317 Belinda Clemmensen

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast where you learn how to extract your business and personal Deep Wealth. 

I'm your host Jeffrey Feldberg. 

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Belinda Cleminson is the author of Women, Leadership, and Saving the World, Why Everything Gets Better When Women Lead. As founder of the Women's Leadership Intensive and co founder of Leader Coach Intensive, she has dedicated over 25 years to developing women leaders.

Belinda champions the belief that women are key to global change, bringing unique skills and perspectives. Her work focuses on inspiring, empowering, [00:02:00] and equipping women to lead with authenticity and purpose. She emphasizes the importance of women embracing their identities in traditional leadership roles and using their strengths to enhance organizations and communities.

Welcome to Deep Wealth Podcast. Well, you heard the official introduction and for all you guys out there, are you missing it in terms of having some of the most talented, incredible individuals on your team because you don't know how to welcome them or have an environment. And for you ladies out there, perhaps you're not knowing all the right strategies to take yourself to the next level.

So that's exactly what we're going to be doing today with Belinda. And I'm going to put a pause on it right there. Belinda, welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast. An absolute pleasure to have you with us. And I'm curious before we kick things off, there's always a story behind the story. So Belinda, what's your story?

What got you from where you were to where you are today?

Belinda Clemmensen: Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here. In terms of my story, I started doing leadership development work very early on in my career. I've always loved it. And so I [00:03:00] started working with a lot of organizations, helping them and helping their leaders get better at what they do.

Did that for about 20 years, loved it, felt very fulfilled. And then at a certain point, I started to feel that the work that I was doing was not having the kind of impact that I wanted to have. I almost felt like I was contributing to a model that I wasn't sure that I really believed in myself that I was supporting organizations to create cultures that, again, I didn't feel served all people equally. So I had to ask myself some hard questions in terms of, if that wasn't the work that felt right. Valuable and values aligned to me anymore than what would be. And I didn't want to completely abandon leadership development because it was a passion of mine and I built a huge body of work. And so I thought if supporting leaders in those organizations was not it, then what was?

And I kind of went back to my feminist roots. Somewhere around age 45, I was really thinking [00:04:00] about I'm going into this last third of my career. Once I hit 50, what do I want it to be about? And what kind of impact do I want to have? And when I went back to my feminist roots, and I started looking at, how are we doing in terms of women in leadership and the progress of advancing women, I realized that a lot of the same issues that I felt and noticed back in my youth as a girl and young woman, we're still present for women today, and we've made progress.

We've made amazing progress, but there's still a lot of work left to be done to get us towards actual equity and inclusion. And so I really shifted my practice at that point, almost starting over fresh and saying, okay, let's turn our attention to really. Supporting women in leadership, women in the workplace, and helping organizations create cultures that are truly inclusive for all people.

And interestingly, the research shows over and over again, the business case and the [00:05:00] outcomes of inclusive cultures are not just better for women and for other groups that have been historically underrepresented. But actually for everyone, and there's tons of examples of that.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow. A lot to unpack there, but let me ask you this. There's a lot of noise around this. And I'm not so sure if social media has helped or hurt the cause. When you say gender and inclusion and gender equality, it brings up all kinds of mixed emotions. So from your perspective, I would love to take that noise out of there.

And if we go back to when we had the women's movement and things finally started to move forward and you actually take it forward to today, what's working and what hasn't worked from where you stand?

Belinda Clemmensen: Yeah, so that's such a good question. I mean, I think if we think back to early waves of the women's movement and early wave feminism, it was really driven a lot by white women with a fair amount of privilege. And so even when we think about the 1950s housewife model, that, men go out to work and women stay home that actually, that model [00:06:00] was only true for a subset of the population at any time, right?

Those who had the economic stability to be able to have somebody at home, for example. So that early wave feminism didn't include all women. And certainly I'm sure, you and all your listeners out there. Have been really hearing a lot these days about how we're really understanding gender in new ways.

So it used to be extremely simple, right? You're a man, you're a woman, that's gender. It's extremely binary. We don't talk about any other sort of dimensions. Now we're talking about gender spectrum and we're talking about how there's a difference between biological sex, which is, you're born female or you're born male.

And gender, which is primarily social construct, right? It's all the things that we then attach to that biological sex. So if you're born a girl, we attach all kinds of meaning to that and traditions and even clothing and toys. And then we have a [00:07:00] different set of things that we attach to maleness.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so as you talk about that, I want to bring it into the world of business culture. I've spoken to many smart, successful, driven women and the stories that they share with me when they're comfortable enough to share with me of how they were treated in the workplace. It is abhorring at some of the most respected institutions as well.

