222: Power, Grace & the Rebuild: Leading Yourself Through Rupture

Speaker A: You.

Speaker B: There's m a moment in every leader's journey when everything they've built gets tested. The company, the confidence, the self. Some break under that weight, others rebuild. Wiser, stronger, and more intentional. Today's guest has done exactly that. Welcome to the Events Demystified podcast, the CEO Edition. Welcome back to Events Demystified podcast. The podcast where we strip away the highlights reels and talk about what leadership really looks like. Messy, brave, and deeply human. This season, the CEO Edition explores what it takes to lead not just companies, but yourself through change. My guest today, Stacy Karen Idama, is the founder and CEO of Equity. Stacy's work is about helping others rise, but her story, it's about learning how to rise herself. She's here to share what happens when life and leadership collide and how power and grace can coexist in the rebuild. Let's welcome our guest in

Speaker C: this episode is brought to you by True Fan Events Productions. Learn more@TrueFan Events.com.

Speaker B: Stacy, welcome to the show. I'm so happy to have you here with me today.

Speaker A: It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you. I have goosebumps already.

Speaker B: I love it. I just gave our listeners a quick glimpse into who you are, but I would love to hear from you and for their benefit, what your journey has been. In your own words, tell us about what inspire you to build a business and what was the journey that got you where you are today.

Speaker A: They always say it is a journey, right? And sometimes it's even where to begin. So for me, I think context from the beginning will be really helpful. I was born into a generational family business, third generation. So I grew up small town, lake farm, home in Midwest Minnesota. And so anything and everything that I knew was really wrapped around business. That was life for us. And, uh, in the midst of that, I couldn't have wanted to be further from it. So I exited, ran to Corporate, spent 27 years all in technology in various different industries, but had this deeper passion to do business differently. I thought running from the emotional elements of family business would land me somewhere else. And it just reinforced the same narratives that I grew up with seeing, really the discrepancy of people between what was their public face and what was their private face and having this deep knowing even as a little girl that something wasn't right. Like I would see these odd, um, behaviors and didn't know how to articulate it, didn't have the language for it. Just knew that they behaved one way in one setting and they behaved another way in another setting. And when you're a little kid, the things that come through you are so truth focused and almost naive, but yet it's calling people on things that they may not want to be called on. So I was quieted a lot. The things that I were right that I would speak about it didn't resonate well with others. So I thought I was going to escape that. And I found it very true in corporate settings. So that's part of that story is foundational to how and where equity came. But that's just the beginning.

Speaker B: I love that and I love the fact that you basically sounds like you've turned this personal evolution into a professional mission. And I'm sure we're going to get more into the strategy side of things. I want to ask you something that I have been asking every guest season and it goes to the very foundation of starting your company. What does being a CEO? What does being a founder mean to you? But the role, the responsibility, the lived experiences, and it might be something that means something now that's completely different than what they used to maybe mean in the beginning. So feel free to share both sides if there somewhat different from where you started and where you are.

Speaker A: So where I started in leadership or the thought around it was that, uh, I just had to go do all the things. I had to make sure that everything was running and intact, that I had to make sure that everyone had the right resources. I was solely responsible for pulling together everything and pushing it forward. Now, while that some of that can be true, I look at leadership now as how in integrity am I of myself, how am I leading myself so that I emulate not necessarily what I expect of them, but how I want to be seen and witnessed because they in essence become a mirror of me. Those with whom you spend your time with are those with whom you mirror. And so leadership now for me is how do I lead myself and how do I lead myself in the integrity? How am I emotionally aware and what am I doing with those emotions? Because we will never be emotion free, but what we do with what we're feeling at that given time, it may not necessarily even be our emotion that we're feeling. And I know for me personally, I feel everything. And so I used to internalize it and make myself wrong and then project that onto somebody else. Now I just consider myself a vessel. And sometimes I just happen to be the vessel that's taking in somebody else's emotions and feelings and situation. But it's not for me to attach anything to now from that. What do I Do with it? How do I lead myself? How do I remove the residual energy of it, let it go, and then move forward?

Speaker B: Yeah. So curious as you start talking about this, it sounds like to me that there was an early experience that taught you, that formed you, and it has taught you quite a bit about what strength looks like, what leadership looks like, even if you maybe didn't realize it at a time. Can you speak to that a bit more?

