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Sumi Krishnan
Who do you want to be? You get to create that like it's not just set in stone as who, what personality traits you were born with. It gets to evolve, right? I want to be dynamic. I want to be an excellent communicator. I want to be magnetic and let my, my light, my natural energy shine and be attractive to other people. You probably want that too because who doesn't? That's why we got it. I know that you're in my head and I know. Hey everyone, welcome back. Episode 9 the Dream Life Club Podcast so happy you're here. Today we're going to dive into the very important topic of the unique challenges that we as women business owners and women founders and entrepreneurs face. Because it's not a level playing field. We'll talk about that and then we'll talk about some of the ways that I found and that research finds to overcome these struggles, to overcome the inequality and to overcome the challenges, the unique challenges of being a woman in business so, so that we can break the mold, so that we can build businesses that scale, that cross the million dollar mark. Because as it stands, only 2% of women owned businesses ever cross seven figures in revenue per year. That needs to change and that's what we're so passionate about doing here at the Dream Life Club. So if you don't know me, my name is Sumi Krishnan. My main claim to fame is building and multiple eight figure company in Washington D.C. with over 200 full time employees. I ended up selling that company and now I'm pursuing a new project, my dream as a pop music singer songwriter here in la. While that's also growing another small business by the way. But I'm also taking everything that I've learned, all my experience in business, I've been an entrepreneur since I was 19 and empowering other women to achieve similar successes. One of the things I remember when I would tell my story, when I would share my story, when I would say that I'm, you know, had this success in business or share the sides of my company or share how many employees we had or whatever it was. When I'm casually talking my experience over and over and over again has always been that people look at me with surprise and shock and kind of curiosity and disbelief, you know, and no one could really fathom that a 32 year old woman at the time was actually the founder, owner, president of a $20 million company. Like it was a story that people are not used to hearing. But let me tell you, if I was a man, oh, people would not have had the same raised eyebrows. It would have been much more easily accepted. So I want to go through the different categories where I have found personally like that we've. I've struggled most with and that I've found that other women struggle most with in general. The sexism that we face in business, the access or rather lack thereof that prevents us from the many of the same opportunities that male business owners or men get. Resources, access to capital, all of those kinds of things. An unequal burden at home. Right. And then something that no one talks about, which is actually a much more soft thing like the identity of being a business owner and a successful business owner as a woman. What does that mean? How do other people perceive you? What are some of the reasons that we may self sabotage? Because we don't want to own that identity because potentially hinders us from other goals in our life. Let's get into it. It's going to be a really juicy episode. Episode. All right, so I want you to raise your hand if you have felt that you've experienced sexism in your pursuit to grow your business, if you have ever felt excluded from conversations, invitations to dinners or events, or if you have felt excluded from places where deals get done. The golf course, investment clubs, cigar clubs, dare I say strip clubs. These are all things that I experienced when I was growing my company in D.C. i was in a male dominated industry. Most everybody were, was like, I will be honest, like 20 years older than me and mostly white men with military backgrounds. That was just the industry I was in. I was, it was defense and government contracting. So I had to work extra hard to figure out how to deal with the reality of the sexism that I was facing, but not let myself just get overtaken or get mired in it and therefore get disillusioned and upset and resentful and angry at everyone around me or even my. My position, right? And then it would have. If I had let myself just focus on everything that was happening to me, it would have really played into itself and I wouldn't have been able to have the success in business that I eventually had. So I'll give you a little bit of my tools and strategies for dealing with that. But first I want to acknowledge that it's more than just being left out, right? It's more than just like not being invited to the golf course. It's more than that. It's about structural inequalities, right. It's about the unconscious bias that is toward women. Right. In terms of our intelligence and our Capability and how much we literally have to work twice as hard and be twice as productive and twice as brilliant in order to get the same credit. Right? It's where all these tropes about mansplaining comes from, about media, mediocre, mediocre white men, which I am not saying that white men are mediocre. What I'm saying is that the amount that a woman has to succeed in order to be considered equal to a man, to a man is disproportionately greater. Right? Like, oh, and so just the standards for measuring women are very different because we constantly have to work against preconceived notions that are coming at us, right? The burden at home is greater, right? If we have kids. And even if we don't have kids, it's. Women are the ones expected to and still do, statistically speaking, take on more than 70% of the burden at home. Even if both man and woman are full time working or, you know, building their business or whatever it is, the woman is still expected and takes on 70% or more of the burden at home. I would talk about access, access to money, access to capital, access to networks. Like this is hu. In the venture capital world, only guys get this 3%, 3%. 