Confidence Classic: Step Into Your Power and Break Free from Self-Imposed Limits with Iman Oubou

Speaker 1 I had never really explored my own relationship with power until I was in a position of not having any power at all. And that's with these investor meetings.

Speaker 1 And so at that point, for me, instead of actually taking a step back during those meetings or after those meetings and figuring out what went wrong and how I can claim that power back, I played the victim and realized, okay, there's nothing I can do.

Speaker 1 Instead of me taking control of the role I play in changing my circumstances, I dwelled more and more and more into becoming more of a victim as opposed to a change agent in my own life.

Speaker 1 Let's make sure that you know and you're self-aware of your own relationship with each of these themes.

Speaker 2 Come on this journey with me. Each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals, overcome adversity, and set you up for a better tomorrow.
Let's turn your seat down.

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Speaker 2 Hi and welcome back. I'm so excited for you today.
It's so rare I have one of my real friends on the show.

Speaker 2 But today, Amon Ubu, she's an American entrepreneur, author, published scientist, and national beauty pageant winner. We're going to get into that.
So if you're cringing right now, don't.

Speaker 2 She won the title of Miss New York United States and was second runner-up at the 2015 Miss United States pageant.

Speaker 2 Amon was awarded the Women's Advocate of the Year award in 2019 in Dubai and has been featured in Harper's Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Forbes, Fortune, Vogue, Everything.

Speaker 2 She's founder of Sway Media, leading publishing platform aimed at championing female thought leadership by providing access to editorial and writing support as well as a supportive community of like-minded women.

Speaker 2 I mean, I'm going to go on and on about her, but I have to tell you, she was named one of the female entrepreneurs to watch in 2018 by CIO magazine.

Speaker 2 Same year, Amon was a keynote speaker at Harvard and MIT. She was the first ever Face of Morocco ambassador, a new initiative uplifting female voices in Morocco and the Middle East.

Speaker 2 And she was also part of the first all-female judge panel at Miss Universe 2018 and judged Miss Teen USA, Miss Earth USA, and other state. pageants.
And now she is the author of The Glass Ledge.

Speaker 2 Amon, thank you so much for being here today.

Speaker 1 Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm excited to finally be doing this podcast.
I remember how much fun we had when you were on my podcast a couple years ago. So this is going to be fun.

Speaker 2 Oh my gosh. All right.
So let's get started. And I want to jump into the pageant thing first, because for me, I used to be one of those people that would be like, oh, she's a pageant person.

Speaker 2 Oh, how ridiculous. You know, oh, she's too pretty, too perfect.
That's such BS, putting wrong emphasis on looks. That's what I used to, you know, wrongly think until you became my friend.

Speaker 2 So can you tell us a little bit about the pageant life and what pageants really mean and why they are so positive and impactful?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I was one of those people that thought the exact same thing. And honestly, I only went into it because my mom pushed me into quote unquote getting more in touch with my feminine side.

Speaker 1 So I kind of, you know, had to please her at that time. And, you know, I went along with it.
She went through so much trouble to sign me up and I was accepted. So I was like, fine, I'll try this out.

Speaker 1 And I had the exact same perspective as many people. You know, it's shallow, a bunch of pretty girls walking around on stage.
It's not very substantive.

Speaker 1 But I tell you, it was a very surprising and shocking experience for me because I had never really felt so empowered.

Speaker 1 to be the best version of myself until I competed in my first beauty pageant back in Colorado in 2013.

Speaker 1 And that was also my very first time encountering this environment where women are supportive of each other, even though they're competing for the exact same thing at that same time.

Speaker 1 And up until then, I was obviously in college.

Speaker 1 I never even dared to rush for sorority or even have a lot of girlfriends around me because I just never felt that kind of support system from the girlfriends I had prior to that.

Speaker 1 I was never a girl's girl and I just was terrified of being like in a room full of beautiful, competitive and smart women because I would just get insecure right away.

Speaker 1 But there was something very different about being part of the pageant world, because I think you are also trained to show up as a different version of yourself, one that is secure with herself, self-assured.

Speaker 1 wants to see other women succeed, someone who also knows who they are and are very self-aware and they know what their values are, what they would want to do with that title, how are they going to show up as a change agent in the community if they do get that title.

