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Step into Your Moxie with Alexia Vernon

Join Alexia Vernon, author of Step Into Your Moxie, and I as we dive deep into exactly what it means to step into your moxie and own your power and influence as a woman.

Alexia explains why women should rebel against the idea that we have to look and act a certain way to be successful business owners, powerful communicators, and strong leaders.

We also talk about the importance of focusing on our legacies instead of getting famous. You'll end up asking yourself, “what do I want to leave behind?”

Alexia Vernon Empowerment, LLC is a family-led business, founded by Alexia Vernon in 2007, and co-run with her partner in business and in life, Stephen Oliveira.

Branded a “Moxie Maven” by President Obama’s White House Office of Public Engagement for her unique and effective approach to empowering women’s professional success, Alexia is the author of Step into Your Moxie: Amplify Your Voice Visibility, and Influence in the World. A sought-after speaker, coach, consultant and media contributor, Alexia is the creator and leader of multiple speaker training programs and has delivered transformational keynotes and corporate trainings for Fortune 500 companies and professional associations, spoken at the United Nations, delivered a TEDx talk on the future of feminism, and been featured by media including CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Inc., and Women’s Health.

A former biologist and environmental justice organizer with vast experience leading environmental consulting projects and teams, Stephen oversees client care, speaker bookings, corporate engagements, live training events and retreats.

Prefer to listen? Here's the audio:

Michelle: Welcome, Alexia, to the Rebel Rising podcast.

Alexia: Thank you for having me, Michelle.

Michelle: Yay! I'm so happy you're here. First, I just want to congratulate you on the book. I will say that I loved reading this book, because these are topics that I grapple with myself, and my clients grapple with, and I've always wanted to write about these topics. Never had the time. Now we have your book, and I can just give those to my clients. So I love that this book exists.

The first thing I wanted to ask was, can you tell me a little bit about your journey that led you to writing Step Into Your Moxie.

Alexia: Yes, and thank you so much for those kind words, because it really is one of those books that I want lots of women to read. I particularly want women who … Obviously, that's why I wrote the book, right? I really want folks who feel like they're already doing a lot right, like they know that they were put here to do big things, to spread big ideas, and yet there's also that sense of sometimes I get in my own way, and I still have self-doubt. I might even have a certain amount of shame about that fact because I should have it figured out but I don't. So I wrote the book as much for me as I did for readers because I think we all need those reminders. I just wanted to acknowledge you for saying that.

Alexia: The journey to write it, there were a few things that intersected. I want to be completely honest that I wrote a few books early in my career that had nothing to do with where my career ultimately wound up. One was about career development things. Another was about onboarding millennials. So I put a certain amount of pressure on myself, that by the time I was going to write a book on women and voice, I really wanted to be like the book, so I never left feeling like I have another book I have to write now. Not to say that I may not write one in the future, but everything that's in my right now came out.

Alexia: Which meant that I really wanted to write a self-improvement book, but I also kind of wanted to write a memoir, and I also kind of wanted to scratch my humor itch and bring all of those pieces together. I wasn't sure how to do it for a long time. Then, this is a total cliché online entrepreneur story, but in the middle of a launch, the launch was not going quite as well as I hoped it would, and I started to have these really evocative dreams at night. Not evocative as in like my business is going to fail and I'm going to die, fortunately, but rather these downloads for the book.

Alexia: It's like chapters just started landing in my dreams. So I'd wake up, and I would take notes. I'd say over the course of three weeks, right after the cart closed and the program started, I really had the vision for what the book would look like. Some of it is informed by the women's leadership and communication development work that I had done over the years, but then, like I said, I also wanted to bring in stories and ask provocative questions and be zany. So that's what came together.

Michelle: What I love about that story, and it's something that I've seen in my own business, I sometimes feel like our best ideas come out at times of struggle, where we really are at a crossroads in our business, or things aren't going right. Then all of a sudden, there's just this other idea that's a beacon, that we're like, “Oh.”

Alexia: Yes.

Michelle: The next thing.

