as they move and helping them be happy and comfortable in their space for the uplifting psychological impact of color and design but when that is not the only thing you need when you're going to return transition what you also need is to have other professionals in your life that can help you through that transition and i am very proud and excited to have my calling my friends my and my mentor tara gill for here to talk about women's empowerment know i've been in and i've been in other networking groups like writing and networking groups and you know what i don't like that we know don't because your group is all about empowerment and we think we you told a story we were talking about how you thought it was networking right well and you know now working in the store around well networking is the outcome and networking of women but i'd like to think networking to me is business card exchange and lead generation yes and there's a purpose for that other women in business but i think before we do that before we see what i can get from somebody i need to build a relationship based on know like and trust me out so that we have a bond so that we can be each other's advocates and whether that's for your business or whether that's for your life girls need girls and it's a better way for me naturally to do business with someone is to do it with people they have a relationship with or that i think that my values align of my goals align and you don't know that in a business selling and nobody cares about my car they're not listening and there's one against their car it doesn't work no that does not work and what's so great about big is that it's first of all i love that it's all women and no offense guys love you a really nice group and we're going we're doing our little poem was a little that sounds like i'm diminishing but ours are short pitch which is very interesting get around the room and i had mentioned something about going for a personal trial with my son  and i have x y and z information from you that we need that's exactly what yeah like i said because women but women are born nurturing r and when you put them in a business environment where they're supposed to be more male like it's a a natural environment for them i mean the reason women try to take on a persona that may not be natural is because they've been taken advantage of not been affirmed and not been given equal as we know equal data but if you could do business like a woman the way women are more natural and we do that then it becomes it becomes a better environment number one but it also becomes a very good lucrative way to do business because women are much bigger referrals so if you if i do business with you i'm going to tell my mother my cousin my neighbors my girlfriends left right top bought a puddle and again men don't do it  they don't do it that way i always use the example that my husband playing golf you know and you think he's networking or meeting someone but he's there for the golf and he'll sit two inches away from this guy for three and a half hours and after three and a half hours on this little golf cart now he will know his name is bob bill how many kids does he have done and then i'd be invited to his daughter's wedding i know because that's what we do we want to bond we want to we want to go so that's what big is all about and yes it started with entrepreneur ism but because there's so life and whenever they hit that curve ball on life divorce health all these areas how do they get really engaged they just opt out sit on the sidelines all this amazing talent all these great ideas all these little and they don't know how to get back in on their terms because the corporate world is not flexible the way they don't count as i raised a kid for twelve years or fifteen they lose their mojo a they lose their self esteem they lose their down it's their lonely the sit in their houses by themselves and they sit in starbucks in the eavesdropped like i you know somebody say something they side we want the cake or whatever but that's the other thing it's not just our kids that are pulling at us it's our kids it's our spouses it's our it's our parents yeah everyone is at us and we want to be the epicenter of the family life and of the of the whole thing and so where's the money right you lose you can lose the knee under the rubble and when i say rubble especially if there's a now a divorce or our transition it can be god forbid loss of the spouse you know what divorce is a very hard moment i mean you you you prepare for motherhood yes you don't always prepare for divorce we know even if you think you've prepared yeah it's not the same thing when my next show we'll talk about that because i'm considering this for many reasons part one and my next guest sound like father being will be our next and the reason i know sandra is because of you and we'll talk about that but i wanted you to tell i had a career in marketing in a big advertising agency up in boston and i was interesting at cocktail parties or so i thought you know because i worked on some of the biggest brands and i did the ball drop in times square was of a new lighting and so i had to find my who i was connected to my career as many women do  interested but then when you stay at home like i did and so for thirteen years i stayed on the sidelines i did a little freelance here and there but i'm not really much more of a stay at home mom than i care to admit and you know because you don't you going to my girlfriend is just in the agency and getting promotions and getting vice presidents and senior vice presidents could i have done that and she's making her own paycheck and i'm sitting there going what do with my man coming in and lose your sense of self and so i  traveled with my husband's career as many women do when he was the luxury listen it's a luxury that say no i had different know what yeah absolutely and but i went to college and i wasn't planning on this just being a mom i thought i was going to be the mom and the career is that but life is hard right so so anyway back and i moved back to new jersey after traveling between massachusetts and chapel hill north carolina with my family and i was doing the volunteer thing which is another