seek fulfillment on her own terms and reclaim her life. What she discovered was the power of designing her own business and lifestyle in alignment with her true brilliance, happiness, and fulfillment.

Over the last 12 years Alia engaged in advanced creative and transformational training to emerge as a cutting-edge DJ and music producer. As well as a master success coach helping other women with a creative fire liberate their unique brilliance in their art and businesses to boldly share their gifts with the world.

She has been a featured TEDx presenter, and was named a “Leader Shifting the Planet” by ORIGIN magazine.

Alia’s mission is to unleash the next generation of trail-blazing, creative, entrepreneurial women leaders to help build a thriving planet. In this juicy conversation, we discuss:

• The unique feminine gifts we possess as women, and how to embrace them in business.
• The difference between masculine and feminine power and how to step into your empowerment.
• The most disempowering thing women entrepreneurs do to themselves.
• Whether or not you need coaching certification to be a coach.
• Ways you can establish trust with your target audience, by sharing your story online.
• Why listening is the most important quality you need to develop as a coach or consultant.
• How to get started as a coach and attract your first clients.
• The best way to offer discovery calls, so that your prospects are compelled to work with you without having to hardsell.
• Why you really need to invest in the right business training.

If you’d like to experience a taste of Alia’s musical style, I’ve included some of my favorite mixes from her Soundcloud profile.

Enjoy Alia on SoundCloud

I’ve enjoyed hearing Alia spin at a number of Bay Area events and music festivals. Here are some of my favorite Alia tracks:

Mentioned in this interview

• Bill Baren
• Bryan Franklin
• Jennifer Russell
• Matthew Blom
• Ladies who Launch
• TEDx FidiWomen
• Women Enough
• Gabrielle Bernstein’s media e-course
• Mama Gena
• KC Baker
• Alisa Vitti

Where to Find Alia

• Follow Alia on Twitter
• Check out Alia on Facebook
• Visit Femvolution
• Cultivating Creative Confidence free video series

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

[04:38] Lorna: Alia, thank you so much for joining me on the show. I’m so glad to be able to speak to you about the work that you do, helping women get in touch with their feminine power in business. Also, I love the music that you create as well in your role as a DJ.

So if you could explain to us who you are and what your business is all about, and share with us a story about how you got to the stage in your entrepreneurial journey.

[05:10] Alia: Absolutely. Well, it’s a pleasure to be here. It’s a pleasure to be on this conversation with you. Thanks for having me. My name is Alia Hall, and I am a combination of entrepreneur and artist. My entrepreneurial journey started out more as an entrepreneur, and as a coach specifically. And I created my business, Femvolution, about five years ago to really target women, specifically, and to really help and support women to step more into their particular flavor of genius, their particular unique essence, and then bring that into their business endeavors and their creative endeavors.

That’s been evolving over the last few years as I’ve been evolving – as our businesses do. They tend to evolve with us we grow and our messages shift and change. As I have been stepping more into my artistic self, and more of my identity as an artist in the world – as a music producer, and as an electronic dance music DJ, I’ve been noticing a desire to bring the two things together a little more.

So I’ve been marrying those in the coaching programs and various offerings that I am sharing with people in the one-on-one coaching work that I do with people, and bringing more creativity to the way that I create my programs, and also creating programs around the topic of creativity and artistry. Creating programs that are really supportive of those entrepreneurs who are wanting to step out into a different, more creative version of themselves – kind of step out of the typical model and access more of themselves, and bring more of themselves into what they’re creating. It’s been a really interesting beautiful marriage as I’ve been working these two pieces.

[07:04] Lorna: So Alia, were you a DJ before you became a business coach?

[07:10] Alia: I was a coach before I started DJ-ing.

[07:12] Lorna: Really?

[07:15] Alia: Yes, I’ve been coaching for over a decade, and more full time for the last six to seven years. I’m DJ-ing moreso in the last four years. I’ve been on my own internal creative journey around all of this. The DJ-ing and the music producing has been unfolding really gracefully in a really fun way for me, and I’ve been just following it and following it, and then growing fairly rapidly. I’ve also been designing my life and my business to support that, which has encouraged some shifts and changes in the way that I’m doing my business in creating things.

