Adam Torres and Dr. Nancy O’Reilly discuss Women Connect4Good.
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Show Notes:
Women Connect4Good, Inc. is a 501(c)3 foundation focused on supporting other organizations that work to advance women and girls. In this episode, Adam Torres and Dr. Nancy O’Reilly, Philanthropist, Author, and Founder Women Connect4Good, explore the Women Connect4Good story and mission.
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About Dr. Nancy O’Reilly
International philanthropist, skilled horsewoman, and trailblazer for women’s empowerment, Nancy D. O’Reilly, PsyD, believes women who support each other in abundance and joy are the key to equality. A successful author and educator, she recently completed a new book, In This Together: How Successful Women Support Each Other in Business and Life (Adams Media/Simon & Schuster, January 2019).
Dr. Nancy founded Women Connect4Good, Inc., a social-profit [501(c)3] foundation that has provided support for many national and international charities. Her podcasts feature interviews with smart, amazing women, and her timely articles appear on popular national blogs. She previously authored Leading Women: 20 Influential Women Share Their Secrets to Leadership, Business, and Life and two other books. Dr. Nancy occasionally speaks to selected groups on women empowerment, self-confidence and the importance of women supporting other women.
About Women Connect4Good
Women Connect4Good, Inc., a 501(c)3 foundation, educates people about the benefit of women-helping-women networks that raise the status of women globally. The foundation works to help women:
- Develop crucial leadership qualities
- Learn to take charge of their lives
- Manage their finances
The foundation produces podcasts, develops websites, distributes newsletters, maintains Women Connect4Good, Inc. resources, publishes books, provides keynote speakers, shares research results about the status of women at work, and facilitates networking among smart, amazing women and their male allies devoted to changing the world through the advancement of women’s leadership and equality.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on BR Guest to apply. All right, today I have Dr. Nancy O’Reilly on the line, and she’s a philanthropist, author, and founder of Women Connect for Good.
Dr. Nancy, welcome to the show.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you.
All right, Dr. Nancy. So excited to learn more about Women Connect for Good today, and just to get us kicked off, we’ll start this episode the way that we start them all with our Mission Matters minute. So, Dr.
Nancy, we at Mission Matters. We amplify stories for entrepreneurs, executives, and experts. That’s our mission. Dr. Nancy, what mission matters
to you? Okay. Well, and you’re right, it is a mission Women Connect for Good. , it’s actually very simple. It’s women supporting other women, but it’s been expanded to women supporting men and women.
But the ultimate goal of Women Connect for Good is to create. Gender equity and gender parody in this country, and that means men and women equally leading in this company. So leadership is key. Having the seat at the table is key. The decision makers, the people that create those opportunities for us to grow and become a, a better actually women Connect for Good is to make this world a better place.
Yeah, that’s great. Love bringing mission based individuals on the line to share, you know, why they do what they do, how they do it, and what we can learn from that so that we can all grow together. So Great having on and I guess let’s get us started here. I mean, what got you kind of on this mission and what led you to really focus a good part of your time and life on women’s empowerment?
Like
what led to that? Yeah. Well, Adam, I’m sure you have your own personal we haven’t talked, if I was doing this conversation, my first thing was tell me your story. Tell me how you got to be who you are. And so the first thing I do is talk about the story. And the story for me was I was born a girl.
I was born than a girl. And, you know, and the oddest thing was I did not feel empowered as a girl. In fact, I was probably the biggest tomboy on the block. You know, the boys didn’t come to date me. They came to play because I could kick the ball further than any other boy. Well, you know, fast forward loving and marriage and the baby carries well, God, she has a great sense of humor.
I had one daughter after another daughter and another daughter I was working on. I, I am a psychologist, so my background is in. In helping and caring. And you know what, what really came to the, the realization was, is I had to figure out who I was as a woman. So if I was gonna help any other woman, especially these three daughters, I had to empower myself as a woman.
So, you know, and I looked around and especially in the United States, States, women do not support at that point, really weren’t supporting each other. I, I remember I was working on my doctorate and this woman said to me, she said, well, what about your family? What about them? But what she didn’t say was how fantastic it was that I was working towards my doctorate in clinical psych, clinical psychology.
And I’d even said to her, I said, I want my daughters. To have the ability to be, be, and do anything they want in this country. But she saw it as something again, I was not you know, instead of congratulating me, she was actually putting me down. So Women Connect For Good really came about to support women’s efforts, their passions, their purpose, their dreams, and so books, podcasts.
