My Values +
Feminist Business
Practices
believe...
I believe that empowerment is a collective practice and a collective outcome; empowerment is not when one exceptional women gets financially successful but an oppressive system stays in place (that’s empowermyth!). Please note, however, that I’m 100% committed to building all of our livelihoods, because we deserve to thrive.
I am dreaming of a world where all bodies are cherished, so I enthusiastically support Black Lives Matter and the movement to dismantle white supremacy.
I know that gender is a social construct and I am in solidarity with my trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming siblings. That means I do not work with TERFs.
Fatphobia and Diet Culture are social justice issues, so I also do not work with people or companies promoting diet culture, weight loss and fat phobia.
I believe that we are all culture makers and that we can use our culture making power deliberately, to create new realities for ourselves and our world.
Here are a few of the ways I try to do that in my own LIFE AND BUSINESS
Hiring + Money
- I pay everyone — nanny, research assistant etc — a MINIMUM of a living wage or at least $30 an hour. (That’s the floor.)
- If people are collaborating with me on a full-time basis to launch a program, I revenue-share with them
- I believe in investing in our community which means I hire and contract from within our community, first, and prioritize the hiring of people with non-dominant identities
- When I look for guidance or coaching in my own life I look to my clients and community first; I often hire my own former clients
- I have a LOT of financial responsibilities — children, elders, extended family — so I need to earn a lot of money. I do this unapologetically
Accessibility
- There are many low-cost options for working with me or learning from me, including live monthly workshops that are $100 each (You might also get a lot out of my free weekly Love Letter)
- 20% of the spots in my programs are scholarship, trade or pay-what-you-can arrangements
- For every four full-price 1:1 coaching clients, I take on one coaching client for free
- When all of my needs are met, I coach for free. In January through April of 2019, for example, I had a organizational contract that met my financial needs, so I offered free mentoring sessions to anyone who wanted them
- I tithe or redistribute 20% of my income to charities, causes or individuals
- I sometimes run sales or special offers where I donate 50% or more of my gross revenue to an urgent cause
- I offer payment plans; I believe payment plans are a form of financial accessibility AND they’re good for my own personal income stability (h/t Bear Hebert, Toi Smith)
- Currently I don’t charge any extra fees or interest for accessing payment plans to work with me; before 2019 I charged between 8-10%, which was a number based on the actual costs for software, time and processing fees it took for me to administer payment plans
Solidarity, Self-Preservation,
and Culture-Making
- I have pledged not to speak at events or on podcasts where the speakers are or have been disproportionately white and encouraged other leaders to do the same
- I believe in signal-boosting and sharing the work of the people influencing me (Citation is a feminist practice; I’ve even footnoted a sales page!). There is so much brilliance in our community and it’s a joy to be part of it.
- I strive to use apps and software that are made by companies founded by feminists and women and BIPOC (and, and, and)
- I do not to use mental/social triggers in high-risk sales situations
- I do not engage in money-shaming as a marketing tactic (or any kind of tactic!)
- When I’m critiquing, I name patterns, not people, because
- This is about systemic change, not changing out individual "bad apples". I want to keep the focus on policies, practices, norms and institutions
- I’m not here to destroy anyone’s livelihood or build my brand by tearing other people down
- We are all in the water so we are all wet
- For the most part, I don't comment on online controversies nor do I participate in "public humiliation spectacles"*. (Again: I keep my focus on patterns, not people.) I especially do not enter a live fray when I don't possess a highly specific, detailed understanding of the events (I'm looking for timelines and facts, not editorializing or rhetoric). I'm also not convinced that online call-outs are an effective tool of justice. A lot of the time, they end up being bad-faith trashings or "media misinformation campaigns"* that are punitive and coercive rather than healing and transformative. Good-faith call-ins and call-outs, on the other hand, are processes that most appropriately take place in real relationship and IRL community -- not as flame wars or digital take-downs. In other words: I'm not going to be co-opted or weaponized.
- My thanks to Dr.Christine Marie for the language of "public humiliation spectacle" and "media misinformation/misrepresentation campaigns"
- Please never substitute my judgement for your own. We don't have to agree or even like each other to respect each other's work.
- I value critique and feedback and will take the time to process it, learn from it, and integrate it (thank you!!!)