Speaker A: Yeah. There's always been something in me that I didn't see in myself that very specific people did. And so my perception was flipped on its head a few times. I don't have one very specific through line. It's like I've had all these ruptures, but one of the big pivot points for me was learning about emotional intelligence and then became certified in it. And that flipped a huge narrative for me, not only on myself and whatever stories and narratives I was telling myself, but how I finally started to see myself and understand what others saw in me that I didn't yet see. And then my perception of leadership really started to change. At that time, it helped me understand, understand the mindset of victimhood and really placing empathy in a different lens, because I used to say I was empathetic and that it was that drove my decisions and how I was doing for others. And what I was doing is I was placing conditions on how I interacted with others. And so with this thought that, uh, if I did something nice and kind for somebody, they would do something in return. So that learning and understanding that deeply helped me, uh, really change a lot about how I saw myself and how was I moving in that direction. And then that correlation to how leadership came to be and the leaders that, uh, I liked that many others didn't. And why is I started to be able to articulate and understand that. Why was I so different than the mainstream, if you will, what was it about them that I was seeing that other people weren't? It's like finally a vocabulary around that that I could start to really articulate in a different way.

Speaker B: So when you're thinking about the rebuild, because every CEO, uh, and founder faces that moment of reckoning, the breaking point where some of the old way stop working and you have to either reinvent yourself or find another way. Right. What was that moment for you, and how did it change the way you lead today?

Speaker A: That moment for me was five years ago when I asked for a second divorce. And so I became the common denominator. And so it was that moment that asked me to look at how I was living, how I was interacting, how I wasn't being truthful with myself, which meant if I was lying to myself, I was lying to others. The acknowledgment that if I was lying to myself and I was lying to others, I was hurting them regardless. And so after being and spending time with somebody for nearly 15 years, to say, oh, you're a good human, and also, we don't belong together. And then what does that mean for me as somebody who's done it twice now, to say, this is nothing like how I imagined married life to be or my life in general. General. Or how I would lead myself. So what do I get to change? And that broke everything open. That has been by far the biggest rupture. And then the buildup for the last five years, the breakdown, truly.

Speaker B: How are you able to come back from that? It sounds like it was the bottom. Most of the bottom, yeah.

Speaker A: So after asking for that divorce, there was one thing that was really clear. My two boys are a little older. They're grown men. They're in their late 20s now, mid late 20s. And so I looked at that moment and said, o, okay. I've never done anything just for me. I grew up in family business. Everything was wrapped around family business. I really didn't get to be a kid. I went straight to corporate. I had a corporate job at 20. What do I get to do? For me, I didn't want the responsibilities of a home, a dog, kids, nothing. And so, uh, I booked a flight to London and thought, oh, I'm just gonna go explore for a little bit. I'm gonna go spend three months in London. And I, uh, loved it so much, I stayed six and in that process thought, oh, I wanna stay here longer. So the process of securing an innovator visa, and during that time, I had to return to the U.S. submit all my paperwork. The process couldn't have gone any smoother. And I thought, oh, this is going to be my reckoning. This is easy. I've been through so much. I've been to hell and back already. Finally, it's coming to life. And I returned to London in January of 2022. And it was like, then that the bottom dropped out. It was the most chronically isolating. It was like I entered a war zone. I had difficulty as much as I loved London, and I have some lifelong friends that I will have. I struggle to find community. I struggle to feel like I fit in. And what I have realized now, especially coming back to the US Is that, uh, it was never designed for me to fit in. It was meant to be that war zone. It was meant to be that rupture. It was meant for everything to fall out so that I could rebuild. So back to your question about coming back from it. It's been really back to the integrity. Uh, what does integration look like for me? What does not making myself wrong look like? What does still being an integrity? Uh, what does it look like to say my first business there failed and it was the cornerstone to everything that I'm doing now. So it's taking all those other micro moments and flipping everything on its head. My way of thinking, my way of being, how I receive, how I give. What does unconditionality look like in everything I do? And then what part is fear? And fear as in, oh, this is a big leap over my body's resistance in this is. It's no longer meant for you to go do that because you don't have to push a boulder through a brick wall every single time you get to ask for help. Sometimes things just aren't meant for you. You're not surviving anymore. You' a single mom who raised two kids for 10 years with virtually nothing.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: You're smarter than that. How does this look different? So it stripped away everything, including friendships. It became very small, very fast. And so the climbing out of it has been trust, self trust and presence. And not just, I'm gonna go be by myself. I'm actually going to hear what's being said when everything else is quiet.