Speaking, this is what it’s been about. Gender parity. We’ve got to have gender parity and we have to have equal representation and a, and women have to have a seat at the table. We’re not gonna make a difference.
Hmm. Why do you think that gender diversity is just good, you know, for business and it’s good on business, obviously, other than being anything that’s great to do, but like, why is it good for business?
Well, first of all over, over 55% of the population in the United States are female. Now, to take it even further, we’re gonna do a little math here, is that over women purchase probably 85 to 90% of products and services. So if we have women and, and we’re, you know, we should be running the market. I mean, I still don’t understand when I look at the, you know, sometimes I look at ads and you walk to the grocery checkout and you see all the magazines.
It’s about youth and beauty and whatever. But women, we can, we could actually do such a great job about controlling the market and making the market work for everyone, you know, and again, it’s, it’s more important. For us to truly work together and to make a difference, and you put five women in a room and we can, and we’re problem solvers.
We’re great communicators, but we’re also great problem solvers. Not only are we, are we the problem solvers in our own family, we’re the problem solve solvers in our communities. So we, we see the problems, we know the problems, and we’re good at solving those problems. So again, women in, in the workplace and leadership roles, guess what?
Companies more are more successful. I mean, the stats also show Adam that when companies do have top leaders, female leaders in their company, they excel, they do well. I mean, and, and, and California by the way, has a new ruling, and I hope you know this, but if, if a company is a certain size, so many women have to be on the board of directors.
Women have to be, it’s, it’s a public board. Women have to be on board of directors, and that’s where the leadership begins, leadership as, and which we need, and we’ve always needed. Now
I understand that you’re, you’re also an author and your, your latest work was also released on audiobook in this together how successful women support each other in business and life.
Tell us a little bit more about, about the book and maybe what some of the readers can expect. Yeah. Well,
again, this is a, this is not only the stories of many, many women who are doing just that. Which are in the workplace. They’re entrepreneurial, they’re in corporations in their lives, but they’re supporting other women.
And one of the things that we’ll talk a little bit more about, hopefully, is the Lift Women Up campaign. And these women are dedicated in the workforce to lift other women as they rise. So every time I excel at work, I can bring another woman up to that level as well. And then we keep lifting. And guess what?
We all win. And this, this is what it’s all about, is for us to all. Come about winning and we all win in this world.
How was the the lift, lift Woman up campaign? How was that? I think I said it wrong. How was that conceived? Like, tell me a little bit.
Okay, well, we, we actually, in fact, I will ask you today before we get off this call to join the campaign.
It’s very simple. It’s 30, it’s every day. You can do something, every week. You can do something to lift another woman up. We’ve got all these different activities and if you lift the campaign, you can become a part of it and you know, You lift someone else, you lift, you rise yourself. You rise above and, and so we’ve got many of the companies that we’re working with, and anytime I get on a call, I ask you to be a part of the Lift Women Up campaign.
We’ll get you the information. You can go to the website and join the campaign. We want to continue to build this growing community of like-minded women and men. Who really understand that we’re not gonna get there, we’re not gonna get to the finish line. And if we don’t help each other, I mean climate control, poverty, we all have to be working together and leadership is is key to that.
So can you,
can you tell me a little bit more about the campaign? Like, I’m, I definitely wanna learn more.
Okay. Well, it’s, it’s, it’s every day we send out if you join the community every day, you’ll get a, you’ll get a email about your activity before again. What, which is again, support another woman at work.
You know, call another woman and invite her to lunch. You know, invite, introduce her to other women who are doing similar things, mentoring. But it’s always, it’s about empowering other women each week of the day, each all the days of the year. And, and again, what happens is you end up lifting yourself.
That’s the important thing. Mm-hmm. Is that everybody ends up in a, in a positive way and looking at the world in a
better way. Now I want, I definitely want my audience to to go and, and also to join this campaign. So I’m curious, I know whenever I’ve seen like this type of movement, I bet you’re get, you’re getting quite a bit of feedback and, and success stories just from people that have joined the campaign that have got like, I can just see that there’s a big that, that when a movement like that starts, it can be powerful.
Like what are some of your favorite moments of just being part of the campaign and running it? Yeah. Well,
I, I think. You know, right now we’re doing we’re doing focus groups. We’re doing some focus groups for the, for the book that I wrote many, many years ago. It’s timeless, one to speak about feeling useful at any age, but again, we’re talking to women and when you get women talking about issues, even this one for example, you know, supporting other women and, and.
