Power doesn’t come from outside of ourselves, as we often thought it would. Rather, it comes from the inside, our uniqueness, our soul, and our passion to become better. In this world full of negativity, what we need is a ray of light. For us to move forward in the right direction, all of us should feel empowered. No matter where we are in our journey, it is our job to break down barriers that can hinder us from becoming stronger and more confident. Today's guest is here to help us with this subject. Jewel Ray Chaudhuri is an executive leadership and women's empowerment coach. She's on the show to give us some insights into what it takes to be empowered.

 
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Listen to the podcast here:

The Power of Empowerment With Jewel Ray Chaudhuri
Welcome to Action's Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. We talk about empowerment quite a bit on this podcast, because empowerment is part of the core reason for this podcast edition. It's part of the core motivation for this show. In order to do what we really want to do, we need to be empowered. Lack of empowerment is something that prevents a lot of people from achieving your best life, from going after what it is you really want. 

Our world is full of disempowering scenarios, disempowering talk, and disempowering messages, whether it'd be from a really old school, traditional, hierarchical work environment, whether it'd be from the media, the news, or whether it'd be from some of your well-meaning friends that have adopted a victimhood- or doomsday-disempowered mentality. We actually need to, no matter where you are on your journey, be consistently looking into what we can do to counteract a lot of those messages that we're going to find in that ambient world. 

My guest today is here to help talk about some of these subjects, Jewel Ray Chaudhuri, who is an executive leadership and women's empowerment coach.
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Jewel, welcome to the program.

 

Thank you, Stephen. It's great to be here. Really enjoying this.

 

Thank you. The first thing I want to ask you is about what I was mentioning in the introduction, which is what disempowering messages are in the ambient environment where most people are going. I don't think that many people are not subjected regularly to messages of disempowerment. I identified a few sources, but I'm just curious, from your perspective, what I may have missed, are there other places where people are hearing a lot of things that are disempowering to them? 

 

First of all, a lot of it is what we're telling ourselves. We have these – I'm going to call them – little parrots, most Laras, who sit on our shoulder. They're our inner critic, our judge, and they come up with all these messages. A lot of the message, especially for women, is around, "I'm not enough. I'm not good enough. I'm not pretty enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not competent enough." You fill in the blank, and that's what it is. Those judges help us to tell those disempowering stories. 

 

You mentioned being in victim mode. A lot of times, we don't even start because we're hearing the message, "No. You can't go after that job. You have no experience there", or, "Wait till you get this degree or that degree, and then you can have whatever you want."

 

Would you say that, as far as anyone who needs more empowerment, which I would say is almost everybody -- but you can correct me on that -- the number one thing is the messages we tell ourselves every single day?

 

Yes, because we're told those messages. When I was about 16 years old in high school, and I can remember what somebody said to me, I've carried that message for a very long time.

 

Sometimes, you don't even realize that the message is there. It comes from your past, but now, there are things that bring it forward.

My message was about speaking and talking. I carried that into college where my throat would tighten if I raised my hand and things...