Alexia: And sometimes we don't know when we're in what I like to call a bum-bum-budding moment, like what is the lesson we're supposed to learn. Sometimes it's going through that struggle and keeping the faith. I had a lot of faith, even though I was incredibly frustrated. A lot of pearls that I couldn't have seen at the time wound up manifesting.

Alexia: So I talk about this other one during the book, but one of the reasons why that launch had been so important was I really wanted to bring my husband into my business. I felt like this would be the moment where that could finally happen. When I stopped focusing on the fact that maybe it couldn't, let myself start writing the book proposal and then ultimately shopping it to agents, wouldn't you know? Things all did come together, and he wound up coming into my business anyway. So a good reminder that sometimes if we're too short-sighted we get in our own way of what a longterm goal can actually be.

Michelle: Such a good lesson, yeah. You still accomplished what you wanted to accomplish. It just came about in a different way, which is just lovely, and it feels to easy. Since I'm a control freak, that's what I struggle with.

Alexia: I hear you, sister. Right there with you.

Michelle: I will say I love the title of your book, Step Into Your Moxie, because moxie is a great word. It was a word that I actually played with early on in my business, and I've always loved that word. It's a great example of a 3 Word Rebellion. So I'm going to ask you-

Alexia: I'm glad you consider it a three word. I felt so guilty because the into makes it four.

Michelle: I know. So my rules for a 3 Word Rebellion are it can be between two to five words, because I don't want to be so constrictive with it. Sometimes it's four words. Sometimes it's two. I don't want to be rigid about my rules.

Michelle: So I'm going to ask you my 3 Word Rebellion questions.

The first thing, what are you rebelling against?

Alexia: The message that for women to have influence and to be seen as powerful communicators and leaders, that it has to look a certain way. I describe that in terms of a bunny, a dragon, and a cheetah. I know you know what I mean by this, but let me explain for listeners.

Alexia: To me, a bunny represents one form of femininity. When we are soft and cute and cuddly and hustling for approval from other people, where it feels like we're tap dancing on eggshells.

Alexia: On the flip side, because many of us are seeking not to be that kind of feminine leader, we go the opposite direction, and then we can get labeled a dragon. A dragon, like the term, is fiery. It's our way, or it's the highway. We are rigid. It feels like we're trying to puff up and prove ourselves and go harder and faster, a very masculine energy.

Alexia: I get it, because I have ping-ponged between both. I think a lot of us have. It's not like we're a bunny or we're a dragon. We have both, for many of us. But what I'm recommending is what I call the cheetah. For those who are not familiar with the cheetah, as an animal or as an archetype, a cheetah is inherently flexible, just like the animal, knows how to accelerate and be all in when she needs to be, so cheetahs can accelerate faster than any other land creature when they want.

Alexia: But the beautiful thing about a cheetah in the wild, I've been told, haven't gotten cozy with a cheetah before, but they can also hold back and watch. Sometimes they let other animals feed first, before they make the decision that it's their turn. That to me really gets to the heart of good communication and leadership, knowing when to listen and observe and ask questions, rather than always jumping into the center and saying, “Look at me!”

Can you tell me about a time when you were a cheetah in your communication?

Alexia: Yes. There have been several. When I started to think about feminine leadership in this instance, it actually happened around a speaking engagement. I had been the closing keynotes speaker at a social enterprise conference. I got to this event a little bit early to watch the participants pitch fest. Each of the approximately 100 young people in their 20s who were participating had a couple of minutes to present their big idea for how to harness entrepreneurial solutions to solve some kind of big social, economic, or environmental problem.

Alexia: The pitches were really, really good. They were bold. They were well researched. They were full of heart. The other attendees had the opportunity to vote for who they felt was the best pitcher. I'm watching all this unfold before I give my closing keynote, and the finalists' names are announced. And every single one of them was male. In a room full of approximately 100 young people, it was 50% female, 50% male. Not one woman's voice was picked.

So I had that feeling in my gut, like, somebody was just stabbing me with knives. Which, for me is always an indication I need to speak up and say something.

You know as a speaker, you don't really want to offend your event host, but when you're watching something like that unfold, it's hard to stay mum.