3% of funding goes to female founded businesses. That means 97% of the money being invested in entrepreneurship goes to men. So we have to acknowledge that the playing field is not equal. Okay, but what do we do with that? What do we do with that knowledge? Right? Because we have to acknowledge facts, acknowledge reality, and then decide how we're going to operate within that. Right? While we're fighting back, while we're trying to do our part, do what we can to change the statistics, which is what we're all about here. We also have to figure out how to operate within the current reality, within the existing circumstances, so that we can get the results that we want to get. Because there are ways to work around them. Of course it's. I'm not saying it's fair, I'm not saying it's good, I'm not saying it's right or equal. But we have to figure out what do we need to do in order to achieve our goals and how are there ways that sometimes you can use a disadvantage to your advantage, sometimes you can get really creative and think about, well, ways to actually flip it on its head and make it work for you, okay? In the smallest of ways. Because we've got to take every opportunity, opportunity that we can given that the playing field is so unequal. We've got to take every opportunity that we can and try to see how we can use it to our advantage. Okay. I mean, I still, to this day I feel like, oh, one of the things I didn't cover yet was this thing about even owning your identity as a woman and a business owner. It still surprises people. Like just the other day I, I remember, I like. So on my Instagram, I, I just started a new Instagram. It Sumi Krishna, by the way. Everybody should follow me there. If you're listening to this, it would mean the world to me because we got to get this off the ground. But I had my old Instagram account which was, you know, what I was doing all along. Just my personal account, my political thoughts, my stuff about fitness and a little bit about business because I've always been an entrepreneur. But somebody who was following me on that account goes to my gym and they, I guess started seeing some business content because I've recently started up this dream life club, right? And we started posting there before I started my new account. And he says to me, oh, sue me. I see that. I walk in and he's this, you know, really shredded tall Italian guy. Oh, I don't want to give him away, but very good looking, you know, kind of like is very like masculine and always has a shirt off. And he's like, sees me and he's like, oh, sue me. Oh, I had my AirPods in. Oh, sorry, I don't want to disturb you. Are you on a business call with Dubai? You know, now that you're a high flying businesswoman and all. And I was like, I just was like thinking to myself, what? And something in my, it was like, it actually triggered this old reaction, old reaction in me where I started to feel kind of like embarrassed or ashamed or like it wasn't very feminine of me or not very attractive, not very sexual sexy to be a quote unquote, high flying businesswoman. And he was like labeling me like, I must be on the phone with Dubai. It's like, what does that even mean? Like, you don't have to be doing business in Dubai just to be in business, right? It was very like. But these old stereotypes about like, I don't know, like men flying across the world to like do business overseas. And like somehow I was acting, he was like almost making fun of me. Like I was acting as if I was that. It's like, no, no, no, no, no. Like you can be very successful in business as a woman entrepreneur, making a positive impact in the world, creating value, expressing yourself and have nothing to do with these old stereotypes, these old images of what it means to be a business person, like a businessman, right? That's not us. And so we need to kind of like, also recreate what it looks like, recreate our identities, recreate the role models that we see for ourselves as successful women business owners, successful women entrepreneurs, and make it something that's feminine and exciting and beautiful and powerful and dynamic and all of the things that we are. We need to kind of like, recreate these models for the world, right? Because why. Why is it important to have role models that we can see ourselves in? Why is it important to actually think about embodying the identity that excites us when we're going. When we're going after these business goals? Why is it important not to only see for ourselves the possibility of what men have created in the past? Because what I have found and what research shows is that we start to act in ways that will allow us to get what we want. And of course, we want our business goals, right? But we also want to be women. We all. And what do I mean by that? We also want to be able to feel attractive, right? Feel