#awinewith Stephanie Rowe
MEET Stephanie Rowe, Founder of Mrs Rowe & Indie Pages
You can find them here:
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:05):
Welcome to Spark tv.
Stephanie Rowe (00:08):
Hello. Thank you for having me.
Danielle Lewis (00:12):
Oh my God, I'm so excited because literally we just had to go. Oh my god. Time out. Stop talking. Let's do it. One timewise, we'll just chat all day. So I know there's going to be so many fabulous nuggets of wisdom in today's episode. So let's kick things off by telling everyone who you are and what you do.
Stephanie Rowe (00:33):
Hello everybody. Thank you so much for listening and tuning into Spark tv. It's so lovely that we get to have this platform and share and connect in such a beautiful virtual way. I think we forget how easy it is to actually learn from our peers. So thank you for tuning in. My name is Stephanie Rowe. My author name is Mrs. Rowe author, and I do a lot of different things, but I'm currently changing up the publishing industry with a website called Indie Pages, which is for self-published authors in small press. And it is a online e platform for eBooks and audiobooks. It is literally coming up against the biggest publishing houses in the world and going, do you know what? We can either stay stagnant and not pay our writers and our authors and our creatives, or we can actually uplift everybody and we can change by actually sharing the profits with a 70% cut going to the author and 20% going well, 30% going to indie pages. And there is so much emotion that comes up with that because it's like, you can't do that. And guess what baby cakes? I'm doing it.
Danielle Lewis (01:48):
Oh my God, you know what? I just freaking love this because do you know how many people say the words you'll never get rich writing a book? And I'm like, well, firstly, there's a reason because the majority of the money doesn't go to the writer. But I'm like, no, you can. It's just you've really got to think about the business model, perhaps self-publish. There's a way to do it. So this is awesome because this takes stress off people and puts money in their pocket. And I'm just thinking about all of the women in business who have a story inside them who should be self
Stephanie Rowe (02:23):
Phone
Danielle Lewis (02:24):
And getting on a platform. Hundred percent,
Stephanie Rowe (02:26):
Definitely. And so what's happening at the moment is organically women are coming to me and they're going, I self-published two books this year, and through that process, the second book was a collaboration poetry book, and it's called The World in Our Words, but it has 22 poets from all over the world. And the whole purpose of that book was, for me, there is obviously so much turmoil, there's so much negativity going on. There's wars, there's repression, there is struggling financially just to eat. And for me, I was getting very, and I was like, how can I in my way impact the world positively? And so I did that through poetry. And so I got 22 souls to put down their ideologies, their religion, their political beliefs, and come together as a community for six months to support each other. They came in and they had self-doubt, and they were like, I don't know if I'm good enough. I dunno if my poetry is good enough. And I watched these people bloom, and I realized really quickly how important it is to have environments like this where you uplift,
Danielle Lewis (03:34):
Where
Stephanie Rowe (03:34):
You bring people together and have community where you actually support them with conscious leadership. And once the book was published, all of these poets went on to do amazing things. And so through this process, women have been coming to me and they're like, I have a book. And I'm like, great, let's do it. I will help you in any way I can. And I also obviously have the, I'm going to be having the ebook platform, but I'm just like, everyone has a story inside of them. And there is so much cat, like dog eat dog that's very toxic. Even in the traditional publishing industry, if you get a contract, you get maybe 2% royalties off of every book. Wow, that's wild. Yeah, if you're a really big author, it'd be maybe five. It could push to 10, but that's big, big, big. But yeah, when it comes to traditional publishing, everyone takes their cut. And a lot of the times authors don't realize that you still need to do the marketing. They don't do the marketing for you. And so even that education with a lot of women, and they're like, what do you mean? And I'm like, yeah, it's like doll, you got to get on the socials.
Danielle Lewis (04:56):
Yeah, totally. Sell your soul.
