The Have It All Woman

By Susan Sly
The Natural Wellness Group

Who Is the Have It All Woman?

Have you ever wondered how some women seem to have it all? They look great, have super self esteem, they always look put together and seem to flow through life with ease? Did you admire them or did it make you seem inadequate? Have you ever questioned whether or not you too could be one of these Have It All Women and have the life you dream of?

I grew up with the ultimate Have It All Woman, my grandmother Agnes. She was beautiful, intelligent, a business owner, a philanthropist and a lady. ‘Popo’ as we called her was our version of a Chinese Queen Elizabeth. We loved and revered her. She was wise in all situations and seemingly unflappable.

Over the years I encountered many smart, engaging and seemingly magnificent women and began to judge myself in their presence. The truth was if a woman was self assured, well put together, confident and powerful she scared me. This type of woman intimidated me to no end.

It was in an employee evaluation one day, you know those things where your boss sits down with you and has a laundry list of items for you to improve upon, that I received major shock. My boss, Karen, told me that I intimidated her. I had been expecting Karen to berate my tardiness or take a microscopic view of my customer care approach and she came out with the word, ‘intimidate.’ How could this be? Me intimidating?

Over the years, I have been called a variety of things, ‘loving, the pitbull in lipstick, beautiful, angry, peaceful, tough, powerful, compassionate, genuine, honest, emotional, aggressive, competitive, diplomatic, a leader, a follower, a procrastinator, fat, thin, ugly, dark, light, tall, short, round, pudgy’ and the list goes on and on. Yes, I have even been called a ‘bitch.’ So there you have it, I either have multiple personalities or I am a cross section of just about every woman on the planet.

I do come from a mixed background. We have Chinese, English, Scottish, Spanish and apparently West Indies and Viking blood. The later would explain the aggressive part. I was raised in a Buddhist, Jewish, Christian household and attended the Mormon Church for a year as well as experiencing numerous tent revivals. When it comes to religion I choose to believe in God and Jesus Christ; faith has been my light. When it comes to religion I have also learned that seven is not the ideal age to drive your friend’s mother’s car at the biggest tent revival on the East Coast especially when you drive it into the tent.

I grew up raised by my dad and the aforementioned matriarch of our family, my Popo. My mother kidnapped me at an early age and due to her struggles with addictions has been in and out of my life. I love my mother because when she is her true self she is funny, loving and absolutely addicted to all things religious.

My dad taught me some of the most important lessons of my life. He taught me to drive a stick shift because he explained that both tractors and race cars require manual shifting. He also taught me that as long as I had skills I would never be without a job. Therefore by the age of fourteen I was an experienced telemarketer, dishwasher, bus girl, cashier and typist.

In my teens, years before the fateful employee evaluation, I encountered a true Have It All Woman in my friend’s mother. This gal was absolutely amazing. She was gorgeous, funny, smart, and best of all took care of herself. It was not uncommon to come over after school and find my friend’s mom exercising on the Rebounder in the backyard. This woman became my parenting gold standard.

I have met other Have It All Women over the years. There was the woman, Olivia*, who owned my health club before I bought it. She was forty, gorgeous, sexy, powerful, compassionate and absolutely confident.

Then there was, Jackson*, a powerful Jewish entrepreneur who at five feet tall was a force to be reckoned with. Jackson wasn’t slim, nor was she your typical American beauty. She was a Have It All Woman by virtue that she loved herself and thought that she was comfortable in her own skin. She set goals around fitness and not thinness. She challenged her mind. Best of all Jackson was committed to assisting women with becoming more powerful. What a gal.

Yes, I know hundreds of Have It All Women. They come in all shapes and sizes. They are dark and light, blond and brunette. They have children or they do not by choice. They have partners or they are single by choice. They have arguments with their lovers because they are passionate about what they believe and yes, to the untrained eye they can be intimidating.

The truth is that we are all Have It All Women on the inside. No matter where we are right now, it is simply a starting point. The true Have It All Women can have any body type, any religion, any skin tone or genetic make up. She can be wealthy or she can be in the process of creating financial peace. She can be a mom, single, in a relationship, working, unemployed, a business owner and just about anything under the sun. The true Have It All Woman is unique and what set’s her apart is her ability to love herself.

The Have It All Woman can have challenges with her colleagues, doubt her contribution, have bad hair days, question her ability to do anything and get up the next day and focus in on her mission. The Have It All Woman is driven. She wants more in her life and possesses a strong desire to help others. This woman is everywhere. She is your sister, your girlfriend, your mother, your daughter, your niece, your aunt and yes, she is even you.

