This week we conducted the third Girls Fight Back University to train new speaker apprentices. These trainings are intense, giving future speakers the tools to fight and the ability to communicate this life-saving information from the stage.

It’s a terrifying blend of identifying our own fears of what we are capable of, and confronting external fears of what others are capable of doing to us.

There is no scenario we don’t put these gals through in both settings. From the stage: hecklers, intense emotional responses to our message, haters, fire alarms and other random outbursts that most public speakers fear. On the mat: rapists, stalkers, killers, multiple assailants, knives, guns.

The women who train with us are the bravest of the brave – and even braver than that. They look these challenges in the face, and with determination, rise above. Sometimes they cry, sometimes it takes a few tries, but they always overcome.

Being a Founder of something as special as Girls Fight Back has always been sacred to me. Sometimes people mistake me for being an inspiring person that started GFB to save the world. Instead, I was a terrified person that lost a friend to homicide, and felt pretty lost myself. Girls Fight Back was a gift laid at my feet. I chose to accept it, and am so glad I did.

Recently I did a magazine interview, and the journalist asked me what I am most proud of. So many people, events and special moments flooded my mind, it was hard to pick. But I settled on the fact that GFB has become so much bigger than me, and so much bigger than Shannon. (my friend who was murdered, and the inspiration for everything we do)

While Shannon and I were the roots of GFB, our speakers give it wings.

Watching the new apprentices practice our material with their own individual flair is a reminder that despite being around for 10 years, GFB is timeless. As long as violence persists, there will be women who are sick of living in fear, who want to take their power back and live a generally awesome life.

I am so glad I accepted this gift a decade ago. And nothing brings me greater joy than to re-gift it to women everywhere, through our amazing team. Congratulations Bree and Angie (pictured above, with our self-defense guru Bill Kipp) on your tremendous work this week.

If you are interested in booking a Girls Fight Back presentation at your school, college or business, please call us at 1-866-432-2423 for more details.

This week I made an impromptu trip to Los Angeles for a funeral. The wife of my mentor, Bob Martin, unexpectedly passed away in her sleep. Without a second thought, I flew to California to support him and attend the memorial service.

Bob’s wife was a lovely woman named Babette Marie Martin. She raised 3 awesome children and loved Elvis.

Her eulogy was a short letter written by Bob, read aloud to the audience by a friend. Then Amazing Grace began playing, with an accompanying video of Il Dovo performing live at the coliseum in Rome.

Bob is a former Captain of the Los Angeles Police Department, VP of Gavin de Becker & Associates and an internationally known expert on threat assessment and violence prevention. This guy has the talent, knowledge and ability to inspire a crowd to laugh, to cry and to understand humanity a little more – all in the same speech. The fact he opted to share just a few words and feature a single song for his life partner’s final memoriam seemed simple, yet profound.

And so it was.

Because life is just that – a song. It’s a melody that has highs and lows, a perfect harmony when we join our life with another, a bass line that varies between steady and irregular as life quickens and calms, and an occasional guitar solo when it’s our time to take center stage and shine, shine, shine. Sometimes our song is hard rock, other times classical.

But the main thing that guides music is TIME.

For all of us, time is ticking like a metronome’s steady beat. When life is over, we fade into silence. But the band marches on. The music continues. It’s just someone else’s solo…another generation’s song.

As I left the cemetery, I didn’t feel the darkness of death. Somehow, the air felt lighter. Angels were everywhere. Hope abounded.

I was so moved by Bob for knowing his wife so well and loving her so much, that words weren’t necessary to summarize her impact on the world and the family they built together.

Maya Angelou once said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Bob has taught me a lot over the past decade as my mentor. But yesterday he offered me a new lesson, similar to Ms. Angelou’s message.

A life truly lived cannot be adequately eulogized with words.

As a friend and I drove away from the memorial service and merged onto the freeway, we realized our status as legal carpoolers (a big deal for LA folks) and took full advantage of the less trafficked carpool lane. But soon I realized I had to get out of the carpool zone and across several lanes of traffic to catch our next exit.

