THE THOUGHTFUL ENTREPRENEUR PODCAST

2045 – Transforming Female Leadership for Success with Amanda Riffee

Riffee WideUnleashing Your Inner Power: A New Era for Women in Business

In a recent episode of our podcast, we had the pleasure of hosting Amanda Riffee, a certified executive coach dedicated to empowering female business leaders. Amanda's mission is to help women navigate their careers and businesses in a way that aligns with their values and well-being, steering clear of burnout and traditional success metrics that often lead to dissatisfaction. This blog post delves into the key themes and actionable advice shared by Amanda during the episode, providing a comprehensive guide for female leaders striving for success without sacrificing their personal lives.

Amanda Riffee is an executive and career coach who specializes in working with career-driven women, including founders, business owners, and C-level executives. Her approach is centered on helping women achieve success on their own terms, ensuring that their professional achievements do not come at the expense of their personal lives. Amanda's coaching philosophy is rooted in the belief that women can design businesses and careers that work for their lifestyles, rather than the other way around. The landscape of female leadership is evolving, with more women stepping into leadership roles and challenging traditional success metrics. Amanda and the host discuss how corporate structures have historically been built around a male-centric model, where men were expected to sacrifice their personal lives for work, while women were often relegated to domestic roles.

Burnout is a significant issue that Amanda is particularly passionate about, given her personal experiences. She explains that many women who transition from corporate jobs to entrepreneurship often carry over the same work habits that led to their burnout in the first place. Addressing burnout requires inner work, including shifting beliefs and mindsets. Amanda emphasizes the importance of setting boundaries and understanding one's values to create a fulfilling work environment. By identifying what truly matters to them, women can establish boundaries that protect their time and energy, ultimately leading to greater success and satisfaction.

 

About Amanda Riffee:

Amanda Riffee is an Internationally Certified Executive Coach for Women. She is a thought leader and event speaker with a business degree and 17 years of corporate experience. She is also the host of the Unleashing You with Amanda Riffee podcast, a happy wife, and a mom of two.  

Her mission is to help women unlock their mindset, see their worth, and create a career (and life) they love—no burnout required!

Amanda resides in Colorado with her family and loves traveling to new places while spending time with other powerhouse women who are passionate about personal growth and enjoying this beautiful life!

 

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Links Mentioned in this Episode:

Want to learn more? Check out Amanda Riffee's website at

https://acrprofessionalcoaching.com/

Check out Amanda Riffee on LinkedIn at

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-riffee/

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Transcript

Speaker 1 00:00:05 Hey there, thoughtful listener. Are you looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers and clients? Well, I've had private conversations with over 2000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from. I've got a free video you can watch with no opt in required, where I'll share the exact steps necessary to be 100% inbound in your industry over the next 6 to 8 months, with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for over 15 years, and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies. Just head to up my influence. Com and watch my free class on how to create endless high ticket sales appointments. Also, don't forget the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for great guests. Go to up my influence. Com and click on podcast. I'd love to have you. With us right now. It's Amanda. Amanda, you are an executive coach for female business leaders. And you're found on the web at ACR Professional coaching.com. Amanda, it's great to have you.

Speaker 2 00:01:19 Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited.

Speaker 1 00:01:21 Yeah, yeah. Well, listen, I'd love to hear more about the work that you do and the impact you have in the world and who you serve.

Speaker 2 00:01:28 Yeah. So I, like you said, I'm a certified executive and career coach for women. And so what that means and really kind of my mission is to work with career driven women. So whether that is founders, business owners, C-level, you name it and help them find success in a way that feels really good to them. I am not a fan of burnout. I've been there, I've been back, and, you know, I feel like gone are the days of having to sacrifice the things that we love most in order to have a successful business or successful career. So my mission is to help other ambitious women like me design businesses that work for their lives, because I really do feel like we can have it all.

Speaker 1 00:02:15 Yeah. I think and I'd love your observation of this.

Speaker 1 00:02:19 It's it's my observation. And again, I'm on the outside, but I think that when we look at the movement and the season that we're in right now for, female leadership and empowerment and I feel like, you know, I again, it's just my observation from, you know, from my perspective, but it feels like there's a lot of stepping into right now that that may have been historically. There may have still been some catching up to do. And again, I'm know that there is still so much work to do, but this does, I think, overall feel to me like we've done some really great work when it comes to equity, when it comes to, you know, kind of, again, female leaders stepping into great, high impact roles and not, you know, you know, kind of dispensing with old, conventional thinking of the past that somehow that was just a man's role or job. I think that's disappearing, and I hope it continues to disappear.