Speaker 1 All of this stuff isn't really talked about enough when we dress pageantry. And I think it's a little bit of the media's fault, but also it is what we're shown on TV.

Speaker 1 You know, on TV, the competition is mostly about how you show up on stage, how you look, you know, your fitness, your body type, and then your gown.

Speaker 1 And then there is that one stage question that is often asked. And a lot of women sometimes feel the pressure and it's not the best answer you would expect.

Speaker 1 But you have to understand that's a very nerve-wracking position to be in. So it's not a reflection of the person's intellect.

Speaker 1 You know, I think anyone going up on that stage, especially if they haven't done it often, would sometimes mess up.

Speaker 1 I think for me, it was what I fell in love with the most about pageantry and outside of just competing and wanting to win because I love winning is of course changing myself and bettering myself and having something to look forward to that I can showcase my best version that I worked for for so long.

Speaker 2 Oh, so true. And because of our friendship and because of your support, I ended up judging one of these contests.

Speaker 2 And it was an incredible experience learning how hard these women were working, number one, how they were all supporting one another, the same, you know, that you just described to us.

Speaker 2 And it was such a powerful and positive experience.

Speaker 2 So yet again, you know, just stereotyping the way all of us do in some way, it's so fun to open your eyes to the possibility that something is very different.

Speaker 2 And I'm really grateful that you did that for me. So thank you.

Speaker 2 And it's funny to hear you talk about a time in your life where you didn't have supportive women around you, when you've built so much of your success around supporting other women.

Speaker 2 And that's really how you and I came together.

Speaker 2 So can you talk us through how that journey changed for you from being one of you kind of out there on your own to you building community around supporting others?

Speaker 1 Pageantry really was the vehicle for me to realize that I do want to build some kind of platform that brings women together.

Speaker 1 And when I won the title of Miss New York US in 2015, you know, you usually pick a platform to have as a title holder. And for me at the time, I chose women empowerment and women's entrepreneurship.

Speaker 1 And so that's again why I launched a podcast shortly after to really be able to bring those stories to light and really tell stories that weren't necessarily prioritized by mainstream media, but they were important in inspiring the next generation of young women who might be feeling a little lost, which which I was at the time.

Speaker 1 You know, I think when I won Miss New York in 2015, I also was a science communication specialist. I was a scientist on, that was my day job.

Speaker 1 And to me, I was kind of living this double life a little bit because by day, I'm like this nerdy scientist who's also like helping all these biotech emerging startups to translate their technology and their science into words people without a science background can understand.

Speaker 1 And then by night, I'm like doing appearances on the red carpet with Barra Wang and all these celebrities and things. And it's just like people look at me and like, wait, you're a scientist?

Speaker 1 That's your job. And you're a Miss New York.
How come? Like, what's the connection here? And I just, I never really expected for people to be that surprised by the multi-dimensional facade I had.

Speaker 1 And it's like, oh, just because I'm a scientist, I can also be a Miss New York or a title holder.

Speaker 1 But I think, you know, people think that if you're doing pageants, then you automatically are a model or you want to be in entertainment, which is not always the case, especially not today anymore but prior to pageantry i didn't really have the women's support i mean in college even growing up i i don't think that i ever was able to build healthy friendships with girls or young women i'm not really sure what it was maybe it was also insecurities that i was struggling with that i you know i'm now learning how to process properly and overcome but the platform that pageantry gave me was ultimately what led me to kind of build up on that and create kind of a similar world to what i experience in pageantry but in a media in a platform like Sway, where those stories come together in one under one roof.

Speaker 1 Because I think when I was first kind of navigating the pageant world, what I loved the most is hearing other women's stories that were competing with me.

Speaker 1 And that wasn't something that made me insecure. If anything, that was something that made me empowered and excited.
I was like, wow, I'm in the same room as all these awesome women. So that means.

Speaker 1 that I also, I'm awesome. Like, you know, it's kind of being surrounded by great women who also want to see you succeed.
I'm like, I don't see that.

Speaker 1 How do I replicate this experience in the real world? Because when I was in STEM, it was mostly men.

Speaker 1 It was a very male-dominated world, you know, and I didn't really experience that kind of women's support in my day job.

Speaker 1 So ultimately, my goal with Sway was a little bit selfish and with the podcast is, I love this feeling. How can I continue replicating it even outside of the pageant world?

