The THINK Yourself® ACADEMY was a proud sponsor of the fifth Edition of WOMEN WHO INFLUENCE last week in Toronto where over 320 women attended. Kicking off World Fitness Expo with an inspiring event such as Women Who Influence is the best way to ignite our desire to open ourselves to learning, feeling, networking, exchanging, engaging, crying, laughing and being our best.

Maureen (Mo) Hagan has once again succeeded in putting together a list of brilliant and inspiring women who have already touched our souls and are about to change our life.

« We all have influence. Sometimes we don’t realize. We must be seeking and appreciating our influence. »

Here are my notes from the event.

EMMA BARRY

You have some gifts inside, make sure you find them. A wonderful time to be a woman, the ceiling has been broken, momentum is on and the future is going to be incredible. If you are not feeling the clarity, find your why. Lived her life thinking that fitness was not a real job. Loved to travel,

FIND YOUR VALUES

Check your credit card and check your calendar. What are you spending your money on and what are you spending your time on? What is the most important to you will use most of your time and money.

Here are her 4 Learnings:

Embrace being a woman

Spent the first half of my life trying to be a man. Be as strong, lift as much weight, swear and learned that my most powerful moments were when I was embracing being a woman.

Embrace your creativity. We are all here to create.

Everybody is creative. It’s the quiet ones you should be worried about

Find your why: Look back through your life and notice what tells you who you are. Look over your shoulder and find the path that led you where you are now and why you are here.

GERRY VISCA

11,000 women inspired in the last years,

Visualizer, connecter, leader, simplifier, get real with your why.

I am a visualizer

I am a leader

I am simplifying my why

I am getting real with my why.

GILLIAN MANDICH

PhD in health and rehabilitation science. Happiness Doctor!

It’s not until you look back that all the dots connect.– Steve Job

Google, how to be… happy autofill, before rich, real estate agent.

Her mom taught her that anything is possible, and she showed her that it is, doing a PhD with 7 children under the age of 9. Her mom is extraordinary.

Love learning and asking questions.  She pitched medias and created a job for herself, teaching happiness on National platforms. I thought I was happy in my marriage and I was not fully happy. Alignment needs to happen. When you are in alignment, everything else starts to happen.

No.1 predictor of health and happiness is Social Connection. Put an effort in surrounding yourself with friends and people that support you. Invest time in your relationships. Collectively, we are more powerful. Let’s elevate together.

ALEXIA HENRIQUES

20 years old. She represented Canada at the 2017 G(irls) 20 Summit in Munich and is an advocate for physical and mental health and improving girl’s education worldwide.

Her grandmother built a strong foundation in her and her mom. Her mother inspired her to explore many different sports (rugby) and hobbies and experiences. We are sometimes afraid of asking what we are worth. She always knew she was ambitious and wanted to reach high standards.

Importance of starting physical activity at a young age. It promotes mental physical intellectual and social skills to be the best we can be. We want to be interested and motivated. At a young age, we need to be inspired. The school physical education program needs to be improved and add physical activity to improve mental illness going up. Strive to a day where no child will suffer in silence due to a mental illness.

Girls need strong female role model, whomever they are, women need to be influencers to inspire girls looking up to them. Focus on positive traits, not just on their clothes, hair. Compliment positive traits. What do you like about them? When someone compliments your intellect, it leaves you with a lifetime of positive confidence. Then you can, in turn, compliment other and believe and influence other.

Focus on what you do, focus on your growth and your improvement, self-improvement.

We need and deserve to have confidence in our abilities. Focus on one thing you want to achieve and write about it. What are you proud of and what are you grateful for. Her goal is for women to incorporate a moment into their day to carve time for yourself and for your goal and improvement.

TOSCA RENO

Influence is the power to touch the life of another and make it better.

Knowledge goes forward. When we fill our souls with knowledge, it magnifies and goes on.

Becoming a storyteller. Tosca has always been able to eloquently tell the stories of others. Sharing stages with Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz and many more, she has learned many life lessons:

5 life lessons:

1. Be your Authentic Self. You do You. Authenticity. I wanted everyone to like me – anyone has made this mistake before? She shared a lessons from challenging moment when she received a nasty email from a fan. They are now best friends. Celebrate people for being their authentic self and open your eyes to look for that challenge, that experience or that person that will take you to where you are going to be next.

2. Possess the ability to course correct – say NO! You can always change the course and say no when you need.

3. Have a point of view and don’t be afraid to pursue it. Challenge the status quo and follow through at all costs. Advocate to fight Sugar.

4. Speaking skills – be careful what you think because your thoughts become actions, your actions become words, your words become your reality. “whatever” is not a word. Use your words to be deliberate. Be impeccable with your words. We can always pursue to perfect our game.

5. Keep an open mind – after life events, we are not the same, we are different. I thought I could have it all. When her life came to a crash, son passed, husband passed, bankruptcy, she had to learn how to re-engage with her emotional self, feel safe to break, feel safe to cry.“Weaknesses are your strengths, go forward in truth honesty and love.”

