Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand

KELLY COLLAGE_Female Empowerment Brand

The Female Lifestyle

Empowerment Brand

(It's not a good thing.)

This page includes my definition of The Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand + all my essays and blog posts explaining why it’s bad for women, our businesses and our culture.

flora-flowers

Definition:

A "perfect woman" archetype must comply with and embody in order to be deserving of rights and resources

AND

A marketing strategy that leverages social status and white privilege to create authority over other women.

KD – Square Images-07
side-right

In Our Culture

Every Woman Is a Brand

line-down

Start here

Pop art vintage comic. A woman with a poster and place for text. Girl in retro style. Advertising

The Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand. An introduction.

Somewhere, on the edge of consciousness, there is what I call a mythical norm, which each one of us within our hearts knows “that is not me.” In America, this norm is usually defined as white, thin, male, young, heterosexual, Christian, and financially secure. -...

Featured posts

Ixtapa, Mexico + John Rawls + No Pedi. Unthinkable now, right?

#tbt Toes in the Sand but NO PEDI. Also, The Beauty Myth then and now.

cartoon of 1950s man in suit with his feet propped up on table saying "it's not my problem" about the so-called "feminist pendulum"

Feminism, Femininity and The Swinging Pendulum. A Question for You.

The Context for The Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brrand

Not Enough Compensation in the World

April 27 2018

Sorry! The Lifestyle You Ordered is Currently Out of Stock

Graffiti by Banksy; photo by Bruce Krasting https://www.flickr.com/photos/bruce_krasting/7695349260 This feels like some anti-FLEB (Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand) awesomeness in graffiti form. It's by Banksy. So ...

April 26 2018

“Prettiness is Not a Rent You Pay…” by Erin McKean

YES. AND ALSO: I've seen this quote floating around on Instagram, usually attributed in error to Diana Vreeland. In fact Erin McKean, the founder of ...

April 25 2018

Our Audiences Aren’t Stupid. Let’s Take Them Seriously.

I have never written for a cowardly or passive or stupid reader -- Andrea Dworkin in her book, Intercourse This from Andrea Dworkin -- although ...

April 21 2018

Business Tip for Culture Makers #421: Ditch the Makeover Myth

One of the things I worry about, as a progressive, pro-democracy, pro-human rights, culture-making entrepreneur living in a world increasingly dominated by right-wing mindsets and ...

March 19 2018

Business Tip for Culture Makers #1225: Yes, Use Photos of Yourself!

Yes, use selfies.Yes, use professional photos.Yes, be visible. You don’t have to disappear and stop using photos and images to avoid the excesses and beauty-signalling ...

February 23 2018

Is the Voice Of Culture is Working Through You Without Your Consent?

"When I read your essay," she said, "I gotta admit, I felt personally called out." We were talking on the phone for the first time ...

October 25 2017

Business Tip for Culture Makers #1025: Invest In Your Community

When I was first starting out online, I witnessed an influential woman using her platform to boost the signals of others (including mine). She tweeted ...

September 3 2017

How Culture-Makers Vanquish Perfectionism: Publish, Then Polish

You know I'm on a mission to extinguish the perfection imperative, right? Resisting perfectionism one of the ways culture-makers undermine white supremacy. It's also how ...

August 19 2017

The Wealthy Feminist

Can we talk about money? I've read this 30+ year old article about Gloria Steinem's once-precarious financial situation and her subsequent book deal several million ...

August 16 2017

Business Tip for Culture Makers #816: How to Audit Your Brand Photos for White Supremacy and White Beauty Norms (And Create Different Imagery!)

How white women entrepreneurs can resist and dismantle white supremacy in their own businesses and marketing White women entrepreneurs: Let's connect the dots between white ...

Every week, I send you a

Sunday Love Letter

I write them so that…

  1. You remember your life-changing, culture-making power
  2. You have the inspiration + tools you need to bring something new to the world
Are you in?