Quick driving lesson for anyone who gets behind the wheel in LA: This maneuver is NOT legal if there are 2 yellow lines on the pavement. I learned this fun fact via flashing lights in my rearview mirror, and a LAPD officer pulling me over across 5 lanes of traffic to tell me so.

I don’t have good odds when it comes to cops and traffic violations. Historically I have been ticketed to the fullest extent, in 100% of the occurrences I’ve been pulled over. Thinking today would be no different; I gave the officer my driver’s license and car rental information and answered all his questions.

This time I definitely had some pity cards to whip out, including being a crunchy out-of-state Coloradan, visibly pregnant and traveling with another gal even more visibly pregnant than me. (We both stuck out our stomachs as far as possible when he approached the car. Worth a shot, right?)

He asked where we were coming from, and I told him a funeral. The officer took all my documents and went back to his car for a few minutes. I quasi-jokingly told my co-pilot that any cop who gives a ticket to two pregnant women driving home from a cemetery would surely go to hell.

He came back to the car and gave me a warning. Wow, seriously? Awesome! I thought warnings were only given to people who can cry on cue or have really big boobs. (I possess neither.)

Points scored for the LAPD. The officer was so kind, and even gave us directions back to the freeway with a nod and a smile.

Later that evening, I couldn’t help but think the highs and lows of the day were more than just going through the rituals of death and brushes with the law. Yes, there was something else at work.

It was amazing grace.

Grace gives us the freedom to really live, the liberation to help us die, the patience to drive in Los Angeles during rush hour, the empathy to know when someone needs a break and the motivation to leave this world a little better than we found it.

I depart California with a mortal reminder that none of us know when our song will be over.  So live the life you were intended to, and sing your bloody guts out.

This post is dedicated to the memory of Babette Martin and all who loved her.
Published with the permission of Bob Martin.

While a new year encourages serious self-critique and making lists of things to change, I just wanted to provide a friendly reminder that you are already perfect.

Oprah once said, “Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.” She implies we’ve been getting it wrong, and granted, some years are better than others. But if you think about it, common resolutions like making money, finding “happiness” or losing weight aren’t about us. They are about how we think the world wants us to be. Rich, happy and hot. (and often quite empty…)

The re-set button we call New Years should be less about improving what has been, and more about what is. What do we really want and why are we really here? What does happiness even mean to us?

This week I swept the love of my life to the mountains for a few days. I recommend a mind-clearing getaway like this, regardless if you are single or have a partner, at least twice a year. Amidst parenthood, work, life, stress, family – there was a lot of catching up to do, even though we spend so much time together. Furthermore, there were realizations about myself that were only possible to be revealed in the crisp stillness you find early in the morning, at 12,000 feet, accompanied by the soundtrack of Clear Creek rushing below our hotel balcony. (A photo of my view as I write this is posted above.)

In peace, there are answers.

This year I’m going to take my own advice from a previous blog post to get organized, clear and focused. But beyond that, my new years resolution for 2012 is to live an authentic life. According to Dictionary.com, the meaning of the word authentic is: not false or copied; genuine; real. These are the lives we are meant to lead, not to be a carbon copy of someone else or a life that someone else wants you to live.

So on the eve of another chance to get it right, answer this. What true purpose have you been ignoring? What life change has been nagging at you, but seems too terrifying or inconvenient to acknowledge? What truth has gone unacknowledged, or unsaid? How can you live more authentically this year?

Jazz legend Chuck Mangione once said, “A studio recording is perfection, but emotion and passion come only when you turn on the machine and go for the groove. If you do that with no mistakes, it sounds beautiful.”

In 2012 and beyond, I wish for you the stillness necessary to seek your truth, abundant self-permission to live your life and a jammin’ bassline to keep your groove.