attractive to people, that we want to find us attractive. We also want to not be intimidating to men, especially if we are single and especially if we are still looking to find a partner. There are additional pressures on us to feel beautiful, to look attractive, to not be intimidating, to not be overbearing. Right? We. We hear so much now on online and on the Internet about, like, masculine energy and feminine energy, and which one are you embodying and why, if you want a masculine man, then you have to show up in your feminine. And all of this stuff, it can get really confusing. And that's why I think, you know, we really need to step into an identity for ourselves that encompasses business success, but also gives us the freedom and the ability for our minds to see possibilities, for us to be bold and powerful. And we make lots of money and we make impact in the world, and we create change, and we do it in communities of women who are like us, who are like us. We don't have to be something we're not. We don't have to try so hard to fit in with groups of men or to take up their hobbies or interests. When I was growing my company in D.C. i felt so much pressure to start golfing, to start going and smoking cigars, right? To just start. I don't know, like, even the way I showed up, the way I dress, to mute my Personality because it seemed too bubbly. And if you can't of course, be an attractive, bubbly woman and be smart and capable, right. It's freaking ridiculous. But these are the stereotypes that we're fighting against, right? And so I think a lot of us in business either end up morphing into something we're not just to try to fit in with the existing business structures, right? Or we decide, you know what, I don't want to be too subconsciously, at a subconscious level. We self sabotage because we decide we don't want to be too successful, we don't want to intimidate men, we don't want to be bold, we don't want to speak up. We want people to think we're good and nice and kind and not bossy. Right? Back to that old trope. So there's so many things that we're fighting against, and I think one of the biggest of the easiest ways to combat that is just to create new rooms. That's what we're doing here at the Dream Life Club, right? We're launching the Dream Life Club Mastermind. If you want to know more DM me at Itsumi Krishnan its S u M I K R I S H N A N on Instagram, we're launching the Dream Life Club Mastermind. That's the our advanced elite level mastermind for women who are ready to cross the seven figures mark. And soon we'll be launching the club, the club, the Dream Life Club, which is for entrepreneurs who are starting up, trying to get to their first 10k months, that kind of level. And we are creating communities and rooms for women by women, right? Because I see the power in that and that's part of the reason I have such passion for this podcast. Now, whether you join the Dream Life Club Mastermind or the Dream Life Club or none of the above, it's important that you find role models and communities of women who, who share your goals, who share your business goals, meaning not your business goals, but who are also running the same path. Right? Because those examples, that peer group thought network is going to make or break your success. Now, if I had only examples of businessmen flying to Dubai, as is in my mind, then when I heard that about me, I might be like, God, like, I really don't want to. Like, I don't know that I would have the same desire to go after my goals if my only mental models were something I didn't want to be. Because we can't. I mean, that's what I did. Like, ultimately I looked around in the industry I used to be in. And I looked at people 10 years ahead of me and I said most of them were unhealthy, not taking care of themselves. Most of them were unhappy, not really happy with the career path they had chosen. Right. And most of them were making lots of money. Right. And maybe making an impact in the world. But they had sacrificed their health and they had sacrificed their happiness. And so I realized I don't want to be that. Right. I don't want to be that. And so did it kind of change my mind about whether I wanted to be in that industry or not? It sure did. If I had had role models in that same industry, that showed me it was possible to do it in a different way, to take care of my health, to make positive impact, to. To create communities of women who I got along with. Because it's exhausting to try to keep up when you don't actually. When you have to be something you're not. Right. I was constantly trying to show up more like a man, and that just sabotaged my success. That just made me feel like I didn't want to do this anymore. Because people always ask me, sumi, why did you sell your company? You guys were on a great growth trajectory. And, you know, we had crossed $20 million in revenue. If we had kept going, like I knew that business, like, we could have grown to 50 to 75 to $100 million in revenue per year and then kept on going from there. It was a great opportunity and I sold to pursue something that I felt was closer to my heart. My heart centered calling, which I'm so happy I did. But I also know that perhaps if I had had different role models in that business, I don't think I necessarily would have thought I needed to sell. Maybe I could have done both, done that business and pursued music. Right. As a side passion. Right. As a passion project. Right. Not everything needs to be our full time thing. And the reason why I sold, the