Stephanie Rowe (04:59):
Yeah, exactly. And look, to be fair, I'm on social media and it is very difficult at times to constantly do it, as I'm sure you can relate. But I've been shifting it because I'm like, you know what? I don't want to just do the same thing that everyone else is doing and it's not bringing me any joy. And so I've been going into what I feel brings me a lot of joy and connecting through that way. And that's kind of been really transparent and vulnerable and just being like, yeah, look, there's really hard days and there's really great days. And I'm having lots of reflection on that and having gratitude and it can rub people up the wrong way because they're like, oh no, we're only doing positivity. And I'm like, yeah, great. Good on you. Yeah, good on you, but I'm over in the real world.
(05:53):
But then you connect with people and I think through that, it's just you find your group, you find your people, and that's really special. And then you see how you can impact them in a really positive way. And it's almost like wildfire. And for me anyway, I kind of miss that sometimes. And then I have to kind of refocus and go, you know what? I actually impact this world in a really beautiful way because I'm authentic, but I'm also about community and uplifting and bringing people together. And when there's such a pressure to divide in this world, and there's such a pressure on women at the moment, and I think we're all feeling that right now, especially with what's going on in America. There is almost an element where there's been so many women die this year in a way. It's really, really hardcore. And so for me, I'm just like, we need to rally together is our time. And if you look at history, what you realize is women are always the ones that change history, and we're told that we don't. But when you go back into history, you see that it's like women were in famines are like, no, enough is enough. This is it. No more. We are the ones that start it and change it. And I think this is the time to really have that reflection as women in society, no matter where we are in the world, to go, you know what? We can come together, our stories unite us and give us power to then hand over to the next generation.
Danielle Lewis (07:30):
I think this is absolutely incredible, and I couldn't agree with you more, but how did you even get into this? I feel like there's a
Stephanie Rowe (07:41):
Backstory here. There is. So my profession is procurement. So I do contract negotiations. I do it for very large corporations. I essentially go in and I make corporations a fuck ton of money, and I'm not even joking a lot of money. And I've done it for 15 years now I'm getting older and I'm in denial. So it's longer than that now dull.
Danielle Lewis (08:14):
Why I downplay
Stephanie Rowe (08:15):
The years. Yeah. I keep second guessing myself. I'm like, God, how old am I? Anyway? Yeah, let's, let's not do that. We don't need to go down that road. And so I've been in corporate world for a long time and I had been honestly conditioned to turn up, do my hours, do my overtime, do what was necessary to keep my job. And as the years kept rolling on, I just was like, I can't do this anymore. And I had to literally through Covid, honestly, it was like I used Covid to do a lot of work on myself, but I used the time to sit down and look at what I wanted in my life and how I wanted my life to be built. And it was not anywhere near where I was. And so on the wall I'd had, I am writing a book and I'd had it on the wall for eight years. Wow. And I'm a big manifester. I've had freaking notes all over my house for a very, very long time. Very, very strong motivator, manifester as well. And so I thought to myself, I can't have this on the wall. And when I say this is for me, my personal relationship with her, I cannot to myself let myself down by having this on the wall and not actioning it.
Danielle Lewis (09:45):
And
Stephanie Rowe (09:46):
So I said to my husband, I'm going to use my tax money to buy myself a laptop. At that point, I'd had work laptops and I said, no, it's really important that this is separate. This is for me. And so I did that, and he doubted me actually. And he goes, I think, yeah, I know. Oh my God, he watch me. I know he stands that now. And he goes, I cannot actually fathom what you've achieved just this year. He goes, I didn't understand how much you go. I'm going to do this. You execute and you do it,
Danielle Lewis (10:25):
But
Stephanie Rowe (10:25):
You just don't do it. You execute it in a way where the dominoes fall and it's just like this explosion of amazingness. And I was like, so yeah. And so I wrote the book and I wrote the book in six months, my first one, which is called Fiercely Me. It's my self-published memoir. And through that journey, learn how to publish books. But I also learn about the industry. I learned about what people do, how much money. Honestly, it's such a lucrative industry for everybody except the author. Everyone except the author
Danielle Lewis (11:06):
Makes
Stephanie Rowe (11:07):
A lot of money.