In some industries, I would suspect are worse than others. Where guys would come in and just say comments or make references or the way that they were treated really made it that much more challenging for women. And so when it comes to a culture, so if I'm a business owner and I happen to be a male business owner, culture wise, what do you want to tell me?

What do you want me to know that I can ensure our culture is doing and supporting to ensure that all people feel welcome and we're going to get the best out of them and that we're doing the things right, not good intentions gone bad.

Belinda Clemmensen: I love this question. So, [00:08:00] you know, I think we throw our way around these terms like DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion, and expect that all business owners or all leaders and managers are going to know what to do with those things. And it's really not the case. So when we're talking about diversity, we're just talking about the representation of different groups of people.

So that could be gender, age, neurodiversity, race, you name it. That's just right? So diversity just exists and more and more we're seeing that we have more representational diversity in our workplaces, which is great. Equity is the next piece of the puzzle, which is once we understand that we have diversity, meaning different groups of people with different needs and different perspectives and experiences, then it begs the question, how do we set up our systems in our business So that we provide equal opportunities for everyone who's there, which means that it doesn't matter sort of what your identity is.

Let's take male, female as an example. It doesn't matter if you're male or female, [00:09:00] you still have equal opportunities and that gender is not going to impact any outcomes for you, whether you get promoted, whether you get heard, whether you get harassed. So once we set up our systems in such a way that everyone has equal opportunity to those same outcomes, then we've got some equity. Definitely not easy to do.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely not. And by the way, for our listeners in the show notes, there'll be a link to Belinda's book, Women, Leadership, and Saving the World, Why Everything Gets Better When Women Lead. Love that bold statement. And isn't that the truth? And in the start of the book, you say a very bold statement, speaking of bold.

And for all you listeners out there, whether you're male, female, listen to this, because Belinda, you're saying. You're living in a world that wasn't built by or for you. So big statement, what's going on with that? Share with us what you were thinking when you put that in the book.

Belinda Clemmensen: Yeah, we've got what's happening current day in the world, but it's also, we've got this long legacy of history. So the [00:10:00] reality is that, North America has a history that is colonial and patriarchal, which means that those things were baked into our systems and institutions. Now we've changed some of those, but some of them persist, right? So the way that we set up workplaces, the way that we set up governments, the way that we set up social systems still have remnants. of that history in them. If you think about, there are still gender roles today where we expect different things from men and different things from women, right?

That's historical. We're carrying that with us from our grandparents and our parents into today. And it's hard to unlearn those things.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And as you talk about that, we're going to go down a different rabbit hole, but it really is all tied together because I know in the book, chapter six, actually, equality begins at home. And if you're a parent out there and you have young children, particularly if they're boys, I'm There's a lot that you can do right now as you raise the next generation of leaders.

So for all those [00:11:00] parents out there. What do you want them to know? What should they be doing? What should they not be doing?

Belinda Clemmensen: Yes, so I think there was a time where we could say, you know, what happens at work is work, what happens at home is home, and never the two shall meet, you know, it was very separate. I don't think that's the case anymore, and I don't think it's the case for any gender today. I think there are lots of men who have a lot of household caregiving, domestic responsibilities that they did not have in generations past, which again, I think is all to the good.

However, it does have an impact on how we show up at work and vice versa. And so when we think about equality at home, we know that globally women still carry the burden of domestic and caregiving work definitely of emotional and social labor as well. And so a quality at home means that if you have a household where all adults are in the workforce, then how can you create your systems at home so that they are truly equal?

And so that both of those [00:12:00] working adults have equal opportunities when they go out in the workplace. So I always give people this advice. I say, start by making the invisible visible. We all do a million things every day in our households. That nobody else knows Baidu, and that aren't really seen. And so I say, like, make a master list of all of the household tasks, including the emotional labor.

So that's where, somebody's birthday is coming up, and you remember that, and you reach out to them, or somebody needs comfort in your community, or in your household, or in your family. So make a list of all of those things so that they become visible and people know about them. only then can you divide those things up equally and say, okay, who's doing what?

And you can either do this at certain points, like we usually do it at the holiday season, because that's a huge amount of additional labor that happens in most people's houses. So at the holiday season, you make the master list and you [00:13:00] divide it up equally. But you can also do it just in general for your household.

And as you're doing the division of labor, thinking about, am I being gendered in the way I'm approaching this so that, am I teaching my daughters to cook and my sons to change the oil in the car? Can I flip some of that around and say, like, let's teach everybody to change the oil in the car and let's teach everybody to cook?

