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329 Celebrating Latina Leadership for Women’s History Month with Raquel Benavidez

By Giovanna Rossi | Mar 13, 2024 |

On the Well Woman Show this week in celebration of Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day, I interview Raquel Benavidez

Let’s talk a bit about International Women’s Day recognized each year on March 8. UN Women is the United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. A global champion for women and girls, UN Women was established to accelerate progress on meeting women’s needs worldwide. UN Women recently called on investing in women as the best solution to face growing crises – really centering women in the solutions. In a news release from the United Nations, UN Women stated that in a year where almost half of the population lives in a country undergoing an election, this International Women’s Day is a crucial opportunity to define the future we want. As conflict, climate change and polarizing societies are eroding decades of progress in gender equality, UN Women is calling on “Invest in women: Accelerate Progress” to realize the gender equality dividend for all.

Ensuring pay equity is important to businesses not just from a legal compliance perspective, but also because research shows that employees have a high level of awareness around pay equity issues (and legislation), and are more likely to want to work for employers who are transparent about pay equity. As employees become more willing to talk about their pay with their coworkers, transparency from employers about pay, and pay equity, will become a critical differentiator for employers seeking to hire top talent in the future. Learn more at Family Friendly New Mexico.

Now, in celebration of Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day, Raquel Benavidez is on the show today. She’s an advocate and leader for Latina Equal Pay and CEO of Bien Loca Industries, a medical and recreational cultivation and processing company with delivery/distribution and retail licenses in New Mexico. On the show we discuss:

  1. The importance of self-awareness and discernment in embracing one’s unique identity while letting go of negative traits.
  2. Reevaluating competition, while advocating for women and addressing challenges women face in male-dominated fields.
  3. Fully embracing one’s unique perspectives and abilities without worrying what others think in order to effectively express oneself and one’s leadership.

For the full interview, including a deep dive into the Four Agreements work Raquel has been leading, listen to Episode 329 available on NPR podcasts tomorrow, 3/13.

Raquel recommended The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz. ,and

The Well Woman Show is thankful for support from Collective Action Strategies – a consulting firm that supports systemic change so that women and families thrive, and by the Well Woman Life Movement Challenge Quiz at wellwomanlife.com/quiz

As always, all the links and information are at wellwomanlife.com/radio


328 Equity Centered Employee Engagement Leads to Collective Liberation & Joy with Viva Asmelash

By Giovanna Rossi | Feb 22, 2024 |

Hello Well Women!

Today on the show I interview Viva Asmelash. She is a passionate workplace consultant and certified inclusion strategist specializing in forward-thinking employee engagement, equity-centered strategic planning, values-driven branding, and critical team conversations. Viva’s professional purpose is to create environments where people feel truly seen and are inspired to be their best and most authentic selves. She often facilitates inclusive executive group coaching, delivers engaging keynotes and panel discussions, and crafts org-wide education experiences for clients like IDEO U, MiQ, and Reading Partners. As the co-founder of Liberation Labs, she proudly co-designed the first-of-its-kind Culturally-Aware Feedback Training™. She also co-authored the viral 2023 Harvard Business Review article, Creating Psychological Safety for Black Women at Your Company.

As a first-generation Eritrean-American, Viva leverages a unique, lifelong perspective on race, gender, culture, belonging, privilege, and education access. With this lens and her breadth of experience, she takes deep care in helping teams evolve their people + inclusion ethos and efforts—all in hopes of planting seeds for collective liberation and joy.

We discuss:

How to Gain awareness of how identity factors into our pathways to emotional and psychological safety at work

How we can Swap “saviorism” for solidarity

And why making workplaces safer and better for Black women actually benefits everyone.

In celebration of Black History Month, I also want to highlight past episodes featuring the work and lives of Black women.

265 The Urgency For Equal Rights – Carol Jenkins was President and CEO of the ERA Coalition/Fund for Women’s Equality, which aims to amend the U.S. Constitution to include the Equal Rights Amendment, something many Americans believe already happened.

