For years, I’ve talked about confidence.

And confidence matters.

After all, I’ve spent more than a decade helping women back themselves, speak up, negotiate better, lead bigger teams, take smart risks and stop playing small.

But lately I’ve been wondering whether I’ve been talking about confidence because it’s easier than talking about what is really the issue.

Confidence is safe, socially acceptable and exactly the sort of thing people expect an executive coach for women to talk about.

But if I’m completely honest, confidence on it’s own was never the destination.

Here’s the uncomfortable bit

The thing I really love helping women with?

Earning life-changing, choice-creating money. Money that our mothers and grandmothers could scarcely have imagined earning themselves.

There. I’ve said it. 😱

I love it when a woman stops shrinking her ambitions to make other people feel more comfortable and starts pursuing opportunities that match her capability.

Not because I think money is everything or because I think success can be measured by a bank balance. 

What I have come to believe is that earning more money matters because it creates choices. 

It creates independence, freedom and influence, allowing women to make decisions from a place of possibility rather than limitation and giving us greater control over the direction of our own lives.

The ripple effect nobody talks about

And when a woman expands what she believes is possible for herself, the ripple effects are extraordinary.

I have one client who in the process of articulating her career strategy about eight years ago, quietly shared a goal with me. She wanted to earn $1 million p.a. in ten years.

At the time she was earning around $200K.

Today she’s earning somewhere between $750K and $800K p.a. give or take.

Over time she stepped into bigger and bigger leadership roles, articulated her value in different ways, claimed her worth and learned to play a much bigger game.

She changed what she believed was possible for herself and in doing so, she changed what others around her believed was possible too.

And remember, every time a woman expands her own horizons, she quietly expands the horizons of those watching.

Playing a bigger game

Perhaps confidence was simply the socially acceptable way of talking about ambition, agency, influence and economic power.

The point is refusing to live inside a future that is smaller than the one you’re capable of creating.

The world doesn’t just need more confident women. 

It needs more women with ambition, agency, influence and economic power, more women willing to put themselves forward, more women willing to lead, and more women willing to make decisions, allocate resources and shape what happens next.

And yes, confidence helps.

Your thoughts? Drop me a note

READ MORE

• A winning woman case study – let’s not interrupt those already doing it
• What not to say when asking for a raise
• 5 big no nos of salary negotiation for executive women