[07:57] Lorna: Do you find that your creative endeavors as a musician and DJ support your work as an entrepreneur?

[08:05] Alia: Yes, I do. I feel that they’re very connected and related. I believe that as an artist, when we’re trying to grow ourselves as professional artists, it’s very important that we approach it almost like a business. Then vice versa, I think it’s really important to approach our businesses and our entrepreneurial endeavors with a mindset of an artist. So I found the two to be very complimentary.

[08:32] Lorna: Wow. Do you tend to work mostly with other women creatives then as a business coach, or do you work with a wide range of businesswomen?

[08:44] Alia: I have noticed that the women that are attracted to working with me do tend to be a little more creative. They may be building businesses but they want to do it in a slightly more creative way, or they are artists on the side as well in some way. So they have an artistic sensibility, and they want to bring that artistry into what they’re creating. They want to create something unique and do it different.

[09:08] Lorna: What inspired you to enter the path of business coaching many years ago? Did you have an aha! moment that led you to want to become a business coach, and a moment of inspiration that caused you to create the business that you have now under Femvolution?

[09:26] Alia: When I started coaching, I was more into personal development at that time. My coaching was more life coaching to begin with. I was leading a variety of courses, and was really doing a deep dive into personal transformation work. And then, as I stepped into creating my coaching business full-time, I realized that I needed to have more entrepreneurial business skills. So I started doing a bunch of training in that area specifically. Then, began to also bring back in some of my former experience in my former life as a corporate marketing executive.

I began to, then, bring my branding expertise and my knowledge of building smaller entrepreneurial solo business to my work that I was doing with people. It evolved and morphed over time into more business-focused coaching.

[10:22] Lorna: So when you began your coaching career, did you pursue any type of coaching certification, and does one actually need to become a certified coach in a particular modality in order to be a life coach to somebody else? I think that’s one of the biggest questions that I see arise in the coaching community, whether or not you need some kind of certification credentials to even begin doing the work of coaching somebody else.

[10:48] Alia: Yes. That is a big question that people will often examine closely when they’re stepping into this. I definitely looked at that. I explored a number of the coaching training institutions. What I found was that I felt that the training that I would get there was actually… it felt in a way, almost less rigorous than the coaching training I already received in the number of organizations that I had been training with.

I was encouraged by a number of other professional coaches who didn’t have certifications to go ahead and just step into coaching with that knowledge, with that training already under my belt, without needing that certification. Honestly, I found that no one asks about whether or not I’m certified, and the majority of people that come to me… it’s not even on their radar. It’s not something that they’re concerned about.

I think in maybe slightly more corporate environments, if the coach is wanting to go in and work with – or consultants perhaps want to work with companies, I think that’s the group of people that might find a certification more important. On a person-to-person to level, most people just want to know that you can help solve their problem for them. They just to feel that confidence and trust in you that you can get them to where they want to go.

[12:05] Lorna: I noticed a lot of these coaching programs are really expensive. They’re an investment of several thousand dollars, and do I wonder whether or not that training is actually going to really move the needle in how you can serve other people, especially if you already have a core body of expertise that you know you can leverage to help somebody else.

[12:26] Alia: That’s right. They are very expensive investment. I think what I’ve been seeing is that there’s a whole group of entrepreneurs and coaches that I’m friendly with, who are some big names in the industry now, who have just been really taking that body of work, taking that training in their particular area, and taking their life experience and really bringing that to how they’re coaching people. Then designing a particular area of focus around that specific experience.

[12:58] Lorna: So how do you inspire trust in the people that you work with or your prospective clients to give them the sense that you can solve their problem? Help us understand what kind of issues or obstacles you tend to work with your clients on resolving or overcoming. How is it that they feel that you are the person that can help them?

What I’d like to bring light to this question is how people who are in the coaching industry can showcase their knowledge and build the trust so that their prospective clients will be attracted to work with them, and they will be able to continue to serve the clients that they do have on an ongoing basis.