Danielle Lewis (11:08):
And
Stephanie Rowe (11:08):
It's typesetters. There's people that sell courses. There's people that literally just help you write. They motivate you, they mentor, you could pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into it. And the reality is, is that you just need to sit down and do it for yourself, and you need to just ride every day.
(11:35):
And that's what I did. I came from, honestly, I left school and I left school and I couldn't write. I was illiterate. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent. So I come from a low socioeconomic household. My dad is still a drug addict. My mom is a severely autistic, undiagnosed, and she is with another addict, just absolute impoverishment. And I left school and couldn't write. And the reason why I know I was so bad was when I was packing, I found a book from when I was 17. I've always journaled, but I opened this book up and I couldn't actually read the words. Wow. Yeah. I couldn't read the words. I didn't actually know what my mind was. It was just mumbo jumbo.
Danielle Lewis (12:29):
Oh my God, that's incredible.
Stephanie Rowe (12:31):
And so now I've got two books published, and I've been in procurement for 15 years. So when I say you need to put yourself first and you need to do it for yourself, I genuinely on all accounts meet it from the bottom of my soul to the last atom of my body. Because when you have a deep relationship of love, care, and self-respect for yourself, anything in this goddamn world is possible. And no one can stop you from achieving it. And I mean that because the one thing that you will come up against time and time again is people saying, no, you cannot do it. You are going to fail. You are a tall poppy. You're too ambitious. And I own it. I own every single part of me. And I love it because I'm like, you deserve to own every single part of you. You deserve to love yourself. You deserve, if you want to be ambitious, you go and be ambitious.
(13:29):
It's just beautiful when you get to a place where you let go of the shackles or you kind of let go, and you're just getting your wings out this side and you, oh, what else can I do? So yes, I come from just quite a shockingly sad upbringing. And my teacher, my teacher when I was at high school said, I'd be one of three things. I'd be a checkout chick, a teenage mom, or a junkie, and I'm not one. Oh my God. Wow. Yeah. That was what a motivational speech. Hundred percent. And it's funny because I actually had forgotten that until my mom had mentioned it when I think I was 25. And I remembered that. I was like, oh yeah, that's right. He did say that. And then I thought maybe unconsciously, in a weird way, I use that to motivate me to not be any of those things and to flip it. And I think that's the other thing that I'd love for women to know is that you can flip your story whenever you want, and a story that you've told yourself or someone else has told you does not mean that that is going to be your destiny. And you can stop that cycle and that self-talk at any given moment and shift it immediately and try something differently.
(14:53):
So yeah, so there's a big life that's happened to get me to this point, but I think once I'd published those two books this year, I was really pissed off. I mean, there is nothing better than a woman that got raped inside of her. You get a woman that is just like, I do not like this. Amazon, a woman on a mission. Yeah, Amazon was paying for every book that I sold, a dollar 25, a dollar 25 is the royalty that I would get, and it would take them four to five months for me to get that dollar 25. The same thing with Ingram, the same thing with Wordsmith, which is Gardner over in uk. So all of these huge publishing houses that you have to go through to get access to bookstores and to have a customer base are paying you. And I just was like, well, I've got one or two choices.
(15:53):
I can accept what is happening or I can shift it and I can change it. There's nothing better than you have to be the force in this world to change. And people go, oh my God, it's Amazon. And I said, yeah, it is Amazon. And you know what? I've got so many grassroots authors that are supporting me, and I went to a book fair in Sydney recently, and I went round to all the authors and I was like, I'm doing indie pages. This is the deal. I'm going to do it. I'm ebook and audiobook, so many percent royalties. Within four weeks, you're going to get payouts and it's going to be live and accurate reporting because that's another thing they fail miserably at.
