VICKI IRVIN
LIVING LIFE LIKE A SUPERWOMAN
By Belinda Trotter-James
Vicki Irvin wants you to live a superwoman
lifestyle. She has created a superwoman movement that allows women to live
their life to the fullest. Remember back
in the day when the term superwoman meant you had eight arms and was tired at
the end of the day? Well, that's not the type of superwoman movement Vicki is
launching. Her movement allows women to have a balance of family, fun while
enjoying a super career.
If you have never met Vicki, she is a speaker,
author, coach and TV host. Do you think she was always a superwoman? The answer depends on your definition of a
superwoman. She started out like most women with a regular job in human
resources and collected a paycheck every week until her husband told her to
wake up. She was fortunate enough to
have a husband who just happened to be a superman with an entrepreneurial
spirit. With his support Vicky built her
own million dollar company within one year and now she is sharing her information
and assisting women entrepreneurs through her seminars and workshops.
Vicki has revived the superwoman movement and
says "Yes" you can live a super woman lifestyle. "I don't
put the term superwoman into one definition or in a box”, explains Vicki.
"Every individual has their own superwoman lifestyle. Some have
a tendency to look at other people's lives. We tend to admire how
other women look, the way they move, the way they conduct their business, but
we can't be them at the end of the day. They are living their superwoman
lifestyle within the dynamic of however their life is set up. Your
superwoman lifestyle is going to be very different from my superwoman
lifestyle. What matters is that I am working towards fulfilling my goals every
single day. I have a family, I have a husband, I have a business, I'm having
fun and I'm able to empower other women and men. I am living my
superwoman lifestyle. Now someone else can look at my
lifestyle and be light years ahead of me and say I'm not doing enough.
However, they could be living a totally different superwoman
lifestyle. A superwoman lifestyle is defined by you. It's not comparing
yourself to other people and once you find yourself moving and shaking every
day towards things that are really important to you, then you are living a
superwoman lifestyle and not what society is putting on you. It's what
makes you happy at the end of the day."
Having a superwoman lifestyle also means having
multiple streams of income. With that mindset Vicki started a cosmetic line
with R&B songstress, Chante Moore. They didn't know each other at
first. Fate had to step in to put them together. "I have been
friends with Chante Moore's manager and her manager's husband for a very, very
long time,” says Vicki. "We were in their wedding together,
but it wasn't until a few years ago that we started doing more stuff together.
As an extension to my superwoman lifestyle movement, I created a 3D system
called Beauty, Business and Balance. Although I am primarily a business
coach, I wanted to expand on the beauty portion because I'm always talking to
women about living a healthy lifestyle and feeling good from the inside out.
That's when I thought I should start a cosmetic line. I love lipstick.
If nothing else, I'll have on lipstick because I don’t know how to put on
anything else. I wanted to start a lipstick line with names that would
empower women such as superwoman, passion, success or boss lady. These
names were perfect because I have such a large following of people who follow
me in business and I wanted to cater to that market. I
wanted something out there on the beauty side to help further my brand and
the mission. I thought Chante could be the celebrity face to help me
endorse it. I just love the way she hustles as a single mom, performing
everywhere and staying beautiful. She also has a beautiful heart.
I thought that she would really personify what I was trying to put out
there to other women. I asked her to be the face and she said, 'Of
coarse.'
So far Vicki and Chante have lipsticks
and eye shadows available. It’s not in stores yet so you'll
have to get it exclusively from http://www.SWLCollection.com The SWL logo
stands for Super Woman Lifestyle. If you're wondering what's so special
about the lipstick, it's a high-quality lipstick. It’s definitely on par
with Mac lipsticks. That's important to know because there's nothing worse than
using a lipstick that leaves your lips dry and cracked. "More
importantly the lipsticks have a positive image behind it", explains
Vicki. "I have women who work out in their lipstick just based on
the name. They will say things like, 'I'm dragging today and I felt like
putting on my superwoman lipstick so I can get through my work out' or ‘I
had a meeting today so I wore my success lipstick.’ I think this is why the lipstick line is
doing very well. It's more of an
empowering thing catching on with the women. Yes, the quality is there,
yes, it's beautiful, yes, it's a high level product, but I think women are
just loving the positivity attached to it in living a superwoman lifestyle.”
