Have you ever considered becoming an entrepreneur and literally shirked at the prospect of putting yourself out there? Do you feel you don’t have the confidence it takes to launch your own entrepreneurial dreams, especially in industries and areas where women are in the minority and unfavored? Are you wondering how to be more confident as a woman entrepreneur?
I remember starting a side hustle a few years back, wondering how in the world the introvert in me would ever find the confidence to start and grow it. Even though I could somewhat hide behind my laptop screen while blogging, I still needed to put myself out there, which was scary to say the least. Fast forward over a decade, I’m still growing and putting myself out there, somehow building the confidence that I believed was severely eluding me when I first started…
In general, men are shown to own three times as many businesses employing people than women. However, in 2021, more businesses were started by women (49%) than by men (42%), mostly as a result of pandemic-related business opportunities. Women were also shown to own more younger businesses than their male counterparts, at the rate of 75% of 15-year old or younger businesses for women and 66% for men. However, despite these significant advances, there is still a notable difference in average annual revenue and funding opportunities between men and women-owned businesses, to the disadvantage of the latter. According to Biz2Credit, women’s businesses earned $199,136 less than men-owned businesses in 2021. On the funding side, while men were approved for 67% of the loans they applied for, women could only achieve about half of this.
With these dismal statistics in mind, how does one muster enough confidence as a woman entrepreneur? Is it even worth the try?
From my own unconventional experience as a side hustler, an introvert, and a multiple minority in the entrepreneurial world, here are a few tidbits from my own experience that may help:
Start with your strengths and desires!
This may be the most unconventional business advice you may have ever received. Much of the business advice out there will recommend that you create and grow a business in a profitable field or industry. While this is valuable advice, it often skips the part where your strengths and desires should also be considered.
What has served me best (and still does) has been to focus on my strengths in areas where I can find the joy, motivation and strength to keep going despite the odds. It’s also what I refer to as my “zone of confidence”.
Focusing on your strengths, your core skills and desires, especially when you’ve already gotten positive results in those areas, will help you develop and cultivate the confidence and resilience to get started and keep going. This is especially important when the going gets tough, and all that’s left most days is the sheer will to keep forging ahead…
Grow slowly and incrementally
In the era of continuous metrics and overnight success, slow, incremental growth is not the most popular business concept out there. Yet, in terms of raising your confidence levels, it may be just what the doctor ordered.
In my own experience, solidifying one area before growing another one has helped me develop the assurance needed to keep going. It may be tempting to give in to the “shiny object syndrome” affecting so many, especially in the online space, trying new tools and gimmicks every other day. However, focusing and developing one key skill and area at a time, may help boost your expertise, thereby increasing your confidence in the process.
Get your numbers straight!
As you could tell from the discouraging statistics above, women-owned businesses, while growing more in recent years, are still lagging behind men-owned businesses in revenues and funding. This is also where many women lose their faith and confidence in starting and growing successful businesses.
As a CPA and consultant, I’ve had the privilege to witness the evolution of some women-owned businesses, many of them plagued by financial inaccuracy and lack of financial confidence. This in turn has significantly reduced their opportunities to go after various sources of funding, and increase their revenues.
Getting clear on your business’s financial goals and objectives, as well as its financial results, can help alleviate some of these doubts. This can impact the business’s revenue generating ability, as well as increase its chances to obtain more funding.
Own your stuff!
With the advent of social media, many women entrepreneurs, and many entrepreneurs in general, are hosting their businesses on online platforms like Instagram or TikTok. However, as has been shown through algorithm changes and technical outages, these may not be as reliable as most may believe. As a matter of fact, many entrepreneurs and creatives have been painfully griping about the loss of revenues and influence they’ve been experiencing on these same social media platforms for the past year or so. Talk about a loss of confidence…
As a woman entrepreneur, the more control you can have of your business, the more confidence and motivation you can muster to continue growing. This can be achieved by actually owning and managing your own business platforms, whether it’s your own blog, website, or physical location.
Avoid the trap of comparison
One of the most precious pieces of business wisdom I’ve gathered over time is to avoid the trap of comparison. There is always going to be a business that is more successful, generates more revenue, has more followers on social media, etc…That in itself is enough to destroy any entrepreneur’s confidence…
While I have certainly succumbed to the temptation to compare my micro enterprise to other solopreneurs, especially in the online space, distancing myself from it has helped boost my confidence levels over time. For me, this means observing some social media cleansing periods, not overly focusing on popular metrics, and developing my own goals and objectives.
