In this episode of the I AM CEO Podcast, host Gresham Harkless interviews Dr. Rowena Winkler, a coach who helps women find their voice and embrace their authentic selves. Dr. Winkler combines spiritual tools and practical strategies to guide women towards self-love, confidence-building, getting unstuck, and making positive changes in their lives. With over 15 years of experience in marketing and strategic communication, she also works as a higher education consultant and instructor.
During the episode, Dr. Winkler shares her CEO story, which began after a personal tragedy involving her father. This event prompted her to step outside of her comfort zone, leave the teaching academy, and explore her skills in marketing and communications. After giving birth to her baby in March 2020, she finally launched her coaching business.
Dr. Winkler's coaching services focus on one-on-one mentorship and tapping into the client's inner wisdom and intuition. She also incorporates astrology, human design, and holistic practices into her framework, providing a unique and integrated approach.
As a CEO hack, Dr. Winkler highlights the power of using astrology and moon phases to plan and build a business successfully. Her CEO nugget of wisdom emphasizes the importance of trusting oneself and embracing authentic self-expression while allowing room for experimentation and refinement.
Dr. Winkler defines being a CEO as having the freedom and space to express one's authenticity while serving and helping others. She mentions her website, rowenawinkler.com, and provides her social media handles on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and TikTok for listeners interested in learning more about her coaching services.
Overall, this episode offers valuable insights and inspiration from Dr. Rowena Winkler, a coach dedicated to helping women find their voice and embrace their authentic selves. Listeners can gain practical strategies and learn how to incorporate intuition and self-knowledge into their entrepreneurial journey.
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Transcription:
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Dr. Rowena Winkler 00:00
We know what's best for us because if we're showing up using the best practices or trying to copy what someone else has done, it's going to come off as contrived and it's not going to attract the ideal clients for you.
You're not going to have the business that you are dreaming of by not being your authentic self. So stop it with the shoulds, get rid of that perfectionism.
Intro 00:24
Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?
If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of.
This is the I AM CEO podcast.
Gresham Harkless 00:51
Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I appreciate you listening to this episode. If you've been listening this year, you know that we've hit 1600 episodes at the beginning of this year. We're doing something a little bit different. Where we're repurposing our favorite episodes around certain categories, topics, or as I like to call them, business pillars that we think are going to be extremely impactful for CEOs, entrepreneurs, and business owners, just like you, what I like to call the CB nation architects who are looking to level up their organizations.
This month we are focusing on CEO Hacks and CEO Nuggets. This is by far one of my favorite questions I asked on the show. In other words, I asked, what are the apps, books, and habits that makes you more effective and efficient. Those were the CEO hacks. Then I asked for a word of wisdom or a piece of advice or something that you might tell your younger business self if you were to hop into a time machine. And those were the CEO nuggets. That's what we'll focus on this month is some of the top ones that can instantly impact your business.
I love all the questions, but with every episode I thought I would walk away with something I could look at and implement right there to save the precious resources, time and money. Or I would also learn about the advice, tips and tidbits or tools of the trade on how to level up our organization. So you'll hear some of these this month. So sit back and enjoy this special episode of the I AM CEO podcast.
Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today I have Dr. Rowena Winkler of rowenawinkler.com. Dr. Rowena, it's great to have you on the show.
Dr. Rowena Winkler 02:27
It's great to be here, Gresh, thank you so much for having me.
Gresham Harkless 02:31
Yes. Super excited to have you on and talk about all the awesome things that you're doing. Of course, before we do that, I want to read a little bit more about Dr. Rowena so you can hear about some of those awesome things.
Dr. Rowena helps women find their voice and come back to their divine authenticity by using a combination of spiritual tools and practical strategies. Her mentoring approach encourages women to tap into self-love, build confidence, get unstuck, and make a change. She's a marketing professional with over 15 years of experience and is also a higher ed consultant and instructor who develops and teaches courses in strategic communication and writing.
Dr. Rowena, super excited again to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
Dr. Rowena Winkler 03:09
Oh, I am so ready. Let's go.
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Gresham Harkless 03:11
Let's make it happen then. So, to kick everything off, I know I touched on it when I read your bio, but I wanted to rewind the clock, hear a little bit more on how you got started. What I call your CEO story.
Dr. Rowena Winkler 03:20
Yeah. My CEO story, I would say, it was sparked by two catalyst moments. One of which was when my father was diagnosed with cancer and he passed away in 2013. And for those of you who have lost a loved one, especially a parent, as you can imagine, it was a game changer for me. It really caused me to reflect on my legacy and what I was doing here and essentially watching my father die, deteriorate and die from this disease led me to reflect on how I'm making the most of my time in this life.