Speaker B: So was Equity then built during that time? Is this the moment of birth, rebirth of equity? Or was it a different time on this timeline that you founded Equity and what was it supposed to do? What is it meant to do? What's the story behind it?

Speaker A: Yeah, so equities originally started as a different company focused on bridging the gender, uh, gap in investment for women. So taking the strengths of men and taking the strengths of women and creating an ecosystem around that, that, that help more m. Female led founders get funded. And through that experience, through that research, taking not only my love for data, my love for tech and my love for women, the feminine really, when I started to do the deeper research, the things that I was flipping around in my own narrative started to come to light. The narratives that we as women reinforce about what's not happening, the narratives that we pit each other against, the storyline that we make men wrong. And I had to look at myself as a mother who has two adult sons and say, I don't support that narrative anymore. Because it's not only have I dismissed them, but the narratives that I've supported have dismissed, um, them. And that's counterintuitive to everything I believe in. So it was like again, pushing a boulder into a brick wall. I worked with a business designer and scrapped everything. But what started to come out were the good pieces of that first business and then also from that framework of how do we shape the ecosystem differently, the investment ecosystem differently. What came through time and time again was family offices. Because so many of them are legacy focused. Most of them are legacy focused. It's the exited founder who now has an enormous amount of wealth, who wants to do something different, or it's the uh, family business that started from nothing and built something. And so taking my then, um, lived family business experience mixed with my love for technology, love for data, corporate infrastructure is what birthed equity. And it became more about a generational narrative. With the speed of innovation, with AI, with the data that we have access to, and with the behavioral sciences that I deeply love, how do we look at what has happened and take the wisdom from that and how do we look at what's happening at such a rapid pace and find a way to build and create trust between the generations so that we get to modernize the language, we get to carry on a legacy that may not look exactly how it looked like or how the current gen believes it should, but it models the way that it needs to model to move to the next generation. So from that I built a technology platform that's designed not only to really leverage AI, but to bring in emotional intelligence into the due diligence and decision making process. Us to start building more relational clarity. Events demystified the podcast for event professionals.

Speaker B: And it sounds like to also give opportunities to women in this space because like you mentioned earlier, getting founded or finding the type of financial investment as a woman owned business in certain circles, and especially technology circles which tend to be very much male dominated, it's not an easy task. So I want to go back a little bit to a little bit of your bio based on a little bit of the things that you shared with me prior to us getting on air. I wanted to name it Leadership, Power, Grace and the rebuild, which I felt like really captures your story. So the question back to you is then how do you balance the power and the uh, Grace as a leader, especially as a woman leader in many times a very male dominated world, what have you learned about strength? It doesn't necessarily have to roar because you know how you have a man leader, and he's very assertive and comes across as very strong, and he's perceived as a strong leader. A woman in the same position does the same thing, but she's perceived as a bitch. So a completely separate leveling that has to happen. And I think it does go back to our understanding of roles. And there's so much biases that plays into that as well.

Speaker A: For me, uh, there's a couple of things. One, it's getting really comfortable with my own discomfort. Because if I walk into a room full of men, I am the luckiest person in that room, hands down. M. The fact that I have their undivided attention. I couldn't be more lucky. And that trips women up when I speak that way. Because what they do is they find the wrong in it, and it couldn't be more right. And here's the thing. We as women intimidate men, especially strong, strong women. They're smart, and how are they responding to that presence and that essence of a strong woman? And there are going to be men that handle it well, and they're going to be men that don't handle it well. So my responsibility when I walk into the room is to be really comfortable with my discomfort, because I will get their attention if I just stay honest and I just stay true to myself and how I'm feeling. Because there will be somebody that will break the ice, and it might be me. It might be me to say, are you really sure? Tell me more. But it comes from a curiosity lens, not from a, um, oh, I know better now. I may feel it. But I'm not going to make them wrong in that I'm going to help get them to that place because they've been some of my biggest allies and advocates. And so if I'm going to make them wrong, I'm stirring a pot that I don't want to stir. I don't want to leave that room and be the one that is the, uh. She was a bitch. We're never inviting her again because I've been there. I used to be the one that would sit in a room like this all the time. And then I was told I was unapproachable and that nobody could talk to me and that they couldn't get through to me. I want to have at least one ally to take away from that because that then, um, exponentially expands. So I don't become the rocket ship. I become the olive tree.