Speaker 1 Even after I'm retired from the pageant world, I want to continue having this family of women around me that continue to support me and also show me what's possible.

Speaker 1 And so that's ultimately what I ended up doing. And again, meeting women like yourself.

Speaker 1 And I was a little bit surprised too, that it was met with a lot of excitement, because I think my first initial instinct was that, you know, not a lot of women would want to come together and help each other out, you know, and this was, you know, 2014, 2015.

Speaker 1 a little pre-Me Too movement, pre-women's movement.

Speaker 1 But I was excited to see that I maybe I created that platform platform in the right time as we were all kind of taking our voices higher and higher and elevating each other, whether in the workplace or in personal lives.

Speaker 1 And it was just the perfect timing. Meet a different guest each week.

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Speaker 2 I ask you to try to find your passion.

Speaker 2 Share with us something that I'm very familiar with, which is some of the challenges that you dealt with in launching Sway and growing Sway.

Speaker 1 I think the biggest challenge was just access to resources.

Speaker 1 Obviously, I was very lucky to have a lot of the initial women in my network invest in the opportunity and wanting to be part of it and help me at the pre-seed level.

Speaker 1 But again, those those checks were smaller and only can go as far.

Speaker 1 So, when I was getting ready to raise my official seed round, like a normal startup, especially with all the traction we were getting and the brand we built and the community that's around it, and also the mission that we really set for ourselves, I didn't really think that we would have that much of a hard time getting investors to be excited about the opportunity.

Speaker 1 Because, also, remember, at the time, a lot more VCs and investors were committing to investing in more women forward more women driven and female forward initiatives so i was like perfect great timing i have it all let's do this to this day it still has been challenging for

Speaker 1 me as a founder and just for the company to really land that big seed funding that would really make us just worry about the operations and the growth as opposed to being scrappy that scrappy you know startup we've always been and a lot of the times for me personally going to investor meetings as a young female founder at the time when I started first fundraising, I was like 24, 25, and on the heels of my beauty pageant success, that didn't really help.

Speaker 1 A lot of the investors were men and you know much older. And I think kind of with the outdated preconceived notions of person like me is capable of or not capable of in that case.

Speaker 1 And so I was met with a lot of, you know, inappropriate comments. The focus was more on my appearance.

Speaker 1 And sometimes when I try to tone that down because of the previous comments I've gotten, people be like, wait, you showed up in flats today? Why? Like, that's not okay.

Speaker 1 You know, so it was always like a comment around what I'm wearing, what I look like, the fact that I'm filming this New York and it's not a good thing because people can't take me seriously.

Speaker 1 It was a lot of noise that I was not prepared for because all i was trying to do is here's a great business the opportunity is here the numbers are here that's all we need to talk about why are we distracted by other things that don't have anything to do with what i'm here for you know don't ask me out for dinner let's talk about this business deal at the conference room we're in right now so it was a very and you know i was young i didn't know how to really react to that and i think what ended up happening and this is again what i talk about at the beginning of the book is is that I internalized a lot of that.

Speaker 1 That became my truth. That became my narrative.
I became kind of also defensive and aggressive and just angry. And that's not really my nature.

Speaker 1 I was already like before I would even go to meetings, I would anticipate the frustration that I, you know, the comments that are going to be met with.

Speaker 1 So it was just, I think it affected me a lot more than I had realized at the time.

Speaker 1 And ultimately, that led me to get in my own way and kind of start adapting strategies and behaviors that didn't necessarily help me much because I was scared of this notion of power imbalance.

Speaker 1 And I just was like, I'm not good enough. I don't think I'm going to be ever taken seriously.
It was just, you know, all in my head at that point.

Speaker 1 Even when I had some positive comments and stuff, it was hard for me to believe that.

Speaker 1 And it was hard for me to even visualize what success looked like anymore because I was so sucked into this echo chamber of victimhood.

Speaker 2 And so that was really challenging.

Speaker 1 And I think it took a lot of self-work for me and a lot of almost cultivating an uncomfortable sense of accountability to overcome.

Speaker 1 that stage I was in and almost like rebuild myself from the inside out to become this new woman before I go out there and set out to continue growing my business and rebuilding it in a much healthier way.

Speaker 1 So of course I ended up focusing on building my business as opposed to going raising money, which maybe was a good thing for me as well, is being able to really, we're being forced to be more creative and more scrappy to actually generate revenue as opposed to always chasing funding, which we were able to do.