I asked Vicki to go back in time when she had
her light bulb moment. “I was commuting
to work in traffic going to a job I just didn't like and I didn't feel like I
had much purpose. I always felt I was destined to do something else, but didn't
know what”, says Vicki. "It's a nagging feeling that just stays
there with you". She started talking to some people who were
entrepreneurs and they started taking her to mastermind meetings to see other
people from all types of industries who were focused on marketing their
business and learning about client attraction.
They were making so much money doing things they actually like to do. That's when she had her lightbulb moment. “I
said to myself I can either complain for the rest of my life or step out there
and try to do something different and change the direction in which my life is
going. She pushed through the fear
factor which is what typically holds some of us back. “I've been through bigger
challenges and made it through,” recalls Vicki.
“The fact that I was able to make it through those things made me
realize that doing something new would be child's play. So that's how I
got my mind together to just do it.”
Most on entrepreneurs gets stuck in fear at
many stages of building a successful business. It can get to the point where
you feel as though you are a tick tack in the mouth of a whale. How do you get unstuck to move forward?
"I often tell women that very rarely will you be the only one doing what
you do," explains Vicki. “For the most part we all have competitors.
Every now and then someone pops up with a brand new idea that no one has ever
done, but that's few and far in between.
Actually someone out there doing the same thing is not such a horrible
thing and that's because it means there is money to be made or they wouldn't be
doing it. That's number one… number two
is the tendency to look around to see what everyone else is doing and try
to emulate the same thing. Typically
nine times out of ten everyone is following the industry norm. You never want to follow the industry norm
because you're going to get the same industry results.
That's why I always tell people that you have
to figure out a way to make yourself stand out from the crowded market. Don't
do what everyone else is doing because it looks easy and you feel you have a
blueprint by just emulating someone else. You don't even know if it works or
not. In order to stand out you have to know what's unique about your product or
service. Create some type of positioning
in the marketplace that when a person is looking around trying to make a
decision of who to go with, you look very different from everyone else. People
will check you out because you don't look like everyone else. That's how you start attracting people
towards you. When your marketing message starts to attract attention, that's
when people want to learn more about you. A foundation needs to be laid before
you jump into business. I’m a huge
proponent of building up a following first and allowing people to know you or
sample you for free. Let people
say, ‘Oh this is good. What else do they have?’ It's a relationship process in building
and skipping that foundation cannot be done. If you are doing everything right eventually,
that person will become a customer.”
Another thing that women do that keeps them
stuck or frustrated is trying to be everything to everyone. Keeping everything
in balance is definitely a skill that needs to be mastered for a happy healthy
lifestyle. Keeping the household in order with your spouse and children while
maintaining a career can be overwhelming. Vicki looks like she has
mastered keeping it all together however, she reveals that she keeps it
together day-by-day. "I have days when I don't do such a good job,”
reveals Vicki. “However, we have to try
every day and one of the things I tell women to do is to stop comparing
themselves to other women. I think we
look out there and we see someone who is walking around with their children and
their hair is perfectly done and they're dressed perfectly and you think, ‘Oh my gosh. What's wrong with me? I look a
mess.’ I always tell people that the
dynamics of another may be very different from your own. Some people are single, some people have
husbands, some people have husbands that don't help therefore, that woman is
operating as if she is single. You may be comparing yourself to someone
who has one child when you have four. Of
course, she's able to walk around with her hair looking great. This is why I
tell people not to get caught up in that.