common thing where women are challenge so i went on this one day and i dropped my son off at the middle school and there was a bumper sticker on the teacher's car and it said remember who you wanted to be and i was like i don't like a ben but it was like it was  ok i see you're saying to me i need to do something about this and i had met all these women because i'm an irish big mouth talking and i could act on like an actor that you know yeah and i just put an e mail out to all the women that i knew in the area because i had made all these connections and a third grade room parent right about it and i just called it at the time we lived in burnsville and it bernard still ideas group b and i just said we're still smart we're still smart and we still have something left to give and maybe we could do something together that would give ourselves professional fulfillment keep our time our own and keep our family and personal life secret and make some money because women who have money have more choices than women who don't that's right period yeah i mean whether it was our grandmothers who had a secret cookie jar in the back that had a little stash out and we have this innate desire to have some of our own income and be able to make our own decisions about it and that's the fuel to decisions is money so that's the reality that is a reality as that is very harshly ali when you think if you would already know where they had been plucked out of the work world and so that's what happened so i sent this e mail and said let's all get together in my living room and forty two women should i guess i then i mean i knew that we had tapped into some yeah that was not met out in the world and something well the way it happened we changed to believe in fire grow because a woman in the town next to us and basking ridge called up and happened so we were in my living room in two thousand and nine there was actually a woman in the living room this is the story and she was a big executive in the garment district years before she came home one day and goes back to the divorce conversation she had three daughters and her husband was the flexible state you know getting the kids after school so right so it worked it worked for them and she traveled around the globe and she loved her job and she was the primary breadwinner until she came home and he said i want out of all i and out goes the life right here those stories on the right and you know the house goes patricia was in our living room and the women what happened was she shared that she was an executive but that she couldn't do that any longer they asked her what she did now we asked her what she did now and she walked off which was a great job gave her flexibility both and her passion right it wasn't anything she wanted to really do but it served the purpose for the time being and what she did will say is even though she was exactly the same person people treated her differently than when she was a big executive versus when she walked the dogs so that affirmation was gone and that's a really sad the friends and it was her passion and she kept saying but the dream is gone i'm forty something years old the dream is gone and the women in the room said no it's not and they said you can i know inventor i know retail space and she literally sat up higher in her chair and she literally thought maybe it was possible and she went to the group and she said i've never even shared that i wanted a bridal shop yeah because that's like it's my little secret and then she said but a woman that i walked augsburg she might be able to give me some funding if i had a thing called the business plan but i don't know what that said when's the next one i'm like the next what here i was thinking i was going to get a public relations job of somebody in the room and instead what they said someone turned to me a girlfriend that i knew she said this is your job and i said what she said this has to keep to happen for you to was seem too overwhelming but if you say yes to something it unfair it unfolds the way it's supposed to and you just so for me i just follow it and i find amazing women who bring it out like you in different formats like here or in the meetings or at the local community groups and so that's what happened so now it's been seven years and then years as god and we had about five thousand years and i do i do bridal shop the history there was the next year she opened up that bridal sho my guy and this year this year new jersey monthly magazine voted her the number one brush up and it's not all terribly that's awesome and we're happy to say we have i go over six hundred thirty five active members right now and over twenty eight hundred women who have been members of big and we like no one's going to decorate a house like judy toeplitz right but no one not everybody is going to want that style some people might want this style and so there's a collaboration there's plenty of places to decorate so much and more than you could possibly know and  my gift is working with people who are in pain sure you know also for me i love that making that connection hearing the story i always share my know that i talk about it as you're good at it's biblical if you get it you will get ten times and if people are afraid to do it because they're afraid especially women because for so long we gave and gave and gave got taken advantage of and we did and we felt you know taking for granted right and that's a bad feeling to be generous and to be giving and then feeling was homes worthwhile and there was no reciprocity not that you gave it for reciprocity but there was no gratitude or no validation for it if you give and in an environment so what you need with that mrs is the environment where everybody agrees that this is sort of how we do it here so you know out there in the cold cruel world there's going to be people that are going to take advantage or that are going to take for granted but within our organization the culture is don't come here to get right come here and give and i have to say you know we now have thirty seven pas we call right and they're in four states new york city massachusetts connecticut that god bless those women who become the leaders of big and keep