One of the inspirations for writing this book came from Angie, a Have It All Woman graduate, who called me and said, ‘Susan, you may feel that a lot of what we are learning from you is common sense yet for so many women it is absolutely the first time they are hearing it.’ I decided that common sense, first time, second time, third time or one hundredth time that a book that could empower women to achiever higher levels of personal power was something that was needed. There are many books that help women and I suggest you read everyone you can get your hands on.

For years I have wanted to write a book for women on how to simply be the best they can be. I traveled and I taught. I was a student and I was a trainer. I met so many exceptional women who were making an impact. I thought about these women and their journey. I thought about what set them apart.

As I did seminars and grew a business I also grew as a person. I am not the same woman I was ten years ago or even ten days ago. In my quest to be the best I can be and have fulfillment in my life every day I realized that we are all Have It All Women. We can have everything we want because our wants are so different. We can live without guilt, self pity and rejection. We can live extraordinary lives.

The title for this book came to me at two in the morning. I rushed to my office to register the domain name and do a search for the title. A thought crossed my mind briefly, ‘who am I to write a book called the Have It All Woman?’ I sat with this for several moments and then the joy that comes when you are on the right path filled me thankfully because it was either that or a yogurt dipped protein bar at 2:00 in the morning to calm my nerves.

I realized that this wouldn’t be a self help book. This would be a book written by a woman, for women to inspire them to create change. It would also be a book where women could laugh along with other women like my friend Sharon, one of the most successful realtors in Canada, when she discovers a black hair growing out of her chin. I decided this would also be a book about the spirit of a woman like my friend Kim who has completely stepped into her own power. This is the book for everywoman.

To be clear, I am not perfect. I am not an expert. I have many bad hair days and wall kicking moments just like you do. I have however learned a few things along this journey about love, faith, health, money, friendship, perseverance and the beauty of the human spirit that I want to share with you. Together we can be that woman with the sparkle in her eye, who possesses the confidence and the strength to persevere especially when she doesn’t realize how strong she truly is.

This book is about a journey. There are strategies, stories, exercises and more to assist you. You may need to read a chapter again or spend more time on a particular area and that is alright. This is your book and you are the author of your own success story. No matter where you are you can begin a new chapter. The goal of the Have It All Woman is to go out every day in personal excellence and in doing so we become better mothers, partners, friends, lovers, daughters and humans. When things don’t go our way, the goal of the Have It All Woman is to laugh alongside her sisters.

What does it mean to be a Have It All Woman? by Erica Combs – Entrepreneur, Author, Speaker and T.U.A. Gal (go to the chapter on relationships to find out what T.U.A. means)

A Have It All Woman knows that she not only has the ability to live her desires, but absolutely has the ability to design her reality. She understands that the key to creating this experience is defining what it means to “have it all.” She allows herself the time for introspection and connects with her emotions, dreams and goals frequently, knowing that her connection to her mind, body and spirit will ultimately pave the path on her journey through life. She has a clear understanding of her desires and what is required of her to achieve those goals.

Once committed to a course of action, a Have It All Woman may swerve to one side or another to avoid an obstacle in her path, but she never veers off course. She pursues her desires with determination, but also a sense of peace for where she is in the process of her journey. She creates time to fulfill her internal emotional requirements, understanding that she has the power to create her own emotional stability and sense of acceptance. She learns to look within for the love she seeks because this self-love will allow her achievements and praise from others to reverberate with a richness that can only be felt in the spirit of a woman balanced in her mind, body and spirit.

Her power lies in her ability to receive wisdom and insight from every situation and experience and continuously transforms and reinvents herself with magnificent resilience, responding to life with grace and equanimity. She is forgiving of others, but most importantly, forgives herself as she learns how to maintain this sense of peace through repetition and experience, knowing that it is not possible to maintain perfect harmony and balance both within and without. She focuses on creating consistent empowering habits rather than insisting she perform in constant perfection. A Have It All Woman learns to experience life with ease and grace. She knows when to let go of the “human doing” and simply be her own human being.

We All Want The Same Things

“Do the best you can in every task, no matter how unimportant it may seem at the time. No one learns more about a problem than the person at the bottom.”

Sandra Day O’Connor
Former Supreme Court Justice

At the Have It All Woman’s Weekend retreats we create a clearing for women to step out of competition and step into collaboration. The women form teams and are encouraged to call one another ‘sisters’ over the course of the event. Many lifelong friendships have been formed. When women can stop judging one another and learn to support and love each other freely, amazing things can happen.

As I travel from Hong Kong to California to Europe to New York, Toronto and all over the world the plight of women is that no matter what happens we will always be harder on ourselves than anyone else. We will judge, criticize, put down, loathe and even harm ourselves in ways that are more extreme than what most people could do to us. Even worse still, we do it to one another.