So that was when I started to think about entrepreneurship, being a CEO of my own business. It was something that I'd wanted to do for a really long time, but of course fear and imposter syndrome was getting in the way and that just allowed me to step outside of that fear and really consider going for it. But I didn't do that right away. At the time I was still a tenure track professor teaching courses in public relations and public speaking and writing. That moment, that callous moment of my father passing away led me to leave academia and work in the marketing and communications industry for a little bit to still figure out and hone in on what I was doing.
The second catalyst moment was having my beautiful baby girl in March, 2020, literally days before the world shut down during the pandemic. Leading up to that, I actually went through IVF in Vitro Fertilization to have my daughter. That was a very powerful and humbling time because I'm a very self-motivated person. I got my bachelor's, master's, and Ph.D. in less than 10 years. And so for the longest, was hustling and grinding. This experience of me trying to have something I wanted so badly, a daughter, a baby, it wasn't happening by my usual checking-the-boxes method. And so it really, again, caused me to reflect on how am I going about this life?
Now that I have this beautiful baby to role model for, now's the time. That was when I launched my LLC and my business and brought me here today.
Gresham Harkless 05:32
Nice. And I say we forget about the human aspect of business. So I appreciate you having that transparency, talking about everything that you were going through with your father and seeing that and how that redirected some of everything that you're doing, but also your daughter.
Even going through IVF and how all those things we often forget about like it brings light and not just what we're doing, but a lot of times why we're doing, which is one of the most powerful things.
Dr. Rowena Winkler 05:56]
Yes. Yes. And no, you'll find it throughout this interview. I'm all about the humanness of our experience here. So, yeah.
Gresham Harkless 06:04
Yeah, absolutely. So let's delve deeper into that humanness. So take us through a little bit more on how you're working with your clients, how you're making that impact.
Dr. Rowena Winkler 06:12
Yes. So a big theme for me and working with my clients is authenticity. I know that's a word that's thrown around a lot, but for me, that really means tapping in deep. I call myself an inner muse mentor. And what does that mean? That means that there is this inner wisdom, this inner knowing inside all of us that, I mentioned homegirl just wants to come out, but as we grow up and go about this world, we're conditioned by external influences by the media, by our parents.
There are all these messages and stories about who we're supposed to be. But the work that I do in my coaching with my clients is to tap in deep and find that woman that we are meant to be, that we deserve to be, that we are empowered to be, and who we truly are. So through my one on one coaching offerings, as well as my marketing and communications background, I offer what is called an intuitive business strategy. So what that means is not going off of the shoulds, which I'll talk about a little bit later, not going off of these quote and quote best practices when it comes to marketing and business, but really having a softening to that and tapping into our intuition.
Because as women, we have an innate intuition. We have gifts and talents in terms of what is best for us and best for our business and not being afraid to explore that a little bit more and showing up in that way in our own businesses.
Gresham Harkless 07:41
Nice. I think we're always looking outward to try to find the answers, get the next thing, whatever that might be. So I love, just the foundation and everything that you're doing because I think we're often looking away and saying we need this and we need that when a lot of the things that we need are already within. We just need them a lot.
Dr. Rowena Winkler 07:59
Yeah. And as that mentor, I'm here to guide you in that process to call that out because you're absolutely right. We innately know what is best for us, but again, we're just competing with all of these distractions and feeling like we have to, as I mentioned, check these boxes and have these moments of external validation.
And I'm pulling from my own experience, after checking those boxes, I still felt unfulfilled and unhappy and I was trying to figure out why. So once I've discovered that, oh, just kidding, I have it all within me and experiencing the death of my father and the birth of my daughter. Those were the moments that really put the pieces together for me.
Gresham Harkless 08:38
Yeah, absolutely. So what would you consider to be, what I like to call your secret sauce? This could be for yourself, the business, or a combination of both, but what do you feel sets you apart and makes you unique?
Dr. Rowena Winkler 08:48
Yes. So, after working with several clients and having these conversations with them and gathering that data, what drew you to me, it really is the combination of, as I mentioned, I have a background in teaching and strategic communication and marketing. So I have that brain that allows to provide structure, goal setting, and providing a system of framework. But, as I mentioned, and alluded to that intuition, I also use astrology and human design and tarot. So more of these esoteric mystical, whole spiritual practices and holistic healing modalities in my work.
So it's a beautiful integration of the two so that we can tap into these more intuitive spiritual practices, but then you have me as your mentor and guide to be like, okay, now that we've discovered and explored what we need to move forward, let's come up with inspired action steps to get there.