[13:47] Alia: There’s a couple of major areas to look at with this. One is positioning yourself with a particular area of expertise. So that has to do with it how you’re sharing yourself in your marketing, how you’re speaking to your audience, the particular topics that you choose to focus on, the ways that you address particular problems in your blog posts or in your social media posts, or things like that. There’s also the way that you model what it is that you’re supporting people around, what you’re helping people with.

If you yourself are really living that, if you’re modeling that, then people will also see, “She’s got what I want. She’s living it.” Now, I hear that all the time from people that come to me, they always say, “It’s very evident that you have the creative life that I’m really longing for.” So you can’t underestimate the power of just – creating your visibility is one powerful way of doing that, of sharing yourself on social media, allowing yourself to be seen, telling your story, finding ways to share your knowledge and wisdom through articles, or being interviewed in podcasts like this, and helping people really get a taste of who you are.

And then, when they do actually come to you and you have the opportunity to have a conversation with them, an initial consultation of some kind, that’s the opportunity to really just practice listening to them, really being with them, helping them experience you as a trustworthy person that really is going to be a solid ally for them. And that’s a kind of thing that comes with practice, that comes with time and experience of working with different people.

The more and more you gain facility with just simply being with people with where they are, the more that they’ll be able to develop that trust in you. In many ways, a lot of coaches who have told me over the years – I remember my mentors, they’ll say, “You could coach on anything really, and you can coach people to get to where they want to go as long as you know that you can be with them where they are.”

I think that’s really powerful advice. I think a lot of would-be coaches or people starting up can get tripped up on not having enough experience. Maybe they want to change areas of focus or something, and they’re worried that maybe they don’t have experience in the new area.

The reality is that coaching is really about your ability to be with someone, and to hold the vision of where they want to go in a really powerful way. When you develop those skills, those kinds of ways of supporting people, you’ll be able to support people, no matter what kind of goal they have.

[16:30] Lorna: So when you look back at your career especially around the time when you just started coaching, how were you able to attract your first clients? I think for a lot of people that look towards becoming a business or life-coach in some way or even starting some kind of service-based consultancy, there’s a threshold of difficulty. It might be fear of where to go to get the first clients that they work with. So what was your experience like and what would you recommend for people who are just starting out?

[17:02] Alia: Absolutely. I experienced that fear, too. I definitely struggled at the beginning. I think most of us have at some point. What I would offer is that the best way to go out and get your first clients is to just start with the people that you know. Start with your network. Just start asking around. Who do you know that is this person, this type of person who might want this kind of support? Get really clear on the kind of person that you want to help, who your ideal client is, and then just start sharing it with the people that you know.

Just say, “Hey, I’m starting to coach. This is the kind of person I’m looking for. Who do you know that might be a good match?” Just begin to set up free conversations with those people. I often resisted this advice, to tell you the truth, but I believe it is very true. Most of my mentors would say to me, “Don’t worry about a website. Don’t worry about having the right business cards. Don’t worry about any of that. You can go out and get clients without any of that. It’s all about the face-to-face, the interpersonal connections.”

So that is the way to at least begin. I do believe that as you grow and develop, people will want to be able to learn about you online, then it is important to have a website up and all these things. Frankly, I’m always struggling to keep up with my website and everything that is new, that’s developing. It never seems to matter that much. Word of mouth starts to develop. People starts to know you as the person that they should send that person with that problem to, and that’s how it grows, and it grows in momentum.

[18:41] Lorna: That’s so interesting because I do see coaches who are hugely successful who are generating multiple six-figure incomes on really crappy websites, really crappy free websites. It’s almost a bit overrated as to how much of a web presence you actually need to develop. So you recommend for people just starting out to give some free consultations to the people in their network to start off with. Is that a startup strategy that you would recommend?

[19:10] Alia: Yes. It’s a well-worn startup strategy for sure. There are some people out there who would say, “No, you should really charge for each session.” You want to give them a whole bunch of time like half hour initial conversations. You position it as just an exploratory conversation, and not a coaching session. That’s the difference. The difference is you just don’t want to give a bunch of free coaching upfront because then people will be like, “Great. Thanks for the free coaching; now I’m going to move on.” You want to be very clear that the intention of that conversation will be to explore whether or not you will work together. But yes, offering that free time to people is a great way to help them get a taste.