You have to create boundaries within your own
life where you are giving time and attention to the things that matter to
you. Every single day most of you are
blocking out the noise and distractions of outside life, which is a lot of
negativity and drama from friends and family. Train people how to treat
you. Know what you're not going to
tolerate. If it's working on your business and it's a priority for you, then
that's where you put that time. If it's putting in quality time with your
family, then that's what you need to do. One of the exercises I give people is
to take inventory for one week of where they are wasting time. Whether it's
watching reality shows or just talking on the phone, you did two things that
don't matter or add to your bottom line.
“Take that time back and put it into your family or business.
I had to admit to Vicki that I sat in front of
the television and watched three hours of mindless shows and enjoyed every
minute of it. I couldn't believe what I was viewing and wanted to see it for my
self. In the back of my mind I felt
guilty because I knew I had things I needed to send out for my business. However, I also know that all work and no
play is no good either. Everything you do must be in balance. Some of us will go all the way left or all
the way right and the bottom line is you have to learn to stay in the middle to
have a balanced lifestyle and it is a challenge. However, there are people who
are doing it daily. Vicki and I had a good laugh because she knew exactly
what I was saying and she added, "You need a break and there is nothing
wrong with that however I'm talking about the people who are constantly
programming their DVR, they have the popcorn and they know what time every show
comes on and will watch it every night. It's okay to indulge, but when it
becomes an obsession and a part of your life like brushing your teeth, that's
when it becomes too much. The person who is walking around saying they don't
have time for their business and is addicted to the television, that’s who I'm
talking about.
Vicki is very clear about her goals when
putting together workshops that empower people to move towards their goals.
"It's a lot of work and you have to have a purpose and a reason for doing
your event. People throw events for different reasons; I'm clear on my
reasons,” says Vicki. My events
are a platform for me to offer people my very high level coaching programs
and to work with me throughout the year.
Everything I do at my events is structured to make sure that happens. I
encourage people who do events to look at it from a business point of
view; it's not all fun and games. The reality is that most people that
give events are losing money. They don't
know how to make it profitable and only see other people doing it. Everything I teach women entrepreneurs is
based on not letting their ego get the best of them. Don’t do it so that you
can show people pictures on Facebook. Make sure your event is structured so it
can be successful.
You
may look at Vicki and feel like she's
exactly like any other business or life coach out there. However she has
been
in the 9-5 world with the mindset to get that weekly paycheck. She knows
what
it feels like to be afraid to step out on faith to start a business.
Running a business is not for everyone. She had a light-bulb moment and
shows women
how they can also have a light-bulb superwoman lifestyle. "My
program is based on the mastermind principles.
My top level programs offer bringing women together who are smart
entrepreneurs. We work together for an entire year. You not only get my
feedback, but the
feedback of others.”
Vicki
has spent years attending mastermind
workshops and invested a lot of money learning client attractions,
various
systems, marketing, what makes a person say, ‘Yes’ and actually want to
buy
from you versus somebody else. There is
power in numbers and through her yearly workshop women learn from others
based
on what they know for sure works. She
has a lot of success stories and testimonies from her clients. “You can
brag about yourself all day long,
but what's important is what others say about you”, says Vicki. How
many people have you helped? When you help people make money that's
what
sets you apart from the other business coaches. Vicki teaches the real
hard-core marketing skills that you need to succeed and not the mindset
of ‘You
go girl; you can do it.’ You can go to a motivational seminar every day
of the
week, but you need hard- core skills in order to make money. There are
real skill sets that must be
learned and that's what you can expect by attending her workshops and
seminars.
On October 25 in Bowie, MD Vicki’s next
event along with partners Chereace Richards and Erana Tyler is The 100 Women
Entrepreneurs Run. This is something that they will be doing annually in
support of women entrepreneurs. “We are just keeping on the path of healthy
living by organizing a 5K”, says Vicki. “We
will be donating the proceeds to the Women Veterans Interactive, a nonprofit
that supports women in the military.” You can get more information by going to http:// www.100womenrun.com You can also keep up with Vicki and sign up
for her free 30-day online course at http://www.vickiirvin.com
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