Speaker 2 00:03:24 Yes. I think you're completely right.

Speaker 2 00:03:26 I think we still have a long road ahead of us. But if we think back to, you know, even the 1960s and 1970s or in some cases, you know, the 80s and 90s, the our view of traditional success was so much different than it is today. You know, we had the the corporate organizations, for better or worse, like they were built by a society where traditionally a man went to work and whether they wanted to or not, the career was their job. Like, that's what they had to do. They had to sacrifice everything to be able to provide for their families. And traditionally, the woman's role was to stay home, take care of the household, you know, all of those things. And we have come such a long way since then. But we also still hold on to a lot of those same similar beliefs. And even our corporate structure is still built on that traditional view of success. And so I think a lot of things along the way, a lot of movements, even Covid had, you know, if there's a silver lining to that, really changed our mentality around, you know, working from home or work life balance or, you know, taking care of our families.

Speaker 2 00:04:40 And so I do think we are in a big shift right now with the workforce and what success looks like. So I think it's more important now more than ever to have more women in leadership roles, as founders, as millionaires that are really helping to shape the way that these companies are structured, the benefits that were offered, you know, all of those things make such a huge difference in changing, changing the world, honestly. Yeah.

Speaker 1 00:05:08 I know you do a lot of work around burnout. Do you mind maybe just kind of giving a little mini Ted talk on burnout, like where it comes from and maybe some great tips on things that we can do to empower ourselves so that we can keep ourselves from that. Just that sucky energy. It's like, yeah, we start to like, you know, it's like a particularly for those of us that are business owners, right? And it's like we left corporate America because we wanted the freedom. We wanted to be able to design our life. And then now we're in our own role, you know, within our own company.

Speaker 1 00:05:42 And we still suffer a lot, you know, a lot of the same emotions. and it's like, well, that's not fair. Like, I got into this thing so I wouldn't have to experience burnout. It's my own company. Why am I dreading going to work? and I'm just feel like I'm, you know, checking boxes. You know, maybe there's just an unfulfilled. Maybe it's just like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I am way stretched too thin. It could be that aspect of it. But I would love your take on on on burnout.

Speaker 2 00:06:07 Yes. Yeah. And I have so many personal stories with burnout, which is why I'm so passionate about it. but I think one of the biggest things, when we leave corporate and we decide we're going to start our own business, we think all of those things that you just said, right? We're just we're craving that freedom, make our own schedule, right. All of those things. But what's interesting is we don't shift as people when we go into becoming a business owner.

Speaker 2 00:06:37 A lot of times we keep that still, that employee mentality, and we are still working the same way that we would have operated in that job that maybe was burning us out before. And so I think some of the biggest things that we can do first is it's a lot of that inner work. So it really is shifting our beliefs, shifting. I do a lot of work on mindset and limiting beliefs and the things that are holding us back from the success that we're craving, because we might want one thing consciously, but subconsciously we have these beliefs that we've had for usually since childhood that are kind of self-sabotaging us behind the scenes that we don't realize. So that's a lot of the work that I do with my clients. and then second would be boundaries. And I know that can sometimes be, you know, a word that gets thrown around a lot, but it really does when you are your own boss and when you are creating what success looks like for you, getting really clear on what's important to you and doing some of, you know, the deep value work and creating boundaries around that is really going to be a game changer.

Speaker 2 00:07:48 And even when I say, values, the work that I do with my clients is sometimes a little bit different than maybe values work that you've done before. Like we really get below the surface and figure out truly what's important to you. And I'll give you an example of that is like one of my values is new experiences. And so this is something that I can apply to work, that I can apply to my personal life, that I can apply to anything. And so that means, you know, I'm really fulfilled when I am working on a new project in my business, or when I'm going to a new concert with my family, or traveling to a new place in the world. And so when I can do that deep work and really figure out truly what's important to me, and then how we can apply that to your business and then hold firm on those things with those boundaries, that is just going to that's going to skyrocket your results.

Speaker 1 00:08:43 Yeah. Yeah, indeed. another thing I'm Amanda, I'm curious about, our, you know, are there any other complaints that you hear frequently when you're working or beginning work with your clients.