Danielle Lewis (16:31):
And
Stephanie Rowe (16:31):
So every single one of them was like, sign me up. They're all ready to pull their books off of Amazon and Ingram because they are just so over the royalties. And so I just thought, this is great. This is confirmation one that I'm on the right path,
(16:48):
And two, that I'm actually going to shake it up in a way where there's no way that they can't see my impact and I'm going to uplift and share the royalties, and I'm going within the literature industry, I'm going to shift it where they're going to be forced to actually, these big companies are going to have to have reflection on how they pay out their reporting and when they pay their authors, and at some point they're going to have to increase their royalties, and you know what? On that day or the day that they come to want to buy me out, and God damn, I'm going to, oh God, I cannot wait because I know they'll, they'll come over and they'll want to buy me out because I've taken up too much of the market and my husband's already said it. He goes, they're going to come and try and buy you out.
(17:35):
And I said, yeah, of course they are. And I said, and you know what the most beautiful sweet thing is going to be is just going to be, no, it's going to be a very quick meeting. It's going to be no, because I'm not going to, because the purpose of the business of indie pages is not to sell, is not for them to see me as competition, but to continue that competition, to take more profit from them, to take more market share from them so that they understand that they just can't turn around and treat people the way that they do and expect that people are going to accept it and continue to support the business. There is no alternative even for a consumer right now to go and buy a book that is not one of these big houses. And it's like as a consumer, you don't even have diversity within the market.
(18:28):
So it's like I'm so excited and I'm so happy that I have the drive and the ambition and the love for not only community, but for the, because I respect art, I respect writing, I respect how culture influences society. And when you look at history, you see that we are really shaped by culture. We are shaped by paintings. We're shaped by visual art. We are shaped by movies writing. We are not who we are without having art and writers in this world. And the most beautiful elements of writing and literature is that when we pass away, we are leaving something from the next hundred generations that can pick that book up, read it, and have insight. We can impact generations that we have no idea will be impacted. Now that my friend is powerful, and that is why I wanted to do indie pages, and that is the driving force behind it because I am not fearful of big corporations and I want to share the wealth, and I want to shift the paradigm within society so that people can actually go home and go, oh my God, I got so much royalties. Why would I buy a bottle of champagne, a dollar 25? They can't even do anything with it. Imagine how I'm going to impact so many families and so many different dynamics within society. It's going to be great.
Danielle Lewis (19:56):
And I think that the most interesting thing I'm hearing as well is that it only takes one person to make change. Every person listening here, they will have the choice as to whether they buy a book off Amazon or whether they buy that book from you. And it is a single person with a single action that can drive massive change. Hundred percent. And that's the ran that I'm on about now with women in business. I'm like to women control $30 trillion worth of consumer and household spending, but we go to the big retailers and we just put anything in our trolley and we don't even think about it. Instead of going, okay, what's a female founded coffee company, A female founded marketing agency, a female founded cup, whatever it is, but it's the best.
Stephanie Rowe (20:47):
And just on that, because I've lived like what you are saying, I've lived like that my entire life because, well, one, it came out of poverty because when I was in my early twenties, I didn't have any money. And so I had to get really, really scrappy with how I purchased things. And I realized that I could actually purchase things cheaper through smaller business than I could through larger. And so I'd go to the market, and so I would buy all my fresh produce there. I would buy my bacon, my eggs, I'd buy as much as I could there. It was cheaper for me to do that. Now, fast forward 20 years on, well, not 20 years, but 15 to 18 years on, I have implemented that across the board. And the beauty is, is that I don't just impact my life. I impact every person around me because they come into my house and then they have a coffee and they're like, where'd you get that coffee from?
(21:48):
I got that from Clark Street, who's Clark Street. It's actually a woman owned business in Melbourne, and she does fair trade, has relationships with the farmers over in South America. She goes over every harvest season, she knows their children, she's watched them grow up and go into university. But the coffee, my friend, is the best fucking coffee you'll have in ever. People go, and everywhere I go, I get Clark Street Coffee and everyone that has a coffee is just like, this is the best coffee I've ever had in my life. And I'm like, I know. And so that is what I do with absolutely everything. I try and buy as much clothing as humanly possible. My facial, I actually checked on your website, on your directory. I want to support women that do face creams. So the first place I went was your website because I was like, I want to support women in that business so that I can start supporting Australian women that have these businesses. So I'm not buying large corporations. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any. There is a lot of beauty on there though, so
Danielle Lewis (22:58):
I already have a recommendation, so I'll send it your way. The one that popped into my mind is Skin Days, and she may not have listed herself yet, so I'm going to make sure she's on there because that is a gorgeous product. So I'll send it to you.