- I won’t tolerate attempts to erase me or my work nor will I accept intellectually dishonest or personally malicious “arguments”. I believe in my body of work and I will protect it, and myself. That’s part of being a culture-maker.
Want to integrate more of your social justice principles into your business?
Check out
Flora
**Culture making = tiny acts of doing-it-differently**
Every day, whether we are conscious of it or not, we are making and remaking our culture.
Each of us makes a million tiny agreements at any given moment to go along with our culture and make things run smoothly.
A lot of the times, people disagree with the demands and dictates and practices of our culture, but swallow their voice and say nothing.
And even in that moment, in the internal dissonance and the absence of action, they are culture makers.
In that moment, they (we!) allow the over-culture to continue as it is, unimpeded.
We let the voice of culture speak through our mouths and use our bodies and lives in order to stabilize and regenerate itself.
And that reveals a huge opportunity: we can choose how to deliberately use our culture-making power.
Instead of letting an unjust culture flow through us, we can interrupt it — and we can make a new one.
And we do it with tiny, consistent, committed words + actions + experiments + contributions each day.
**Tiny acts of doing-it-differently are culture making.**
Tiny acts of doing-it-differently dislodge the web of cooperation that the unjust culture requires in order to continue functioning — and creates something new, instead.
For the future, and for right now.
Culture isn’t ‘out there’ or something that’s set in stone and unchanging.
Culture is living and organic; it’s in us; it acts on us; it moves through us…and we co-create it, every day.
And so we, the culture makers, have the power to disrupt it, reimagine it, and make a new one in which everyone flourishes.
Let's do that in a million tiny ways, every day.
Our tiny acts of doing-it-differently, every day, add up to a whole new world.
#WeAreTheCultureMakers
🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺
I'm Kelly Diels and I'm a #FeministBusiness coach and a culture maker. I help feminist entrepreneurs build the language & institutions of the future.
#changemaking #womensempowerment #empowerment #socialimpact #feministcoach #mindset #feministaf #feminism #socialjustice #feministfounders #entrepreneurialfeminist #bossbabe #buildingtheinstitutionsofthefuture #consciousbusiness #girlboss #goaldigger
Today I'm teaching my Money + Justice Workshop at 10 am - free!
It's for everyone who's playing what I call 'the double game' -- striving to create a flourishing livelihood in the existing paradigm while also creating a whole new paradigm.
***********
If you've got mixed feelings about money, you're not alone -- and this workshop is designed to help.
Former attendees often tell me this class dissolves unnecessary shame on contact :)
Because the truth is, we're not bad with money. Our culture has been deliberately bad at distributing money to us.
And...no more.
Let's interrupt that pattern and create a whole new reality for ourselves and our communities.
************
If you can't make it live, there WILL be a recording...but you have to be signed up to get it.
(There's an automation that helps me not have to send a gazillion things by hand.)
Link in bio @kelly.diels to sign up.
See you in a few hours!
love + justice (and money!)
Kelly
ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!New affinity group inside #wearetheculturemakers
Janine Bertolo is leading ‘The Caucus of Crones’ for our members ages 50+
******
Posted @withregram • @janine.bertolo
It felt uncomfortable to ask for support in the We Are the Culture Makers (WATCM) 2021 container, to speak my truth and feel held in the magical love light of Kelly Diels’ cultivated community.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I discovered that I am not alone, that there are others who share my feelings and desires and feel the need for community around issues specific to ageing in a world that does not value elders.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I am so proud an honoured to be moderating a new group within the Kelly Diels Culture Makers Group for members aged 50 and older - the Caucus of Crones (!!)⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
It is a container for cultivating leadership and authority around issues specific to age and ageing, a place for supporting each other, and creating resources for each that can be accessed by younger members, in the present and as they reach the threshold age for joining the group themselves.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
We live in cultures that devalue and erase us as we age. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
The Caucus of Crones is a container for us to explore and dismantle ageism and its impacts that make us invisible and hypervisible all at the same time, and in all cases prevent being accepted, valued, and seen for our authentic selves. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
This is culture making.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
The Caucus of Crones is the place where we resist ageism in all its destructive iterations. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
The Caucus of Crones is the place for celebrating, honoring who we are and how we’ve come this far, a place for stepping into our full power and agency as elders. It is the place for cultivating leadership and authority for elders in our community. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
This is culture making⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I can’t wait to see what we create together!⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
ps: don’t you just LOVE the graphic created by @flourishonline for the group? ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
#wearetheculturemakers⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
***⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I'm Janine, post-traumatic growth and somatic coach. I help people heal & find ease from trauma that gets stuck in the body & gets in the way of living fulfilled and authentic lives. Links in bio
There's a narrative in women's empowerment spaces encouraging us to be a "Queen" in our businesses and lives.