Overall, developing a solid sense of confidence as an entrepreneur, whether at the micro-level as a solopreneur or side hustler, or on a larger scale, does not have to be an impossible task. By focusing on your own “zone of confidence”, growing incrementally and avoiding the trap of comparison, you can actually leverage your entrepreneurial venture to boost your sense of confidence.
How are you developing more confidence as a woman entrepreneur?
The other day, I was in the middle of disciplining one of my babies (who are no longer babies), when the thought “ I have no idea what I’m doing” crossed my mind. As a Black mom of a pre-teen and a full-blown teenager, these moments in my working mom life are happening more and more. Whereas they used to be far and few in between, now during this teenage phase, they have become more the norm than the exception. Truth is, there are few things like raising teenagers (and kids in general) that will also raise both your blood pressure and insecurities as a mom and a parent in general…
Have you ever, like myself, been in the middle of disciplining your child, only to question your own confidence, adequacy and aptitude as a mom? Have you ever felt that you needed a larger supply confidence as a mom? And really (tell the truth), have you ever wondered if there ever were a “mom confidence training” class somewhere? Ok, I’ll give in, I know I have…
Whereas confidence is more often associated with career and work skills, there is not enough talk about how many moms like myself find themselves needing one (or many) extra shots of maternal confidence, especially in current times. While parenting has always been a challenge for most, if not all parents, the modern lethal addition and combination of modern technology, social media and mental health culture, among other factors, have made it both a virtual and physical gargantuan task for moms.
According to the 2021 research by the WealthiHer Network, 79% of women recognize they struggle with self-esteem. Further studies reveal almost two thirds of new mothers, or roughly about 63%, report decreasing levels of self-esteem after giving birth. Unfortunately, lack of confidence and self-esteem can result in self-doubt, which can then turn into burnout, anxiety, and/or depression.
As a first generation immigrant from Senegal, West Africa, the cultural clash between witnessing raising kids back home, and the corresponding reality in today’s America, has been trying to say the least. As a Black working mom juggling motherhood, career, marriage, laundry, and all the rest of life in the midst of a world still struggling with racism, sexism, and discrimination of all kinds, it’s been akin to walking a tightrope threatening to break at any moment. Add to it all the modern advice and literature around conscious parenting (thank you Dr. Shefali), childhood trauma, and the rampant mental health epidemic among the youth, and there’s an explosive cocktail of parental confusion with strong notes of mothering guilt and not-so-subtle undertones of societal crisis…And need I mention the lack of parental support, paid leave or a general infrastructure to assist moms? ‘Nuff said…
So how do we even begin to develop anything close to “mom confidence” in today’s world? How do you sift through all the biases, traumas, dreams, and responsibilities to uncover the secrets to raising well-balanced kids without losing your sanity and very last coin? How can we, as not-so-proud holders of multiple minority statuses, whether as Black women, women of color, and women in general, take back our power when it comes to raising our children?
Well, since I have not found the mothering secret (or any secret for that matter) or magic recipe, here are some tidbits about my humble own experience, and that of the many working moms I’ve had the privilege to share this mom path with;
Learn and adjust!
Modern motherhood is not for the faint of hearts, especially when navigating the cultural and racial , as well as technology, social media and mental health issues that plague our world and societies. In an ever-evolving world, constantly adjusting and learning become indispensable. As a Black woman, an immigrant floating between different cultures and realities, learning is a constant necessity.
As a lifelong nerd and academic, much of my learning happens in books. I’ve also been gifted with precious sisters, aunts, mothers whose advice, conversation and support have taught me more than I could ever learn from the pages of any book. This learning has also informed much of my work and career, and progress in other areas of life.
What learning is motherhood pointing you to? What unanswered questions can you find answers to? What are the safe spaces, places and people you can learn from?
Build and leverage confidence in other areas, including your career
While I always proclaim that being a mom has made me a better career woman, the reverse is also true. In many instances, the confidence I’ve gained in my career has allowed me to show up as a freer, more authentic version of myself as a mom. It’s allowed me to trust myself, my intuition and my God-given skills and abilities, including those of a mother. As a Christian mom, my faith has been the pillar of my confidence, which has also significantly helped ground me professionally and personally as a working mom.
In turn, this same sense of confidence has kept fueling much of my career and professional life, almost creating literal emotional, mental and even spiritual economies of scale throughout the various areas of my life. When I don’t feel as confident as a mom, I can remind myself of my spiritual foundation of faith and confidence. I can revisit all the times when I felt and acted confident at work, in my relationships, in my vocation.