reason why I didn't keep going was because I didn't like the examples I saw. And so thinking about what examples you have for yourself right now in business and what example you're creating for the next generation, I think is one of the most powerful things you can do. All right, let's take a step back. So I talked a little bit about the identity. Like, who do you want to be in business? How do you want to dress? How do you want to feel in your clothes? Right. How do you want to take care of yourself? How do you want to communicate. How do you want to use your words? How do you want to use your hands? How do you want to walk? Right. How do you want to express yourself with opinions, with tone of voice? How do you want to portray your expertise? Do you want to. How. What's your leadership style? Are you very collaborative? Are you very authoritative? Are you like all of these? There's such fun things that we get to play in the spaces that we get to play in, right? What do we want to learn more about? What do we want to become experts on that we're not an expert on right now? There's so many ways that we can learn and grow and express ourselves in our business and show up for ourselves in a way that feels so exciting, so dynamic, allows ourself when we allow ourselves to show up as fully ourselves, authentic. Who do you want to be? You get to create that. Like it's not just set in stone as who, what personality traits you were born with. You get to create it, you get to have fun with it. It gets to evolve, right? I want to be dynamic. I want to be powerful. I want to be an excellent communicator. I want to be able to be magnetic and let my, my light, my natural energy shine and be attractive to other people. You probably want that too, because who doesn't, right? We all want these things and that's why we gotta see role models for ourselves that inspire us, right? That inspire us. They get us to think differently so we can keep creating and keep creating the things that we want in the world and keep showing up in a way that excites us. Okay, so there's that, there's that piece of the identity, like what does it mean to be a woman? Business owner, for some reason that word is a little bit like bogged down in old time mental models. Just because business owner has a certain stigma attached to it, certain stuff that we've grown up with and heard that's attached to it. Founder to me feels a little bit more sexy. Female founder sounds fun, right? Woman entrepreneur, that sounds pretty good too to me. But I also feel like that has also gotten co opted by a bit of like the digital marketing bros a little bit who have been like targeting us online for the past 15 years. So female founder seems like the new word that I'm really jiving with. But like even as something as small as that, like figuring out what new word that really suits the identity that you feel for whatever influences and whatever things these words remind you of, you got to pick words that excite you, that's what the power of language is, is so powerful, right? Because it doesn't matter. Right or wrong, it doesn't matter that. Well, technically there's no difference between a woman business owner, right? Why, why does it matter if you call yourself a business owner or a founder or an entrepreneur or whatever? Actually they do have slightly different connotations. But point is, it's not right or wrong, it's what association do you have with that word and which word is. Which words are you going to use that make you feel the best about what you do that won't put your mind in the category of like self sabotage because you don't want to be a black suited, unhealthy man flying to Dubai. Right? Like I'm trying to like paint a picture here. So. So that's on the identity side of things, right? Then there's the reality side of things, which is not psychological. This is actually like the reality that women don't get access to capital. Right? 3% of VC funding. Women don't have the same opportunities because we didn't go to MBA school with all the guys who are now just giving each other all the opportunities that they've come across. I mean, I know so many of my friends, guys, I'm like, oh, how did you get this contract? How did you get that contract? How'd you get close that deal? And it's always, oh, my buddy from so and so such and such place. My buddy from when I was at in school, my buddy from growing up. It's. They just constantly give each other's opportunities. It's not like it's some brilliant marketing scheme or that their execution or operation or product is that great. It's just that they're part of networks that are more likely business owners and they just help each other out. Or if not business owners in leadership in big companies and they just help each other out. So we don't have those networks at the same percentages as men have. So that's what we need to kind of figure out. Okay, what do we do? What do we do now? Okay. And there's a couple things that helped me a lot along the way that I really tried to lean into and take advantage of. So let me give you three specific examples. So I was in, I was in an industry where older white men, mostly with the military perspective. So I thought to myself, how can I use this to my advantage? And the first thing that came to mind for me was, well, hey, sue me. Guess what? You will stand out like every room I went in. I was basically one of maybe three, four other women in a room of 100 men, right? And I said, well, I will stand out because not only am I a woman, I