Cleanse Your Professional Palate: Insights from Successful Women

There’s no singular handbook for navigating the business world, we can be educated, take advice, but most of our individual journeys are good ol’ trial and error.

Take the age-old saying, for example, you only learn to drive once you’ve passed your test.

But experienced drivers tend to pick up some bad habits – like not indicating – and business professionals tend to do the same.

Nobody is perfect: we change, our ideas change, and our perception of success changes as we grow.

Insights from successful women can help you reflect, and realign those values that motivated you in the first place.

So, what does success mean to you now? – yes, you!

According to Serena Williams, a high-achieving American tennis player: ‘The success of every woman should be the inspiration to another. We should raise each other up. Make sure you’re very courageous: be strong, be extremely kind, and above all be humble’.

Us women only got to where we are now by working together; the suffragettes set the precedent for women, but a positive trajectory was never guaranteed. The key to feminism is collective action and encouragement. We have to continue to grow with each other.

As a pioneer of collective action, Kate Welch OBE – Founder and Chief Executive of Social Enterprise Acumen and winner of the Queen’s Award 2016 – believes that success is ‘about making a real difference in the community’.

We had the privilege of interviewing Kate, and she shared with us her invaluable insights gained from over four decades in the business world.

We are the home of Female Education and Empowerment

Join our email list (we only send you relevant content) to get content just like this straight to your inbox!

2. Find your tribe

It’s easier to persevere, learn, and grow when you’re around people who are also on a similar journey to yours.

Our ProspHER community members have spoken about how the supportiveness of the community has truly helped them to feel as though they aren’t alone in what they’re going through, and that they’ll have support when needed.

And it’s true – being able to find a community of like-minded people to grow your network and learn from, be inspired by, and collaborate with, is one of the best ways to catalyse your success as a woman entrepreneur.

Being around people that are facing the same challenges and those that have the experience to help you navigate them and provide expertise is a fast-track way to feel more confident and assured in running your business.

What is one thing you wish you knew before you entered the business world?

‘Aha, that’s always a hard question…trust your instincts. Intuition comes from the experience you build up over time’.

What is one thing you wish you knew before you entered the business world?

‘There’s a point in which you reach certain stages of recognition. I’ve had experience as the only woman in a room before so I’m kind of used to being in that space, but the thing about being a woman, is you sometimes have to work harder to evidence or justify what you’re wanting to do. What we know for example is less investment goes to women. So being bold enough and strong enough but potentially feeling you might have to evidence your case more…In which case we build a strong evidence case. And mercifully use your contacts as well.’

What is one myth about the business world and how did you come to find it out?

‘That you can make a lot of money by doing very little – it’s the influencer, it’s the doing 15-minutes of fame. I once went to a lecture and they said, “I can easily show you how to make a million pounds, but if you do that you’ll probably upset a whole lot of people on the way and it’s unlikely you’ll make a second or a third or a fourth”. It’s nearly always a bubble that will burst’.

What are your biggest pieces of advice for professional women?

‘Find what you can be passionate about and follow that passion in such a way that – you can’t stop bad stuff happening but if you create the right vision. We use the hedgehog model: what are you passionate about? What can you be the best at doing? What is your resource engine to make that work? But overall, look after yourself: one of the best things for people’s mental health is actually giving back to society’.

To summarise:

Success is inherently relative, but inherently collective.
Trust your instincts and do what you can for the community.
Continue to reflect and remind yourself of your values.

We’d love to hear some advice from you – yes, you! – to share in our community. Please get in touch with your thoughts and help us to inspire and uplift women all over the world.

ProspHER can support you in evolving your story and progressing professionally with passion, purpose and power – find out how here

This article was researched and written by Bronte Littlewood, Freelance writer at ProspHER.