Speaker 1 00:08:58 Burnout, obviously, is a big one, right? I wonder about this. how about, you know, people that set expectations? I see this a lot with Type-A leaders, right? Is they they set such high demands for themselves that sometimes that comes with disappointment. in ourselves, when we don't hit it or it doesn't happen or some other consideration takes place, which is always going like there's just there's always going to be surprises in business. but but I know historically I used to beat myself up way too much. And, you know, it was my wife who said something, and she goes, you know, most deadlines are fairly arbitrary, like, especially like if you're, you know, if it's your company, like, yeah. Do you have goals? Sure. Absolutely. Does it mean you're a failure if you you renegotiate something or you, you know, have to push a deadline back a couple of weeks. I know that used to really bug me. I don't know if you ever encounter that.

Speaker 2 00:10:05 Yeah, absolutely. One of my favorite things to ask to clients and to myself when we get in these situations is who said like who said that that is the deadline or that that we have to get this done today. And nine times out of ten, like you just said, it's us. It's us that set that deadline or created that, you know, arbitrary, you know, goal for that day. And we are so much more in control than we think we are that we give ourselves credit for. So I think that's just kind of a really quick and easy check to ask yourself. And I still have to ask myself that all the time. It's like, oh, I have to do this. Do I have to do that after you? And they're like, who said, who said, I have to do this? Oh, wait, it was me here.

Speaker 3 00:10:51 You know.

Speaker 1 00:10:52 I love that it's two very simple words. Who said what a what a great what a great book title, by the way, just putting some ideas out there.

Speaker 1 00:11:02 Amanda, tell me what, what your engagement typically looks like when you're working with someone. Like, how do you begin? Is it just kind of like showing up for therapy or what do you typically. What's the life cycle, your relationship with your clients?

Speaker 2 00:11:16 Yeah. Great question. So I, I do live events, I do retreats. So that's also kind of the in-person element. The group element. majority of my business though throughout the year is one on one. So that that's my bread and butter. That's what I absolutely love is working with with women one on one. And what I love about that is that we can really dig deep into specifically what they want to get out of that experience. So a lot of the women that I work with, they're in some type of transition. So maybe they are feeling a little bit stuck in their business. And they've got big dreams and big goals, and they're just trying to figure out how to, like, get to that next level. Maybe they're wanting to make a pivot and they're not really sure what that is.

Speaker 2 00:12:04 Maybe they're just craving that feeling of, I know there's something more for me. I know there's something next, but I just don't know what that is. And so we usually start with, first just gaining clarity on what's truly important to them and, and do some of that values work that I talked about before and really dig below the surface to figure out truly what's going to make success feel really good for them, because we can build a business that has nothing to do with our values, and we are not going to feel aligned with the work that we're doing or, you know, the business model that we've created. and so then after we do that, we really do define what success means to them. So that's my favorite, where we just kind of wave the magic wand and we just start dreaming really big and you get, you know, clarity on, you know, down the road. What is that ideal business really look like? How does your day to day look like? What are the big dreams? You know, maybe it is writing a book or speaking on stages or, you know, going global, whatever.

Speaker 2 00:13:07 The thing is, and that gives us our North Star to be able to work towards. And then from there, we essentially uncover what's stopping them from making that a reality, what's getting in the way. And that is usually where we start to uncover a ton of limiting beliefs. And beliefs are honestly just thoughts. We've thought for so long that we now think that they're true, and those are the things that hold us back. And again, what I find so interesting, working with women 101, is that it doesn't matter if you're a founder, a CEO, a, you know, you name it. We get on those calls and we get really vulnerable. And what we realize is that even though we've put all of these women on these pedestals because they have great resumes, great success, and they're amazing, we all have the same things that, you know, oh, there's times where we feel like we're not smart enough. We're not good enough, we feel like an imposter. And so those things hold us back from the success that we actually consciously desire.

Speaker 2 00:14:10 So we do a lot of work in that. And then of course, we mix in the strategy in there as well. But without the mindset work, the strategy isn't going to get a setting where because honestly, we could just Google how to create that or ask ChatGPT and we'd be done with it if it was that easy. But our mind is just such a powerful tool that can honestly work for us or against us.

Speaker 1 00:14:34 Yeah, yeah, indeed. You know, it's like when you you look over a crowd of people and it's it's it's amazing how often we think that, you know, our challenges are, are so unique and they're not.