How can we start to unlearn some of those learned assumptions and gender roles from our past?

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Melinda, as you talk about that, I've had guests on the podcast and offline, I've had conversation with leaders in their own communities, both men, both women, and the narrative that I hear, and you can tell me if you agree or disagree, and there's no right or wrong, this is all where we stand personally, there's some women leaders that said, Hey, listen, women's rights have been terrific.

That said, in some areas, it's gone too far, because now women are being raised to act like men, and men are being raised to act like women, and [00:14:00] there's a ying and a yang, there's just some natural energies with a dynamic in a relationship with a man and a woman, what a woman does, what a man does, what a man does, what a woman does.

That we've really changed or altered. And as a result of that, the quality of relationship or the quality of life has gone down. So what would you say to that? Do you agree with that? Do you not agree with that? What's going on?

Belinda Clemmensen: Yeah, I think, ideal state, I would say, is that everyone's allowed to be their full human self, you know, and so, yes, there are some women who would prefer to do traditionally feminized types of roles in their lives, and I say power to them, right? That the goal here is that people get to be the full expression of who they are.

And same for men. personally, like in my life, my spouse, who's male did a lot of childcare work when our son was young and he got a lot of criticism, right? He was not included in a lot of spaces that were for moms, not dads. And so my goal here, I think, is to [00:15:00] create or to have conversations that help create an inclusive space where everybody gets to be who they are, not just because they're male or female or any other sort of identity, but there's not limits on that.

So it's not my job to tell somebody you should be one way or the other. Nor is it anyone else's job to do that.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So what I'm hearing from you, you can tell me, Jeffrey, you're on base or off base. It sounds like what you're advocating for is. Within a community, that community could be a business community. It could be between a couple. They're having this conversation. Hey, what really resonates with you? This is what really resonates with me.

And at least we have that conversation. And then we can figure out what that looks like, regardless of whether it breaks the stereotypes or it doesn't, it works for us, that's what really counts, that's what matters. And we can then take that paid forward and share what we're doing perhaps with others.

And so let me ask you this, because at Deep Wealth, when we're meeting with a business, particularly the founder or the business owner, [00:16:00] and we have this thing and we say, show us your team and we'll tell you your future. the quality of the team has everything to do with the dollars and cents. So let's talk dollars and cents now, because it ties directly into this issue in a way that maybe most people either haven't thought of or didn't realize.

And the fact of the matter is, if we have a culture that's excluding really any one of the genders or a gender type or a certain kind of person or certain kind of circumstance, What if that missing team member was someone who could have created a market disruption, taken our business to the next level, and in fact, look no further than the pandemic.

Thankfully, it's in the rear view mirror, but it showed us people left, employees left, terrible commutes. Terrible bosses to find a different working arrangement. And so again, it goes back to workplace culture and being accommodating. So for perhaps male dominated industries or businesses that are looking to welcome more women.

Into the [00:17:00] senior leadership team, into the company, what would you say to them?

Belinda Clemmensen: Yeah, I would say, I mean, we do a lot of work in male dominated industries, actually, which is great because they are looking to try to increase their numbers right, of, women and get closer to parity. And the reason they're doing that, again, is it comes back to this business case that shows that diverse leadership teams outperform homogeneous leadership teams anywhere between 25 to 36%.

Outperformance in terms of financial performance alone, right? So even if your profitability and bottom line are your priorities, diversity is still gonna help you get there. And so the thing about creating inclusive cultures is that when we start to understand the benefits of diversity, right? We've got diverse perspectives leads to better innovation, as you said, more potential to understand a broader range of customers and other stakeholders.

So we get all those diverse perspectives around the table and it helps us make better decisions, essentially.

Jeffrey Feldberg: For other sources, you pick up on that [00:18:00] 25 percent to 36 percent increase. I mean, that is huge. That's a game changer. And if you do that year over year, that's just staggering. And let's flip it now to businesses or industries that are more traditionally welcoming to women, not men who are looking to also.

Open up the culture, bring in men, perhaps bring in a different type of energy, a different way of thinking, different skill sets. What would you say to them?

Belinda Clemmensen: Yeah, I would say, I mean, when we talk about diversity, we need to talk about it going in both directions, right? Interesting. Low. Interestingly, because of the history that we have, industries that are traditionally female dominated tend to be lower paying and lower status. So you think about things like early childhood education, nursing, retail, hospitality, domestic labor.

Those are all historically feminized professions, and they tend to be low paying and low status. And it's precisely because they're feminized. Because when women went into the workforce in the early days, [00:19:00] their salaries were considered to be secondary or supplementary to the household income. They were not breadwinners and they're not primary earners.