that cultures great whenever somebody comes in to get something out of it they actually it works so badly for them that way because that's what the culture the women will say and that's what we do here let's not what we're here with a guy like that where we this is where we give to yes it was actually from her heart you know and when i also like about the big is that it doesn't matter you said this before and it doesn't matter where you are what level and you know i do i do story is so cool like you could have nothing and just have an idea you can be like me or have a business i have a great business but i want to grow right we have we basically serve three kinds of women if you do this who lives in society and the the nice part is these don't these women don't naturally get together in their commute on community so we serve the mom or the the woman who is it doesn't have to be a mom but a woman who is in transition right the woman who says i don't know what is going to happen next to me if i don't know what to do next i don't know where to go and i'm  and so i don't even have a card i know and we want to be i wasn't i didn't have a card when i started this thing i mean so so we want to teach them we want them to come in first and they are by definition everybody else is top consumer right there the woman who can give you feedback on all your products most women's businesses are related to women who say they want to serve other women the second one are people who are entrepreneurs they discovered their passion writing know what they want to do they want to grow up they like me that the built this so that you can so that when we grow you grow it your membership allows you to go to anywhere we are for the same membership cost because we know women don't want to we don't want to milk the backs of our women we don't want to say ok we charge you for this and charge of that that is what these other groups that passion that the money will follow the money will you told me that the money does follows you all right you just have to believe in it and you have to be smart about it it's not going to fall into your bank right now you know you really do have to collaborate and there's you know and so the third group is the corporate woman and the corporate partners that we partner with that say you know what this we want to reach these women to yes so then i have to and the corporate individual she's coming out of the corporate world she hasn't lived in her own community for years yeah how does she acclimate back in her community how does she meet the smart intelligent women that she's walking away from in the corporate world exactly that are living all around her surrounding not going to necessarily hide in the carpool he's very or supermarkets to maybe possibly but not necessarily so we help them with that go after your passion and figure out what that is and take some time it's not the first job that comes along or the first opportunity or somebody that says hey why don't you do this because it's available that may or may not be your passion to spend some time because if you do the first thing that comes you know maybe if you just find out that your mother has all simers it may not be the time the going to go full force into starting six figure business right but that's ok come and take the time and explore and get the infrastructure information you need but don't you don't have to act at that moment because again you're going to be right on to a rock uphill if i think that timing isn't right now and then the third thing is find you tried to get that support yeah and whether it's something like big where we are what a women's organization that does have that positive and we welcome all women to come in and explore and see if we are right for them but it's also your family make sure you have childcare make sure your you know that the health of and what you're being pulled in the other directions of your life if you are in the middle of a divorce this may not be the right time to start a business but it is the right time to get the support of women that are going to support seiu you know absolutely you don't have to be in a business but those three things having the timing having the passion the timing and the support is a really good formula for meetings that you desire to go right into your calendar and it'll even google map you to get you there and i wonder for all it's wonderful i just even got a message from one of their pod leaders i think in flemington that just invited me to be a speaker it's like well what  i've gotten more out of this group than being in a group that i'm in currently for four years now i have to say and there are things i've gotten out of that but yet i know that i'm also yang it's not we're not you know it took you some time to embrace it and that's ok group with one of your guests jodi jodi and they see just those other leaders in the pennington pod they meet in the evening i mean i would love to be closer in this area in this region but one of the things have slowed us down all the time from just blossoming wherever we want to guys we need to find those good and you know that's that's a special formula there's a special women we're very fortunate to have so many amazing leaders in our group but we need to find a couple more in this region to bring more empowerment to the women in this result you guys are listening out there this you know how to get in touch with tarot you can get in touch with me it doesn't really make a difference because i'm part of the group too and it's done so much for me so that i just want to reinforce what you said about authenticity passion and not being afraid to be who you are not you know what i like about the group there's no judging any help comfort different from that we're down they come for support they come for for but when they're there they're all there for the same person they are equalizer it's a wonderful i mean i say this now because it's mine but it's become the gift of the women dot number two and meet dot com you can find me if anybody out there needs help in any form of transition whether it's starting a business whether it's helping you in your home whether it's finance whether it's divorce whatever it is