This theme will be repeated throughout the book. We are all the same. Our skin color, finances, relationships, likes and dislikes may be different however at our core we are strikingly similar.

I was blessed to participate in an event in Hong Kong where the majority of the participants did not speak English. When asked what they wanted in life they said better health, financial freedom, more time with their families and security. The same question asked in the United States and Canada yields the same result.

Having taught thousands of women I can tell you this much, we are repeating the cycle of struggle time and time again. Although in many parts of the world women have more advantages the reality is that women still make less money than men and we struggle with a high level of guilt. The number of women leaving the workforce to raise their families is at a record high.

Women often make a choice to be with their children or to work. Traveling to Cambodia I found many women who had to leave their children in the care of a relative so they could go and work in the city. In North America we often leave our children in the care of someone else so we can go to work. My question is – why can’t we have it all? Why do we have to choose? Could there be a way to have more peace, love, support, abundance and flow in our lives and live in a world free of self judgment and guilt? What if we can truly have it all?

If you look at your life right now, and I mean really take a good honest look, what are your truths? Are your relationships fulfilling? Do you feel healthy? Do you feel financially sound? Are you feeling peace in your life? In all honesty, no matter how powerful we feel there are constantly areas where we want to grow.

Your Auditory Filter

“I know many beautiful people and their lives are just so terrible. They feel so uncomfortable with themselves. Being comfortable is not about what you look like, but how you feel.” Monica Bellucci - Actor

At our Have It All Women’s Weekend I train on the auditory filter. We all have it, we all use it and it can get us in trouble if we let it rule our lives. The auditory filter is an invisible devise which alters a message so that the original offering is changed to suit our current state of being.

The auditory filter adds personal judgment to the sender so that when we actually receive the message it has conformed to provide us with what we want to hear. Children are the masters of auditory filtration. When they are told not to do something, they do it because their auditory filter changed the message to suit their needs.

“Do not ride your bike without your helmet,” becomes “ride your bike without your helmet.” "Clear your plate from the table” becomes “leave your plate on the table so I will clear it.” You may be starting to see a pattern.

As adults our auditory filter works in many ways. For example when you are reading a book such as this one and processing the messages your auditory filter kicks in and says things like, “it is easy for her she is young,” or “ofcourse she can give ten percent of her income, she is a millionaire.” The auditory filter is prevents us from receiving the message because we are doubting the sender.

I was doing a seminar on health and wellness strategies and a woman approached me afterward. She said that although my message was good, she found me unbelievable because I was young and thin so it was easy for me. Initially, I wanted to pull out some old photos of me at 197 pounds however I resisted my own auditory filter and simply said, ‘tell me more.’

She explained that when she was young she was able to eat whatever she wanted and not gain a pound. After menopause she began to gain weight and basically had decided that there was nothing she could do.

I took a breath and smiled. I said, ‘my goodness how blessed you are.’ She looked stunned and asked what I meant. I explained that in my youth I was obese and that at the age of ten I was a woman’s size fourteen. I shared that weight had been a struggle for me until my early thirties and that I was blessed with genetics that had ordained me with a lifelong focus on diet and exercise.

I then asked her what she was telling herself around her ability to release weight. The story came forward, one I have heard countless times, that she was post menopausal, over fifty and that she had resigned herself to looking like this. I asked her if she wanted to change. She replied that she did. I then shared with her that she had all the tools at her fingertips to create a new body if only she was open to utilizing them.

Basically what I was telling her was that her own auditory filter was keeping her stuck. My filtering out the message I was delivering that night, which was that no matter where you are in your life you can change, this woman was keeping herself stuck by deciding that I was too young and too thin to understand the struggle to be lean. Sometimes you just have to say, ‘whatever,’ and move on.

I confess that in the past my own auditory filter kept me stuck. When I was building a network marketing business I would look at the top income earners and say, ‘its easy for them to talk about building a huge income, they don’t have kids.’ Yikes!!! That was my own auditory filter preventing me from hearing the message.

We never know when it is going to be our book, our speaker, our moment so the truth is that the faster we throw out the auditory filter and get ourselves in front of as many books, trainings and seminars as possible the faster we will become unstuck.

‘We never know when it is going to be our book, our speaker, our moment so the truth is that the faster we throw out the auditory filter and get ourselves in front of as many books, trainings and seminars as possible the faster we will become unstuck.’

A final thought on the auditory filter is that it was placed there to protect us. Some call it the ‘little voice inside your head’ and others call it our ‘ego’ or ‘conscience.’ This is all fine unless it is filtering out what we need to hear which could be the very thing that takes us to our next level of power.