Alexia: So I took to Twitter, and I started asking the question. Ultimately we had a break, and started asking whoever would speak to me, “What just happened? Where are the voices of our young women?” What I heard from both the young women and the young men was really, really interesting because both said that they had picked based on who they saw to be the best presenter. When I asked them to unpack that a little bit, it was who projected confidence, who was loud, who took up space, a more masculine model of delivery. But yet, when we unpacked who were the speakers, the communicators that you felt most connected to, the young women and the young men both started naming the names of women, because they told stories, they were vulnerable, in some cases even admitting they still had a lot to learn, they needed to gather more resources and relationships for their ideas to be successful. Yet that wasn't seen to be “effective pitching or presenting.”

Alexia: So I changed my closing keynote from what it was supposed to be and went a little bit rogue and talked about this.

It was a powerful moment, not because that's when my business pivoted, but to see both men and women recognizing this is a problem.

It's not helping any of us, and we're down to have a different kind of conversation, rather than let's just talk about how do we build a sustainable career in a social enterprise circle.

Michelle: Yeah, and it's a systemic problem because that situation that you've described, I've seen it when I was a coach of a speech and debate team at the University of Oklahoma. I actually did an analysis of all of the national championship tournaments for parliamentary debate, and guess what? If you were a male, male team, you were more likely to win, to get into the breakout rounds, and if you were a female, female team, you were at a significant disadvantage. I've also seen that at Toastmasters International. Although they did, this weekend, crown the top three speakers at the international speech contest were female. Which is-

Alexia: Awesome.

Michelle: The first time that's ever happened.

But it is this large, systemic problem, that we don't see women as leaders because they don't come across like men.

Alexia: Yes, and I always find it fascinating whenever I ask a group of women, let's say I'm doing a leadership development activity or leading a retreat, to name a female leader who inspires them. I tell them you cannot name somebody within your organization, you cannot name your mother, your sister, or a family member, and you cannot name Oprah. And how many struggle to do it. They want to name a man.

Michelle: Yes. Well, and I think we saw this in the 2016 election with Hilary Clinton, that she got a lot of critique for her style, because she was trying to force herself to be like a man, and that really wasn't who she was.

Alexia: Right, and everybody wanted to put her in the box of a dragon, if you will. We see that with so many examples of women, in speaking, in leadership, across industries and sectors, that you're soft and you're dismissible, or you're sexy and you're dismissible, or you're trying to be a man.

Michelle: Yes, and those are your options unless you're a cheetah. Which I love the idea.

So tell me, what is the change that you want to see created in this world?

Alexia: There are so many. In the last two years, the list is very, very long, and growing. If I have to pick one, though, I really, really want to see an end to sexual violence. I see communication as a key contributor to this, from women and men knowing how to say no, even when, especially when they are terrified. Being able to set boundaries in relationships, giving feedback about what feels good and what doesn't, reporting acts of abuse when they happen. Especially for men, knowing how to have honest and open conversations with partners, and everyone asking for consent.

Alexia: While that's not necessarily the primary focus of the book, although I'm open about my own experiences with sexual abuse, to me that's my greater why. Working on communication and public speaking, those are all a piece to that larger goal.

Michelle: I really see the connection, because especially if you're a bunny. You're supposed to be people pleasing, right? No doesn't necessarily mean no, and it's hard to set those boundaries, and then what you accept, it quickly becomes unacceptable. The better that women can advocate and communicate in every setting, leads to us being able to speak up about sexual violence, sexual abuse, and matters of consent. So I see how your work in this world really relates to that larger goal.

Alexia: Thank you.

Michelle: Yes, I love that. I love it. It's so great to have such a big vision and see how your work gets us even one step closer.

Alexia: And I know you're the same way, so I'm talking to somebody who totally gets it.

Michelle: Yeah.

I would love to hear about a time where you really stepped into your own moxie, because as we've been talking about, women do have a problem saying no or owning our power.

So I'd love to hear about your own experience of stepping into it.