Speaker B: I think it's such a fine line to walk. Right? It's the balance that I Guess you learn as you mature, as you grow in your approach. Because for want, if integrity and authenticity are values that are very strong and true to your heart, and then you walk into a room, and that room might be a room where you know you're the smartest person in the room, and then you still have to play like you are, not just to make them feel comfortable. You kind of go against your own values. Right. So how do you balance that?

Speaker A: I find other rooms to be in, and it's been difficult. And you probably know this too. It's like an intellectual intelligence. And so it can get really lonely. If I'm in the wrong room, I'm in the wrong room. There's nothing I can do about it. Now. If it's inherently wrong, sure, I will speak up. But I think the good news is I've found a better way to discern and to find rooms that are more aligned. But if inherently the values aren't aligned, then I can simply get up and say, our values aren't aligned, and it's time for me to dismiss myself. Because even that in and of itself will resonate with people far more than she left. And she was a bitch, by the way, because you never know who is going to change their mind at any given time. And so while I don't get to be perfect, because I've long surpassed that, uh, attempt to be perfect, my resonance and my presence when I enter a room and when I leave a room have far more impact than what I've realized. And, um, that was a big hurdle that I had to get over, was recognizing how people felt me and how I was making myself wrong. When they were feeling me exactly the way that I wanted them to feel me, they could feel my energy. There was something very calming and present that attracted and magnetized a lot of people that way. So for me, I have no problem leaving a room with grace and just saying, this isn't for me.

Speaker B: I think that kind of empowerment doesn't come from perfection. I think it's forged in the tough seasons. And as you mentioned, you've had quite a few of your own. But we also love to talk about resilience once we've made it through. But I think the hardest part is to talk about, about it while we're still in it. And when you're in the middle of, uh, your hardest chapter, the question begs, what keeps you grounded? Is there a mindset? Is there a practice or maybe a mantra that, uh, helped you to hold on? Do you still have the same practice or do you feel like it has evolved over time?

Speaker A: What changed exponentially for me, uh, in the last three years is I started to really focus on feminine embodiment work. And some may see it as a glorified. I'm gonna go scream and be angry and blame it on everybody else and sit in that anger. What I used from that experience is how do I transmute the feelings and the emotions that are coming through me? And so there's a whole host of rituals that I've done and that I have and that I use and I've even created from what I've learned. I've created new ones, new rituals, and right now, some of the biggest ones are just speaking out loud to myself and making myself right in a moment of, like, sludge in a moment that's super, super crappy. How do I flip it on its narrative? I make myself right for feeling this way. I make myself right for knowing that there's a discrepancy between my soul experience and my human experience. And so breaking things down into small pieces over saying, okay, right now, everything's awful for me right now. Now I'm safe in a home. I'm back at my parents in a place I never thought I would be. I wouldn't trade it for the world because I reinvested everything in my business. And so it's given me an opportunity to really regroup with my parents and create a different narrative. So I make myself right for that. I find ways to make myself right in that moment, not to make anyone else wrong, but to look at the bigger picture. And then that itself helps, helps reground me. I have a couple of really good friends that I can call and will leave a 20 minute WhatsApp message sobbing about all the things that are not going well. And then at the end, I also get to leave a gratitude. What am I grateful for? What do I desire right in this moment? What do I brag about that might not feel like a good brag? So I make it a really small process, if you will, so that I don't go from being in this, this horrific state, even if it's really crappy right now, the experience is really crappy for an extended period of time. These moments that hit me, they're short. I can clear it in 20 minutes. And then it becomes, what's my next focus? What's that next one thing that I need to get done? Because if I sit in it for days, it reinforces my anxiety and I've spent far too long, but I've Paid too many therapists and I've gone through so many coaches that there's no desire to go back to that place of, um, victimhood and reinforcing that anxiety narrative. So the commitment for me to move through that without pushing myself through it, but to trust that I will move through it and I'll be able to go to focus on that next thing in 30 minutes time is a game changer for me.