298 How to Make and Keep Friends with Dr. Marisa G. Franco author of NYT bestselling book Platonic

303 When Black Women Thrive at Work with Ericka Hines, author of Black Women Thriving, a report and call to action which seeks to define what it means for Black women to thrive in the workplace and determine how they find joy, success, and stability at work.

245 Leading Inside the Beltway with Dr. C Nicole Mason, the past president and chief executive officer of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, a leading voice on pay equity, economic policies, and research impacting women.

The Well Woman Show is thankful for support from Collective Action Strategies – a consulting firm that supports systemic change so that women and families thrive, and by the Well Woman Life Movement Challenge Quiz at wellwomanlife.com/quiz

327 Thinking Bigger Than Roe With Sylvia Ghazarian

By Giovanna Rossi | Feb 16, 2024 |

Today on the show I interview Sylvia Ghazarian, Executive Director of Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project, the largest national independent abortion fund. As former Chair of the Commission on the Status of Women for 12 years, she has championed policy advocacy on healthcare, poverty, domestic/sexual violence and human trafficking in Los Angeles. Sylvia is from California, and identifies as middle eastern and a woman of color.

We discuss:

  • Importance of our national abortion fund and the need to destigmatize this common health procedure.
  • Thinking Bigger Than Roe as we head into what would have been the 51st anniversary of Roe v Wade.
  • How leadership development and career paths can be formed in unexpected ways.

She recommended the book Luminous Darkness: An Engaged Buddhist Approach to Embracing the Unknown and the documentary The Burning Times.

Some other podcasts about Roe vs. Wade:

326 50 Years of Ms Magazine with Kathy Spillar

296 Reclaiming Abortion as Healthcare With Joan LaMunyon Sanford

 

I want to personally invite you to the Bioneers Conference. As Bioneers celebrates its 35th-anniversary conference, the urgency of transformative change is starkly evident. It is more important now than ever that we connect and scale brilliant social movements to enact the kinds of breakthrough solutions that this earth needs. The clock is ticking. The call to action resounds: We must recognize our collective power, understanding that what we do to one another resonates with our treatment of the Earth.

Previous episode with Nina Simons, the co-founder of Bioneers, https://wellwomanlife.com/captivate-podcast/297show/

Register now for #Bioneers2024 at conference.bioneers.org Use discount code WellWoman20!

The Well Woman Show is thankful for support from Collective Action Strategies – a consulting firm that supports systemic change so that women and families thrive, and by the Well Woman Life Movement Challenge Quiz at wellwomanlife.com/quiz

326 50 Years of Ms Magazine with Kathy Spillar

By Cianna Reider | Jan 10, 2024 |

Hello Well Women! Today on the show I interview Kathy Spillar, the Executive Director of Feminist Majority, a national organization working for women’s equality, empowerment, and non-violence. One of the founders, Spillar has been a driving force in executing the organizations’ diverse programs securing women’s rights both domestically and globally since its inception in 1987. In December 2001, the Feminist Majority Foundation became the sole publisher of Ms. magazine (founded in 1972). And they just published their new book: “50 Years of Ms. The best of the pathfinding magazine that ignited a revolution.

The Well Woman Show is thankful for support from Collective Action Strategies – a consulting firm that supports systemic change so that women and families thrive, and by the Well Woman Life Movement Challenge Quiz at wellwomanlifecom/quiz

As always, all the links and information are at wellwomanlife.com/radio

325 Thriving Workplaces with Ellen Galinsky

By Giovanna Rossi | Dec 6, 2023 |

Today on the show I interview Ellen Galinsky, the President of Families and Work Institute and the elected President of the Work and Family Researchers Network. She serves as a senior advisor to the Immediate Office of the Assistant Secretary of Youth Mental Health at the Administration for Children and Families and between March 2016 and September 2022 was Chief Science Officer of the Bezos Family Foundation. Her research has focused on work-life, children’s development, youth voice, child-care, parent-professional relationship, and parental development. Galinsky is the author of Mind in the Making and The Breakthrough Years. She’s also the author of 90 books/reports and 360 articles for books, journals, magazines, and the Web.