Alexia: Yes. The story that most immediately comes to mind is a story that happened when I was four years old. It's a story I share in the book. It was my fourth Christmas, and my parents would always throw a big old shindig at our house for holidays. So this particular Christmas, everybody had gone home and my parents were sleeping. I was upstairs, laying awake in my bed by myself, having a moment with the big guy upstairs. I had made a promise that night that I was going to keep a secret, and although this was back in the day before there was that expression snitches get stitches, even at a wee four years old, I still had that sense that if I spoke up, there would be some serious consequences.

Yet at the same time, I also knew that if I stayed quiet, I was not making the right choice for myself.

Alexia: So I pulled myself out of bed. I walked across the hall to my parents' bedroom. I woke my mom up, and I told her what I know as the mom of a daughter who is that exact same age right now is the worst thing that a parent could hear. I shared that somebody else in our family had been sexually abusing me.

Alexia: The thing about that incident is, for so long I did not think of it as an act of moxie at all. I can't tell you that that was this initial act that started a chain reaction of being this little kid who spoke up and out for herself and on behalf of others. Not everybody in my family was ready for that information to be shared, and so the message I took away was that, yes, when I speak up, people listen.

But I didn't necessarily want that power.

I watched lots of family relationships break up, people having to choose between me and this other person in the family, and ultimately more violence and abuse likely happening, because there was no paradigm for how to be able to have the difficult conversations that needed to happen.

Alexia: So another huge piece of this work for me is also empowering those who are parents or who are educators or who have children in their lives to be able to role play conversations. What I didn't find out until the time of my daughter's birth, and I don't think I actually shared this story in the book, was that I was with my mom, we were flipping through old memorabilia, and we came across this article that was dated 1982. Which meant that I was two years old. The article was about how to talk to your children about what constitutes safe touch. In the article were all these notes from my mom indicating that she'd had that kind of conversation with me and I understood what to say.

Alexia: There's no doubt in my mind why did I speak up and why did I come to her? Because she role played that kind of conversation. So that's another passion area for me, is really supporting anyone who has a relationship with a child to have those age-appropriate conversations about what to say so that if something does happen, children are empowered to speak up for themselves.

Michelle: Yeah, and they have that … I hate to say permission, but it is kind of giving them permission, the words, in order to say something.

Alexia: I love that you used the word permission, Michelle, because for a lot of us, at whatever season of life or career or business we're at, it's easy to feel like we don't have permission to say that thing.

The permission rarely is ever going to come from somebody else. It's always an inside job.

The way to give ourselves permission is by role-playing. Whether that is a negotiation, a daring conversation, a speech, or anything else.

Michelle: Yeah. It's funny because my next question for you was going to be like, how do you step into your moxie? But it does seem like this, first giving yourself permission and saying, “All right, I'm the one who has to do this work,” and then role-playing it, thinking it through, talking to a friend about it and role-playing, is the next step to take in order to really speak up and step into your moxie.

Alexia: It is about … I had a client, Jen Leonard, who once said this so brilliantly.

It's taking a parachute from your brain down into the rest of your body so that you don't live from the neck up, where you replay and you sculpt and you ruminate, and then nothing ever comes out of your mouth. It's being able to work on the mindset, but then it's also the behavior.

That behavior, the only way to do it to find your words, but also the body language, is to practice it. I love your example with a friend. It could be with somebody on your team. It could be with a partner. But not going into situations where the first time something important is coming out of your mouth is in front of the audience, but rather you have constructed it, you've heard it come out of you, you know what your body is doing when you move that message into the world. That will make it so much easier.

Michelle: Yeah. I even think about this in terms of if you run a business and you have a client and that relationship isn't going as well as you want to, I know for me it's so easy just to ruminate and just be like, “Oh, well, blah blah blah, this and this and that, and they should be doing yada yada.” But what has always helped me is actually talking it through with someone else and role-playing what needs to be said, so that I can make sure that, A, I want my client to get the results, and, B, I want to maintain my boundaries and my integrity at the same time.

So yeah, I think role-playing is such a key to having those difficult or challenging types of conversation.

Michelle: So the last question I have for you, and the question I have is from my favorite part of your book, which was about legacy over fame.

Why do you think it's important to think about your legacy, versus getting famous?

