Every time the WESOS sisters get together, something wonderful happens. So many strong, independent women that don't see the other women in the room as a threat or competition - but as Entrepreneurial Sisters - there to support and encourage each other in a positive way. We learn together and grow together. As many of our regular members and our leadership team know, the common comment we get from first time attendees is "The energy in this room is amazing" or electric or so positive. I can honestly say in the 5 years that I have been with WESOS I have never gotten a negative comment from a new WESOS sister. 
This makes us feel good for many reasons, but mostly because that's what our intention is all about - supporting one and other, becoming advocates for each other - not just a "leads generator". Our members are there to not only learn and build their businesses, but to help someone else think of the next great idea or marketing strategy for their business.
When Cassie Nevitt and I began leading WESOS, in 2011, we discussed many times that we have to move away from women bashing other women or the ever present "cliques" that haunted so many of us in our youth.
We strive to be a group of women that truly seek first to understand, and then to be understood.

This week we had our very own Social Media Manager for WESOS  - Mary Wu Virtual Assistant - talk to us about Facebook - how to use it for business and personal information. She talked  about algorithms (which is a foreign language to me!) and what makes Facebook unhappy and how to avoid that.

Mary had this presentation recorded and we hope to put the link here soon. For now this is the link to our You Tube channel so you can check out some of our other great, free WESOS presentations.
Thank you to all of our contributing members - you bring great value to our members and you are greatly appreciated!

​A huge shout out to Karen Carlson for an amazing presentation at our last WESOS meeting.  She shared with us that each one of us is one of a kind, rare, special and unique.   We began with an exercise where there were multi colored sheets of paper in different shapes and sizes on the tables.  We were to write down a unique quality we had.  She then asked us to think about what happens in our brain when we look to identify something positive about ourselves.   

1. Was it quick and easy?
2. Or was it maybe hard to pick something

Karen reminded us that no two snowflakes are alike and no two women are alike.  We were created to be unique and that it is important to stop comparing ourselves to others.  She shared a story of a women who was successfully trained in her profession and never felt like she fit in.  This woman was always comparing herself to others.  One day, she finally learned that she needed to embrace her uniqueness as something to treasure and to STOP comparing herself to others. This in fact, was Karen's story.    

She didn't want to be a massage therapist who went by the book like a robot.  2 min left leg, 4 min left foot, 2 min right leg, 4 min right foot, 5 min lower back, 5 min upper back and so on. That didn't feel authentic to her.    Her focus is therapeutic relaxation and that is what she wants to provide for her customers.   

Karen challenged us to create a Product Label for ourselves.   People don't just buy products that we sell, people buy because they like us.  We are our own product.   We are a walking billboard of who we are and what we provide to our clients, prospects as well as family and friends.   What does your product look like? Do you know the secret ingredients that make YOU special?




Karen left us with the following quote by Roy Lessin JUST THINK

​"Just think,you are not here by chance but by God's choosing. His hand formed you and made you the person you are. He compares you to no one else. You are one of a kind. You lack nothing that His grace can't give you. He has allowed you to be here, at this time In history to fulfill His special purpose for this generation."

If you didn't get a chance to see the presentation, Wanda was kind enough to video tape it.  You should be able to check out the video on our You Tube page. 

Yesterday's meeting was great success despite some hiccups with the restaurant we use for our "big" (40 women) meetings. I can't imagine the challenges the restaurant has trying to serve 40 people all at once, but add to that the fact that they had just one waitress taking care of our room, plus our overflow room of 16 women - whew - I am sure our waitress was feeling very overwhelmed. Hopefully they will work out the glitches and we will be back to "normal" soon!
Lindsay Driscoll with Waddell & Reed was our speaker today and she gave us great tips for organizing our finances for success. She did a wonderful job(in spite of interruptions from the wait staff!) and I believe the members in the room left with some real nuggets of financial wisdom from Lindsey.
It always amazes me the information that we can gather from our members. As supposedly "amateur" speakers, each member that does a presentation is an "expert" at something that always brings value to the WESOS community. I look forward to learning, not only from the presenters, but the ladies I sit with during the meeting, and of course from our one on ones!
I am sure many has posted pictures to our Facebook page, check that out here. If you are not a member of our face to face meetups, we encourage you to attend so you can become a part of our closed Facebook group and see all the "behind the scenes" activity of this lively group!
Also, we encourage everyone to "like" our Facebook page - click here
If you would like a copy of the information that Lindsey shared today click here

Thanks to Laura Schmidt for taking pics in the "overflow" room!
And thanks to Heidi Thorne for facilitating our "overflow" room!

Today we had our Mastermind meetup in Darien, IL. Although it was a little disappointing and frustrating that 9 of the 20 members that committed to coming to the Mastermind did not show up - the 11 women that did show up made for a very revealing and interesting afternoon for all that attended. We began the meeting as we always do with our intention - it is always so powerful and centering. After that, we broke off into groups of 2 and did a "Trading Places" exercise.
What we mean by "Trading Places" is just that - for instance Heidi Thorne and Peggy Kinst were partners, and after some sharing and interviewing, Peggy did an introduction for Heidi and her business and Heidi did an introduction for Peggy and her business.
This exercise revealed a lot to all who attended, that we need to be as loving and positive with ourselves s as we are with our fellow WESOS sisters. We tend to shy away from promoting ourselves or at least hold back when promoting ourselves, but never seems to have that problem when promoting our sisters.
Each Mastermind participant did a bang up job for their counter part, and many of us left with some good ideas on how to "step up" our introduction game - and make sure our message is coming through loud and clear!
As women, we need to embrace our uniqueness and let go of the fear of looking foolish in front of others - as a good friend is always telling me - "Let your freak flag fly!". Great advice, but it also makes us get our of our comfort zone and leave ourselves vulnerable to criticism. Sometimes that can be too much to bear - boy am I happy for the confidence building sisters I have at WESOS!
This is an example of the type of intros you might of seen today from our group - thank you Alison Henderson (AKA Mary Wu)for letting us use your intro as an example.
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