We discuss her work with women and children,

her upcoming book, The Breakthrough Years,

and what the most common thing kids wish for their parents.

‌The book she recommended was: Demon Copperhead: A Pulitzer Prize Winner by Barbara Kingsolver 

Girls on the Run Rio Grande is a social and emotional development program, driven by an evidence-based curriculum that helps 3rd-5th grade girls build confidence, kindness and decision-making skills. Dynamic lessons instill valuable life skills including the important connection between physical and emotional health. We operate in Sandoval, Valencia and Bernalillo counties. In our 12 years of operation, we have never turned a girl away based on her ability to pay. Our programming is delivered by our incredible volunteer coaches, which we are in need of! The impact of a Girls on the Run volunteer coach is as boundless as it is beautiful. As a coach, you will also reap countless benefits, including deepening your leadership skills, finding joy in helping others, and earning new perspectives – just to name a few!
Girls on the Run coaches are:
· Trained to lead small teams through engaging lessons that build confidence, inspire healthy habits and foster meaningful connections
· Not required to be runners or athletes
· Fully prepared and supported by GOTR
· Available for practice once or twice week for 90 minutes for the 10-week season
· Compassionate and empowering leaders who want to support the next generation of change-makers.

Our coaches bring our evidence-based curriculum to life and are at the heart of what makes Girls on the Run one of a kind. At every practice, their encouragement inspires girls to activate and reach their limitless potential.

Remember: We provide coaches with all the training and supplies necessary, so prior experience is not required! Lead the way for more girls in your community and watch your own life transform. If you have any questions about our program, its impact or volunteering, please contact us. Our website is

Girls on the Run Rio Grande or check us out on instagram and facebook @girlsontherunriogrande.

The Well Woman Show is thankful for support from Collective Action Strategies – a consulting firm that supports systemic change so that women and families thrive, and by the Well Woman Life Movement Challenge Quiz at wellwomanlife.com/quiz

As always, all the links and information are at wellwomanlife.com/325show

324: How to be Brave with Lisa Niver

By Giovanna Rossi | Nov 30, 2023 |

Hello well women! On the Well Woman Show today I interview Lisa Niver. Lisa is the author of Brave-ish, One Breakup, Six Continents and Feeling Fearless After Fifty and an award-winning travel expert who has explored 102 countries and six continents. Discover her articles in publications from AARP: The Magazine and AAA Explorer to WIRED and Wharton Magazine, as well as her site WeSaidGoTravel. For her print, podcast, digital and broadcast segments, she has been awarded three Southern California Journalism Awards and two National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards and been a finalist 22 times. Niver is also the host of the award-nominated podcast Make Your Own Map.

We discuss today:

  1. The transformative potential of embracing change.
  2. The importance of setting bold goals for personal growth.
  3. Strategies for overcoming fear and self-doubt.

As always, all the links and information are at wellwomanlife.com/324show

 

The books she recommended were:

Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things by Adam Grant 

50 Years of Ms.: The Best of the Pathfinding Magazine That Ignited a Revolution by Katherine Spillar 

Here is Giovanna’s episode about turning fifty:

Part 1

Part 2

The WWS is thankful for support from Collective Action Strategies – a consulting firm that supports systemic change so that women and families thrive, and by the Well Woman Life Movement Challenge Quiz at wellwomanlife.com/quiz

If you’re in burn out or major transition, this is YOUR time to figure out what is holding you back from making the changes you need to make in order to live your fullest, most joyful life! The cause of all our challenges (personal or professional) can actually be rooted in the lack of Internal Superpowers and/or External Supports. Our Well Woman Life Framework tells you which stage of the WWL Cycle you’re in and what to do about it so you can truly live your best life. You can find out more at http://www.wellwomanlife.com/quiz