was. I'm also a young minority woman, right? So I definitely would be someone that they would remember because I was different, right? So always try to use whatever could be a disadvantage. How can you use it to your benefit? So I'm like, well, they'll remember me. So when I go up and introduce myself and have a conversation and ask them an interesting question and then follow up with them, I have a unique name, I have a unique face. I stand out in that room. So they will definitely know who I am. When I follow up, they will remember me. And I started using that as, like, my secret weapon and, like, you know, reminding myself that I could follow up with anybody. No one's gonna get confused. Who is this girl? Like, they will remember me. Another way I used turned a disadvantage into an advantage. So I'm in, say, a room. Everyone has kind of a similar background, right? They're older white men with military backgrounds. And I had a very different perspective sitting at that table. First of all, I had to gain the confidence that allowed myself to believe I was supposed to be at that table, right? So that's step number one. Now, when I was there at the table, I had to figure out how to not just let everybody speak over me, let everybody treat me like I was supposed to be getting them coffee. Let. Right? How to. How to have them take my opinion and my viewpoint seriously. And so I remember thinking to myself, sumi, your perspective here, your voice is needed, because none of these people have the viewpoint and perspective that you have because you come from a very different background. So if you don't speak up right now, you are contributing a. You are doing a disservice to this group right now. It's on you. It's your responsibility to speak up and speak out, because nobody here shares your background. Nobody here shares your experience. Nobody here is probably thinking what you're thinking now. So here's your chance. Let's go. Speak up. Speak out, right? So I used what could have easily taken me down and easily been another example of sexism, where they're asking me to take notes or get coffee, which, of course, that had happened. But when I started using it as an opportunity to speak up and speak out, right then I could kind of gain a little bit of respect right then I could kind of. Even if no one agreed with me, it was my opportunity to contribute to the group because that diversity of viewpoints, that diversity of perspective is invaluable. And most people know that. Most people can understand that not everybody is like them. They want to know how do other people think, right? Especially when you're selling and when you're trying to reach markets that aren't like you, you've got to have representatives of that market on your team, right? So there's just always ways that you can flip it. Another way is I said to myself, well, yeah, we may be extremely limited in access to resources like capital and access to people in our network, extremely limited and disadvantaged as compared to men. But guess what? Society has recognized that. And there are some very good programs that are specifically geared toward women, empowering women, right? Funding women's startups, funding female founders, right? Groups of women, just like we're creating at the Dream Life Club that are specifically for giving opportunities and skill sets and empowering women and making connections within the women entrepreneurship circles. So take advantage of those opportunities. Sue me. I said to myself, like, take advantage of every single resource out there that's specifically geared to support and empower you as a woman founder. Right? And so that's just, those are three examples of how I turned around in my self talk what could have been an extreme disadvantage into an advantage. So I want you to try to do that because we can't change the facts right now, right? Though they will take a long time, a little bit of time at least to shift. But what we can do right now is change the way we approach the scenarios, right? I can make myself go up and introduce myself to people at an event. If I remind myself that, well, I'm yes, I'm very different than everybody here, they're probably don't even notice me, they probably won't take me seriously. But if I make the extra step to go introduce myself, ask an interesting question and follow up, they'll remember me, right? So that was like my secret weapon, right? To combat the fact, fact that I was at such a difference to combat the fact that I was sort of an unseen minority in the group. So try to figure out how you can use what you're feeling as the sexism to your advantage. Okay. All right, that is what I got for you today. I think this, I could go on and on about this conversation, especially, especially about the identity piece of it and what it means to be a woman entrepreneur, a woman founder, a female founder, a woman business owner. Owner today, right? The fact of the matter is woman owned businesses are still roughly quarter the size of male owned businesses. Okay? The fact of the matter is, even though women owned businesses represent almost 30. No, almost 39, 40% of the businesses out there, we only account for about 6% of the revenue. Okay? So those statistics are not good. But we're here to change that. And if you're listening to this right now, you're in the right place. We're gonna do this. We're gonna change the statistics and make sure that every woman makes the impact that she was meant to make in the world. So until next time, have an amazing week. Bye.