Which areas of your life and work can you leverage to build and boost your confidence as a working mom?
Healing is key!
One thing that motherhood, and parenting in general, will unveil, is the core of yourself. You can count on mothering to awaken the wild beast of all your traumas, known or unknown (mostly unknown), and bring to the surface emotions, attitudes and reactions you would have never suspected in a million years. I know it certainly did (and still does) for me…
While my career has revealed over time some of the childhood trauma I have needed to heal from, motherhood has laid bare even deeper wounds I need to face. Indeed, one of the most precious gifts of motherhood is the call to heal. Understanding, and heeding, this call, through formal and informal therapy (read: books and endless girlfriend conversations), has been nothing short of a saving grace for me.
Has your experience as a working mom revealed areas where you need healing?
All in all, developing confidence as a working mom requires much more than many, if not most of us, anticipate at first. Through learning and adjusting, building and leveraging confidence from other areas of life and work, and focusing on healing, we can keep growing through motherhood.
What has been your experience developing confidence as a working mom?
Every year, the resolution frenzy takes over, as people all around the world make a list, however much realistic (or not), of goals they plan to accomplish during the new year. And yes, I was “people” for the longest time (and I still am)…
Making a list of changes, however unrealistic, at the beginning of the year, somehow feels like a relief when faced with the unpredictable newness of another turn around the sun. It feels good to etch ideals of achievement, goals and behaviors on a virgin slate of time… As if laying these down on paper, or even uttering them in the atmosphere of a still pregnant future, would make them magically turn into reality…
For many years, as an overachieving perfectionist, a mom, wife, professional, I would partake in the same resolution ritual, peppered with slight variations in form, loud empowering affirmations and frail temporary faith here and there. Yet every year, it would be the same walk down the hallway of resolution shame, barely hanging on by a thread of watered down excuses… until the following year, that is…
At the end of last year, I finally, and quite ungracefully bowed out of the annual resolution dance, less out of an urge to do better and more out of sheer exhaustion. I was just sick and tired of being sick and tired… The same goals and strategies that have been hammered on us from year to year, from “waking up earlier” to “getting more organized”, not to mention “making it to the gym this year”, no longer worked for this mama juggling work, kids, home and everything in between…Especially not in the post-COVID era of scarce childcare resources and non-existent parental support…
I needed something else to keep me going…I had just completed a terminal degree that left me running out of steam, while raising a teenager and a tween, and pursuing an academic career I am passionate about. I was out of resolutions, out of stamina, and in serious need of something stronger than black coffee with a spritz of lemon juice and a touch of cinnamon. I needed a mission, beginning with a mission statement…
In his acclaimed book, “The 7 habits of highly effective people”, Stephen Covey discusses the importance of building our own mission statements, whether personal, team or family-oriented. He delves into the power of mission statements when discussing the second habit entitled “Begin with the end in mind”, out of the 7 habits defined in the book.
According to Stephen Covey, a mission statement is about “ defining the personal, moral and ethical guidelines within which you can most happily express and fulfill yourself.” The way I see it, a mission statement is the clear, concise expression of one’s purpose, priorities, along with the actions to live a purposeful, fulfilling, and successful life. It’s a compass of sorts to keep us on the path that is right for us…
As I stepped into the New Year, the idea of a compass, a sense of direction in an otherwise increasingly directionless world, sounded so much more appealing than a set of empty, albeit widely popular, resolutions. As a mom, career woman, wife, along with the other hats I, like so many other women, wear day in and out, it took me decades to realize that popular strategies and mainstream advice do not work for me. As a matter of fact, from talking to so many other women, they hardly work for many, if not most, working women and moms. Hitting the gym three to four times a week, as much of a sound resolution as it may be, is not as practicable for a mom struggling to barely make it to work after dropping off the kids to school and daycare. Neither does the 5am club be much of an option for an exhausted working mom in dire need of sleep. Instead, a sense of direction, a compass that could be adapted to my own purpose, life, circumstances and chaotic kitchen, may just be what the doctor ordered…
So this year, I’m skipping the resolutions, and embracing my own mission. My own mission statement, to be more exact…One as unique as my purpose, priorities, and goals…If like myself, you are sick and tired of being sick and tired of making (and breaking) the same popular resolutions, here are three steps I can suggest to begin the process, inspired from Stephen Covey’s mission statement builder:
Hone in on your Vision
Who do I want to be? What may sound like such a simplistic question holds so many answers as to the direction to take in a new year. Even if the vision is not yet clear, just delineating the character we may envision for ourselves can get us started in the process of framing our mission. This includes digging into what we are passionate about, what drives us, what we can imagine ourselves doing without the time and resource constraints we usually face, especially as working women and moms. It’s visualizing our life’s journey, and using it as the start of the mapping of our own personal missions.