Change absolutely fascinates me, and people, organizations and companies who seem to get it right have a few things in common. They have effective, simple systems in place. They know who they are, and who they are not. Armed with this well-oiled machine and unshakable confidence, successful folks develop laser beam focus on what they want to achieve.

So how can you apply this knowledge to your resolutions this year, to ensure a rockin’ 2012? Try doing the following three things before you write down how much money you want to make, or how much weight you want to lose. (And if possible, take an entire day to focus on each area.)

1. Get organized.
Clear out the inbox. Sift through the mail pile. Donate crap with reckless abandon. Go through your credit card statements and know where your dollars have gone. Get real on how you spend your time. (I use a time tracker tool in Basecamp.) Get rid of clothes you don’t wear, tupperware containers with no top, rotting food in the fridge, etc. Make a list of what’s not workin’ for ya, and next to each, write a few solutions. Pare down, simplify and own your space. Remember, space is mental, physical and emotional – reclaim it all.

2. Get clear.
There are many reasons people fail in life, in love, at work – but the most common explanation is simply not taking the time to get certain about who we are and what we want. If you have no destination, any road will do. And because of this, it’s easy to become a random wanderer – just chasing the closest shiny object. Take the time this year to answer this simple, yet difficult, question: What do you want from 2012? Now write it down.

3. Get focused.
Now that your space is clear and your clarity is back, it’s time to create a plan. Ideal plans should include goals (measurements for success), strategies (best ways to get there), action steps (tasks to be completed), responsible parties (who’s gonna do it?) and deadlines (when is it due by?) Now make it stick by entering this info into a planning tool like Basecamp or Google calendar to keep you on schedule. Do the whole year at once, because let’s be serious – you won’t come back to it later.

Do these three things in order, since you can’t get clarity without organization, and you can’t get focused without clarity. Avoid getting overwhelmed this year. Make success simpler to define, and it will be easier to attain. Here’s to a bumpin’ 2012, amigos…you got this!

Currently Girls Fight Back is a frontrunner for the Campus Activities Magazine awards for Best Speaker 2012 and I’m asking you don’t vote for us. Instead, take some time to do something nice for yourself and know we appreciate you. Yeah, it’s a tight race right now (we’re 3 ballots from 1st place) so I should be asking for more people to vote – but I’m just not gonna do it. And here’s why.

Something is happening in the world – let’s call it compassion fatigue. There are so many sad stories, so many great causes, so many world problems, so many opportunities to fix them – and more than ever, we are interconnected via the web to be hyper-aware of all these issues. Frankly, it can all be a little overwhelming. So many activists are shouting for their cause, it all starts to sound like noise. Can you blame people for putting on headphones?

As leaders of companies and nonprofits working to get the message out there, we are encouraged to spread the word. The mission statement of some organizations is simply that – to break the silence of some problem, or speak up about another atrocity. Sometimes these online competitions we are encouraged to participate in have money at stake, or high visibility – or in our case, street credit if we win Best Speaker. (And GFB was certainly campaigning earlier, but we made the decision to cease as of today.)

Overall I’m starting to wonder if leaders are a little misguided about what really matters.  Not anyone’s fault, but worth exploring. Maybe it’s time to reflect a little deeper about what it means to be successful, and what it means to make a difference. You can have a really big mouth, and actually accomplish nothing at all.

Does it matter more that we win Best Speaker, or that we have almost 5,000 Facebook fans who (according to our Facebook stats) are actively engaged in the conversation about ending violence against women? Does it matter more that we are featured on some fancy national TV show, or that 90% of our clients bring back our speakers a second, third, fourth – sometimes 9 times over the years? Does it matter more that we are selected as a keynote speaker for a major conference, or that we receive a success story from a young woman (who wants to remain anonymous) about how she used techniques taught in a Girls Fight Back presentation years ago, to save herself from a deadly assault?