[19:49] Lorna: Is there any formula that you recommend on how to conduct those discovery conversations so that it leads to a working relationship? I’ve seen a few offers cross my radar from different people about the specific way that one should direct the 30-minute conversation. I’m wondering whether or not you’ve followed any “formula” that helps you.

I guess it’s establishing a good relationship so that you’re not giving away so much information that they’re full and they feel like, “I’ve got so much to work with now. Thanks, bye.” But they’re actually inspired to work with you on an ongoing basis because the truth is, you can give a lot of value within these 30 minutes. Chances are the person who’s receiving that value isn’t going to be able to solve their problem just because they have a 30-minute free call with you. They’re going to need to work on an ongoing basis over the period of weeks and months to be able to get over the obstacle that they’re facing.

[20:49] Alia: That’s right. Well, I’ve had a couple of great teachers to show me their process for those conversations which is linked through and there’s probably time to going into here. The highlights are that you want to first open the conversation by just asking people what they want, really help them get present to what it is that they want for their life, what their desires are, what they’re stepping into. Then, help them get present to the impact of not having that so looking at what’s been in the way of that. And then, help them get present to what it would feel like to have that, and really giving people a visceral experience of what it’s like to actually be living that, and experiencing that for real. Then saying, “Well, are you ready to have that in essence?” and “Are you ready to do that now?” Then, invite them, “Do you step in to doing that now” with a support from you.

There’s some great questions and graceful transitions and ways that you can do that. Over time, I’ve just really made it my own. I’ve had enough of these now where I can really drop into my intuitive experience with them just really listen, feedback what they’re saying, and invite them into the possibility of being able to really have that now… or soon.

[22:07] Lorna: Do you mind sharing who you have received mentorship around this process? For example, I know that Bill Barren teaches something like this. I’ve heard really great things about his programs. Who else might be able to be a resource for our audience to check out around this discovery process? Because it’s very powerful when you get it right.

[22:29] Alia: Yes, it is. I’ve heard great things about Bill. I haven’t worked with him yet. I trained with Bryan Franklin, and he’s fantastic. He and his partner, Jennifer Russell, do programs for entrepreneurs. And I also did some training with Matthew Blom, who is also equally fantastic, and has a slightly different take on the conversation.

[22:51] Lorna: How do you spell Matthew’s last name?

[22:53] Alia: B-L-O-M.

[22:55] Lorna: Okay, awesome. We’re going to include links to their websites in the show notes.

[22:59] Alia: Great.

[23:00] Lorna: So in the process of defining ideal clients, who would you describe as your ideal client?

[23:07] Alia: That has changed and evolved. Now, my ideal client is a woman who has already experienced some success with her endeavors, and she is still feeling some dissatisfaction. Some sense of wanting to bring out more of herself into what she’s creating. She is interested in really stepping up her game, really interested in creating something of impact, most likely creating art or a movement or message of some kind, and she is really interested in investing in a deeper level of transformation than maybe she has invested in thus far.

I was really interested in working with someone one on one in a very close, tailored way. My programs now are mostly exclusively working one-on-one. Working with a select groups of women. I’m really tailoring and customizing and curating a particularly experience for them, both of my own coaching and then also bringing in other practitioners and people who I’ve worked with who I can highly recommend their services, and who can specifically address particular areas that they most want to work on.

So I’ve been enjoying actually expanding into a little more above an inclusionary paradigm and model, where I can bring in some of the amazing people that I know who are great at what they do.

[24:33] Lorna: I’d love for you to share with our audience how we can understand the ability to create a thriving business from serving a need that seems a bit nebulous and almost difficult to define. So for example, if you think about really cut and dry business needs like; I need a website – so therefore, you’ve got web design, web agency services; or I need an Adwords consultants; or display marketing agency. I mean, those are pretty straightforward services that solve a particular business need.

But to have a business need that is really a reflection of a desire to connect with your divine feminine essence and bring out your feminine gifts to the world in a more powerful and positive way, that seems rather difficult to define, yet people seem to be hungry for it and willing to pay for it. So can you help us understand how that works and how you are able to identify this very particular market of women entrepreneurs?

