Can we all just...drop our armor?
Image: Joan of Arc in armor
I had breakfast with a friend recently, and we talked about the pure magic of women’s events. There is something incredibly freeing and wondrous about women’s only gatherings. The conversations flow easily. There’s very little pretense or jockeying or political maneuvering. We compliment each other. We listen and share ideas that matter. We feel the collective shared experience. We walk out with an extra spring in our steps, our chins lifted high, the breeze and sun on our face and our hair flowing…just kidding. But you get the picture. Women’s events are SO very magical. My friend and I talked about why….why are the women’s events so amazing? And, what she said floored me. She said… “we put our armor down.”
Wow. That is it.
Merriam-Webster defines armor as “something that encloses another thing especially to protect it.” Enclose and protect…the armor sheaths us from our prey. But while protected, the armor also restricts us, fences us in, bounds us and eventually tires us all out.
At the start of my career, I wore the armor proudly. I suited up every day and then layered on the superhero capes of corporate speak, relationship-building, a growth mindset and, most importantly, powerpoint skills. I was learning and growing and loving the work. And, the suits and the superhero capes served me well…until they didn’t. As I reached higher levels of leadership, I found that my suits and superhero capes couldn’t quite protect me as well as they had seemed to early in my career. It’s like a long back-packing trip. Cheryl Strayed in her book “Wild” described her backpack at the start of her journey as Monster and how she whittled it down over time to drop weight. I’m now 20+ years in to my corporate career and, even though I’ve achieved great things – things I couldn’t dream of as a child, I’m feeling like Cheryl did mid-way through her journey….weary and with too tight of shoes.
As I reflect on the past several years of my corporate career, the happiest “work” times were gatherings with other women. Whether it was dinner with a group of girlfriends, wine nights with grad school friends, or a large women’s industry event, women’s events have been my haven. We drop our protective (but restrictive) shells. We stop performing and we return to our core selves. But in-person events are unfortunately infrequent. I long for more. I want a daily or weekly dose of that magical support and confidence building. A place where I can learn beside other amazing women. Where I can soak up the advice of others who are wiser than me. Where I can safely ask the questions that will build my skills, where I can be in community with my tribe.
I’ve longed for this…so I decided to create it. Muriel Network is a private (no social media drama or ads!), modern networking space exclusively for women working in wealth management. It’s called Muriel Network – in honor of the first female member of the NYSE, Muriel Siebert. She was a true trailblazer, and we want to bring out the trailblazers in all of us.
This community is for you if you’re:
A financial advisor or financial planner
A member of an advisor’s practice
Working in the home office of an RIA, broker-dealer, custodian, etc.
Working for a direct-to-consumer investment firm
Working for a wealth management-related fintech
And, it’s especially for those of us who want to grow a wealth management practices, are feeling stagnant in your current work, wondering how to breakthrough to the next level or just want to skill up and understand the full scope of our industry – not just the slice of it that your personal firm occupies.
So, you might be wondering what a digital community is? It’s a platform where we can virtually catch up and check in with one another, learn from each other, short-cut our challenges by learning each others’ hacks, move upward with intention and focus. Inside the platform are useful tools for strengthening your mindset, courses for learning new skills, and more content coming all the time.
I really hope you’ll join me there. If you and I both go, it will be incredibly special. Link to Join Us page