Speaker 1 And then also it was, it was something that pushed me to be more creative and more focused on the business itself as opposed to constant outside validation from investors.

Speaker 2 Why in the world would you then want to write a book? I'm so curious curious about this.

Speaker 1 Look, I've always wanted to write a book. I think everybody wants that.

Speaker 1 But I was lucky in the sense that when I was going through this time, tough time, rock bottom, I call it, there was an article about me on Forbes, about rejection and especially like being part of the female founders that struggle to really get access to that funding.

Speaker 1 You know, only 2% of venture capital funding goes to women. So it's a very low number.
So I'm not the only one. And I know a lot of women are going through it as well to this day.

Speaker 1 So there was an article that I was mentioned in and an agent saw that and they she reached out to me and you'll love this because she's like, why don't you think about writing a book about confidence?

Speaker 1 And, you know, she reached out to me at my rock bottom. I wasn't like, I had zero confidence at the time.
I'm like, me? A confident? No. I'm like, plus, I'm like, I know my friend.

Speaker 1 She's much better at this. And like, I'll leave her be the expert at confidence because she truly is the confidence queen.

Speaker 1 But I'm like, I'm open to writing a book, but confidence probably not the subject i'm an expert in i could write as part of the book but it's not all and so what i told her was look i have probably a lot of self-work to do myself before i think i'm in a good place to write a book or give advice to other women because i myself right now i'm struggling a little bit to find my way out out of this devastating i would say fail at the time but i know i'm going to get out of it and i feel like that that's going to be a much better story to tell because i know i'm going to uncover a lot of lessons along the way of rebuilding rebuilding myself and rebuilding this business in a way that's sustainable.

Speaker 1 And maybe we'll check back in a couple of years and then see if there is a story there if I made it out alive and maybe there's some lessons to share. And so yeah, that's exactly what happened.

Speaker 1 In 2020, we kind of reconnected and we talked a little bit about my journey leading up from the moment she reached out to the moment we reconnected.

Speaker 1 And I told her about just what happened and all the kind of tactics and things I had to unlearn and learn along the way to be in a better better position to build my business and not let the outside world and external barriers become kind of a burden on who I am.

Speaker 1 And that's kind of how the book really conceptualized. So we talked a lot about how I was constantly trying to break glass ceilings.
And that was kind of like my journey.

Speaker 1 I was out there trying to break glass ceilings, but I didn't realize that I was also teetering on a glass ledge, which to me is a representation of self-imposed glass ceilings.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, that's what I really want to talk about more more in the book and just what I want my message to be, because I had realized that during my fight for women empowerment, I had actually became disempowered myself.

Speaker 1 And a lot of that was because of the self-imposed glass ceilings I was putting in place for myself without really realizing it. And that's really what I want to shine the light on.

Speaker 1 And that's how the book came about.

Speaker 2 Wow. So it's so full circle.
I love that idea of that real glass ceiling being the one that we've put on ourselves. It's so accurate, number one,

Speaker 2 and not talked about very much. So share with us some of those lessons that readers will learn from the glass ledge.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so I think so the way I structured the book is in 10 chapters. Each chapter has its own theme that I kind of dive deeper in using my own personal experience.

Speaker 1 And some of the examples are power, likability, appearance, which talks about also relating to both discrimination and also coming coming from a world of pageants, expertise, confidence, which I definitely, you're part of it as well.

Speaker 1 Conflict.

Speaker 1 Conflict is a big one for me because I just didn't know how to address conflicts and I would shy away from it and run away from it as opposed to being comfortable with that concept and finding my balance with it.

Speaker 1 And then the same thing.

Speaker 1 I think a lot of the chapters that I, you know, the way I outline the chapter is not to go one way or another, but rather figuring out what your balance is when it comes to that theme.

Speaker 1 So power, for example, I had never really explored my own relationship with power until I was in a position of not having any power at all. And that's with these investor meetings.

Speaker 1 And so at that point, for me, instead of actually taking a step back during those meetings or after those meetings and figuring out what went wrong and how can I claim that power back, I just kind of played the victim and realized, okay, there's nothing I can do.

Speaker 1 You know, the world is unfair. It's unfair that they treat me that way, which is true, it's unfair.