Rising lifting as you rise there, there, there becomes a conversation. And, and this is what’s exciting, is when people come up to me and say, you know what, since, since I heard you speak or I’ve read your book, mm-hmm. You know, I, I really feel so much more hope, I feel so much more positive about being a woman.
And when women do come together and they do support each other and they connect at that level that deep relationship. And I think what we’re really talking about, Adam, are building positive relationships. I don’t know about you since Covid, I’ve made a lot of decisions who’s, who’s gonna be on my list of good relationships and who no longer have time for, but I think women especially are relationship builders.
And once that trust is there and that relationship is there, anything is possible, and then that network that’s developed in that communication, that’s you know, I mean there’s lots of pieces to the pie. Mm-hmm. And so, you know, I don’t know about you, Adam. I’m sure there’s some things you’re better at doing than other.
And, but if I can call another woman who’s do, who does something better than I do but have her do it or vice versa, she can call me and I can do it. So you, you create this opportunity. So, but everybody has, has a role, but at the same time we’re, we’re all working together, we’re connecting, we’re collaborating, and it’s a lot more fun.
It’s a lot
more fun. Mm-hmm. So I would hope that most people that listen to this, they, they obviously would be on board with this mission because, I mean, it just makes sense and it, and it’s the thing to do. Yeah. But what do you think is, is something that is kind of held some progress back? Because obviously we’re not there.
Like the equality, it’s not all there like that, that’s pretty common sense. What do you think are some of the things that are, are holding this, this back?
Well we could look at some of the laws that have been currently passed you know, on abortion ab on the after, you know, reproductive justice. I mean, there are things that continue to be out there that we still have to be contend with.
And I, I guess the part is we just gotta, we just gotta, we, we just have to find the people that we need to join forces with. Mm-hmm. To, to understand that there are people that are definitely not supporting women and they sure don’t want us to have a seat at the table. So what do we do? We join forces with those people that believe in it, gender equity and gender equality.
And we. Go around them, we go through them, we go around them. So, you know, again, my goal is not to go after those people. My, if I have to, I’ll just go around them. But again, we have to have better laws that continue to support women. Reproductive rights is definitely a key to that. And again, leadership.
What more women have to take roles in politics. I mean, we still don’t, we’re one of the few countries that has never had a woman pass the Secretary of State to be in a, as a woman a woman position. So we, we have to support women that are running for office and, and that’s, that takes money. So we have to really think about how we’re going to support one another, but again, getting the leaders who can speak for us and to create those opportunities for all of us to continue to grow as women and men too, because we win when we, we all win.
It’s a win-win again. That’s all I can tell you. Win win. Yeah.
Well, Dr. Nancy, first off, it’s been great having you on the show today and and definitely a pleasure to learn today about Women Connect for Good, and I’m glad to bring that to my audience along with the movement. That being said, if somebody’s listening to this or watching this and they want to follow up and learn more and to connect, I mean, what’s the best way for them to do that?
Well, the
best thing is just go to my, you can just go to dr nancy O’Reilly uh.com and then of course, go to the Lift Women Up campaign. All my books are on the on the website all the podcasts. We have numerous podcasts that they can go and listen to about all these things about leadership, and again, the stories of the women who have, who have come from places and now are helping other women to do just that, to speak.
To fine seat at the table and to make this world a better place. But again, the Lift Women Up campaign, we, we, I, we all really, really want you to join, but there’s lots and lots of information on the website free that you can join and, and read the newsletter, the blogs we have just many, so much information that people can learn from, learn more about and become a
part of.
Fantastic. And we’ll put all that information in the show notes so that our audience can just click on the links and head right on over. And speaking of the audience, this is your first time with Mission Matters or engaging in an episode or listening to one. We’re all about bringing on business owners, entrepreneurs, executives and experts, and having them share their mission.
Reason behind their mission, really what gets them up and motivated and and fired up to go out there in the world and to make a difference. If that’s the type of content that sounds interesting or fun or exciting to you, we welcome you hit that subscribe button because we have many more mission-based individuals coming up on the line and we don’t want you to miss a thing.
And Dr. Nancy, really it has been a pleasure. Thanks again for coming on the show.
Well, and Adam, if there’s something that we can do to continue your mission it’s all about us working together. So you let us know how we can continue to help you to grow your mission and your community, and that we join together and we just get bigger and bigger.
Fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on.
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
