The Essence of Lift As You Climb - The 5 "E" Themes | LAYC31

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Episode number one of the Lift As You Climb podcast.

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It's surreal for me to hear my voice saying those words out loud.

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You know, I've always had a dream to have a TV show, a radio show, or well...

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now a podcast.

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And here it is, the day has arrived.

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I'm 66 years old...

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And never say never, because the adventure continues.

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I feel like I've got the seasons pass for a trip through Womanhood Wonderland.

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I am always experiencing something new.

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Adding to my lifetime degree, which I call QBE...

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Qualified By Experience.

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Bringing me here to this day...

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After having written and published a book 2 years ago, called Who Am I Now?:

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Feminine Wisdom, Unmasked and Uncensored.

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And it's that book that is the catalyst for this podcast.

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Because in sharing my story about how I grew up into womanhood and

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how I continue to grow into my super powers and my CEOness in my life.

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That a marvelous thing took place...

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Other women started to share their stories with me too.

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And it was in that sharing that we all discovered.

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It wasn't just us.

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We were not alone.

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In fact, there were a lot of things going on in silos, and isolation

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that we were not aware of...

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That together collaboratively, collectively, we can move

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forward at a much faster pace.

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That's a bit of the underpinning of Lift As You Climb, which

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is a personal mantra of mine.

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It has been for decades, and it hints at the story of my life.

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I will talk to you more about how that shows up, what it means to me, and

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why I created a movement called Lift As You Climb; Live your legacy and

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empower others to create their's.

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But going back to the idea, the origins of this podcast, are thoughts about my

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own values, and life experience, and learning, that I wish that someone would

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have shared with me, earlier in my life.

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Or more candidly, more truthfully...

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And that's what this is for...

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I'm here now to just share it all with you!

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Like the book cover says, Unmasked and Uncensored.

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Now you can imagine after 66 years of living full-out...

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And I'll tell you how I justify that...

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That I have a lot of stories to say.

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And a lot of things to share with you...

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So that you could compare, and vet how those are in your life.

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I thought about the values in my life...

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Now, because I believe that our values grow with us.

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The values of trust and collaboration, and uplifting and beauty, are very important.

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When I really thought about the most important things that

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I wanted to share with you...

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And I'm going to guess that you're a woman, maybe in your 40s, 50s, 60s...

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You're an entrepreneur...

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Never too old to do something new, never too young to start.

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The themes that are most prevalent for me, are the themes of...

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Experience...

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Evolution...

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Essence...

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Economy...

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and Encore.

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And so, here I am, in my home office...

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Speaking to you, out there, wherever you are in the world...

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And I am about to share a very intimate, but truthful exposure to what I believe

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I have learned in my lifetime...

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And what I still would like to learn more about.

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So in terms of thinking about...

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Experience....

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And you'll notice that those 5 themes for the podcast, all begin with the

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letter E, and I'm not sure why...

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But since my last name is Banerjee, which sounds like energy...

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perhaps, that's how that came to fruition.

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Experience is what I consider our vault of lifetime value.

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The ability to stop and take stock periodically, and remind ourselves

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of just how much we do know.

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The tacit knowledge that we have accumulated, the strengths that

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we have refined and grown, and the skills that we have acquired.

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The knowledge that we have from everyday living and doing.

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Equal to, considerably greater than, education in a formal institution.

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And I'm not saying that...

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Just because I graduated from high school at the age of 16, and walked away.

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I'm saying it because I do believe that there are many forms of

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education, and they all add up to the sum total of our lifetime value.

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Evolution.

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We build on our experience and the knowledge that we have,

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and the life experiences.

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And we continue to evolve and grow.

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It's extremely important to me, to always feel like my life is expanding...

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another E word...

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That I challenge myself to learn...

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To associate with others who can teach me...

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To share what I know with others as well...

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And to always have a bigger vision for my life, and what I can do to

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impact others, and live my legacy while I'm here, now, to enjoy it...

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To be a role model for my children, and my grandchildren, and my nieces and

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nephews, and the people around me...

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My family and my community, and the business community that I am in, and

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the philanthropic duties that I have.

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All of that learning and growing and evolving then...

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Brings me to the next realization...

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And that is that...

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I'm continually changing.

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No wonder...

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I have reached several pivotal times in my life when I've said, quite emphatically...

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Who am I now?

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Because I am no longer that person.

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I have evolved and transformed and reinvented...

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So many times in my life.

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And how grateful for that am I.

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Even though...

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candidly, truthfully...

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Some of those transformations, I have resisted.

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I clung on to what was familiar for me in the past.

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The identity that I felt safe in.

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But to continue to explore and refine who I am now...

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It's really a privilege.

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I get that.

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And I encourage you all...

