Eli Davidson, national expert in the fields of personal and professional reinvention, business expert, executive mentor, international bestselling author, and sought-after thought leader, is recognized as one of America’s top coaches. She is a featured columnist with the Huffington Post, reaching twenty-one million readers. Her book, Funky to Fabulous, is an international best seller and won three national book awards (Independent Publisher, USA Best Books, and the Indie Next Generation Motivational Book of the Year).
Eli’s trademarked business growth system was a cover story for Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. She has appeared on the Today Show and Dr. Phil’s Decision House and NBC, ABC, and Fox TV affiliates. Eli speaks on overcoming obstacles. She gives audiences the Turnaround TechniquesSM—a system to implement change that she developed and trademarked. A resident of Los Angeles, her advice has been featured in publications as diverse as Better Homes and Gardens and the Los Angeles Business Journal.
Eli is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College. She has a master’s degree in spiritual psychology from the University of Santa Monica, where she was named Student of the Year.
It is an exciting time to be a woman mentoring women entrepreneurs! My focus is on the service-based industries, which encompass 65 percent of all women’s businesses. During 2011 and 2012, the big boys created 87 percent of the capital, while women currently receive only 4 percent of that capital to fund their businesses. So it’s my mission to create a million small-business millionaires. Women now have the opportunity to build their businesses and thrive like never before, and it is exhilarating to help other women further their careers and get ahead in business.
Research has shown that we women sense emotion in twenty-three sectors of our brains while men sense emotion in nine sectors of their brains. What exactly does that mean, and do those findings reinforce the old stereotype that women are overly emotional and can’t be trusted with strategic business decisions? Far from it. In fact, it’s just the opposite. All business is about relationships and women have been in the relationship business for thousands of years. Because women leverage those incredible skills of communication, compassion, and emotional courage, we have so much more depth to offer our clients than our male colleagues.
Women bring to the table intuition, empathy, and compassion. But perhaps even more than that, we collaborate in a more profound way than our male counterparts. Women can encourage a level of compassion and emotional courage that men are not equipped to provide. As a woman leader, I am far more intuitive than my male counterparts, allowing me to see and seize market opportunities much faster than men can. Men often will want to get the data, perform research, and do a market study, and then re-analyze the data and put it through committee. Women, on the other hand, rely on their intuition and often go with it. So my behavior means that I can create new programs and execute them faster than my male counterparts because I don’t have to filter information through the sieve of market analysis.
Business is about being nimble and recognizing opportunities quickly; that intuitive edge has allowed me to take advantage of opportunities that men probably never considered. For example, I taught myself how to write, wrote a book, and won three national book awards. And then, even though I was told it was impossible, I got myself on all of the national television shows, like the Today Show, without a publicist. I think those are intuitive risks and goals that a man might never attempt because the odds against those things happening were five million to one. So I think as women, we do have access to a deeper knowing more quickly than men.
With that said, women face a variety of challenges—chief among them is the fact that we must still “prove ourselves” in a way that men don’t. A study performed by the Catalyst Organization monitored women globally; what they saw was that a woman who was too meek or nice was considered a second-rate employee or business owner and a woman who was assertive was a bitch.
First and foremost, women must be confident in and recognize their value. I think of it this way—a diamond is the most condensed form of wealth in the world. Inside of us is that condensed form of value. Recognize that value and use it to solve your clients’ urgent, pervasive, and expensive problems. You’re then positioned to leverage your time to create efficiently and build your business, generating the income so that you can give back and be an influence on our world.
You can refine the quality of your diamond by:
• Dedicating yourself to a mission that is much bigger than you. This is a process of identifying and clarifying the profound value you offer as a woman (i.e., your soul and spirit) and translating that into how you can serve others.
• Identifying how to generate income to establish a financial foundation. We can’t change the world unless we make some serious money.
• Giving back.
A crucial element in a woman’s blueprint to success is paying it forward. It is urgent and essential that we, as women, mentor other women. I have mentoring students that I take on. One of the things that they see is that men have a much more developed network of mentorship than women do. So find a mentor and be a mentor. Alert women to the support we have, which many women don’t even know about. For instance, Dell has a $100 million investment fund targeted to women in business. One way I am paying it forward is by letting women know about this fund and a variety of other resources. By owning your value and standing in your true identity, your influence can make a distinct, positive difference in the world.