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HeartTalk.

Maggie Webber,

Maggie Webber, also widely known as “The Working Mother’s Mentor”, is a passionate Professional Speaker, Amazon International Best-Selling Author, and a Small Business Coach and Consultant.
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Maggie Webber, also widely known as “The Working Mother’s Mentor”, is a passionate Professional Speaker, Amazon International Best-Selling Author, and a Small Business Coach and Consultant. She has always been inspired to help people achieve lasting success – in their work and all other aspects of their life. She became Dr. Deepak Chopra’s first Meditation Facilitator in the Pacific Rim and has been dedicated in providing her clients with tools to enhance their productivity, effectively manage stress levels, and attain optimal work/life integration. 

Maggie is on the Advisory Board for prominent organizations such as GCC, Rockstar Hubs International, Humanity1, Simple Drinking Water, the Social Media Association and the Skyway Investment Group, also spearheading the launch of the “Free Power and Water” Foundation. She has served as a Keynote Speaker at the Women Economic Forum in London, The Hague and New Delhi. Maggie also holds a Master of Commerce from UNSW, a Bachelor of Education from UTAS, and a Bachelor of Business Leadership from UNISA; and most recently became a Heartmath ® Facilitator. She has also created and facilitates an intensive 3-part program called “Wellness@Work”, to various management teams and their staff.

Apart from these activities, Maggie loves gardening, doing Yoga and learning about new things in the technical domain – her current obsession being the Blockchain and crypto currencies.

For more information on Maggie, please visit www.maggiewebber.com

 

My advice is nurture yourself FIRST. Look after your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being, then you are more able to support all the others who are depending on you! Stop making someone else rich. Stop investing your precious time, energy and gifts into someone else and their success.

HeartTalk.

Interview

1.Definition of Women Empowerment?

It is my belief that, even though someone else can inspire you, no-one else can motivate you. Motivation comes from within, and so does empowerment. If we are going to spend time going to workshops and lectures, reading articles and going onto webinars thinking this will be enough to empower us, we will have a very long wait. In fact, it will end up frustrating us – and probably exhausting us into the bargain – and that is the opposite of empowerment.  As women we need to recognise our own individual gifts, talents and strengths. To do this, we need to stop, and take the time out to really go into our hearts, work out what makes us truly unique, write these down and revel in the magnificence of them. Then we need to use these gifts to be in service to others. Being in service does not mean make yourself a doormat, because that means you will just be walked all over! It means to honour your worth, truly value your gifts and passionately yet graciously use these God given talents to assist your clients – be they paying clients in your work, or “internal clients” you will find among your family and friends. Therefore, as women especially, we need to realise it weakens us to just give, give, give …and then receive little back. These situations can lead to resentment and then often guilt, which are 2 of the most toxic and energy draining emotions we can ever experience.

 

Empowerment also means to realise that money is simply a form of energy, and just as energy can neither be created or destroyed, it also needs to flow in both directions – just as blood does, to and from your heart. It is disempowering to you and to the receiver, if the energy goes one way only. In fact, it will create a stifling energy drain if the flow is not a giving and receiving one.  The French word for heart is “Coeur” and this comes from the same Latin word that gave birth to the word “Courage”. So, we need to go to our heart, discover of gifts and talents – for these are the basis of finding our dharma – have the courage to stand up for these and our beliefs, and the value our true worth. For if we don’t, no-one else will. Empowerment does not come from external things like job titles, and big houses, fancy wardrobes and celebrity status. These can all be lost overnight. Empowerment comes from finding the answers that lie waiting for you in your heart, because “if you don’t go within, you go without”.

2.What motivated you to get involved in being inspirational for change?

There’s two parts to me – the Micro and the Macro. Micro Maggie is ‘The Working Mother’s Mentor’, the coach, consultant, author and public speaker.

 

Macro Maggie is on the Advisory Boards of six sustainable, global companies and launching the ‘Free Power and Water Foundation’ with my UK based business partners in mid 2018. We will assist women and their communities to have clean drinking water and alternative power sources for their villages in rural areas of India, Africa and Australia – and also provide micro loans and education to start their own businesses.