323 Choosing Love Over Fear at the End of Life with Danielle Slupesky

By Giovanna Rossi | Nov 9, 2023 |

On the Well Woman Show today I interview Danielle Slupesky. Danielle is a certified End of Life Coach and Death Doula. She takes a non-judgmental, heart-centered approach to working with those who are thinking about, preparing for, and near the end of their lives. She offers non-medical, practical, emotional, spiritual and physical support to the dying, as well as to their caregivers and loved ones. Through public education and community engagement her goal is normalize conversations surrounding death, grief and loss. She aims to desterilize and demedicalize death and the dying process. After a near death experience in 2013, Danielle says, “I came back with a mission. I want to bring death back home. Back into the hands and hearts of our families and communities. Death, like birth, need not be a medical event. You’ve prepared for this journey your entire life. Embark without fear and full of love.

We discuss today:

No one makes it out of here alive – lets talk about what that means and how it feels to accept this fact.

If you knew you were going to die within three months, what would you focus on or do differently?

And how we can bring beauty, ritual and ceremony and sacredness to any space – even a heavily medicalized ICU!

If you want to know more about Women Empower Sessions hosted by the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce, please visit https://web.santafechamber.com/events/WomenEmpower Featuring The 2023 Business of the Year Kitchen Table Santa Fe-3674/details?mibextid=Zxz2cZ

1. If you want to know more about the December 1st Csw listening tour, please visit https://nmcsw.org/listening-learning-event-registration-silver-city/

The books Danielle mentioned were:

The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have by Mark Nepo

Change Your Thoughts – Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao by Wayne W. Dyer

The Well Woman Show is thankful for support from The Well Woman Academy at wellwomanlife.com/academy. Join us in the Academy for the community, mindfulness practices, and strategy to live your Well Woman Life.

As always, all the links and information are at wellwomanlife.com/323show

Overcoming the Odds, Changing Careers and Developing Resilience with Dr. Wendy Ellis

By Giovanna Rossi | Oct 14, 2023 |

On the Well Woman Show today I interview Dr. Wendy Ellis, Assistant Professor in Global Health and the Founding Director of the Center for Community Resilience at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. I met Dr. Ellis at a summit on early childhood, childcare and workplace policy – one of my all time favorite topics. And when I heard her speak about resilience and her take on the Adverse Childhood Experience model (known as ACES), I just knew I had to have her on the show. While the world, and the US in particular, might be in breakdown, there are leaders that are already rebuilding, and actually facilitating the emergence of a new version of the systems and structures that we not build for or by women and certainly not women of color. Dr. Wendy Ellis is one of those leaders.

She is an Assistant Professor in Global Health and the Founding Director of the Center for Community Resilience at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. Dr. Ellis has spent the last fifteen years developing and working to grow a ‘resilience movement’ to address systemic inequities that contribute to social and health disparities that are often transmitted in families and communities from generation to generation.

The Center for Community Resilience seeks to improve the health of communities by enabling cross-sectoral partners to align policy, program and practice to address adverse childhood experiences in the context of adverse community environments–or as Dr. Ellis has coined it “The Pair of ACEs”. This innovative framing of ACEs, with an explicit focus on equity and prevention, has had a substantial influence on local initiatives, programs, public health initiatives and local, state and federal policy. Using the Pair of ACEs framing, Building Community Resiliencenetworks have successfully led systems and policy change focused on addressing long-standing economic, social and health disparties by partnering with community, integrating service delivery and building political will for change.

The strengths-based approach is aimed at building the infrastructure to disrupt cycles of structural racism, foster equity and promote resilience in communities by improving access to supports and buffers that help individuals ‘bounce back’ and communities thrive.