[25:32] Alia: Yes. It is nebulous, in a way, and like you said, people are hungry for it. There is a real desire. I think that’s because so many women out there have been feeling disconnected from that part of themselves. We have a shared history of working in more corporate environments, and feeling cutoff from our femininity there, and feel like we need to become men in that environment to excel and succeed.

I think there’s a way that a lot of women are experiencing that, have experienced that, are moving towards wanting to connect with and embrace their feminine essence in a way that really serves their current creations. So there is a big movement in the women entrepreneur space around creating business from your intuition, or creating a business that is more balanced, creating a business where you are tapped into your pleasure and more of your joy.

All of these things are becoming really important to women, and they’re wanting to create in a new way, in a new paradigm. I think that’s because both for their own personal fulfillments – their sense of quality of life that they want to have now, they want to claim for themselves. Also because there’s a movement towards really modeling this new way for other people out in the world, and for other women around the globe.

For me, that’s been a big mission and impulse underneath Femvolution, my brand. Part of what I’m actually starting to do now with my messaging on social media, I’m sharing a lot of things that I’m hoping are going reach women around the planet who maybe aren’t necessarily as privileged as we are, or they don’t have the same opportunities, or don’t have the same knowledge and understanding around this stuff. Whether it’s Western women or women in other parts of the world, it’s still a major theme, and a major movement.

So women are hungry. They are willing to pay for this kind of support. I think they’re willing to pay for it also though with a combination of tangible services. Certainly with what I do, I am also supporting women around the development and creation of their business in a tangible way, around developing their offerings, around their branding and how they approach that. So I think it’s powerful when the two are combined, and the messaging can be really connected in a way that they’re still going to get a result.

[28:06] Lorna: Yes, it’s so interesting the way the business world is. I’d love to explore the concept of what masculine power, and what feminine power looks like. So what I can say is when I was in corporate world, I felt like I had to really compete in a man’s world and become one of the guys. A lot of the characteristics around becoming successful in that environment – it really involved a lot of competition as opposed to collaboration.

It was a lot of like one upmanship and blowing one’s own horn because in a corporate environment especially if you work in a large company, nobody knows what you do. So unless you are broadcasting all the great things that you’re doing, then nobody knows what you do. So it felt a bit weird for me to be in a position where my promotion, my ability to be promoted, my success depended on how well I marketed myself in the company.

Gosh you know, I felt like in adopting that type of behavior, I lost a sense of what it meant for me to be female, to be feminine. I developed a really hard, competitive bottom-line edge that I assumed as armor and wore on a daily basis. That really gotten in the way of getting into relationships because I was no longer very feminine.

So I’d love to understand from what you have discovered working with female entrepreneurs, what some of the biggest challenges are for women in business, and what some of the qualities of feminine power actually are, and how that looks in a female-led business.

[29:58] Alia: Thanks for sharing that piece. Yes, I resonate so much with that and I think so many women do, that we get cut off from ourselves as a woman, and we start really losing touch with that. I know that that was true for me. I feel it was directly related to the ways that I was at that time – that I was in my great career… it was an amazing career. I had so many amazing opportunities working with big companies and big brands, right? But I was kind of dying on the inside. I was really disconnected from myself and I was kind of depressed at times. I was having physical ailments start to show up. There’s lots of ways that these things will show up surreptitiously without us even realizing what the root cause is. I think this has been happening for a lot of women. Then, when we disconnect from those things that are disempowering for us, we begin to step in to more of our empowerment, start to reconnect with our feminine part; those kinds of ailments and problems seem to start to shift. So I think women in business today are facing some major challenges around how to still be themselves, how to still be a woman, how to still bring their unique talent as a woman into the marketplace.

[31:05]Lorna: And not have it be a liability; to not be dismissed or not taken seriously because you happen to be more nurturing in your approach to management than domineering.

[31:19] Alia: That’s right. How did they do that… because the alternative is potentially being so disconnected from themselves that then it starts to show up on all kinds of other areas of their lives, like their relationships, and romantic relationships being troubled, or their bodies manifesting ailments, and all these kinds of things. They’re so common – or eating disorders – whatever they may be.