 

I came to Tasmania with my family in 1959 when I was three. Dad was the Dean of Hobart at St David’s Anglican Cathedral for many years, and was also the Chaplain of St Michael’s Collegiate School where I went from Kindergarten until Year 12. I really disliked going to school, and it was quite a lonely experience. I didn’t fit into the traditional education system at all, and wasn’t part of the ‘popular group’ either. The upside? With a family “as poor as church mice”, I learned how to earn money and be independent and entrepreneurial before I became a teenager.   

 

Dad was always so busy with his church, board and broadcasting work, and with four other children in our family, I did what I could to win my father’s attention and approval. So after leaving school and at his suggestion, I put my acting dreams on hold – instead I took an Education Department Scholarship to do a Bachelor of Education, “for the security”. Hardly entrepreneurial!

 

Part of me had ‘sold my soul’ and sadly that was a pattern I kept repeating for many years afterward. I left Australia at 22 with just a couple of hundred dollars in my pocket, worked on a private yacht and later passenger liners around the Greek Isles. I jumped ship in South Africa, then earned my Bachelor of Business Leadership at UNISA, where I was the only woman on the course with 142 men.
Ten years later, I was married with 2 wonderful children – but I was living a total lie. Stifling my gifts and talents by remaining married to my professional golfer husband, supporting his career and dreams and not my own. I had stayed in this relationship, worried about what people might say and the shame I may bring to my family by divorcing him.

 

Then I studied with Deepak Chopra, becoming his first Meditation Practitioner in the Pacific Rim, learning quickly that “if you don’t go within you go without”, and that I needed to love and approve of myself first and foremost.

 

My children were only six and three – leaving was scary, but I now knew the Universe would support me.
The biggest turning point in my life though was losing everything materially in a failed property venture and being half a million dollars in debt yet knowing it was my responsibility to pay. Refusing to go bankrupt, and with the help of a financial counsellor, I negotiated paying back all those people over time. Ten years later I am nearly there!

 

I’m most proud of giving birth to two extraordinary children and bringing them up virtually on my own. I thrive on staying young at heart – in mind, body and spirit. I have had a whole new lease of life in my 60’s, and don’t contemplate ever retiring!

 

The last 18 months have provided a major turning point in my life – earning 2 Global Awards from the Women’s Economic Forum; speaking from stages around the world about issues affecting women; becoming a best-selling author on Amazon; being appointed to the 6 Advisory Boards; and being asked to head up the Foundation.

 

I’ve learned the hard way to always listen to and follow my heart rather than my head, to exercise my mind and body in some way at least six days a week and get enough restful and restorative sleep.

3.What are some key characteristics of an empowered person?

My advice is nurture yourself FIRST. Look after your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being, then you are more able to support all the others who are depending on you! Stop making someone else rich. Stop investing your precious time, energy and gifts into someone else and their success. When you can, start your own business, preferably one you can run from your home. THE FACILITATE EMPOWERMENT IN OTHERS, YOU MUST BE AN AUTHENTIC ROLE MODEL, AND TRULY WALK THE STEPS ON THE JOURNEY, YOU ARE ENCOURAGING OTHERS TO TAKE.

4.What can leaders or individuals interested in advocacy do to facilitate empowerment?

Support your ‘sisters’. Don’t gossip about them, compare yourself to them or feel intimidated by them.

5.What advice would you give to those who want to give up due to lack of empowered feeling, thinking and action? (E.g. what is an important first step?)

Every day I meditate, set mini intentions and exercise, even if it is a walk. I read my intentions before going into meditation and before sleep, then regularly visualize achieving those goals.  Visualise the outcome you want to achieve, the big picture. Then chunk that vision down into bit sized and actioned steps that are written down. Then read those steps before your sleep or meditate; action these steps – don’t just expect it all to be just given to you on a silver platter! – because success requires one pointed intention, focus and action and; believe in your vision and yourself – and watch what happens! 😊

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