Stephanie Rowe (23:11):
Yeah, please do it. I'm proactive and I'm about to run out of my stuff at the moment. So I wanted to support, again, support women in business. And so everything from face creams to clothing
(23:25):
To groceries, to bags to consumables. My husband is now looking at every product in an aisle of cleaning. And if he cannot find that it's made in Australia or by a smaller company, then he won't buy it. And then we go and find a local that is selling that stuff, and we either take our own bottles or we support local business, and it's easy to do. And if you turn it into a bit of a game, and I know a lot of people are time poor, I'm time poor, but you can do it in a really easy way in the sense of there's so much more reward to it, and you're like, oh, okay. It's like a puzzle. It's just like I'm just going to organize it and it's just going to kind of fall into place. And once you get into a routine, it's really easy to just shift your life and it just starts with one product.
(24:15):
So I totally agree. And we hold the purse strings, honestly, where women are the ones that pay all the bills. We're the ones that run the households. We're the ones that not only organize ourselves, but everyone else in the household and in the family generally speaking. And so we need to not only understand our power as individuals and self-worth, but we also need to see our power in purchasing. And I completely agree with you, is that if you choose to support a smaller business, you are not just supporting that business, you're supporting that community around that woman. You are supporting their families. It has flow on effect. They could be buying products that are also from other smaller organizations. And that is the impact that we can have when we use our dollar. Because when we use our dollar, that's where the shift comes because they cannot ignore when profits are removed and given to smaller people. And that's when we get to truly, truly have an impact.
Danielle Lewis (25:19):
Oh my God, it's just so spot on. I mean, at some point in my life, I just got tired of the rhetoric around Women are underfunded. It's too hard, it's all this. And I'm like, yeah, but it's all of these small choices. We already have the power. We are actively choosing not to use it. And just I love that you're on this mission. This is my, so I turned 40 next year and I've just gone, this is it. I finally have fun, baby. Have fun. I'm like that. Finally figured out what I want to fucking do with my life. And that is wake up women, we have the power to make change in these tiny decisions that we are making every day.
Stephanie Rowe (26:03):
Oh, a hundred percent. And there is a huge shift that's happening, I think with women. And I think we've just had enough. I think we're exhausted to the point where we are just like, enough is enough. Enough is enough. And we're realizing that we're actually happier in groups of women. And having males is also really positive, but have to be definitely positive. Had done the emotional
Danielle Lewis (26:28):
A good one.
Stephanie Rowe (26:28):
Yeah. The development and know who they are, value themselves, understand where the fucking boundary is. Yeah, definitely. Jesus Christ. Anyway, but I went to Seven Sisters recently and I did a couple of workshops there, and it was so interesting. I forget because I'm sure a lot of women watching, but also we get kind of like, oh, I have to do this thing and that thing, and oh my God, there's these lists and there's this internal pressure to achieve all the things that I've kind of forgotten the impact that I have. And doing these workshops at Seven Sisters was I think a really pivotal point. A couple of things came out of it. One, I am probably going to, well, not probably, I'm going to next year, going to a French residency in February, which for writing. Oh, cool. Awesome. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Thank you. I'm so good, jealous.