When I first started crafting my mission statement, reflecting on my vision and who I want to be turned out to be quite the interesting exercise. I had anticipated struggling with even beginning to lay down my vision in words. Yet, in the absence of distracting lofty goals and resolutions, it became simpler and so much more enjoyable for me to see in the eye of my mind, through the things I enjoy doing and the childhood dreams I still have, what my vision is.
What is your vision of who you want to be? What if time, resources, and other constraints were no object? What if you cleaned the crowded slate of popular goals and commonly accepted objectives to re-focus on what truly matters to you?
Identify your values and principles
What are your values and principles? What would you like to make a priority going forward? Who are the people who influence you? What are the physical, social, emotional, mental and spiritual activities that you value the most?
Delving into what I value the most was surprisingly refreshing, as opposed to setting far-fetched objectives that raise the already high level of pressure we’re under. It also brought light to many of the things I have been doing that are not in alignment with my values and principles. In a way, it confirmed the sense of direction I had started getting from defining my vision in the first step.
Focus on future contributions and achievements
What can you do going forward to contribute to those around you? How can you use your gifts and talents to do so? When are you at your best to do so? To complete the sense of direction you have started getting from honing in on your vision and defining your values and principles, you can begin focusing on future contributions.
Getting to this third and last part was not quite as laborious as I thought it would be. Armed with a clearer vision and sense of my own values, I was inspired to see how these could serve those I love deeply, and the world at large. I was encouraged by documenting my own gifts and talents, and the concrete ways these could be of service.
What struck me through this process is that actual achievements and contributions only came after refining my vision, values and principles. Unlike the traditional, and popular way of setting goals, this process first led me on a foundational self-introspection journey, before laying any goals down. It did not leave me to fend for myself against far-fetched, misaligned objectives, almost setting me up for unavoidable failure. Instead, it provided direction and guidance.
As I went through each one of these steps to build my own mission statement, I experienced a sense of relief and clarity that resolutions and goals never provided me. For once, I felt in my lane, aligned with the vision that was mine, the values that I believe in, and the contributions I feel inspired to make with the strengths and desires I have. For once, I did not feel like I had to meet some elusive ideal of excellence that was not in line with my authentic self. I felt like I did not just set a destination with no idea as to how I could possibly get there. Instead, I had some sort of a map, or at least the foundation of it, that would lead me back to the only destination worth getting to: myself.
If there were ever a book that transported me to the quintessential alternate feminist stratosphere, it would be The Power. This 2016 novel, and 2023 Oprah Book Club pick, by British author and novelist Naomi Alderman depicts a tale of gender dominance rooted in the power held by women in their bodies. This power gives teenage girls and women the vital force to inflict enormous pain, and even cause death.
What if women ruled the world? This is the initial premise of The Power. More specifically, what if every woman possessed the electric power to rule the world? In Naomi Alderman’s novel, this premise becomes reality as women suddenly develop the peculiar strength to send electrical shocks from their hands. Armed with this new power, girls and women everywhere free themselves from misogyny, abuse and threats of all kinds. As the novel progresses, a literal reversal of power happens, flipping the familiar construct of the patriarchy on its now fragile head. Men are now under the dominance of women, needing a legal female guardian authorizing their whereabouts and not being safe walking down the street. A new world where men experience what too many women have been subjected to for too long…
The Power is built around four main characters, including an abused American foster child guilty of her abusive step-father’s murder, a crime boss’s daughter from London looking to avenge her mother’s death, an ambitious U.S. city mayor and her daughter, and a young Nigerian journalist.
Yet, The Power is more than just about this utopia of female empowerment. Actually, it goes from utopia to dystopia as women begin abusing their newfound might. In the second half of the novel, Alderman paints in wide brush strokes the classic picture of power, its excessive, corruptive and oh so destructive effects on human nature. She asks important, subdued questions about the nature of God, the foundation of faith and the secrets of organized religion. Lastly, and maybe more importantly, The Power leaves us with one powerful suggestion, through the once character of the novel whose identity is never revealed, one who could be the voice of God or that of intuition. It is the suggestion that it was never so much about whether or not women lack power, but rather whether or not they realize their power and use it for good.
At the end of the day, the power was always there. However, power is a mirror, reflecting the depths, breadth and width of the ones who use it.
