“How do you deal with your emotions? Do you have an option? Yes. We do not control how others act, how our partners act. We can only control how we respond to situations, control our behavior,” Brigette Iarrusso, a mentor in coaching at UC Berkeley, explained at the beginning of her speech. She participated in the second week of the New Ventures Lab of Chicas Poderosas. For four days, she facilitated and trained the teams to flow through the process of change and remain curious as they worked towards their vision of success. Brigette likes to take every opportunity to connect and accelerate people to better align with their purpose and extract all of their value, as she describes it.
Photo: Sofia Perpetua
At Chicas Poderosas we seek to create and create with dedication, taking risks and looking for opportunities. This is a vision we share with Bridgette. For her, entrepreneurship is a powerful vehicle for social change.
“Everything that I am is part of this belief: that we are all human with full possibilities and capabilities. How we think of ourselves is a part of how we are in the world. We have many people thinking about how we are. The media forms an opinion,” said Iarusso during her presentation.
Here, we share the best takeaways from the mentoring and support process at #NVLChicas:
Exercising the muscle of our mind: Our mind is designed to keep us blocked. As modern humans we are programmed to see limitations and problems. But remember that if you do not have the opaque side, you do not have a transparent side. You have to work at it every day using strategies that can help you. There are few things we can control. Among the few are our energy and mentality. They are the only things we have.
It is not a problem to realize our full potential: When do I allow myself to realize how incredible it can be? Many times they ask us to try not to be so intelligent, to lower the level a little. But who allows us to be more and find the fullness of what we are? Draw a picture in your mind of where you want to go, knowing what your successes are, what you have overcome, what you know.
As leaders, you must allow yourself to be authentic and real: Humor is contagious, energy can be contagious in a positive way. In everything, it is extremely important to develop leadership tools that allow us to connect more physically with the sensations that affect us without judging and controlling those emotions. It’s about being a leader without losing the notion that you can be authentic and honest. As leaders, we have a strong role and we can infect others or use it for the good. It is something that we have to choose and be aware of every day. Every day, we have to reorient ourselves in a positive direction. What is my option today?
Photos: Sofia Perpetua
Be grateful for the difficult things: It is important to be grateful for change and for the things that happen to you. Language is less important than the way you talk about it. How from today can I speak in an affirmative way using, for example, explanations such as due to, thanks to, and having empathy with ourselves? We grow from love and empathy, not from criticism.
Work on self care: We must create an environment of emotional security. We need to feel like we are part of something because we did not come from a culture of independence, but from communities and societies. We all need to feel esteemed. When you work with a team it is good to ask yourself, how can I support my people so that everyone has a self-care space? Thus, it is possible to achieve the motivation to produce.
Sometimes, what we want to do is offer our help but is not what that person needs: If someone shares an emotional subject, sometimes, we desire to reduce the pain and we offer help based on that. That reaction can make the other feel as if we are diminishing their experience. Before offering a solution, observe and write down what is happening and then suggest a way to provide support. If the person does not know what she wants, it is also valid to just offer what you can, without taking on the challenge of changing the situation.
Speaking of you in the world: We have to go out and talk to people about what we do, with confidence. Be a generous connector. If you are nervous, stick to your purpose. How do you offer the value proposition of your project with the intention to help?
There are two reasons why startups fail: One reason is having a faulty connection between the problem and the solution offered because there is a failure to completely understand the client’s perspective on what the real problem is. The other reason is a lack of empowering leadership that results in a failure to manage people when the team is in chaos. The goal is to achieve a balance between being a empowered leader and being strategic. The more we can offer, the more confident we will have with the offer.