While I totally get -- and FEEL -- the need to channel queenly sovereign energy and use it to fortify ourselves as we navigate a culture that invalidates women at every turn, we need to be reaaaaaalllllly cautious about using "Queen" as a business model.
What being a "Queen" usually means, in the Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand narrative, is that a Queen delegates her overload tasks to other, lower-paid women.
Voila! personal 'empowerment' for the Queen...
...but no mention of how those who serve her also become queens in their lives???
In other words...this queen metaphor/business model does NOT produce real empowerment. Instead, it produces ONE women who switches positions from prey to predator so she can personally flourish in an unjust system.
I want something MORE for all of us.
I want us to change the rules and change our business practices and change the whole damn game so we can ALL flourish.
I don't want there to be queens who thrive and servants who barely survive. And that's what those 'queenly' business practices give us.
So, feeling queenly energy, sure; using queenly business practices, no.
Because nope, 'Queen' is NOT a feminist business model.
-----
I'm Kelly Diels and I'm a #FeministMarketing consultant. One of the first thing I do with clients is help them figure out their business model aka HOW THEY MAKE MONEY ( their pricing, their offer, their accessibility strategies, their time)...
...and I do it through the lens of justice. #moneyandjustice
#changemaking #womensempowerment #empowerment #socialimpact #feministeducator #feministcoach #feministcoaching #mindset #feministaf #feminism #socialjustice #feministbusiness #feministfounders #entrepreneurialfeminist #buildingtheinstitutionsofthefuture #emergent #consciousbusiness #emergentstrategy #girlboss #goaldigger
I trust you with power.
***
Many of us believe, on a cellular level, that money + power = abuse.
Because that's what we've lived.
Many fat women and women of colour and queer women and disabled folks and trans and non-binary folks (and, and, and) have experienced power being used abusively against us...
...which often means that some of us are going to be wildly uncomfortable with power-building -- in all forms.
Which raises a critical question for our lives: what will we think about ***ourselves*** if we earn money and power?
***
If you recoil from holding power or money even as you need them and explicitly seek them, please know that there is nothing wrong with you. This tension actually a sign that your sense of justice is finely honed.
It means you don't want to become that which you oppose.
This, obviously, is a very good thing. Let's be relieved that our moral compasses are working.
And let's break the spell*.
(h/t @amandaklaird for this *language)
***
Here's how we break cultural spells and intervene in unconscious sequences and patterns:
We surface them. Expose them. Make them conscious.
To break the money-power-abuse spell, let's explicitly, consciously ask ourselves if what we have been conditioned believe about ourselves and power and money is true:
🌺Is it true that if you have power, you will abuse it?
🌺Is it true that if you have money and power, you will use it to exploit people?
🌺Is it true that the only way to get money is to harm people?
***
When I inquired into my own beliefs about power and explicit asked myself, do I want to use money and power the way it's been used against me (To hurt people? To dominate? To hoard?)...
...the answer is NOOOOOOOOOO.
And so the spell is broken.
***
I trust you with power, money & resources.
Let's get them, grow them, and use them to flourish -- personally & collectively.
Because we are the culture makers.
🌺🌺🌺
I'm Kelly Diels and I'm a #FeministMarketing consultant. I help feminist entrepreneurs & culture-makers make money AND justice.
PS liked this post? You should see my Sunday Love Letters 🙂
link in profile to subscribe
**Culture making = tiny acts of doing-it-differently**
Every day, whether we are conscious of it or not, we are making and remaking our culture.
Each of us makes a million tiny agreements at any given moment to go along with our culture and make things run smoothly.
A lot of the times, people disagree with the demands and dictates and practices of our culture, but swallow their voice and say nothing.
And even in that moment, in the internal dissonance and the absence of action, they are culture makers.
In that moment, they (we!) allow the over-culture to continue as it is, unimpeded.