Can We Really Change?

"Without courage you cannot practice any of the other virtues."

Maya Angelou

My family was at a costume party the other night in a community where I lived over ten years ago. The last time I resided in that city it was very painful. I had gone through financial loss and a public divorce. For a long time I couldn’t even go there because I didn’t want to run into anyone who might judge me.

Years have past and we accepted the invitation to go to the party which was also a fundraiser for brain cancer research. One of the first people I ran into was Lisa. She had lost her partner to brain cancer and she was co-hosting the benefit. As images flashed of Lisa’s partner on the screen I asked her what it felt like. Lisa replied, ‘Susan, time really does heal.’

I spent the party contemplating Lisa’s words. I was seeing many people at this event who had known a different Susan, the Susan of a decade ago. That Susan had a lot to prove. She was ambitious, driven, focused and pushed herself to exhaustion. That Susan did everything for everyone because she feared that unless she made everyone happy they would abandon her. As a result she got very sick. She was also in a marriage that wasn’t serving her and pretending that everything was o.k.

I have grown a great deal since then and I am not the same person. I have a great deal more peace, self respect, self love and take a stand for myself. Parts of me are ‘the same old Susan’ though as opposed to loathing myself I have come to accept and honor me.

This is the space I was in at the party. Instead of worrying what people thought about me, I played what I like to call ‘the smiling game.’ May I be quite candid without fear of being judged by your auditory filter? The smiling game works much better with a glass of wine under your belt!!!. Susan of ten years ago never would have played, she would have gone to a corner and engaged some pour soul in an intense conversation so she could avoid making small talk with myriads of people.

How the smile game works is that you smile at everyone and everyone with your biggest, toothiest grin. Your smile should be bigger than your everyday ‘I’m coping and leave me alone,’ smile. It needs to be your happiest grin magnified by ten. In any setting, whether you are at a party, walking down the street, in the Starbucks or wherever you smile this ridiculous smile at everyone. Then, without fear of rejection, you count the number of people who smile back. Those that don’t you silently bless and release.

On this particular night, dressed as Trinity from the Matrix, I played the smiling game. Some people smiled openly back. Some actually spoke to me. A few did not smile and hey, I like to reason that they have something going on in their lives. Maybe they have a rare disease that prevents smiling. As I said before, ‘whatever!’

The truth is that we can all change. Change takes courage. The Bible says, ‘many are called and few are chosen.’ I believe that we are all called to be agents of change and be the best we can be. I believe that anyone can change their life if they choose to.

‘The Bible says, ‘many are called and few are chosen.’ I believe that we are all called to be agents of change and be the best we can be.’

Many women start the process. They start a diet. They start an exercise program. They start taking a class. Fewer women complete anything. Women are professional starters. Let’s not take all of the blame. I have some male family members who have several home renovation projects ‘on the go.’

Change will only occur if you commit to the process. Commitment is a big word. Encarta online defines commitment as ‘something that takes up time or energy, especially an obligation.’ This is just the point, you can change and it is going to take time, effort and energy. You will get there. It depends on your level of commitment.

What is Your Inspiration?

“Follow what you are genuinely passionate about and let that guide you to your destination.”

Diane Sawyer

Once you have established that you are indeed committed you must ask yourself the quintessential question, ‘why?’ Why do you want to change? Why do you want to become better in your life? Why do you want to be a Have It All Woman?

One of the teachings I give is on inspiration versus desperation. Inspiration is your r’aison d’etre or your reason for being. It is what brings you to a place of action where you will not be denied. Your inspiration will last a lifetime.

When I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis my life turned upside down. After the initial, ‘this can’t be happening to me’ self banter and the ‘poor me’ stuff my thoughts turned to all of the dreams I would never be able to fulfill. I wanted more children, I wanted to place top ten in the pro division of an Ironman Triathlon and I wanted to do the Boston Marathon. There were so many things left to achieve.

A funny thing happened with my dreams, and I believe God has a sense of humor; the inspiration was so great that not even multiple sclerosis could keep me from achieving any of them. I did come top ten in the pro division of an Ironman, I did go on to have two more beautiful children and yes I did do the Boston Marathon. Who knew? Inspiration can conquer anything.

Inspiration must be stronger than motivation. Motivation is much like a sugar high. You read a book, attend a seminar or listen to a speaker and you are motivated for a few days and then you come crashing down. When you are inspired, it lasts and lasts until completion. Inspiration is the key that unlocks that door of change.

To read more of this first chapter, get a copy of The Have It All Woman. Used with permission. Copyright 2007.