Speaker B: I love it. So equity sounds like it's built around a purpose and alignment and helping people lead with intention. But leading people while navigating your own growth takes so much energy and empathy and sacrifice. How do you protect your energy while leading others to change?

Speaker A: Yeah, I focus on myself first. That means I get up in the morning and I take care of myself. Whether it's exercise, meditation. If I'm not feeling meditation, it's just sitting with myself and then finding moments in the day. Especially when I start to feel like, not that I'm moving myself through to do something hard, but suddenly I feel this huge resistance. It's okay. There's something that's speaking to me that says this is not right right at this moment. So I'll go take a walk, I'll call somebody, I'll interrupt whatever's happening so that I can go back to doing that thing. And sometimes that also means clearing my schedule of everybody and everything and just saying what does my heart desire right now. Lately, mine has been working on my book. So I've carved out one day a week that I do that, which would normally be my business development day, but I've streamlined how I do my business development. And so allowing myself those little things has been really the key to allowing myself to then go serve others.

Speaker B: What kind of, uh, ripple effect do you hope that your work will create? Not just in business, but in the way people live and lead? And I'm assuming the book is a big part of that.

Speaker A: We are in such an age of technology and being a technology lover myself, for me it's about returning to the human at ah, the root of almost everything is human based. And even when I look at the generational bridge and what equity does, there's such humanism in this. The great wealth transfer. And the transfer of this wealth isn't really money, it's identity, it's fear of irrelevance, fear of not doing all the things that you said that you would do. It's suddenly being faced with that you've built or amassed an enormous amount of wealth and now you have to get real with yourself. And so for me, it's about having these really deep human conversations with people that have not had that opportunity to have these deep human conversations, because that's then how they will be remembered. That's what changes how we really create interaction and keep that human interaction between us. People, whether they say it or not, want to know about the deeply vulnerable moments. It makes them feel more justified in not only their experience, but that they're human as well. And so for me, it's all about the human piece.

Speaker B: Do you feel like this advancement in technology, and especially AI as we're navigating at what it feels like neck breaking speed, is robbing us of that humanity or it has the potential to rob us of that humanity? That is what really, truly connects us.

Speaker A: It could if we allow it. But in essence, we are the ones responsible for creating it. And so therefore we're the ones responsible for deciding whether it's going to rob us of the humanity or not. Yes. While the technology can get smarter and there's things with AI that it can over time have its own intelligence, we are still the ones that decide whether or not it wants to move forward. And so I would say we have more responsibility to it than probably what many of us would say that we do.

Speaker B: Because many times people want to blame outside circumstance for the things that they're not necessarily willing to change in themselves. And in this case it's AI. AI is stealing my job. AI is doing this to me. AI is doing that. But don't you also have a silver of responsibility in that? Maybe it's time to upskill. Maybe it's time to learn a few things new. Maybe it's time to look at things differently than what you always have. Right. So I think there's also a call for embracing not just the change, but also the responsibility that comes with that.

Speaker A: Yeah. And so back to that human element, and that's where the fear comes in, is suddenly they're faced with, it's a different responsibility and what does it look like and how do you get there? So even the start, they don't even necessarily know how to start because it might require them to think and act and be different and uncover the things that they have yet to wanted to admit or uncover.

Speaker B: Absolutely. If you could go back to the version of yourself who was in the middle of your hardest seasons, the one still finding her footing, why would you tell her now?

Speaker A: I would tell her that voice that said, uh, be bea listen to it. I would go into meditation. It was for months and I would ask for, what's that one thing? And it was so visceral that my mouth would just open and it would shout be. But I'm like, nah, that can't be it. I would go back to her and say, okay, it's time to just be. Uh, yeah, quit fighting it. Just be.

Speaker B: Just be in this moment.

Speaker A: Just be in this moment.