(27:40):
I honestly am so beaming over this. 20% of applications get accepted, so not 20%. Man, congratulations. Thank you. It's so good. And I'm going, I know what I'm going to use the space for. I'm going to write another book. It's going be like a, I'm going to turn it into a TV series, and it's going to be around multiple worlds that we can shift into. But there's an accident that happens, and from that they have, it's in the Amazon, and it kind of goes across life experience, but then also goes into fantasy. And so you're going to shift into different worlds and different experiences. And I'm going to obviously lace it to the hell with political views and all of that jazz, because there's no better way to deliver a political view from a woman, then lace it with a bit of fantasy,
Danielle Lewis (28:40):
Whatever delivery model works. A hundred
Stephanie Rowe (28:43):
Percent right. But yeah, so that's what I'm going to work on in the residency in France. Incredible, thank you. But what I'm going to do, I've got a couple of, I'm actually Ben, I'm going back to Paris to, I'm actually doing, oh, sorry. I'm so excited about this. So I'm actually doing a Women in Leadership keynote speech in Paris. Wow. Yeah. So I've got a couple of weeks between when the residency finishes and when I go and do that. And so I'm actually going to sit down and all of this will come around now from the Seven Sisters, because it was impactful, because I realized that I was not actually being honest with myself.
(29:26):
And in the sense of my friends kept going, you need to go either do mentoring or coaching, or you need to do something like that because you love people. You love helping people succeed and you love helping them develop. And for me, I was like, no, I don't want to. I don't want to. And they were like, why? And I was just like, because I just find a lot of coaches and mentors and stuff like that, they take a lot of money and they don't, don't understand their impact. I know. And I just hate that. Right? It's such a horrible industry.
(30:07):
And so I really wanted to not do that, not be that because of that. And my friend said, Steph, you are a bigger woman, and you are the only bigger woman at this Seven Sisters festival that's run a workshop now. You stand there, and not only do you love yourself, and you've always been confident because we were having a conversation, another presenter came up and she goes, oh my God, you're just so flamboyant. You're so confident. How? And my first friend hooked in and she goes, I've known her since she was 16. She has always been like this. She's never not been like this. It's not, she just all of a sudden was like, oh, I'm amazing. She's like, she's been like this. And she was really young. And I kind of hearing that from her, I was like, oh, there's power within that. There's power with being comfortable in your skin.
(31:03):
But the beauty of me is that I get to actually help others, and I get to shine that light and be that beacon for other people. And I think that's really special. And so I'm going to use that time when I'm over in France to kind of work out a bit of a program on helping not only women write their books, but also look at mentoring and looking at different options where I can actually, I really want to shift and help people on a larger scale. And so I'm going to kind use that time to really sit down and work out the framework of that because, and as my friend said, she goes, Steph, you've got all of this shit in your head, mate. She's like, I keep putting up all the, oh, well, I can't do it. I don't have this. I don't have all the stories, all the excuses, right? Oh, I can't do this. It's too hard. And she's like, you can do it. And so at that festival, I had to really sit in that and go, why don't you want to do this? Because you've already, I had about four people come up to me and want to engage with me in these services. And she's like, it's naturally happening. The only thing that's stopping you is you.
(32:23):
And I was like, yeah,
Danielle Lewis (32:26):
You hate it when somebody holds a mirror up and just tells
(32:29):
You who you're like, no, I know. And I was like, it's so interesting though, because I feel like everything you're talking about just leads into each other. And that big piece around confidence. I know so many women struggle with it, and that's actually what holds them back from writing their book. Who am I to write my knowledge down or my story down? And so I love that it's full circle empower women to have that confidence to get their booker out into the world, but also have a platform that gives them actually the money so that they get what they're owed. I think it's such a beautiful full circle.
Stephanie Rowe (33:12):
Thank you. And you're completely right. We are sitting there and listening to someone. And what I realized was exactly what you said was that they weren't starting from the relationship with the people that they were mentoring or coaching. And I got really, really angry. I was like, how dare you take that person's money when the first step, when you are, because it is your responsibility. And this is how I see it anyway. It is my responsibility as a coach and mentor to guide and help you. Now, you are not going to have any success if you don't care about yourself. If you cannot love yourself, if you're not going to be honest with who you are, then how are you going to achieve anything? Because it starts from here. And that's what Fiercely Me is all about. It's about empowerment and understanding the power that we actually have inside of us and how we can utilize it.