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Gee, the "E" words are just coming out of everywhere today...

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Exploring, now encouraging...

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To know that your identity is not fixed.

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It is not frozen in a period of time in your life, or career that you have...

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Or a last name that you had, a relationship that you were involved in.

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It is fluid and expansive, and growing all the time.

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The essence of you is there...

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But it gets to be more refined as you get older...

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And as you are open to that exploration of yourself.

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No, I'm an entrepreneur...

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Again, the "E" letter...

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And so, entrepreneurial factors are extremely important to me,

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the economy, to be able to empower myself, as an entrepreneur, to be

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independent economically, and to have the power to grant wishes.

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Starting with my own, but have the ability to have enough to share,

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and plenty to spare, and be able to help and influence others.

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Which is always a part of Lift As You Climb...

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Being able to support and invest in others as well.

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Economy means influence for me...

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What am I doing, that will influence the quality of my life, my growth...

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And how will that allow me to influence positively other people.

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And the 5th "E" that I want to focus on in this podcast

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for the next while is Encore.

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Because for me...

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It's all about that realization...

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That when I didn't know who I was for a period of time

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in my life, and I was lost...

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Feeling like...

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Who am I?

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That I realized with great joy, that I had the opportunity

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for an Encore role in my life.

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That if I looked at my life as that opportunity to be the star...

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Of my own life, center stage...

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That I could choose the script, write it for myself, produce it, choose the cast

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and crew that is going to support me in that next and best role in my life.

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That's been absolutely the joy of freeing myself up...

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To going...

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No, I don't have to fit in a box, that society said, at some time in

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the past, that I should fit into...

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When I'm a white, female in my sixties, living in North America,

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and that I am a grandmother...

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That I should, you know, be ready to slide into retirement.

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NO!!!

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Another "E" word...

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Expiry...

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I don't have an expiry date.

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I'm looking forward to now imagining and executing...

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Oh my gosh, "E"s are flowing...

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What I'm going to do for the next...

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10, 20, 30, 40...

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Who knows?

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Maybe 50 more years of my life, and how do I have a greater vision all the time?

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Growing, setting examples, influencing others, creating greater impact.

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For me, for the people close to me that I love, but also having that impact...

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Ripple out around the globe.

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So that, more women and children, are economically empowered and independent,

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and that affects all of the population.

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My conversations and my thought, and my heart, are not excluding men...

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On the contrary...

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We're all holding an equal responsibility on the planet.

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I believe each have feminine energy and male energy, and we need both

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of those for success in all areas.

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My heart does belong to helping other women, supporting them, and

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encouraging that growing attitude...

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That women empower each other, and create a very wonderful ripple of

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positive impact around the world.

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You know, I began as a girl on a farm...

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Didn't have the story book, childhood relationship with my father.

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I had a challenging relationship there, and domestically, there

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were reasons to want to walk away at the age of 16, and not go back.

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Even after, I found out at 16, that I was already pregnant...

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after I'd left home.

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I had $75 in my pocket and one suitcase.

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And I thought I had one shot to figure it out.

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Who was I going to become?

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Because I was presently, in that moment, a child...

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And I was about to be responsible for the life of another human being.

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Fortunately for me, growing up on that farm, equipped me

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with a lot of strong skills.

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I had a strong work ethic.

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I observed my parents in entrepreneurial capacities.

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I worked for other entrepreneurs, and I had acquired a lot of skills...

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Even though I wasn't cognizant of it at the time that I was

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learning customer service, and cash management, and teamwork and reception

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skills, and bookkeeping skills...

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And on and on and on.

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Fortunately those helped that skinny, scared 16 year old...

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Stand up straight, look more confident...

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Seem much more mature, than my actual years.

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And it enabled me to get employment and be able to provide for myself,

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and my growing little family.

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Continuing through that experience...

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I learned as I took on each new job, to ask for more work,

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more than I was capable of...

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More than maybe I was ready for.

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But the fact that I keenly asked to take it on...

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And did my best to learn, and do really well for my employers.

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They continued to give me more and more responsibility.

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And for that, I'm very grateful, because that was the underpinning for me to

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be able to become an entrepreneur...

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To build my own company, just a few decades later.

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So for now, I'd just like to leave you with the thoughts that we are.

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Evolving constantly in our lives.

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And that every time we do something new, we take on something new...

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Like starting a podcast at age 66...

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That we've never been that before.

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We've never been that me before, but each and every time...

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That we take on this new role, this new identity, this new...

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huge goal.

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Our life before our skills, our experience, our strengths, have

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been preparing us for exactly that.

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And each and every time we figure out how to be that next us.

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I'll leave you with that today.

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I look forward to sharing more!

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I invite you to take a look in the mirror, and see who you are now.