Speaker C: This episode is brought to you by Trufan Events Production. We don't just produce events, we power them with a av, AI and a strategy. From bespoke AV production planning and management to AI workshops, courses and keynotes, we help teams build smarter events and stronger businesses. Learn more at Truth and events dot com.

Speaker B: Did you feel like you were leaving the moment in the future or in

Speaker A: the past when you ask that question? Are you talking the be?

Speaker B: Yeah. As you were fighting this. Just be right now, in this moment. I remember and recall seasons of my life where when I was younger, I would live in the future. I would struggle with living in the present because the present was either too hard or the present the ideal setup that I imagined for myself. So then I would always make up those scenarios into the future. What I wanted to see myself, project myself into this reality that didn't yet exist. I never lived in the past. There's a lot of people that say, back in the days, used to be I always imagine something else, but it was always in the future. But that also robbed me of just being in the present. Right. There is moments where I very vividly recall that I missed because I was too much thinking of where I wanted to be, uh, years ahead of just this moment.

Speaker A: Yeah, I hear you there. So back to your question. I believe for me, being meant that I was giving up. I had spent so much of my life trying to survive that it felt like a cop out. It felt like I was failing if I was just present in that moment. So I think. Good point. Less about the past. I had moved beyond that. Not so much in the future, but I wanted to move. I wanted to get there. Right. I had these big desires. What I didn't realize is that I was reinforcing that desire and also not understanding that the desire that I was feeling was actually ready to come out, but I was holding it hostage by not being in that moment.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a really good perspective on that. Now, around here, we also talk a lot about being fit for events, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. What does that look like for you right now? You mentioned a few practices, but as a leader, as a woman, as a human Anything that you want to add

Speaker A: to that that I would say for me it's remaining emotionally clear and that doesn't mean not without emotion but just being and honoring what's happening right now in the moment spiritually, it's a no brainer. I have witnessed so many and have lived in so many experience of different spiritual awakenings and then the physical piece. I think for me, uh, what I've realized in the last couple of years is being alone is different than being present. And so the more that I get to be present with myself as a daily practice, even if I don't get these other pieces because I've adjusted my schedule to accommodate others, uh, just regrounding myself and that presence piece, it's become natural for me now that it makes everything a lot easier. It makes the spiritual piece, the emotional piece and then going out to give to others.

Speaker B: If you were to mentor someone that is walking through their own journey and might have a similar experience, similar path, path of hard sheep and having to learn through hard lessons and resilience. Is there something else that you might want to add? I might want to tell them I

Speaker A: think if anything I probably would right away. I would go to finding all the places that they were right. Because what I find in having coached and mentored others, when they enter that type of call it container, they're always keen to fix what's not working. So how do you acknowledge what has worked even in the ways that you may not have thought that it worked. And I know that I did mention that this even my own practice of making myself right. It's very disarming to look at somebody and listen to them tell the story or what's happening in the moment and to tell them bragged and they're like I didn't brag there and there is something in that they did brag about and two, uh, to make them right in that experience. And when you do that what I notice is people feel seen and heard and that disarms their perception of themselves and their own humanism. So that's where I would start with that person would be in that experience.

Speaker B: I love that. Stacey, thank you so much for sharing such deeply vulnerable things with us. And for anyone that would like to connect with you, learn more about you, learn more about equity. Where would you like them to do that?

Speaker A: Yeah, you can find me a couple of ways. You can find me on uh, LinkedIn under Stacy Karen Itema. You can find me at uh, equity EQ a TI AI or email stacyquity uh.com or AI.

Speaker B: Fantastic. Thank you for showing us that real leadership isn't just about control or perfection. It's about power with grace and rebuilding with purpose. If this conversation resonated with you, share it with someone who's finding their way through a rebuild. Someone who needs to remember that leadership starts with how we rise after we fall. And with that. This is a wrap on this CEO Edition of, uh, Events Demystified. Until next time, stay grounded, stay real, and stay fit for events. Thank you. Thanks for tuning into the CEO Edition of the Events Demystify podcast.

Speaker C: This episode is brought to you by Trufan Events Production. We don't just produce events, we power them with av, AI and a strategy. From bespoke AV production planning and management to AI workshops, courses and keynotes, we help teams build smarter events and stronger businesses. Learn more@tranevents.com.