Speaker 1 But instead of me taking control of the role I play in changing my circumstances, I kind of dwelled more and more and more into becoming more of a victim as opposed to a change agent in my own life.

Speaker 1 And so that's kind of what I make sure in each chapter: let's make sure that you know and you're self-aware of your own relationship with each of these themes. Same thing with likability, right?

Speaker 1 I think for me, when I started a company at such a young age, my biggest thing was to be liked by my employees, by my community, by my investors, instead of actually putting my foot down when I needed to and demand respect.

Speaker 1 And so my relationship and my understanding of the theme of likability wasn't really ripe and it wasn't really well explored. And I didn't even know anything about that.

Speaker 1 So I make sure that you're aware of how you act and why you act the way you do so that you're able to know how to balance your relationship with each of these themes and really kind of, you know, sometimes you need to be liked.

Speaker 1 Sometimes you don't need to be liked. So at what point do you really know what strategies to adopt?

Speaker 1 So, that's really what I wanted to make sure: not telling you what to do and how to act in certain situations, but giving you the tools to know how to change your situation faster than the outside world can change for you in regards to all these themes.

Speaker 2 That's so funny. I remember when I was young in business, I was the opposite of you.
I did not want to be liked, I wanted to be respected.

Speaker 2 And so, I went the polar opposite way, which was not the right way to go.

Speaker 2 But I was so tough and hard on people and created such concrete boundaries because I was so fearful that if they got to really know me or see that I am caring or that they'd want to take advantage of me or they wouldn't respect me, right?

Speaker 2 And I went off the rails the other way, which again didn't benefit me. And in business specifically, until you find that balance of, you know, showing who you really are and that vulnerability.

Speaker 2 coupled with boundaries and having a healthy respect for yourself and the job that you do and commanding that respect and culture that you're looking for in business.

Speaker 2 It definitely is a dance where many of us can fall.

Speaker 1 That's why I'm all about like the balance.

Speaker 1 That's why I call it the glasses and balancing on the glass ledge because everything in life, every issue that we deal with, there is not one way or another that's always going to work in every situation.

Speaker 1 For example, my femininity, right? Like.

Speaker 1 I was either not feminine, I was a tomboy growing up, or then with the beauty pageant, I was like just like all feminine and I would just be that and then when people started kind of making kind of comments inappropriate comments about just my appearance and femininity i completely suppressed that and i just left it alone i'm like no but you can use your femininity as a tool you know in the right situations in the right way if you find that balance of how you explore your relationship with your femininity and you know there are times where my masculine side has to step in and then there are times where i have to show my feminine side as a leader so again like it's all about establishing that balance when it comes to different situations.

Speaker 1 But again, you can't establish that balance unless you build self-awareness. You need to know what triggers you, why you act the way you do, what situations you need to use, this side or that side.

Speaker 1 And a lot of that takes practice. It takes a lot of self-work.
And I think a lot of conversations we're uncomfortable of having with ourselves.

Speaker 1 My favorite quote is someone said that the most important conversation you'll have in your life are the ones you have with yourself. So make sure they're productive ones or positive ones.

Speaker 1 And so I think a lot of people don't really think about that at all.

Speaker 1 They are so busy talking to everyone else, minding everybody else's business, as opposed to taking time for themselves and checking in with themselves every now and then to see why did I act that way yesterday?

Speaker 1 What was that? What triggered me? Let me write it down and make sure that I understand it so I can address that issue better next time.

Speaker 1 And these are things that require a lot of maturity and patience and self-awareness, but it's easier not to do that and just continue being the way you are.

Speaker 1 And we always kind of blame it in the word, that's my authentic self. But I talk about in the book, in my chapter on authenticity is that we all have an authentic self and an adaptive self.

Speaker 1 And you need to know when to let which one lead and they both need to be in sync. My authentic self was not to be an entrepreneur or a CEO.
I had no business doing that.

Speaker 1 And that's not really what I would have chosen to do.

Speaker 1 But at the time, my adaptive self stepped in and said, you need to adapt because now you need to be a CEO and you need to learn how to be one, as opposed to taking the easy road and saying, look, my authentic self is not to be this kind of leader and I'm just going to be who I am.

Speaker 1 No, we can change. And that's when adaptive selves take control over our actions and decisions.
Meet a different guest each week.