And so those industries where they went into originally. We're seeing as industries where we didn't need to pay women a lot of money because it was just extra money. It was really the men's industries where we needed to concentrate the pay so that households had enough to live on and raise children. now that we've sort of shifted that up and that's not the case anymore, a lot of women are breadwinners. Then we're seeing men migrating into those industries like nursing, for example. And as a result, when men move into those industries, the salaries go up.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so as we're going down this path, it sounds like it's really a different mindset, a different way of looking at things. One of my favorite terms is that resilience trumps resources. So in other words, if we're creative, that creativity, regardless of all the money that you can have, oftentimes will lead to a better outcome.

And it [00:20:00] sounds like when it comes to this. We really need that resilience to think out of the box, to think differently. Well, let me ask you this. You're right. You said something earlier, the diversity, equity, and inclusion, DE& I, that movement has gotten a lot of steam. But in many ways, when I speak to people out there, it also has a lot of pop marks against it, that it hasn't really worked.

It's failed. It's done more damage than good. So from your perspective, Belinda, what's going on with that? What are some lessons learned of what hasn't worked that we can bring into the home and into the workplace?

Belinda Clemmensen: Well, I think, recent report just came out by McKinsey and Lean that shows that actually 96 percent of organizations are still investing either at the same amount or at a greater amount in DEI. So I think we've definitely got some media noise about this, but most organizations are still on the path, which is great.

I think where we've run into some issues is that we've created an adversarial kind of environment around this to say, for example, we're going to blame white men for everything, right? And I think there's a lot of white men who [00:21:00] come to our sessions who feel that way. They're hesitant to speak up.

They're hesitant to participate in the conversation because they've been burned. And I always say, that our job really is to call people in, not call people out, and we are all doing the best that we can with what we know. And if we were raised in a society that has this colonial or patriarchal history, then, of course, that lives in each one of us.

Women too, right? This is not just something that men have carried forward. Women have carried it forward too. And so I think it's for all of us to have a lot more grace and compassion for one another and say, we're all trying to learn something new here and we're trying to learn it together. And that honestly is the only way that we can do this.

Jeffrey Feldberg: In terms of doing this, so Belinda, I know you have different kinds of tools and strategies, whether it be coaching or programs. So if I'm a listener and I'm saying, okay, you know what, Belinda, this makes a lot of sense. I want to do this in my [00:22:00] organization, but I don't want to spend the time spinning my wheels.

Some things work, some things don't. I really want to get it right the first time. And now I'm coming to you, okay, Belinda wants you embed yourself into the organization or train us of what we should be doing. What does that look like? What's your process? How long does that take? And what are we doing?

Belinda Clemmensen: Yeah, so I think, in the early days of this work, we'll send all the women to a program, we'll train them up and then that will fix the problem. And then we realized that actually that's helpful. It's not that it isn't, but we also then need to also do work on the culture.

At the same time. And so that's kind of the approach that we take. We've got some really powerful transformative leadership programs for women to help prepare them to level up and take on that next level of responsibility, whether it's promotion or expanding their sphere of influence where they are. those are very powerful programs. On the other side, though, we're also working with the sponsoring organization to do a bit of an assessment of their own culture. How [00:23:00] inclusive is it? And then to help them build a more inclusive culture, whether that's through things like training, but also things like, hey, equity reviews are something that we recommend, or, really tying this stuff to strategy and to measurement, because those are Good business practices, why would we not apply those to an innovation challenge like this one, right?

An innovation challenge like inclusion.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific. What gets measured is what gets done. And here you're talking about some KPIs that we can look at. So what would be some of those KPIs that coming out of this episode? I can go back to my office, look these things up and see where we rank. What would be perhaps one or two KPIs that really could move the dial either in, Hey, we're not doing enough.

We better pick things up here. Oh yeah, we're in the right spot. Let's keep on doing what we're doing.

Belinda Clemmensen: So depending on the size of your organization, you can do a leadership assessment, and that's sort of looking at the various levels within your organization. What do you have there in terms of diversity? So you can now it's [00:24:00] sensitive to collect certain demographic information.

I get that. So it's not like you can do a questionnaire and ask all these questions necessarily, but you can do a bit more of an informal review and say, how are we doing? And identify, you know, is there a particular rung on that leadership ladder that's broken for a particular group of people for women say, is it that we don't have any women in the executive level?