The end of the year, and the holidays in general, are for giving thanks and love. If you are reading this, don’t worry about voting. I know you appreciate the work we do at GFB. So relax, go make yourself some eggnog and know we couldn’t have done this without you. If you see this link on Facebook, no need to take any action – the fact you saw it means you’re in our corner, and I express my deepest gratitude. Go get a massage and know we are thanking our lucky stars for you. In short, if you think we’re great, well we think you’re pretty great too. Let’s just leave it at that, and quit asking for favors during the time of year we should be giving them.

Because when I sit down and reflect on what a good year looks like, here’s what matters:
-We successfully provide women the tools to become their own best protectors.
-We offer folks a valuable learning experience to make their lives better and safer.
-Our material is available to women across the globe (currently USA, India, Pakistan)
-We make friends and form solid, long-lasting relationships along the way.
-We provide a sense of calm and joy, in an often un-peaceful world.
-We laugh. A lot.
-We recklessly share what we learn and what we know, in hopes that others don’t have to work so hard to make this world a better place.

And by those measurements, I believe we emerge victorious this year.

So instead of using my time to blast our network with pleas to vote, I’m gonna go sit down and write about a hundred notes to people who have stood by us in 2011. Tea is whistling on the stove, and my pug is ready to pounce in my lap in front of the fire. Thank you for another great year of peace, love and girl power. You have made a difference.

Each June for the past decade, the entire month has been an absolute emotional train wreck for me. My friend Shannon, who inspired GFB back in 2001 after a brave fight against a serial killer, was murdered on June 12th. Her birthday is June 21st, a glorious reminder she was born – but also that she is gone.

As anyone who has a painful anniversary can attest to, even happy occasions have a funny way of being sad. Side Note: Please keep this in mind as the holidays are upon us. Remember to be extra kind and give extra space to those in pain – even if much time has passed since their loss or trauma. We all heal in our own divine time.

This past June sucked as usual, as I wallowed in 10 years of painful memories. But something happened in July, right after it was over. I felt this weird closure, like I was done with the grief and the ritualistic mourning period that set in each summer. It freaked me out a little, to be honest. It’s amazing how comfortable, even co-dependent, we can become with our life’s pain.

I started seeing that maybe June has always been a much bigger gift than a curse. I began to find meaning in everything that happens (even the bad stuff) and for the first time began to believe that we are all more interconnected – to each other, to our loved ones past and present, to the Universe – than is comfortable for most people to accept.

Earlier this Fall, I learned I was pregnant. And the due date?
June 2012

(Like the ‘knocked up’ shirt? Yeah, I’m classy like that.)

This new life, which according to those baby websites is about the size of a lime, has altered my outlook on the month of June forever. Instead of associating those 30 days with loss, I will now link it to growth. Growth of our family. Growth to my already heaping pile of blessings. Growth to this world, in hopefully a very positive way.

If you think about it, having one bad month a year for 10 years straight totals 300 days – almost a calendar year of misery. Then this little zygote who makes me puke in public and go to bed at 8pm changes everything.

And that, in itself, is a holiday miracle.

Recently I’ve noticed people who consider themselves ‘personalities’ don’t follow back on Twitter. For some reason, this really irks me – mostly because it just feels high and mighty. It’s also not the intention of Twitter in the first place. Twitter is a conversation, not a platform. While the mega celebs can get away with just using their tweets as a microphone to be heard by us commoners, I’m noticing a new generation of wanna-be personalities doing this as well, thinking it increases their celebrity. Frankly, I see their closed worlds as such a missed opportunity to hear what real people have to say. Too much focus on ego and follow numbers, not enough caring about having conversations to advance our world.

Here are 7 things to consider about following back, and the criteria I use for making these decisions:

1.  If their work/passion touches your life or peaks your interest in any way, follow back. Personally, I won’t follow a dry cleaner located in Ohio, because there are not ways we can really help each other. I don’t follow back the scores of marijuana lovers who love to follow me since my name is Weed. (sorry, not my thing) I also don’t follow back spammers and sketchy affiliate marketing/MLM folks, just because they freak me out. (And no, I don’t want to buy a case of your natural energy drink.)