Speaker 3 00:14:46 You know, they've got their.

Speaker 1 00:14:48 Stuff. Every leader and you know, even, you know, when you think about this rise, you know, in leadership, I think it's completely normal, especially if it's something new that we're doing to feel a little bit in, in, incompetent or not ready. But it's like, listen, everybody who's doing what they're doing, they felt that exact same thing at some point, and then they just kind of like they did the thing and then they had the power.

Speaker 1 00:15:13 Right? And the more you did the thing, the more comfortable you got with it. And, you know, it's like podcasting. Congratulations on just, you know, recently starting your podcast, and, you know, the more episodes we do.

Speaker 3 00:15:26 The better we.

Speaker 1 00:15:27 Get at it overall, you know? And so that's that's exciting. Amanda, do you mind maybe sharing a little bit more about your your other work beyond coaching? I know you do some speaking. I know you create a lot of great content. How else are you having impact in the world today?

Speaker 2 00:15:44 Yeah. Great question. So I do I love going on podcasts. I love speaking to groups in person. Just any way to get this message out. And that's one of the reasons you mentioned my podcast. That's one of the reasons why I started my podcast was to really create that permission slip for female business leaders to understand that we really do have the power to create success in any way that we want to. And you mentioned around, you know, we think we're the only ones that are scared to do it or were the only ones that, you know, have those limiting beliefs.

Speaker 2 00:16:21 And the more that, you know, we're able to talk about these things in groups through events or speaking or podcasts, the more I think we take away the power of some of those beliefs when we realize it's not just us, I'm like, oh, that person over there who's doing all of those things is also scared to do it. Then it it helps to empower us to say, okay, well, if they if they can do it, then I can do it. And that's where I start to see that, you know, that representation matters. So the more that we can get that message out, the more we're going to empower ourselves to create that success as well.

Speaker 1 00:17:03 Yeah. finally, I wanted to ask you about I know you've got, an event, that looks like it's, right around the corner. Oh. Well, it will have already happened by the time. How'd you.

Speaker 3 00:17:14 Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 2 00:17:17 Yeah, we had this one scheduled a little bit ago, but I've. So I do have a retreat that's happening in September.

Speaker 2 00:17:23 but probably when, when this airs, the next big event that I will have, it's called Unleashing You Live. And that is a two day event. It's what I like to call professional development in a fun new way. So it is all focused on female business leaders. We go through coaching tools, speakers, networking. We have female owned pop up shops. We have the whole nine. Like it's just so much fun and we just walk away from that experience feeling so empowered, so engaged, so motivated and just honestly ready to take on the world.

Speaker 1 00:18:00 Yeah. Wonderful. All right, so, Amanda, your website, ACR Professional coaching.com. When somebody goes to your website, what would you recommend they do?

Speaker 2 00:18:11 I would say the easiest thing is to listen to the podcast. So unleashing you with Amanda Rippy, it's right there on the home page. It's also bookmarked at the top. But there's where you can hear more of my personal stories, stories of my clients, my connections, doing all the things that we talked about today.

Speaker 2 00:18:31 And, you know, they really are creating that success that feels so good to them. And so there's just so much incredible content in those episodes. I know you're going to walk away feeling energized, inspired, and and again, just ready to make those big dreams a reality.

Speaker 1 00:18:48 Excellent. All right. Amanda Griffey again, certified executive coach for female business leaders. Your website, ACR Professional coaching.com. Thank you so much, Amanda.

Speaker 2 00:19:00 Thank you.

Speaker 1 00:19:07 Thanks for listening to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. If you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program, please visit up my influence. Com and click on podcast. We believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world. We love our community who listens and shares our program every day. Together we are empowering one another as thoughtful leaders. And as I mentioned at the beginning of this program, if you're looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers, and clients, I have had private conversations with over 2000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from.

Speaker 1 00:19:49 I've got a free video that you can watch right now, with no opt in or email required, where I'm going to share the exact steps necessary to be 100% inbound in your industry over the next 6 to 8 months, with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for more than 15 years and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies. Just head to up my influence. Com and watch my free class on how to create endless high ticket sales appointments. Make sure to hit subscribe so that tomorrow morning. That's right, seven days a week you are going to be inspired and motivated to succeed. I promise to bring positivity and inspiration to you for around 15 minutes every single day. Thanks for listening and thank you for being a part of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur movement.

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