Is it that we don't have any women in that first layer of management? Where are our biggest gaps in terms of equality and parity? just looking at that is a great snapshot of saying, like, let's get some data here, even if it's informal data, and start to assess how we're doing.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so we're going through that and love what you're suggesting out there. As you're unpacking that, it brings up really, I don't know if I would call it an observation, a complaint somewhere in between, and it's a little bit of a slippery slope. I'll throw it out there. Let's see where it goes. There's some people who perhaps haven't had the best experience and now they're taking a shot at this whole movement and what to be [00:25:00] doing.

And they say, look, Jeffrey if I follow what I'm being told, I'm being told that I need to hire in this case, let's say a woman for this position. Even though I may have a more qualified, I may have a better suited individual who's not a woman. And so what would you say to that, Polina? Because I hear that a lot and often it becomes the underpinning of, well, that's a good reason why we're not going to do this because we just can't win.

Belinda Clemmensen: Yeah, I hear that argument a lot too, the argument that there aren't enough qualified people or that it's not meritocratic to do so. and the reality is, you know, if we look at, Let's say, let's look at politics in Canada just really quickly as an example. Right now, out of all of our first ministers, which include premiers of all our provinces and the prime minister of the country, we've got one woman, right?

And we've got two people that are not white men, two men that are not white. And so we look at that and say, like, based on the, the demographics of Canada, let's take the gender one because it's so easy. It's 50 50, right? Women are just over 50 percent of the [00:26:00] population, but in political representation, we've got one at those upper levels. does that mean that if we are basing that on who is the best candidate for the job, that we truly believe then that it is people who are male and white who are better at the job because they have those positions. So it starts to then bring into question, is that meritocracy or is that legacy? Is it history?

Is it old, outdated attitudes? I think whenever we get into these questions of qualification or meritocracy, we have to start to figure out what are the assumptions underlying that and are they true? sometimes we might find that they are, or we might find that they're not. But these things, like, think it's this idea of challenging with critical thinking how things are.

Using some of that data, right, we have this picture of, like, one woman First Minister, and saying, why is it like that? What needs to change there if we were trying to get to [00:27:00] representation? 

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so really it sounds like it's going back to mindset, whether it's on the home front, whether it's in the business, it's taking a step back, Hey, let's be open. Why don't we challenge the status quo? As you're saying, what if our beliefs weren't the right beliefs or they became outdated or the world around us has changed, but we haven't, and we're acting as though things have stayed the same.

And as we both know, the only thing constant in business, in life is change itself, it's always moving, it's always adapting. And so where are we on that spectrum? And so, Belinda, how can we measure that? Because sometimes we just drink our own Kool Aid and we don't see it the way that it is, because everything's great the way that we've been doing it.

It'll be like this for the next hundred years. And life is grand when it really isn't, or we're like the emperor with no clothes. The people around us in the workplace are afraid to pull us aside. Hey, Jeffrey, yeah, our culture is way outdated or those beliefs. Just don't work anymore. It's having me feel uncomfortable, but they don't have that [00:28:00] safety net or that comfort to come out and say that.

So how do we deal with that?

Belinda Clemmensen: First of all, I think that's really well summarized, what you've just said there, in terms of sort of what needs to happen with those challenges to the status quo, and I think it starts with, the art of reflection. Can we challenge our own thinking? Can we start to ask ourselves some of those harder questions?

Or maybe we need to surround ourselves with people who think differently from us. And hear their perspectives and some of the questions or different ways of understanding things that they have. Sometimes we get a little too stuck in our own bubble, right? Of, as you said, of sort of like people who think like us, people who agree with us, and it's comfortable and it's easy to a certain extent.

But I don't think it pushes us to grow in the way that we can grow if we've got people around us who challenge us a little bit more. And again, this is another plug for having diversity on your leadership team. If you've got leadership in your organization and everyone just nods their heads and agrees with each [00:29:00] other, you're potentially heading for a crash because you're going to miss something.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So coming out of this Belinda, what I'm hearing, it's really a few things. Number one, if a business doesn't have this already, bring someone in at a senior leadership level, who's different, whatever that different may look like, but who's different than what's traditionally been in the company, but that's not really enough because you're right.

If they're all yes, people are afraid to speak up. We're really wasting our time, effort and money on that one. So it's not enough to have different people, different diversity. It's now an opportunity. Okay. What's really going on, Jeffrey, tell us your perspective. You're new here. You come from a different background, a different world.

What are you seeing? What's working? What's not working? And as hard as it may be. That we listen without getting emotional, without challenging, without pushing back of what's really going on. How am I doing with that on base, off base?

Belinda Clemmensen: Yeah, I think it's the art of courageous conversations that we're looking for, right? And to know that, yeah, I will get [00:30:00] defensive, right? When somebody challenges my perspective, I will get defensive and that's part of the process. It's okay. It's part of the, what Brene Brown calls like rumbling, that, that piece.