So it's just wonderful because it really allows folks the space to explore, but then have accountability in getting to that dream career or getting to that ideal woman or starting that business that you've always been thinking about launching, but haven't had the courage or the framework to get there.
Gresham Harkless 10:12
Absolutely. I love that and I can definitely see that in your background and all the accomplishments and things that you've been able to do and that to me speaks directly to I think the essence of entrepreneurship is not really choosing either or but creating the new.
I love how you're able to marry both of those. There's a book I read years ago called The Opposable Mind. It talked a lot about how sometimes the most innovative things that we can do are not from going left or going right, but actually blazing our own trail by combining the power of both of those. So I love that and I imagine like with your clients, it probably allows them to not think either or to probably think allows them to creating and create both.
Dr. Rowena Winkler 10:50
Absolutely. It's been a lot of fun.
Gresham Harkless 10:53
Yeah, it definitely sounds like it. Well I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?
Dr. Rowena Winkler 11:07
So speaking of blazing your own trail and thinking a little bit outside the box, the hack that I decided to share with everyone in the community is actually what I use in my own practice. And with my intuitive business clients, it's using the power of astrology and moon phases to help plan and build your business. So for example, when I launched my business in 2021, I pivoted from a purely astrology business to this coaching integration practice. I launched it on a new moon and at the time of this recording, last night we had a new moon, and Leo and new moons are energy when it comes to new beginnings, fresh starts, fresh beginnings.
So I take the energy of the planetary alignments and that's based off of what's going on for all of us, but also on your own chart. So, I look at the astrology of my clients. I look at the human design of my clients again, using these modalities to help with effective planning. So, based on what is happening, astrologically, I'm like, Oh, okay. We're in Leo season. For example, at the time of this recording, Leo season is all about presentation. It's all about, having this boldness it's ruled by the sun. So how can I show up through speaking engagements just like this to show the radiance of me and my business and how can I show up to help other people?
So, yeah, that's my hack. It's probably a little bit different from others you've received, but that's what I've used to build my business.
Gresham Harkless 12:40
Yeah, I absolutely love it. Now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. So you might have already touched on this, but this is like a word of wisdom or piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would say to your younger business self if you were to jump into a time machine, or you might tell your favorite client.
Dr. Rowena Winkler 12:55
Essentially as CEOs, and business owners, we need to stop shooting all over ourselves. We, especially when we're first starting out, we look again, externally, right? We sign up for the courses and we look at our role models, which is all good said and done. But at the end of the day, as I mentioned, we know what's best for us, because if we're showing up using the best practices and trying to copy what someone else has done, it's going to come off as contrived and it's not going to attract the ideal clients for you.
You're not going to have the business that you are dreaming of by not being your authentic self. So stop it with the shoulds, get rid of that perfectionism. I know that's so hard because I'm a recovering perfectionist myself. When you're an entrepreneur, it is this big experimentation process. Not everything you put out there is going to land right away, but that's why you take the time to reframe, look over, reflect on what's working, what's not, and just tweak and see what happens from there. The energy is what goes along with it.
If you are putting yourself out there and saying, Oh, this isn't going to work or what am I doing? If you don't have the confidence behind it, that's not going to go well. So stop the shooting and just get out there and be yourself. And the folks that you are meant to help and serve will come to you. I just know it.
Gresham Harkless 14:24
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote and quote CEOs on the show.
So Dr. Rowena, what does being a CEO mean to you?
Dr. Rowena Winkler 14:35
So being a CEO, what it means to me is having the freedom and the spaciousness to express your authenticity and to be yourself in a way that helps and serves other people. That's so, so important for me is having this ability to create my business in a way that has a legacy impact, and really I'm here to serve, so yeah.
Gresham Harkless 15:04
Absolutely. And of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I want to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course, how best people can get ahold of you to find out about all the awesome things that you're working on.
Dr. Rowena Winkler 15:17
You can find me at rowenawinkler.com. Then I'm on all the social media channels, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, I think that may be it for now, but my handle is RBWinkler PhD for all of my social media channels. So feel free to check me out there.
In terms of my offerings, as I mentioned, I work one on one with coaching clients. So, if that's something you're interested in to tap into that interfuse, I'm available. I also provide intuitive marketing and business planning services.
Gresham Harkless 15:50
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I absolutely love that. Dr. Rowena. We will have the links and information in the show notes as well, too, so that everybody can get ahold of you and connect with you.
I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
Dr. Rowena Winkler 15:59
Thanks. You too. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed this conversation.
Outro 16:03
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community.
Want to level up your business even more, read blogs, listen to podcasts, and watch videos at cbnation.co. Also, check out our I AM CEO Facebook group.
This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.
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