Leveraging her extensive background in communications, in 2022 Dr. Ellis produced a documentary, “America’s Truth: Cincinnati” that follows her team’s innovative approach to centering conversations on structural racism that galvanized a resilience movement to foster equity through systems and policy change. Dr. Ellis holds several leadership positions in public health including Chair of the National Academy of Sciences, Enhancing Community Resilience in the Gulf States Committee, Scientific Advisor to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Prevention and Injury Center and the National Academy’s Culture of Health Advisory Board. In 2018 Dr. Ellis was selected as an Aspen Institute Ascend Fellow to support her leadership in developing cross-sector strategies to address childhood trauma, foster equity and build community resilience.

We discuss:

Being unafraid in the face of change.

Betting on yourself when it comes to your dreams and goals.

and

Leading with faith & focus as a leader.

As always, all the links and information are at  wellwomanlife.com/322show

The Well Woman Show is thankful for support from The Well Woman Academy™ at wellwomanlife.com/academy. Join us in the Academy for the community, mindfulness practices, and strategy to live your Well Woman Life®.

321 Disrupting Systems with Marianne Williamson

By Giovanna Rossi | Sep 29, 2023 |

This week on the show I interview Marianne Williamson, bestselling author, political activist, and spiritual thought leader who is running for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2024 election cycle. For over three decades, Williamson has been a leader in spiritual and religiously progressive circles. She is the author of 15 books. four of which have been #1 New York Times bestsellers. Williamson founded Project Angel Food, a non-profit organization that has delivered more than 14 million meals to ill and dying homebound patients since 1989.

The group was created to help people suffering from the ravages of HIV AIDS. She has also worked throughout her career on poverty, anti-hunger and racial reconciliation issues. In 2004, she co-founded The Peace Alliance and supports the creation of a U.S. Department of Peace. Williamson ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020.

We discuss:

  • Economic bill of rights / economy of well-being
  • Childcare / women in the workforce
  • Reparations / dismantling patriarchal economic and social systems
  • How do we close the wealth inequality gap in America today?

For all information mentioned, go to wellwomanlife.com/321show for more information

The Well Woman Show is thankful for support from The Well Woman Academy™ at wellwomanlife.com/academy. Join us in the Academy for the community, mindfulness practices, and strategy to live your Well Woman Life.

320: Anti-Hustle Strategies with Jadah Sellner

By Giovanna Rossi | Sep 13, 2023 |

This week on the show I interview Jadah Sellner, bestselling author, business coach, international keynote speaker, TEDx presenter, poet, and host of the Lead with Love podcast. She’s the author of SHE BUILDS: The Anti-Hustle Guide to Grow Your Business and Nourish Your Life. She’s also the co-author of the best-selling book Simple Green Smoothies. As the founder of Jadah Sellner Media, Inc. and She Builds Collective, Jadah helps women build their businesses and their lives in a way that works for them—–with love.

The book she’s reading:

Come as You Are: Revised and Updated: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life by Emily Nagoski

The Well Woman Show was a media partner for the following conference:

The 4th SCORE Women In Business Conference was Thursday September 21, 2023 in Santa Fe: Doing Well While Doing Good – Flexible Solutions for a Collaborative Future and it helps local business people explore solutions at every stage of their business. and will feature a collection of thought leaders and visionaries ready to build a stronger and more resilient business environment.

Featured speakers included:

● Victoria Price moderates the conference. Inspirational speaker, author, blogger, consultant, coach.

● Patricia Quintana – Owner & operator of Rancho La Fina Lamb and Wool and De La Tierra Consulting LLC, Taos, NM

● Jadah Sellner – Motivational Speaker and author of: She Builds: The Anti- Hustle Guide to Grow Your Business and Nourish Your Life

● Erin Wade – Farmer, entrepreneur and founder of Vinaigrette & Modern General restaurants, new author, releasing her first book early 2024.

Look out for this event again in the future!

A gift from Jadah:

shebuilds.com/vision use code: wellwoman to get the workshop for free (usually $97)

The Well Woman Show is thankful for support from The Well Woman Academy at wellwomanlife.com/academy. Join us in the Academy for the community, mindfulness practices, and strategy to live your Well Woman Life.