(34:10):
So it's just, for me, it was just like, no, this is where I have to, I actually do that full circle. I start at the start. I build that community of people. I empower them to be their authentic self. I go, Hey, have you realized your story is actually incredible and that you deserve to share it with the world? There could be thousands of people out there that need to hear your words. They need to read your writing. You don't know the impact that you're going to have in this world because you haven't done it too scared. So yeah. So that's kind of what I'm going to be working on, and I need to go through this process myself. But Seven Sisters was actually really instrumental in that. And I have now got a couple of other presenters that are like, oh, no, we want to engage you. And I was just like, okay, let's do this, baby. Let's do this.
Danielle Lewis (35:04):
Oh my God, that is absolutely incredible. You know what, I feel like you and I could talk all day, but I always love to wrap up these podcast episodes with one last piece of advice. So reflecting on your time in business and your career and your life to date, what would be a piece of advice that you would give to another woman on her business journey?
Stephanie Rowe (35:32):
So this one is going to be one that a lot of women already know, but I think you need to be reminded. Our guts are the one thing that we need to listen to. And especially in business, the amount of times that I've sat at a table surrounded by men, and I'm doing 50 to a hundred million dollars contracts, and my gut tells me what I need to do next, and I have gotten huge savings and shifted what we needed really rapidly is amazing. And so yes, our gusts are there for obviously safety reasons and went to keep us safe. But in business, it is our power. It is our power, and it is like our stealth bomber. You've got to listen to your gut. If it says something, don't ignore it. Because when you ignore it, that's when shit goes sideways. That's when you have to work three times as hard to get it back on track. So please listen to your gut.
Danielle Lewis (36:39):
Oh my God, I could not agree with you more. Every time I've made a bad decision or had something, I'm like, I knew it. I already knew it. I felt it in my gut. I knew what I should have done, and I didn't do it. And I ignored that feeling. And now this has happened. So you are right. I feel like especially for women, it is kind of our superpower in business.
Stephanie Rowe (37:01):
It is.
Danielle Lewis (37:02):
And
Stephanie Rowe (37:02):
It really is. And there's a lot of pressure on us to not acknowledge it because it's like, no, no, no, no. That's feminine women's business. Yeah, it's too, no, you've got to walk into that because your gut is the thing that could possibly make you a lot of goddamn money. Yes. And
Danielle Lewis (37:20):
That's what we want, ladies. I love it. Oh my God, Seth, you are absolutely incredible. Thank you so much for sharing your insights, your wisdom, your energy, your time with the Spark community. I am so grateful for you.
Stephanie Rowe (37:37):
I'm so grateful to be a part of this. To be honest, I'd never kind of done anything like this. And then I kind of been in the background a little bit looking at all the things, and I'm just, I don't know, every time I go onto your website or I go into where you post in the community, I just have this kind of sense of really, it's a pride. I have so much pride that I'm a part of this community, that there's so many amazing women doing amazing things, that they're willing to share what they're doing and that cross-pollination for us, and I just want to say this, what you are doing with this Spark community is what they do in the boys clubs. And this has been going on for hundreds and hundreds of years. So do not underestimate the power of what you were doing with this.
(38:28):
We're doing it a lot better and a lot more ethically than what the boys clubs do. But this is our girls club where we get to uplift, we get to develop, we get to cross pollinate, we get to share, we go, oh, I've got this contract coming up. I need this. I need that. We get to actually help each other exactly like they have been doing on a lot larger scale. So remember that this is positive. And when we look out and we see all of these huge wages that men get to take home or all of this kind of business that gets done, remember that we can actually do that within this Spark community. And what we put into it and how we actually engage is what we're going to get out of it. And it's already happening, but it's not happening enough within the women community. And we are going to soar, but we have to be in a flock to do so.
Danielle Lewis (39:26):
Oh my God, I love it. You have just given me, it's like it's the golf courses and the whiskey clubs for women. Yeah, hundred percent. I just love it. It's so true. They do that. They go out and play golf, they do their deals. I'm like, that's cool. We do it on Spark.
Stephanie Rowe (39:46):
Yeah, exactly. But we also, we might do a pampering day instead, or we'll have a beautiful
Danielle Lewis (39:51):
Lunch. I have a glass champagne as well, please.
Stephanie Rowe (39:53):
Yeah.
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