An epiphany from late 2018: I was scrambling to find time for a new collaboration.⁠
⁠
Witnessing this in live action, my collaborator, PK Mutch (Petra), said to me, with been-there-done-that sympathy, "That's what women do -- we scale horizontally."⁠
⁠
I immediately recognized that this was why my business wasn't working the way I wanted it to -- but I didn't know how to fix it.⁠
⁠
A few days later, I went out with a colleague I'd worked with a long time ago at a huge telecom. She started talking about the new 'vertical' she was managing.⁠
⁠
Suddenly it all clicked.⁠
⁠
The telecomm as a whole had lots of services, lots of clients and lots of offers, sure; but each vertical HAD ITS OWN TEAM and its own content. It was a unit unto itself.⁠
⁠
That's how they got traction in each of those verticals and how the company as a whole did well. By focusing on one client and one offer.⁠
⁠
What I had done, in my own business, was the opposite of that.⁠
⁠
I had one team (me) but many verticals. Several different client profiles, several different offers.⁠
⁠
For years, my biz strategy was to constantly invent new programs and offers --and create all new launch material to go with them. ⁠⠀⁠
⁠⠀⁠
I was always inventing and overworking. ⁠
⁠⠀⁠
As a result, I never quite got traction on ANY of my offerings, so I was always scrambling for cash AND constantly on the verge of burn out.⁠⠀⁠
⁠
⁠
That's why my business wasn't getting the momentum I was hoping for, and why I was personally exhausted. I wasn't concentrated in ONE vertical; instead, I'd scaled horizontally across many.⁠
⁠
And I was only one person!⁠
⁠
So how do you stop scaling horizontally?⁠
⁠
You create a signature piece of intellectual property that becomes the centre of your business.⁠
⁠
A signature program is a way to do less while making more.⁠
⁠
_____________⁠
⁠
I'm Kelly Diels, an expert on Culture Making, Thought Leadership and IP. I teach culture-making entrepreneurs & creators how to develop a substantial body of work that changes EVERYTHING – your life, your industry, our world.⁠
Marketing, social media and deliberate self-promotion aren’t a distraction.⁠
⁠
They’re activities that add up to a winning and significant body of work.⁠
⁠
They're not a distraction from ideation. They ARE your ideas.⁠
⁠
Here are 3 counterintuitive but KEY activities for Thought Leaders to commit to for putting their ideas out into the world, developing their body of work and moving forward in their business:⁠
⁠
1. SOCIAL MEDIA.⁠
⁠
It's not *just* about getting attention. Social media can be a lab for cultivating your ideas, so put snippets of ideas out on social, every day.⁠
⁠
2. NETWORKING.⁠
⁠
Having conversations with interesting people -- even preaching to boring ones -- provides creative stimulus and opportunities to forge creative connections and embroider your ideas.⁠
⁠
3. WILD IDLING.⁠
⁠
True thought leadership & meaningful bodies of work require unstructured leisure time and “wild idling.” (h/t @LianneRaymond)⁠
⁠
ONE MORE TIME, WITH FEELING:⁠
⁠
Self-promotion is not a distraction from your body of work.⁠
⁠
It’s part of how you create meaningful work that matters. It's an idea-growing practice.⁠
⁠
_____________⁠
⁠
I'm Kelly Diels, an expert on Culture Making, Thought Leadership and IP. I teach culture-making entrepreneurs & creators how to develop a substantial body of work that changes EVERYTHING – your life, your industry, our world.⁠
⁠
⁠
⁠
