IAM209- Passion Igniter Helps Ambitious Women Create Success and Move Past Fear

Laura Gmeinder is a passion igniter; she’s a highly sought after certified coach and national speaker. Her expertise lies at the intersection of leadership development, mindset and business strategy. She champions women to take themselves- and their business to the next level. Laura was honored as a BRAVA “Woman to Watch” and In Business “40 Under 40” for her business savvy and community engagement- accomplishments she attributes to her favorite quote “Do one thing every day that scares you”

• CEO Hack: Levelling up my morning routine through tapping meditation
• CEO Nugget: (1) Take chances (2) The other side of fear is amazing
• CEO Defined: Taking calculated risks and coming back to your why

Website: http://www.lauragmeinder.com/

Facebook: facebook.com/lauragmeindercc
Instagram: laura_gmeinder
LinkedIn: LauraGmeinderphr
Twitter: @lauragmeinder
7 Ways to Lead in Your Business: https://goo.gl/YVr7YE
Goal Getter Blueprint: https://goo.gl/gvbv3e

Full Interview

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Transcription:

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Intro 0:02

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 0:27

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresham from the I AM CEO Podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Laura Gmeinder of lauragmeinder.com Laura, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Laura Gmeinder 0:36

Thank you for having me here. I'm so excited.

Gresham Harkless 0:38

Yeah, I'm super excited to have you on and what I want to do, which is read a little bit more about Laura so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. And Laura Gmeinder is a passion igniter. She's a highly sought-after certified coach and national speaker. Her expertise lies at the intersection of leadership development, mindset, and business strategy. She champions women to take themselves and their businesses to the next level. Laura was honored as a BRAVA “Woman to Watch” and In Business “40 Under 40” for her business savvy and community engagement – accomplishments she attributes to her favorite quote “Do one thing every day that scares you”. Laura, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Laura Gmeinder 1:15

I am. And it's the one thing that scares me today.

Gresham Harkless 1:18

There we go. There we go. Making sure I pronounce your name was mine. So I think we both accomplished it very well. I wanted to kick everything off to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. And what led you to start your business?

Laura Gmeinder 1:31

I was working in the corporate environment, I fell into a human resources role. And the first seven years I was doing all the things that you're supposed to do to feel successful, the raises the promotions, and I really wasn't yet at the same time, I was getting very engaged in community leadership and empowering women through some of the nonprofit networks I was working. And so I really was doing some soul searching around some of those pieces to figure that oh, like if I'm so energized, I love what I'm doing as a volunteer, like why can I feel like that about my job, my work.

And so we kind of looked at where my skill sets were, I'd started doing some career change workshops and thought I might do some coaching and worked with a life coach. And then in kind of thinking about my background and Adult Education, I had done a lot of coaching and counseling in the corporate environment. And so looking at kind of what my skill sets were and what my passions weren't what the community needed, what I was being asked questions about, I decided to start my own business, I did coaching on the side for about four years. And then I left corporate to go out and with coaching. And then I did some consulting, business consulting. And in the meantime, I did a StrengthsFinder assessment and found out that I was really strong in communication, and WOO!

And I reached out to a local place here in the Madison, Wisconsin area, that dream bank and I said, I just have gone through all this would your community be interested in my story, because they bring in people to share their expertise to build up the community to help people chase their dreams. So they had me come in and I realized, oh my gosh, I love the speaking piece. So I ended up adding in the speaking I speak nationally now. And I also do quite a bit of leadership and empowerment training.

Gresham Harkless 3:16
Nice. I absolutely love that. And I love that especially because you can kind of see, or I can see at least the transition and the flow from where you started and where you're going. And it sounds like you've been really doing a I guess self-inventory, it would be the right term to understand what you're good at and what you want to incorporate into your business.

Laura Gmeinder 3:32
Yes. And I was joking with my boyfriend the other day, and I was like, and I'm just getting started.

Gresham Harkless 3:38

Exactly, exactly. Exactly, exactly. I always say it's always 1.0. So we're always in an evolutionary process where we're always adding more things or finding more about ourselves and this kind of building from there.

Laura Gmeinder 3:49

Yes, the self-discovery piece. And then I always think about it if I just you know, best myself yesterday, right? Like just a little bit more every day.