Speaker 1 Confidence query.

Speaker 2 I ask you to try to find your passion.

Speaker 2 I hope everyone listening right now gets this message that I'm getting loud and clear, which is really about the word and

Speaker 2 instead of and in place of the word or, right? So for people who see Amana and say she had to be a scientist or she could be a beauty queen, no, she was a scientist and a beauty queen, right?

Speaker 2 And just like you're talking about now with the book, showing there's two sides to everything. You don't have to pick one or the other.

Speaker 2 In fact, it's about that and and that joining and that balance in different situations and different moments and embracing both.

Speaker 1 People naturally they swing to the way it was, well, I can't be this and that. I have to take a side.
And I talk about this a lot.

Speaker 1 And I think it's all out there in the press that I got is like the first question I've gotten in my first pageant was, if you had to choose between being smart or pretty or smart or beautiful, which one would it be?

Speaker 1 And that's what it all clicked for me because I was never really like a one-faceted person. I was always very multidimensional.

Speaker 1 And I never was brought up with this idea that I had to choose between being things.

Speaker 1 And if I wanted to be both or multiple things, and it's possible, maybe not all at once and not all at the same time, but it's okay to maybe realize along the way that this is no longer working for you.

Speaker 1 And now you want to become this. And that's okay to pivot as well.
And I've done that multiple times in my career.

Speaker 1 And I think that's really how I built my confidence actually along the way, because I was able to see that I was going to take on a new role that I had absolutely no experience in or no, you know, precedent.

Speaker 1 And I built myself through it. And so that gave me the confidence to go into the next chapter of my life and be able to do the same thing.
When I first stepped on that stage and pageant world,

Speaker 1 I was like, well, if I could walk on stage in front of thousands of people in a swimsuits and heels and be open to being judged, like, guys, I'm literally here for you to judge me.

Speaker 1 I can do anything, you know?

Speaker 2 And it's just like, you have to remind yourself of what you're capable of because other people will sure not remind you of that and it's your responsibility it's your choice to be able to say i've been through this or i've overcome this and because of that i built the confidence to do this our stories are very different but very similar when i hear you tell that story it just reminds me of being fired and being told all you're good at is sales all you're good at is sales leadership in corporate america that's the lane you're supposed to be in what are you going to do now you got fired and you can't compete in that business and i had to come to terms with myself that maybe there's more to me than this one lane, one job.

Speaker 2 Maybe there's other skills intrinsically within me that I can explore and tap into that I just never paid attention to before.

Speaker 2 And I've seen you evolve through this process, through all these changes and the technology that you're now embracing in business and doing so many different things.

Speaker 2 And that is exactly that same path that I've been on.

Speaker 2 Okay, I can still be that person that's great in corporate America, but I can write a book and I can launch a podcast and I can jump into the unknown world of entrepreneurship as a rookie, having no expertise at it and just make some mistakes and start figuring it out.

Speaker 2 And you're right. Through those steps, through those low moments is what gives you that true confidence that no one can take from you.
It's not something outside of you.

Speaker 2 It's something within that said, I built this from zero. I stepped into that unknown.

Speaker 2 And if I was able to get out there after getting fired and not knowing what I was going to do and build this company that I have today, I can do anything, just like you in the swimsuit on that, you know, on that massive stage.

Speaker 1 It's a good reminder. And I think people, again, and I know you talk a lot about this with fear of failure, which I know, I know we're all paralyzed by that.

Speaker 1 But look, everybody fails and that there is a reassurance to tell yourself that.

Speaker 1 And you see people fail publicly much worse than we do. So if they can go through that, then we could easily do it ourselves, especially if you're not someone who's living your life in public.

Speaker 1 And if you do fail, most of the time people are going to move on from it. Everyone has their own issues.
No one's going to judge you for that or making mistakes because we're all doing it.

Speaker 1 And if I see someone, wow, built a company and it didn't work out, I don't sit here and like dwell and laugh at it because I'm like, I have my own problems to go through as well.

Speaker 1 And maybe I'm about to fail as well.

Speaker 1 But it's like people just get in their own head and they think that they're like the center of the world and everybody's going to judge them and everybody's going to come at them with these comments.

Speaker 1 And you know, they're going to say this or say that. But that now you're falling again victim to the outside world expectation.