#BodyOfWork #MakingAnImpact #ThoughtLeader #ContentStrategy #LevelUpYourBusiness #CreativeEntrepreneur #CreativeEntrepreneurship #IntentionalBusiness  #BrandingIdentity #SocialMediaForBusiness #SocialEntrepreneur #IntellectualProperty
Are you wrestling with Imposter Complex? This might help. #impostersyndrome #impostercomplex #thoughtleadership #creativeentrepreneur #intellectualproperty #bodyofwork #WeAreTheCultureMakers #deepwork #slowproductivity #visibility #edwardsaid #orientalism #culturalexile #yourdifferenceisyourstrength www.kellydiels.com
Dear Multi-Passionate Maker,⁠⠀⁠
⁠⠀⁠
Maybe you don't have Shiny Object Syndrome.⁠⠀⁠
⁠⠀⁠
Maybe you've been studying & practicing all of these modalities because you're developing a rich body of work, across time.⁠⠀⁠
⁠⠀⁠
(No maybe about it.)⁠⠀⁠
⁠⠀⁠
Multi-passionate professionals often get told that they're "scattered" & need to focus.⁠⠀⁠
⁠⠀⁠
They then internalize negative messages insisting that  their orientation towards lifelong learning, curiosity & creativity is a barrier to success.⁠⠀⁠
⁠⠀⁠
IT'S NOT.⁠⠀⁠
⁠⠀⁠
It's how we build the deep work & creative solutions needed for these urgent times.⁠⠀⁠
⁠⠀⁠
Often, when I work with multi-passionate professionals, it's wildly obvious to me that they're collecting tools, synthesizing across traditions -- and making a whole new thing! -- in order to solve complex social problems.⁠⠀⁠
⁠⠀⁠
They've been gathering all.the.tools.⁠⠀⁠
⁠⠀⁠
You know what all those tools add up to? ⁠⠀⁠
⁠⠀⁠
A practice. A way of doing things. A framework. Your unique process.⁠⠀⁠
⁠⠀⁠
***You have a methodology.*** ⁠⠀⁠
⁠⠀⁠
So let's build language for it and NAME IT, specifically.⁠⠀⁠
⁠
Naming your method makes it tangible AND SALEABLE.⁠⠀⁠
⁠⠀⁠
Now it now gets a lot easier to explain it to other people...⁠⠀⁠
⁠⠀⁠
...and becomes more obvious why they might want to work with you :)⁠⠀⁠
⁠⠀⁠
Once you name it, you substantiate it. ⁠⠀⁠
⁠⠀⁠
****Including to yourself.****⁠⠀⁠
⁠⠀⁠
Now YOU can see how everything you've trained in has led up to this, has prepared you for this work.⁠⠀⁠
⁠⠀⁠
⁠Because, dear Multi-passionate Maker, you're NOT spinning your wheels or getting distracted by shiny things.⁠⠀⁠
⁠⠀⁠
You're growing the solutions & institutions of the future.⁠⠀⁠
⁠⠀⁠
Let's make sure you've got the language to describe them. ⁠⠀⁠
⁠⠀⁠
love + justice,⁠⠀⁠⠀⁠
Kelly⁠⠀⁠
⁠
⁠
#SurfaceYourMethodology #IntellectualProperty #DeepWork #BodyOfWork #SlowProductivity #ThoughtLeadership #ThoughtLeader #MeaningfulWork #WeAreTheCultureMakers⁠
I repeat:⁠
⁠
Self-promotion is NOT a distraction from your Body of Work - it’s a lab for your thought leadership!⁠
⁠
People often think social media is frivolous. A time-suck.⁠
⁠
Or that marketing, networking & self-promotion take your time away from the *real* work.⁠
⁠
But in my latest blog post, I’m sharing with you 3 surprising key activities that will add up to a SIGNIFICANT and MEANINGFUL Body of Work.⁠
⁠
Check it out here: https://kellydiels.com/meaningful-bodies-of-work-require-base-hits⁠
⁠
My Blog link can also be found in my bio @kelly.diels ⁠
_____________⁠⠀⁠⠀⁠
⁠
I'm Kelly Diels, an expert on Culture Making, Thought Leadership and IP. I teach culture-making entrepreneurs & creators how to develop a substantial body of work that changes EVERYTHING – your life, your industry, our world.⠀⁠
⁠
⁠
⁠
⁠
#BodyOfWork #MakingAnImpact #ThoughtLeader #ContentStrategy #LevelUpYourBusiness #CreativeEntrepreneur #CreativeEntrepreneurship #IntentionalBusiness  #BrandingIdentity #SocialMediaForBusiness #SocialEntrepreneur #IntellectualProperty⁠