And the other thing I would say is when you talk about bringing someone in who challenges perspectives or sees things differently, bring at least two, because if you are the one, that is a really hard position to be in. If you are the one person who's always like, Hey, I think we need to look at this differently.

It's so easy to get exhausted and burnt out from playing that role all the time. If you can bring in at least two people who are going to challenge and sort of push that assumptions a little bit, challenge the status quo, it's great. I mean, it's exciting, I think. It's not easy, but It's meaningful.

Jeffrey Feldberg: What I like about that, there's strength in numbers. So it's not just the one person who may be, oh, geez, I don't know, is that right? Was that not right? Oh, look, so and so is feeling the same way. Okay. I'm not off base on this. It's [00:31:00] really the same thing going on over here. So there's some confidence there and there's a little bit of a safety net that's going on with that.

And Belinda, as you're talking about that, I'm thinking of my two daughters who at the dinner table constantly. Remind me, Hey Daddy, , no, you can't say that anymore. It doesn't work like that. Here's how it really is, and I'm always being reminded and they're comfortable to say that because they have each other there and they're just pairing or teaming up with each other.

So it really is a winning combination as you put that out there and would agree with that. So as a business. If I haven't done this before, where do I begin to look in terms of bringing different backgrounds, different people, different perspectives in? What does that look like? Because again, old habits often die hard and it's tough to get out of that.

So what would be some strategies that I can think about on that one?

Belinda Clemmensen: Well, I think, you know, once you've sort of done an audit to say, like, do we actually have those differences in our organization, then you can say, okay, what's missing? And that's where you might want to get some help with somebody else. We tend to continue to [00:32:00] hire people who are like us, right?

In the absence of process or in the absence of trying intentionally to do it differently. We tend to sort of bring in those people that we're comfortable with. And can we start to intentionally look for some people who are going to make us a little uncomfortable or are going to see things differently?

We see this with intergenerational diversity a lot in the workplace, right? We've got millennials and Gen Zs who are coming into the workplace, really challenging some of the values and beliefs of those of us who are a little older, I'm a Gen X, and I think I kind of, like, picked up on the boomer work ethic.

That's what I, sort of went into the workplace doing and evaluating and now I've got, Millennials and Gen Zs who are saying, I don't know if that's the way this place should run, or I don't know if that's the expectation that we should have. For workforce, or like you said, your daughters who they were raised with this vocabulary around diversity that [00:33:00] we were not.

And so can we listen to them and let them lead us in some of these ways, as an example?

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Belinda, as you're talking about this, what I often think about is, you People on the personal side, they will hire, let's say, a trainer who will meet them at the gym, put together these programs. They're doing that maybe every day, but maybe once a week or a few times a week. But the business is every day.

And oftentimes on the business side, we just don't do that. And we're fumbling our way through and we're really failing if we're honest about it. Now, maybe this is the program. Maybe it's not. I know you have a number of programs, but you have this one year long program. It's an intensive program. There's three different retreats.

And what jumped out for me when I was preparing for us to talk today, I love the words that you use for each of the phases. Purpose, Power, Presence. And three words really say so much. And so for our listeners, as you're thinking about this, and if you're feeling uncomfortable, terrific, that's great news.

Congratulations. You're starting to realize, hey, maybe something isn't quite [00:34:00] right, but you're not alone. You don't have to go through this on your own and kind of. Bumble your way through this and waste a lot of time, effort, and money. You can work with someone like Belinda and team and go through one of a variety of programs, perhaps it's with a group, perhaps it's one on one.

Belinda, what's going on with that? What would be some things that our listeners can think about to really Kickstart this whole effort to open things up at the business, which I suspect will also go back into the home front. And really on both sides, we're making a huge difference.

Belinda Clemmensen: it always impacts all sides. I think. a leader, as a business owner, as you said, we can get really caught up in just the day to day and it's hard to sometimes lift up our heads and be able to take the time to to think about this kind of work, right?

To think about what kind of a culture do we want how could we get there? And so I always recommend, I think every leader would benefit from having a coach. Just somebody in their corner who is going to support them, is going to ask them some of these [00:35:00] questions, get them out sort of higher level thinking above the day to day.

And that's why our programs use those terms, purpose, power, and presence, because when we think about our leadership, There is all the day to day stuff of leadership. I mean, I don't discount that. I live it, but there's a higher calling here for a leader or a business owner. Most of us do this work because we are trying to do something meaningful, something fulfilling, something purposeful.