There are few books I’ve read that have made me feel like my experience as a working woman and a mother in general, and a Black professional woman and mom in particular, is universal. Seldom have I felt more at home than in the pages of Michelle Obama’s latest book “The Light We Carry”. Rarely have I felt more seen, more touched, less invisible than inside her no-nonsense words, her lived experience, the shelter of her unique yet so universal testimony…
Yet, this is no common woman whose life I was reading the bold and brilliant strokes of. This woman, this role model to the whole world, also happens to be the first Black woman first Lady of the United States of America, an educated, profoundly and powerfully human woman. A woman who’s been praised, but also critiqued, denigrated and misunderstood…Yet a woman whose light she so graciously allows to shine on the rest of us, even as she gently summons us to let our own shine…
As a Black woman born and raised in Senegal, West Africa, an immigrant on US soil, someone at the margins of different worlds, cultures, even languages, I could so relate to her voice also suspended between worlds. Worlds transcending generations of past slaves, into a middle-class home on Euclid Avenue in Chicago, to the heights of Ivy league schools and prestigious law firms, into the noble service of the highest office of the land at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Worlds that may seem foreign to a little African girl like myself, an immigrant, yet that rang a familiar bell through every single word, every heavy phrase of a loaded yet interestingly familiar read. The reason this book felt so familiar to me, is because it speaks of the universal familiar experience of being a human being, a woman, a mother at the fringes of worlds colliding and coming together in an unending dance of life and experience…
How I could relate to the strong sense of achievement brewing inside the young woman on Euclid Avenue, as she felt in her a call for the things, places and universes many did not think she belonged in. How I could understand the determination to transcend barriers in her way, coupled with the desire to do it in an authentic, real manner that also made room for the things that truly matter, like family, love, health. And how I could sense the deep longing for normalcy in the midst of the uncommon, the cultivation of the ordinary in the middle of the extraordinary, the duality between the highs and lows of those of us who dare to do the work of our lives…
More than anything, what I could relate to was the feeling of constantly navigating different worlds as a Black woman at work and in life. This constant need to adjust, recalibrate, prepare and do the work. It’s a feeling so many Black women experience in the corporate and professional world day in and day out, one they learn to carry with them as fuel rather than deterrent to their own lights. One they fight to not let steal their authenticity, their heart, hope and soul, as they stand on the shoulders of the women and men who came before. Those same shoulders that made it possible for us to wear our natural hair at work, to create our own businesses, to be more vulnerable, more raw, more human…I could hear and feel through her words the ache of others’ perceptions when someone who wasn’t supposed to make it does in fact break through the doors of success, when the cost of destiny is leaving your home and family to pursue new dreams, when all you have is your faith, hope and fight to turn the rejection, frustration and anger into the healing power to keep moving forward.
As a mother reading her, I could so relate to the urge to protect our children, counterbalanced by the need to allow them to fly on their own. One of the parts that most edified me in the book, is the part when she was describing her mother. Learning about her own mother teaching both she and her brother to be more independent, taught me about the more challenging yet more impactful side of mothering. The side that requires us to prepare rather than hinder our children from the world. The part that describes our job not just as a rosy cloud of love and kisses, but as a tough armoring of the souls entrusted to us. The side that requires us to buy our kids an alarm clock rather than having them depend on us to get out of bed in the morning. By the way, I did buy my son an alarm clock, finally…
As a wife and partner reading her, I could so relate to her account of the reality of marriage. Not a reality mired in roses and visions of eternal romance, but one of practical love, love that stands the test of time, love that takes into account the differences in people, backgrounds and destinies. The no-nonsense love of our forefathers and mothers, who shared a common purpose, a common goal, those who weathered storms and somehow came out on the other side…What it also made me realize is the imbalance of marriage, the uneven nature of partnership at its core, and how to navigate the reality of it with a long-term view in mind while still keeping our end of the bargain somewhat intact.
Reading Michelle Obama’s words, I could feel a growing sense of hope that the work is not, after all in vain. The work of motherhood, the work of marriage, the work of Purpose, and ultimately, the work of being human. While I could identify more closely to her experience as a Black woman, wife, mother, sister, friend, it was really the universality of her story that she refers to, that is left in me. A universality that says, as she herself explains it so well, that at the end of the day, we have more in common than we have differences. That as women and mothers, the threads of our existences and experiences are so intertwined, so similar despite all the apparent complexities of our individual stories, that we can’t help but hear each other even in the midst of the noise of our current times. Most importantly, we can’t help but see each other, see the light we carry, the light we give, the light we receive…