2.  If you have met them or might meet them in person someday, follow back. I do a bit of speaking at college campuses, and students are starting to jump over to Twitter (from Facebook) at a much higher rate than before. I spoke at Ohio State a few weeks ago and got about 20 follows, without even sharing my Twitter handle (it was spread via word of mouth/tweets). I followed back every single student, and today I was @ messaged this: “@erinweed is now following me. #honored #inspired.” That’s just good relationship building right there…and I can’t wait to see life through the lens of that OSU student.

3.  If they play in your sandbox, follow back (even if they have a different approach). There are many people working in the social entrepreneurship, women’s empowerment and self-protection industry with me, and I follow as many as I can. Even the crazy ones who I completely disagree with, I follow. This is probably the same reason I watch both Fox News and CNN – I like to get different approaches to the same story. Because really, life is just things that happen, and then a billion different people’s perspectives in response.

4.  If they are someone you can virtually mentor, follow back. If they follow you, they will like and respect you a whole lot more when you follow back. Still looking to answer that ego-driven voice in your head that says, “Hey, what’s in it for me?!” It’s simple: power comes from influence.

5. If you decide to go this route and follow more people, stick to it. Don’t change your mind one day and do a mass un-follow. Chris Brogan (a popular marketing blogger) did this, and it’s just tacky. It’s like saying, “I woke up this morning and realized I was too cool for school. Peace out, little people!” I used to like Chris a lot and appreciated having that two-way channel open, but after his mass-unfollow I un-followed him…and now barely read him at all.

6.  If you’re concerned about managing a mass amount of followers/messages/@replies – first get a reality check and consider that to be a ‘good problem’. Next, state in your profile you don’t respond to DM’s, or set any other necessary ground rules to make sure you still have time to get work done. Also, I’m a huge believer in hashtags and lists. I add pretty much every single person I follow to at least one list, so I can find their tweets with ease.

7.  Just as I’m generous with my follow backs, I’m also just as quick to un-follow if a person turns out to be a troll. Life is too short to surround yourself with assholes. Bu-bye!

Hope this list helps you navigate your way through this vast social media community a little easier. Happy tweeting!

NOTE: I collaborated with social entrepreneurship dynamos (and colleagues from my time working at Ashoka Changemakers) Alexa Clay and Olivia Khalili on the article below. It was published today in The Guardian.

A few days ago we learned that Salesforce is calling itself a social enterprise – and moreover referring to its clients as such. Salesforce advertises its utility as “CRM software and cloud computing for the social enterprise”. For those not familiar with Salesforce count yourself lucky. You have a far more interesting job than us mere mortals dependent on database and contact management systems.

But as women working in the social entrepreneurship field, the flagrant co-option of one of our most precious labels was disconcerting. On the one hand, it makes total sense. Suggesting you are a social entrepreneur or work for a social enterprise often sounds a bit silly to first-time listeners. “Is that a fancy way of saying you’re a party planner?” Or “Oh, so you’re on Facebook a lot?” are popular responses to the introduction of our profession.

It makes sense. In the popular imagination – and for many – a social enterprise is strictly a business that is network heavy and likely leverages social media and social networking tools. But to us, and to many others, social enterprise is defined not by tweeting ability, but by a very specific mission-driven objective. A social enterprise is a for-profit or non-profit organisation that looks to address societal issues – that chooses to “do good” rather than remain complacent.

It is alarming then to learn that we are facing linguistic competition. For when a term is too inclusive and flexible, when it stands for too much, it ends up meaning little. Yet worse than a tepid label is the lost followers and supporters of what the label stands for. Without a name that people understand and can act on, how will they begin to self-identify as agents of social enterprise – and what will they call their work when they do?

Perhaps we should retire the word social? Create a new branding around another terminology. Or should we stay and fight for ownership of the term? And then we remember it is only language. But sometimes language is a very big deal.