Gresham Harkless 3:58

Yeah, that's huge. It's funny you say that because I always feel like I'm a really competitive person. And I think I talked with the coach today. And one of the things she mentioned was that you should always if you try to compete with other people, sometimes that can lead to frustration, but always try to be better than yourself and try to level up and beat yesterday's Gresham and yesterday's, whatever, and then you're always on the right path.

Laura Gmeinder 4:17

Yeah, I'm always like, stay in your lane. Stay in your lane.

Gresham Harkless 4:21

Exactly, exactly. So I know you touched on it a little bit. I wanted to drill a little bit deeper to hear how you're supporting the clients or some of the great things that you're doing.

Laura Gmeinder 4:28

Yeah, so I support my clients in a variety of ways. But a lot of it is with the individual work that I do the group coaching around women's empowerment both what that looks like in the corporate because I ended up even though like seven years as a seven-year itch I ended up seeing 14 years but then also to for me, it's been super empowering to start my own business or my speaking business and what some of those pieces look like. So I do a lot of work around leadership development like the inner leader, so you need a really strong growth mindset for that. So I work a lot with my clients on stepping up as a leader and building their confidence and really going after not letting fear get in their way.

Gresham Harkless 5:07

Yeah, absolutely.

Laura Gmeinder 5:09

Yes, definitely.

Gresham Harkless 5:10

Yeah. And I've always heard and you know, definitely correct me if I'm wrong, that sometimes their biggest impediment to us getting to that next level that I'm sure you see with your clients is sometimes that self-confidence, that fear that kind of creeps up into our minds and a lot and kind of stops us from taking those next steps to be better.

Laura Gmeinder 5:25

Yes, I think so. Definitely.

Gresham Harkless 5:27

Awesome, awesome, awesome. And now I want to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And this is what you feel kind of distinguishes you or sets you apart, or makes you or your organization unique.

Laura Gmeinder 5:36

I kind of hinted at it a little bit earlier, but I really think my combination of communication blue, because that lets me really build those deep trust, a lot of times I'll have coffee with someone and they'll spill their guts. They're like, I can't believe you're a stranger. And I just told you that I really put people at ease. I don't judge I really attract people to me. But then I think also two, you know, my skill sets that combination of the adult education, the corporate the business development, I've helped founded three different businesses now, and really kind of putting some of those pieces together, I just did a three-day intensive emotional intelligence workshop. So I'm always building and enhancing those skill sets so that I can meet people really where they are. So they can move forward faster.

Gresham Harkless 6:19

Yeah, that's probably as a lot of why people want to, you know, spill their guts is because you're meeting them where they are, you're having a conversation with the person, you're not necessarily saying, Oh, you need to do X, Y, and Z, but you're actually understanding, you know, sounds like what they are hoping to do, what they're trying to do, what their impediments might be, and then kind of going forward from there.

Laura Gmeinder 6:35

Yes.

Gresham Harkless 6:35

Awesome. And I know you touched on it a little bit. I wanted to break down. I heard you say it before, I'm glad you brought it up again, the “woo”. Can you explain a little bit more about that exactly what that is?

Laura Gmeinder 6:44

Yes, thank you. Woo, is winning over others. So it's a natural talent for me, which I have developed into a strength with a lot of it was through the community of volunteering that I did, and really getting out of my shell, and helped me start to build my confidence. But it's really just having that, you know, how can you be a connector? How can you add value to the relationship? How can you, you know, build that trust and break down barriers where people want to be vulnerable with you and invite that piece of it into the relationship?

Gresham Harkless 7:16

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I love that, because if you could definitely identify that in yourself, you can definitely, you know, have a lot of really strong, you know, sounds like relationships and outcomes to your overall life and everything you're working on.

Laura Gmeinder 7:28

Yes, definitely. So I think it's been super helpful, whether I'm working with an individual or negotiating contracts with corporate clients, but just really to have that high level of trust and transparency.

Gresham Harkless 7:40

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Definitely. That sounds good. And I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app or book or habit that you have, but is something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Laura Gmeinder 7:51

So I've been focused on leveling up my morning routine, to really have a great start to my day. And one of the things that I tell anyone who will listen to me is I love tapping, it's energy work. But it really helps to calm you and helps you relate to being focused in your day. And I find it, particularly of benefit with speaking and I know I'm a professional speaker. But even if you're in corporate or in your own business, and you have to have a talk and you're kind of nervous, you have that extra energy, it really just helps calm the nervous system and bring about the change and be able to present the way that you want to show up.