DIONE MASON

Becoming the Mountain. Dione is a Fitness & Lifestyle Coach and the 2017 canfitpro Fitness Instructor of the Year.

There are Influencers and instrumentors. “Some people are there to influence you or to make things happen for you.” Dione’s grandmother was a ‘rude and angry woman’, from Jamaica. She was warned at 5 years old by her grandma that the world would F with her because she was a female and she was black. She wanted her to have ambition and be seen for who she was. Her grandmother knew that as she stepped into a room, she would be judged. She would have a difficult road. As harsh as her lessons were, her grandmother was right. She also taught her not to stop at all the dogs that will bark at her, otherwise, you will never get anywhere in life. Keep moving! She did not understand that lesson until later in her life. She made a career change, graduating with honour after a degree in Marketing and switched over to fitness, bringing her knowledge from the school of hard knocks, bringing hustle into her life. She had her first ‘dog’ barking at her as she received a nasty letter from a keyboard gangster. She began to promote herself and differentiate herself and used these letters to help transform herself, she decided to not allow this to hurt her.

If you can’t go through, around or over a mountain… become it.

“I will become a mountain so that you bow to me.”

I don’t want a seat at the table, I’m gonna be my own table. She started her own program, festival, foundation, charity and keeps working ten times harder as she always first needs to prove that she is worthy, then she can start proving her skills. When she got fitness instructor of the year last year, she was becoming the first black woman in the canfitpro history to accept this honour.

Her message: If I can do it, you can do it! When God Gives you a Gift, the Universe will conspire for your Success.

KELLY THORNE

Your Life Lessons are Your Guide. Kelly is a developer who builds Fitness Infrastructure, branding and leadership strategies. She’s always been committed to fitness, nutrition and a healthy lifestyle.

Lesson number 1: Check Yourself Out. Yes, you are still Fabulous!

We are here to teach the very things that we are here to learn.

Lesson number 2:Your Power is in Your Wound.

Think of your obstacles and look back, you have figured it out. Kelly was a shy kid. But she did believe that a woman could do the same thing that a man could do. She was shy to speak in public but if she believed in the message so much, she was going to do it. She realized that no-one had taught her to figure out her values.

Men will apply for the job if they have 60% of the qualifications, women will wait until they have 100%.

Women believe that self-advocacy is bragging.

Lesson no.3:Redefining Having it all.

The life you have chosen is amazing, that is exactly the life, you were meant to live. Scrap the idea of having it all and let every woman define exactly what the best version of themselves look like.

Make your partner a real partner. Have meeting with your significant other to make sure you are a team. Success doesn’t come without compromise or sacrifices. Stop putting pressure on yourself.

PAIGE RIFFLE

Entrepreneur within the Direct Sales Industry for 25 years. Woman Entrepreneur of the Year in 2005 and created a business empire that spans 33 countries.

I will never look in my children’s eyes and say: “Honey, pick a less expensive dream.” She wanted to be a jockey and a prima ballerina. Ideally, dancing ballet on the back of a pony, in a circus. Many years later, she had the blessing to be introduced to a company where she could be surrounded with others and build an empire.

She has lost her dad to what she calls Lifestyle mismanagement. She believes in health and is passionate with Female Empowerment. Sometimes, women are so busy handling everything in life that they believe they are not worthy of being the bread-maker. We were not put on this earth to play mediocre, we are here to play magnificent.

JULLY BLACK

International Recording artist, songwriter and performer. She has collaborated with industry heavyweights such as Destiny’s Child and Sean Paul. She has shared the stage with superstars such as Celine Dion, Elton John and Etta James to name a few. Co-Founder and keynote speaker for the renowned “Empowered In My Skin” women’s empowerment summits

“What controls your mind, controls your life.”

We are women who influence. We have the power to influence any way we want. Who are you when you wake up in the morning. Who are you when you entered that door and who are you now? Who are you when you are with your family, at work, with friends?

If your emotions were digitized on your shirt, some of you would be fired from work.

I am ready to be radical and be an agent of change. As a rule of many Canadians, we are way too conservative, way too full of ourselves, let’s get a detox, a colonic of ourselves, it’s time to be responsible and accountable for ourselves. Jully is a survivor of child abuse. She conquered it because it did not happen to her. It happened for her to conquer. There were amazing speakers today, and we need to now do something with the information we got today. Do the Work. Women Who Influence.

I’m starting with the woman in the mirror, I’m asking her to change her way, and no message could have been any clearer, if you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make a change.– Adaptation from Michael Jackson’s Man in the Mirror.

Always be where your feet are. – Jully Black.

We need to be consistent, because who we are will be revealed when we get squeezed. You know you are born different. You know you are special. Who are you? Who are you influencing? How are you influencing them?

Vulnerability is the best measure of Courage. – Brene Brown.