I think that’s going to be the key thing and also kind of reeducating men to be respectful and honoring of what those unique feminine talents are, and inviting partnership with men, rather than a sense of competition. I do think that there’s a way to go with that and it’s tricky. That’s why so many women are leaving the corporate world in droves, and trying to create something on their own.

[32:06] Lorna: I think one thing that I’ve noticed in the recent years is that inspite of Women’s Lib, women today seem almost less happy than they were back in the ‘50s. So this pressure to succeed in the man’s world, for example, has really taken a toll on a lot of us. So even though we’ve had equal rights, at the same time, gender roles have been confused, and so it seems like men have been relieved of the role and expectation of being the provider. So I see women who are just exhausted in their roles of being their primary caregiver for their children, having to take care of the home, and on top of that, manage and grow their careers. At the same time, they seem to be receiving less support from the men in their lives, chivalry is a dying practice, and we still don’t receive equal pay for the work that we do.

A beautiful friend of mine, a Brazilian woman, who is super smart, career professional – she had a kid. Even though her partner was showing up to be involved in the care of her newborn daughter, she was like, “Lorna, even with the support of my husband, at the same time as a mother, you are still the primary caregiver because you are the one with the milk.”

It seems to be like there’s no way around it. No matter how much our men might really want to support us in motherhood, for example, we’re still the ones with the milk. So we’re still the ones who are going to be primarily responsible for taking care of young children. So it almost seems like if motherhood and being a success in your industry is important to you, then for many women in the professional business world, it’s almost like you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.

So I’d love to hear your thoughts about that and what you’ve been observing around women who are entering the path of entrepreneurship and taking back their power from this disempowering paradigm that we found ourselves in.

[34:17] Alia: Yes. I see that a lot of women have felt disempowered by this. It’s definitely disheartening that in this day and age, with everything that we know, women are still being paid less than men. As you say, they still have a lot of responsibility – more than they ever did in many ways. So it’s disheartening for sure, and I think that’s what is having a lot of women decide that they want to step out and create something on their own terms because the path of entrepreneurship enables you to do that.

It enables you to design something that actually fits with your life. And this is what a lot of women are in the conversation around like how can they create a business that is personally fulfilling, spiritually fulfilling, all of these things that… something that are aligned with their passion that will help them feel good will help them feel better in themselves.

Then, also design it in a way where they can create more freedom, where they can create more of a lifestyle for themselves, where they can actually get paid more money working for themselves, than working for a company. This is why we’re seeing such a trend.

[35:27] Lorna: Yes. Actually, I was watching a video presentation by the founder of this organization called Ladies Who Launch. I can’t remember her name right now but I’ll look it up, and we’ll include it in the show notes. But she was saying that women are actually starting businesses at twice the rate men are. I think this is a reflection of this work paradigm that we found ourselves in, that really doesn’t serve us, and causes us to not be true to who we are as feminine beings.

[35:59] Alia: Yes. And so when women can design or in businesses, they can address all of these concerns.

[36:07] Lorna: Do you feel that women run into specific types of gender-based obstacles on the path of entrepreneurship? For example, in the path of working in a corporate career, you see things that manifest, like the glass ceiling, not a lot of women are making it into the C-level, and it’s part of the business culture. Like an entrepreneur, you’re not in that environment. So do you see other types of obstacles that appear for women who are on the path of entrepreneurship?

[36:38] Alia: Well, yes. I think there are different obstacles. I think they’re free of that particular obstacle of hitting the ceiling, but then when they’re creating their own business, they’re hitting their own ceiling. That’s what I often see, is that women struggle with self esteem, with questions of whether or not they’re good enough, and a lot of that psychological stuff, or emotional stuff, will come up in the process of building your own business.

When you’re putting yourself out there, it just can bring up all your stuff. So often women entrepreneurs will need a lot of support around their mindset, and around really developing their confidence, and finding their own internal resources and sense of “Yes, I’m good enough for this. Yes, I can do this” to be able to successfully put themselves out there and market themselves.

[37:27] Lorna: Yes, I think we have to also overcome decades of negative social programming. A lot of those negative messages are not individualized. They’re the messages that have been passed down to us across our family lineage. If you come from a culture that doesn’t value women, then you get a lot of the subliminal messaging that comes through family and community, but also in society and advertising as well, that we’re valued primarily for our youth and our looks, and less so for our intelligence. You see that all over the place, in advertisements and commercials and all that, that focus on women as objects of beauty and sexuality.