Gresham Harkless 8:29

Nice, nice, and I haven't actually heard about tapping, so it's tapping different parts of your body. You mentioned

Laura Gmeinder 8:33

Yes, it starts with the karate chop point, which is on the side of your hand and you say different things, there are guided meditations that you can find on YouTube, a lot of people are doing it now but it's based on some Eastern medicine and just really it relaxes the nervous system. But any concern that you have, whether you're wanting to get over a breakup or tap for more money, you know, the abundance to welcome abundance into your life, anything you can think of there is a video out there for it and it's so taught me to move past them in my blocks and limitations, but then also with my regular speaking to just really calm my nervous system.

Gresham Harkless 9:09

Yeah, that's definitely huge. And I'm definitely gonna, you know, look more into that. So definitely I've been, you know, meditating, largely because I believe that in order to win the day, you sometimes need to win the morning. So I just focus on trying to win the morning and then that usually sets my day in the correct motion. So I love that idea of tapping and being able to kind of add a physical part to that as well too.

Laura Gmeinder 9:27

Yes, definitely.

Gresham Harkless 9:29

Awesome, awesome, awesome. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget and this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice if you can happen to a time machine what would you tell your younger business self?

Laura Gmeinder 9:38

I would call out the part you know, with women especially we're raised to be good girls. We were raised to be risk-averse and me in particular, like I have such a sense of adventure and I would tell my younger self to take risks take chances what's on the other side of my fear is amazing, and often I often think that the fear that we have most times it doesn't even come to fruition.

Gresham Harkless 10:05

Yeah, absolutely. It's funny you say that I think I saw something on Instagram the other day where it says I have 99 problems, and 87 of them are made up in my head. So a lot of times, you know, you have these things that are holding you back. And they're not actually they're kind of things we manufacture in our brain or worry about that are not actually pediments to us getting to where we want to be.

Laura Gmeinder 10:23

Yes, I think one of the biggest lessons I learned is our brain isn't there to make us happy. It's there to keep us safe. So something new isn't unknown. So registers serve as fear it registers as danger.

Gresham Harkless 10:34

Exactly, exactly when you're talking about, you know, stepping outside of your comfort zone. So that's why I definitely love your mantra, your quote that she started us out with, I appreciate that. And now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're having different quote-unquote, CEOs on the show, but I want to ask you Laura, What does being a CEO mean to you?

Laura Gmeinder 10:52

Being a CEO means to me taking calculated risks. And no matter how many times you fall off the horse, get back on and keep trying, you might have to refine and fine-tune your path, your process, but knowing that, you know, coming back to your why, what is your mission, and your vision for yourself and for your business? And what is the change that you want to see in the world? For me, success is waking up and knowing that I've helped at least one person every day.

And that is what's going to be what is and has been able to grow my business. I think when you kind of come back to what's most important, why did you start your business? What do you see for your business? And five or 10 years? And how do you keep focusing on that too when it's, you know, the roller coaster and you're on the down to be able to know that it's gonna go back up, and you're focused on what you want, most personally and professionally?

Gresham Harkless 11:47

Yeah, I think that makes perfect sense. And, you know, I think that's definitely a great reminder, because I think all being on that roller coaster ride, especially when the downs come because they do come and they will come, it's just important to understand that you have a really strong mission, and you're focused on helping people because when you start doing those actions over and over again, you start to get back up on that roller coaster. And now you're starting to see. Exactly waving down. So definitely appreciate you for taking some time out what I wanted to do was pass you the mic, just to see if there's anything additional, you want to let our readers and our listeners know. And then of course, how best they can find you and hear about all the awesome things that you are doing.

Laura Gmeinder 12:21

Yes, thanks so much. I would just tell people to go for it. To really play big, life is short. And people in our world, we just need everyone to step up as a leader and live and be in the world you're trying to create and know that that is so needed, people can reach out through my website, lauragmeinder.com. And I have a goal-getter guide if you want to step up as a leader in corporate or in your business.

Gresham Harkless 12:49

Awesome, awesome, awesome. And we'll make sure to have those links in the show notes just so that anybody can follow up with you, Laura. But I truly appreciate you. I think you're doing some awesome things and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Laura Gmeinder 12:59

Thank you. You too. I appreciate that.

Outro 13:01

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co

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