And it's easy to lose focus on that when we're wrapped up in the day to day of getting everything done and looking after everything in the business or the organization. So can we intentionally carve out time? That is really for reflection, thinking unlearning and relearning getting some support to do that, whether that's a program like the one that we run, whether that's a business coach whether that's a mastermind.

Or whether that's training, I think there's lots of [00:36:00] avenues to open up some of that thinking and to really give ourselves time to do that work of leadership. Not just the nuts and bolts of leadership, if you will.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Belinda, perhaps one of the first steps a listener coming out of this episode can do, because we always want every episode to have a low hanging fruit and action doesn't take a lot of time or effort, but has really a high ROI. And perhaps that's getting your book and reading it, Women, Leadership, and Saving the World.

Again, it's in the show notes. It's a point and click. It doesn't get any easier to at least familiarize yourself. Okay. What's going on out there? What's some of the terminology and the language that's going on? What are some of the tools and strategies? And once I have that as a foundation, okay, now I'm going to reach out to Belinda and team and see what's right for me.

As you say, maybe it's coaching. Maybe it's a mastermind. Maybe it's a year long program. Maybe it's some of the above, all the above, something in between, but at least to begin. That conversation, because what I suspect, and I've heard this anecdotally, so data points of one or two or three, with technology, people anywhere [00:37:00] in the world can now do a lot of the functions and jobs and leadership roles that used to be the exclusive domain of having to be in a particular city, in a specific office.

That's no longer the case. So as employers, it's a very real thing where our team, our future team, and our ability to keep world class team members, attract world class talent and keep them as well, it all goes back to the culture. Are we a welcoming? Culture for everyone, are we only welcoming for certain types?

And now we're really our own worst enemy and we're losing out. So there's a lot at stake here, but love your thoughts on that.

Belinda Clemmensen: Yeah, I think that's so true. You know, A lot of our clients are working hard to recruit and attract this talent. But then they're having trouble retaining because of the culture piece. And so if we're doing, again, it's, we have to sort of be coming at this from all angles. If we're just doing one piece of it and saying, okay, well, let's get the representation in the door, but then we're not working on the culture, then we're going to lose people.

And we see this, for [00:38:00] example, with women in STEM. We're doing a much better job now of. Educating women in STEM type programs and even getting them first entry level jobs, engineering jobs, industries like mining or construction or different things, but then they don't stay.

So the numbers drop off radically after the first year postgraduate for those, women, because the culture piece isn't done, right? The culture piece isn't there. And so I think you're absolutely right that, we will start missing out on these sort of top talent. Pool if we're not working on business culture and that's true for, I mean, definitely true for big businesses and in industries like that, but it's true for small business too.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so much of what's happened in the retail space where there's now online reviews, so before I can buy a product or I go with a service, I can do a quick search, just a few keystrokes, and now I'm getting reviews from people, best thing ever, or stay away from this. It's happening like that in the workplace as well.

There's different sites, one site, Glassdoor. [00:39:00] And speaking of Glassdoor, I'll always remember when they did a survey and what they want to find out was why people either stayed in an organization or why they took up a new opportunity and left an existing organization. And the top of the list, it wasn't money because the first question, Oh yeah, people are leaving because they have better offers elsewhere.

Money was actually towards the bottom of the list. Top of the list, it was business culture. What's the leadership like? What's the organization doing? Because when you think about it in the workplace, oftentimes, whether it's virtual, whether it's in person, we're spending more times with our teammates. And we are with our family.

And so culture is absolutely everything. So let me ask you this before we go into wrap up mode. Is there a question that I didn't ask or a topic that we didn't cover? Or is there a message that you want to get out to the community?

Belinda Clemmensen: I don't think there's a question unasked, but I just wanted to sort of, what you're talking about with culture and with that survey, it's like culture is behavior at scale. And [00:40:00] culture is also, set by leaders in an organization, whether that's business owners or other leaders within the organization.

And I think that's why, for us, we're really focused on leadership as that driver of those healthy, positive, inclusive cultures. And I know that it's an additional responsibility because leaders have so many other responsibilities on their shoulders, but the ones that are working on it, I think are really experiencing the benefits both personally and in their companies.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Well said. And again, for our listeners, so many takeaways that are here and really opportunities, doors waiting to be opened that have been there, but perhaps up until today. Have remained invisible, but no longer. So now, and really it's a question of knowing isn't enough. It's taking action. So what are you going to do today?

So for a listener, before you go on to that next activity, when this episode is done or that meeting, that phone call, whatever it's going to be. What are you doing now that because knowledge is power, but only if you put some action behind that. Speaking of action, it's a [00:41:00] great segue, Belinda, into our wrap up question.