Language is a powerful vehicle. Each new call to action, each new change-making ethos is ushered in by a new vernacular. The moment we are now in – post Peace Corps earnestness, post imperial exportation of economic development models, post adopt-an-endangered-species – finds itself shedding the terminology of “beneficiary”, “capacity building”, and “it takes a village” in favour of phrasing like “co-creation”, “social nudging”, and “it takes an entrepreneur”. The social change landscape itself is as much a battleground for linguistic dominance as it is about new models for good.

In our daily work, new concepts such as Hybrid Value Chain, pre-competitive action (a notion advocating for greater collaboration around sustainability), and triple bottom line are not just fancy lexicon, but empower a whole new way of thinking and doing. As many a philosophy teacher used to say, they are “thought bombs”. A well-constructed thought bomb allows for the surfacing of new paradigms, challenging the old doctrine and providing a metaphoric bridge to the new. So what do you think? Are we in need of architecting new thought bombs? Or is this pre-occupation with language beside the point?

Alexa Clay is head of know-how at Ashoka Changemakers and a senior research associate at Meteos. She thinks regularly about new economics, black market innovation, and charming poetical phrasing.

Olivia Khalili works globally with companies to design, implement and market social initiatives that strengthen their business. She writes about social business practices and workplace happiness at Cause Capitalism.

Erin Weed is a social entrepreneur, professional speaker, author, and business and marketing consultant to companies and non-profits across the globe. She founded the organisation Girls Fight Back.

Dear loyal reader,

This is a a post where I’m hoping you’ll comment, because I want to hear from you. It’s about marketing tough information, and I’d love your thoughts.

Recently I met someone at a social function who asked what I did for a living. I’m one of those people that can spin this a variety of ways, given my spastic scope of work. On any given day I can truthfully call myself a writer, a CEO, a media pundit, a speaker, an entrepreneur, a social change activist, an author, a self-defense instructor. Many of us fall into this “jack of all trades” camp, and sometimes it can give us an identity crisis…and possibly even cloak our true value.

If you are an entrepreneur, you might also find the same thing about your work. At Girls Fight Back, we have carved a solid reputation on teaching women to defend themselves. But does that mean at cocktail parties I have to tell people I teach others to fight for a living? Or is it bigger than that? Maybe I’m too deep into this company, but I think we offer more than instructions for an effective elbow strike. It’s not about the fighting…it’s about teaching women to lead bad-ass lives.

Living without fear can only happen once someone knows they don’t have to rely on others to come to their rescue. At the end of the day, there is tremendous power in knowing you don’t have to wait for your daddy or boyfriend or brother to save you…because YOU can save YOURSELF. All of a sudden, those big opportunities like taking a big job in a new city or moving halfway across the world don’t seem so terrifying anymore. I believe this has been a critical, yet missing piece, of the women’s empowerment movement. After all, when you ask most women circumstances when they feel most afraid, it tends to be in everyday situations like walking in parking lots, taking a shower while home alone and other isolated circumstances where others aren’t around.

Is it the situations we fear, or the simple fact that we don’t believe we can handle these situations on our own?

The women’s self-defense industry is in dire need of a makeover, and people’s initial impressions on this line of work are not typically accurate or celebrated. When I tell people what I do for a living, questions start about martial arts (and I’m not a martial artist, just a street fighter) and horrific stories of raped and murdered loved ones are shared. I don’t mind discussing either topic, but here’s a trend: I tell people I teach self-defense. They connect that to Bruce Lee movies. Then they want to share stories about people who have been victimized. Are you seeing the pattern? People jump from Hollywood to real-life horror story, and usually a conversation circles around in this way for quite some time. Where is the girl power? Where are the options? Where is the empowerment? Where is the happy ending?  Nowhere.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to change this conversation.

I’m excited to be working with a stellar graphic and communications company to help give Girls Fight Back a facelift, and get more honest with ourselves and the public about what offer. I like to believe we provide the chance to reclaim one’s feeling of safety and security in the world, so females never make choices stemming from fear. If women weren’t fundamentally scared of living alone, sleeping alone, taking risks or even trusting themselves…imagine the progress!