Speaker 1 and i think to me the first thing i thought when i hit rock bottom in 2018 and i thought i lost the company and everything i built is that what are people going to think that i didn't think oh i don't have any money in my bank account or that shit my creditors are calling me like asking like i didn't think any of that which was the most important thing to figure out all i thought was day and night what are people going to say about me now it's embarrassing or oh shit like i've been talking about all these dreams of mine and now people are going to judge me for not being able to make it happen it's all in my head and i put this extra pressure on me that i'm already going through a lot you know i'm having anxiety around all right what's the next step in my career and now i also have to feel like i need to be perfect for the outside world's expectation and live my life as what people expect out of me which you know is not a healthy way at all to think or even just adapt as a strategy for your own life so I had to slowly figure out how to stop caring about what people think about me.

Speaker 1 And it's, you know, to this day sometimes you struggle with it. But you have to remind yourself, I don't care.

Speaker 1 And you know, who's a great, my brother is so great at that because I call him every time. I'm like, so this person emailed me and they asked for this.
And I'm not sure what to say.

Speaker 1 They're like, who cares?

Speaker 1 Just tell them this and just fuck off.

Speaker 1 I was like, you need a champion in your life that can constantly remind you that right now you're thinking about the wrong thing.

Speaker 1 because what you're thinking has to do with what people think of you and it's not the right question to ask.

Speaker 1 You're asking the wrong question, you know, and everything that you're thinking about should be about how to live purposefully, how to be fulfilled on your own.

Speaker 1 Whether or not people see what you're doing, whether people are not aware of your accomplishment or lack thereof, you should be the one focusing on what actually fulfills your soul at the core, as opposed to how much money it makes you, or how much followers you'll get from it, or how much press or outside validation, or how much hype you'll get from that.

Speaker 1 And I know early on, I made that mistake with when starting the company, because I just had this big chip on my shoulder that I had to prove myself all along.

Speaker 1 I was always doing things because I felt like they would give me more credibility to the outside world, and people are going to see me as more competent or more credible or better.

Speaker 1 And it was just the wrong mentality to have. Obviously, yes, you should care about your reputation because that's important, but that's not the same thing as caring about what people think of you.

Speaker 2 That is so good. Mon, tell me, who is the glass ledge for?

Speaker 1 I mean, I wrote it for every woman, no matter what, at what point she is on her journey.

Speaker 1 Women in business, professional women in corporate, graduate students, students in high school or college who are still trying to think about their future and what they want to do.

Speaker 1 Even women at the peak of their careers and C-suite level, you know.

Speaker 1 It's just written in a way that it can always serve as some kind of reminder or there's always lessons there that you can remind yourself of no matter what you've been through and no matter what your journey is or what your industry is or what your dreams are.

Speaker 1 So I really wanted it to be kind of encompassing of from, you know, a professional woman being ambitious in her career all the way to even a stay-at-home mom who's figuring out how to be a better mom for her children and how to also balance her dreams and ambitions with her new motherhood.

Speaker 2 Well, I am so excited for you. I am so proud of you.
And I can't wait for everybody to get their hands on this book. Where can everybody find it?

Speaker 1 Yeah, so it's available on Amazon, which is I feel like everyone's go-to for book purchases, but it's also available on Barnes and Noble and every other retailer that you can think of.

Speaker 1 You can just type up the Glass Ledge Amazon. It'll pop up.
Also, it's all over my social media. If you want to follow me at Iman Ubu, I-M-A-N-O-U-B-O-U.

Speaker 1 And there will be a website for the book coming up this week, glassledge.com. So that's going to have all the information that you need about the book signings and book tours and events.

Speaker 1 And also signing up for my newsletter for more tips and advice.

Speaker 2 Oh my gosh. Get in the community.
Get the book. You will not regret it.
This book is really, just like you were describing, you reach out to your brother when you need someone to pick you up.

Speaker 2 This book is that pick-me-up. So you need it.
Be your own champion. Get the glass ledge now.
Until next week, keep creating your confidence. You know, we will be too.

Speaker 2 I decided to change that dynamic.

Speaker 2 I couldn't be more excited for what you're going to hear. Start learning and growing.
Inevitably, something will happen. No one succeeds alone.

Speaker 2 You don't stop and look around once in a while. You could miss it.
Come on this journey with me.