It's a tradition here on the podcast for every guest. I have the privilege, it's the honor, to ask this question. It's a fun one. Let me set this up for you. When you think of the movie Back to the Future, you have that magical DeLorean car that will take you to any point in time. So now imagine, Belinda, it's the fun part.

It's tomorrow morning. You look outside your window. Not only is the DeLorean car there, The door is open, it's waiting for you to hop on in what you do, and you now go back to any point in your life. Belinda, as a young child, a teenager, whatever point in time it would be, what are you telling your younger self in terms of life lessons or, hey, Belinda, do this, but don't do that.

What would that sound like?

Belinda Clemmensen: Oh, gosh, you really, like, you've caught my vintage here with the DeLorean car, because that's definitely part of my, youth. I think if I was going to go back, I would say. What you're thinking, the way that you see the world is valid, some people are going to try to tell you that it's not but you need to hold strong and really believe in yourself and believe in your own [00:42:00] perception of the world because that is you.

Not only important as a person, but it's also important to bring it to the table.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific advice is really believing in yourself and how you see the world, because how often does social programming try and take this away from us? And really, if we go along that way, maybe in the moment it feels good, but we look back, hey, something's missing. It doesn't sound right. It doesn't feel right.

Something is off here. So I love that advice. And Belinda, if someone has a question or they want to work with you, or they want to have a strategy call with you, what is the best place online that they can find you?

Belinda Clemmensen: Yeah, they can find me through our website, womensleadershipintensive. ca. Or just shoot me an email, Belinda at womensleadershipintensive. ca. I'm very open to conversations. these are the things I love to talk to business owners and organizations about. So

Jeffrey Feldberg: Well, it doesn't get any better. And for listeners, Belinda gave her email address. Take her up on that offer. Have that conversation. She's been there. She's done that. She can save you a lot of time and [00:43:00] effort and give you some insights. Well, Belinda, congratulations. This is a wrap. Thank you so much. And as we love to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and prosper while you remain healthy and safe.

Thank you so much.

Belinda Clemmensen: thank you so much, but thanks for a great conversation. 

Sharon S.: The Deep Wealth Experience was definitely a game-changer for me. 

Lyn M.: This course is one of the best investments you will ever make because you will get an ROI of a hundred times that. Anybody who doesn't go through it will lose millions. 

Kam H.: If you don't have time for this program, you'll never have time for a successful liquidity 

Sharon S.: It was the best value of any business course I've ever taken. The money was very well spent.

Lyn M.: Compared to when we first began, today I feel better prepared, but in some respects, may be less prepared, not because of the course, but because the course brought to light so many things that I thought we were on top of that we need to fix. 

Kam H.: I 100% believe there's never a great time for a business owner to allocate extra [00:44:00] hours into his or her week or day. So it's an investment that will yield results today. I thought I will reap the benefit of this program in three to five years down the road. But as soon as I stepped forward into the program, my mind changed immediately. 

Sharon S.: There was so much value in the experience that the time I invested paid back so much for the energy that was expended. 

Lyn M.: The Deep Wealth Experience compared to other programs is the top. What we learned is very practical. Sometimes you learn stuff that it's great to learn, but you never use it. The stuff we learned from Deep Wealth Experience, I believe it's going to benefit us a boatload.

Kam H.: I've done an executive MBA. I've worked for billion-dollar companies before. I've worked for smaller companies before I started my business. I've been running my business successfully now for getting close to a decade. We're on a growth trajectory. Reflecting back on the Deep Wealth, I knew less than 10% what I know now, maybe close to 1% even. 

Sharon S.: Hands down the best program in which I've [00:45:00] ever participated. And we've done a lot of different things over the years. We've been in other mastermind groups, gone to many seminars, workshops, conferences, retreats, read books. This was so different. I haven't had an experience that's anything close to this in all the years that we've been at this.

It's five-star, A-plus.

Kam H.: I would highly recommend it to any super busy business owner out there.

Deep Wealth is an accurate name for it. This program leads to deeper wealth and happier wealth, not just deeper wealth. I don't think there's a dollar value that could be associated with such an experience and knowledge that could be applied today and forever. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Are you leaving millions on the table? 

Please visit www.deepwealth.com/success to learn more.

 If you're not on my email list, you'll want to be. Sign up at [00:46:00] www.deepwealth.com/podcast. And if you enjoyed this episode, if it added value, if you walked away with some new insights and strategies, please leave a review on your favorite podcast channel. Reviews help us reach new listeners, grow the show. And continue to create content that you'll enjoy and as we wrap up this episode as always please stay healthy and safe.