[38:14] Alia: Absolutely. We have disempowering messages everywhere. Women really do internalize these. It’s very real. So much of the work that I know I’ve been doing, and so many of the women that I know have been doing are around dismantling a lot of this stuff. When we’re on the journey of really finding ourselves and finding our true power and tapping into what it is we want to say in the world and what it is we want to give, all of those things are going to be up for review. We have to relinquish their grip on us. We have to let go and allow ourselves to step up and out.
I notice in particular there’s a big thing around being seen, and visibility, and putting your message out there, and then having at being criticized in some way or admonished in some way. A lot of women are really scared about that, really scared of failures, scared of that what they do is not going to be deemed good enough.

They compare themselves a lot to other women, to other entrepreneurs who are a little ahead of them. It can be really disempowering. All of that is fed by these really disempowering messages that we perceived really early in our lives that we’re not valued for our innate intelligence. So we distrust that innate intelligence. We distrust our innate intuition. We distrust our innate capacity and our natural ability to create. So that’s part of the work, is to really reestablish that trust.

[39:53] Lorna: I love that there was a TEDx event that was entirely focused on women. Can you tell me more about this TEDx event? It occurs every year in San Francisco, right?

[40:06] Alia: Yes. TEDx FiDiWomen.

[40:18] Lorna: What does FiDi stand for?

[40:10] Alia: You know what I’m not sure.

[40:12] Lorna: It’s FiDiWomen.

[40:14] Alia: That’s right.

[40:16] Lorna: That’s founded by the curator of a nonprofit organization called Women Enough that’s also based in San Francisco. I think the founder’s name is Michelle Fetsch?

[40:29] Alia: Michelle Fetsch, yes.

[40:30]Lorna: So tell me more about that event, and I’d love to hear how you were able to present there.

[40:37] Alia: Well, actually she invited me to be there as a musical contributor.

[40:40] Lorna: Awesome.

[40:43] Alia: So that was really sweet. The first event was the one that I participated in and I attended. It was really fabulous. There were some great speakers, people like Gabriel Bernstein, Mama Gena, and KC Baker, I recall, and Alisa Vitti, and some really amazing women with visionary messages. It just felt like such a galvanizing of forces, and a real celebration of the feminine voice.

[41:16] Lorna: So how do you recommend that upcoming women entrepreneurs get awesome press coverage because I notice you’re also featured in Origins Magazine?

[41:26] Alia: Yes and that was really wonderful. That, in a way, came about because I have been making myself quite visible. Over time, I’ve been putting a lot of attention into my social media presence and really utilizing those platforms. That’s how I came onto the radar of Origin Magazine. I think efforts in really making yourself visible on social media do get rewards.

I’ve had clients come who found me through social media, and people have asked me to be on telesummits and things like that, who’ve seen me on social media. I think that has helped you – just pick your medium. I decided I would just focus really heavily on Facebook because that’s just the medium I really like. I think it could drive you a little crazy trying to do all of them really well.

[42:15] Lorna: Yes, definitely. Then, you end up doing nothing really well.

[42:19] Alia: Right, exactly. I’m having fun with Instagram and Pinterest and some of the more visual mediums as well. But I do think also, women can create opportunities by reaching out and submitting themselves for a consideration for an article or for a feature. I know there’s some people who really do teach the media piece quite well. In fact, I know actually that Gabrielle Bernstein is one person who – she’s got a course on that topic.

[42:44] Lorna: Okay. I’ll be sure to check it out, and we’ll put the link in the show notes also. She’s amazing. I’m really impressed by her. So we’re coming towards the end of our interview time. I’d love to ask you to share with us if there was, during your entrepreneurial journey, one big mistake that you made that really drained your time, energy, and money, that you would do differently if you could turn back the clock. Could you share with us what that was so that we could learn from your mistakes, and not fall into that same pitfall ourselves?