So what I’d like to know from you is this…how can we better market these messages of women’s empowerment? How can we make teaching this kind of life-saving material more like swimming lessons? If you think about it, kids are enrolled in swimming lessons to prevent death by drowning – scary outcome, right? But learning the content is fun, and the kids score awesome floaties and swim trunks! How can we teach self-defense with that same upbeat energy, and help people avoid such unwanted outcomes as rape, assault or murder?

There is too much at stake, to put off this conversation any longer.  For the sake of women and girls everywhere…it’s time to innovate.

Kenny Rogers once sang, “You gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run…” Kenny boy, you are so wise! Yet walking away from people, from relationships, from jobs – well, there’s a lot of fear in these choices. What many people don’t realize is that sometimes walking away is the best gift you can give yourself, and the world.

As women, we do a lot. We think a lot. We care a lot – sometimes too much, about the wrong things. But sometimes, we nail it – and that’s when success happens. I was part lucky, part ADHD when I started Girls Fight Back. Due to some cultural resistance, I can’t think of a rougher business to start than one that involves self-defense, but this was my destiny. With a stellar team at my side, we made it work. Ten years later, we are doing well even during a rough economy. However, this story may have ended differently, had I not walked away for awhile. Let me explain…

I started this company at the age of 23 during a scary, violent time. My friend Shannon was murdered in June 2001, and just 3 months later was 9/11. Shannon was killed at the very “safe” college campus we both attended, and 9/11 hit pretty close to home, since I was working in NYC at the time and commuted to the World Trade Center each day. Overall, I started GFB under great emotion, intense anxiety and tremendous emotional pain. In hindsight, this may have been the worst possible time to start a business….or the best.

In 2010, after 9 years of going full-throttle, I was still loving my work – but I was also burned out. For a long time, this made me feel guilty. I had some sort of weird feelings of obligation to lead GFB forward. Feelings like these are a breeding ground for resentment to grow. What is important to remember is under most circumstances, WE DO THIS TO OURSELVES. One day I looked around at this amazing team I had in place, and knew I could take a break. In perfect divine timing, I was given an opportunity to work as a consultant for Ashoka Changemakers.

So I changed my title on LinkedIn from “Founder & CEO” of GFB to simply “Founder.” Then for a year, I worked closely with entrepreneurs across the globe working to start sustainable companies and organizations, but also change the world in the process. I was absolutely blown away by their big ambitions, sometimes under extremely difficult circumstances like gender inequality or political corruption. These entrepreneurs were not phased, and treated such barriers to success like any other obstacle that could be overcome. Ashoka itself is a tremendous organization with global impact, and I doubt I will ever meet people who are more brilliant or forward-thinking. On the global conference call where my departure was announced last month I told them, “I didn’t come to Changemakers because I needed a job. I came here because I needed a break. Thank you for that.”

Taking that year-long sebattical was one of the best things I have ever done. I was able to share so much, and learn so much. In the process, I got re-invigorated about Girls Fight Back, and my eyes were opened to new opportunities to teach and empower women. But none of this would have happened if I had never walked away.

If you are feeling trapped, overwhelmed, indecisive or resentful of your work – I encourage you to do the same. I know there may be some financial repercussions in doing so, however if you set a clear intention, the universe hollers back. In a society so focused on always DOING, I propose the exact opposite. Just BE. Stop. Think. Do an about face. Broaden your horizons. Learn from others. Step outside your comfort zone. Analyze your life/work from a neutral place, which can only happen once there is some distance – then see what is revealed to you.

So how did my year away work out for me? Well, I decided to continue consulting with companies and organizations that excite me so I never get stagnant again. But my main focus is on running a company that is changing the world for women. Today I added “Founder & CEO of Girls Fight Back” to my LinkedIn profile, and it feels damn good to be back.