Alexia: Where do I begin? It's really easy to create an either/or, meaning I want to get visible because it's all about me, and I want to build my followers, and I want to build my revenue, yada, yada, yada. Or, on the flip side, I'm a person of service, I want to give, I need to receive nothing. Both of those, without a little bit of the other, don't work.

Alexia: The impetus for the chapter, chapter 13, about choosing legacy over fame, was really helping folks, irrespective of if they're business owners or professionals or don't have a job or they're freelancers or anything else, are to ask the questions about what's the legacy that they want to live behind. I give a visualization activity. I give some stories.

Because I find once you have an answer to that question, then you can ask a followup question: how is the work that I'm engaged in moving me towards creating that legacy that I want to leave behind?

Alexia: Once you start to realize, hopefully, these are the pieces that fit, these are the pieces that don't fit, it gives us permission to realize that we don't need to be an internet superstar to actually make a meaningful impact. Nor do we need to privilege making ourselves an internet superstar the thing until we start trying to do the things to make an impact.

Alexia: The other thing I really wanted to drive home here was that I don't believe that great leaders are those who start things. I think that great leaders are those who finish things. That's a tough pill to swallow sometimes, particularly when we don't see enough women leading the way or being visible. It might be construed as me saying just sit back and let other women do things and join in. I want to be super clear, I'm not giving you a hall pass to be on the sidelines, but rather to look at what are the things you're seeking to positively impact and to recognize that it doesn't always mean that you have to hang out a shingle and start something new.

Alexia: Sometimes it means being that leader who comes in to bring something that's been started to that next level.

Sometimes it's making impact in your immediate circumstances.

Maybe there's an issue in your local community, or there's something going on in your organization, or in your child's school. That can be as much of a part of the legacy that you leave behind, making deep impact with something that's one degree away, just like building a business to be able to move your ideas forward.

Michelle: Yes. Well, and I love the idea of thinking of legacy as one degree away, versus like, “I have to be this internet star.” At the same time, I feel like there's something super valuable in saying, “Hey, if the legacy and the impact that I want to make makes me known for this work, then that's okay, too.”

Alexia: Yes, yes, yes. One of my favorite expressions is yes, thank you, more please, whenever stuff starts to happen. So it's that sense of yes, this is it, I'm in the game! I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. And if great things show up, being in a space where we can hold that and make clear that we're ready for more.

Michelle: Yes. The other thing that I was really picking up is this commitment to your legacy, right? You don't necessarily have to be the one who starts, but you have to be the one who finishes.

So that means you have to have a deep level of commitment. You have a deep level of commitment to Stepping Into Your Moxie.

You're going to be talking about it for the foreseeable future. I have a commitment to the 3 Word Rebellion. That is my legacy that I am birthing into the world. We have to see it to its finish. That's the goal here, in order to leave that legacy.

Alexia: I also find that when I consider legacy, it gives me permission to hang my weirdo flag out. What I mean by that is it's easy to get so mired in our business is our identity, and there's so many other people who are doing something similar like us that we lose our way and we lose our voice.

When I remember that the legacy I leave is about my voice, my point of view, the things that stir my soul, the things that piss me off, it also gives me permission to be able to step into my moxie or ignite a movement to do it my way, with my own values, strengths, interests, resources, that that's enough.

Not only is that enough, but that's exactly what's needed, because that's what I can bring to the table or bring to the issue.

Michelle: Yeah, and that's what you can bring to the movement and the change you want to create into this world. Wow, thank you so much Alexia, for being on the podcast. Tell us, where can we get your book and where can we find you?

Alexia: Thank you. The book is available wherever booksellers sell books. Some of the obvious ones are Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound. I also have a bunch of awesome book bonuses, so if anyone wants to go to stepintoyourmoxie.com, tried to keep it simple, and then that'll give you some instructions for links to be able to order the book. Then you can come back and enter in all of your details, and then I'll send you some more love.

Michelle: Oh, awesome! People, please go buy this book. If you've ever struggled with owning your voice, owning your power, speaking up, this is the book for you to read. So thank you so much, Alexia, for being on the Rebel Rising podcast.