[43:22] Alia: Yes, Oh gosh. Where do I begin? I’ll choose one but there’s definitely a few. I think we all go through this. When I was starting out, particularly when I was really trying to learn a lot of the internet marketing stuff, and really diving into some of the more entrepreneurial topics; I first just stayed really surface level – I would attend the free seminars, calls and things like that, take down the favorite reports and things like that. I didn’t have a lot of budget to be able to invest in trainings, and yet, I think that I really could’ve cut my time down quite a bit if I had just really found the money to invest. One or two years later, I really got the message very loud and clear from a number of people, like you really do – it’s important to invest in the right training, and you want to do that certainly with the right mentors as well. I think we all will go through a process of finding our right mentor. Sometimes, we find the right-for-now mentor, and that’s all good.

It’s all serving the journey. It’s all serving where you’re going. Definitely put some consideration and attention into the person that you want to train with. And really look at, “Do they have the kind of business that you really want?” “Do they have the kind of life that you want?” I think is actually a more important question. Are they actually modeling where you want to go?

There’s plenty of people out there who have lots of models that they’re teaching, and there’s lots of information – I think this is part of where people can get tripped up, is we’re given so many programs to buy and things to choose from, and sometimes it’s really hard to figure that out. And I think that is one of the most important things to work out, is really get clear, “Where do you want to go? Where do you see yourself going? Is that person doing that?”

Because there’s a lot of awesome people out there who are teaching really good stuff but it might not be the right stuff for you.

[45:33] Lorna: There’s so many different ways to skin the internet marketing cat. So absolutely agree with you on picking the person who inspires you the most to work with and align with. That’s really key. Otherwise, it’s so easy to end up going from course to course, program to program, then you’re not really doing anything but you’re getting confused because people teach it different ways.

What works for one person could be video marketing, but then somebody else is all about Facebook. Then, you find yourself trying to do video marketing and then Facebook, then you’re just going to go crazy and stretch yourself too thin.

[46:10] Alia: Exactly.

[46:11] Lorna: I would say find the person that seems to know a complete end to end system that works for them, who is a person you would like to become one day, and then go from there for sure. So what do you think, Alia, is the best and most effective way to change the world?

[46:30] Alia: Well, I think one of the most effective ways is changing yourself. I think one of the most important places to look is at your own development, your own evolution, and really diving into unraveling and unpacking the places where you get the most locked up. When you allow yourself to become more liberated, to become more free, to become more you, it really does have a powerful ripple effect because you’re bringing that into everything you create, you’re modeling that for the people that see you, or are surrounding you, and that ripples out.

Secondly, I would say, I think this has really been at the foundation for me, at the root of Femvolution. For me, why I feel so passionate about this is I do believe that the more that the women are set free, the more that we can really live in a balanced society, the more that we can actually find peace, the more that we can actually experience partnership and collaboration, and really begin to experience that as a planet.

When more women step into power and leadership, more balanced decisions will be made, and more considerations that consider humanity. So that’s why I’ve been so passionate about just helping women step up and step out.

[47:54] Lorna: Thank you so much for sharing that. That was really inspiring. How can we best stay in touch with you, Alia?

[48:00] Alia: Well, thanks so much, Lorna. The best way to stay in touch with me, I have a website which is Femvolution.com. I’m actually really excited about the new development with this because in addition to featuring my own writing and programs and things, I’m now beginning to invite other women to contribute to that platform, and become really passionate about just really sharing the amazing women that I find in my field. Just really excited for where that’s going.

Then, if you like to find out more of my music and hear that and play with me that way, the best way to do that is at my website for my music which is AliaSounds.com.

[48:47] Lorna: I’ve been really enjoying your playlist on SoundCloud.

[48:51] Alia: Great.

[48:52] Lorna: Really great to work to.

[48:55] Alia: Yay. So glad to hear that.

[48:59] Lorna: All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Have a beautiful day.

[49:01] Alia: Thank you, Lorna. So appreciate it. Goodbye, everybody. Thank you.

[END OF RECORDING]

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The post [E4C29] Design A Business & Lifestyle That Embraces Your Feminine Brilliance; Femvolution – Alia Hall appeared first on Ignite a Movement | Entrepreneurs for a Change with Lorna Li.