We let the voice of culture speak through our mouths and use our bodies and lives in order to stabilize and regenerate itself.
And that reveals a huge opportunity: we can choose how to deliberately use our culture-making power.
Instead of letting an unjust culture flow through us, we can interrupt it — and we can make a new one.
And we do it with tiny, consistent, committed words + actions + experiments + contributions each day.
**Tiny acts of doing-it-differently are culture making.**
Tiny acts of doing-it-differently dislodge the web of cooperation that the unjust culture requires in order to continue functioning — and creates something new, instead.
For the future, and for right now.
Culture isn’t ‘out there’ or something that’s set in stone and unchanging.
Culture is living and organic; it’s in us; it acts on us; it moves through us…and we co-create it, every day.
And so we, the culture makers, have the power to disrupt it, reimagine it, and make a new one in which everyone flourishes.
Let's do that in a million tiny ways, every day.
Our tiny acts of doing-it-differently, every day, add up to a whole new world.
#WeAreTheCultureMakers
🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺
I'm Kelly Diels and I'm a #FeministBusiness coach and a culture maker. I help feminist entrepreneurs build the language & institutions of the future.
#changemaking #womensempowerment #empowerment #socialimpact #feministcoach #mindset #feministaf #feminism #socialjustice #feministfounders #entrepreneurialfeminist #bossbabe #buildingtheinstitutionsofthefuture #consciousbusiness #girlboss #goaldigger
Today I'm teaching my Money + Justice Workshop at 10 am - free!
It's for everyone who's playing what I call 'the double game' -- striving to create a flourishing livelihood in the existing paradigm while also creating a whole new paradigm.
***********
If you've got mixed feelings about money, you're not alone -- and this workshop is designed to help.
Former attendees often tell me this class dissolves unnecessary shame on contact :)
Because the truth is, we're not bad with money. Our culture has been deliberately bad at distributing money to us.
And...no more.
Let's interrupt that pattern and create a whole new reality for ourselves and our communities.
************
If you can't make it live, there WILL be a recording...but you have to be signed up to get it.
(There's an automation that helps me not have to send a gazillion things by hand.)
Link in bio @kelly.diels to sign up.
See you in a few hours!
love + justice (and money!)
Kelly
ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!New affinity group inside #wearetheculturemakers
Janine Bertolo is leading ‘The Caucus of Crones’ for our members ages 50+
******
Posted @withregram • @janine.bertolo
It felt uncomfortable to ask for support in the We Are the Culture Makers (WATCM) 2021 container, to speak my truth and feel held in the magical love light of Kelly Diels’ cultivated community.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I discovered that I am not alone, that there are others who share my feelings and desires and feel the need for community around issues specific to ageing in a world that does not value elders.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I am so proud an honoured to be moderating a new group within the Kelly Diels Culture Makers Group for members aged 50 and older - the Caucus of Crones (!!)⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
It is a container for cultivating leadership and authority around issues specific to age and ageing, a place for supporting each other, and creating resources for each that can be accessed by younger members, in the present and as they reach the threshold age for joining the group themselves.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
We live in cultures that devalue and erase us as we age. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
The Caucus of Crones is a container for us to explore and dismantle ageism and its impacts that make us invisible and hypervisible all at the same time, and in all cases prevent being accepted, valued, and seen for our authentic selves. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
This is culture making.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
The Caucus of Crones is the place where we resist ageism in all its destructive iterations. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
The Caucus of Crones is the place for celebrating, honoring who we are and how we’ve come this far, a place for stepping into our full power and agency as elders. It is the place for cultivating leadership and authority for elders in our community. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
This is culture making⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I can’t wait to see what we create together!⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
ps: don’t you just LOVE the graphic created by @flourishonline for the group? ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
#wearetheculturemakers⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
***⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I'm Janine, post-traumatic growth and somatic coach. I help people heal & find ease from trauma that gets stuck in the body & gets in the way of living fulfilled and authentic lives. Links in bio
There's a narrative in women's empowerment spaces encouraging us to be a "Queen" in our businesses and lives.
While I totally get -- and FEEL -- the need to channel queenly sovereign energy and use it to fortify ourselves as we navigate a culture that invalidates women at every turn, we need to be reaaaaaalllllly cautious about using "Queen" as a business model.
What being a "Queen" usually means, in the Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand narrative, is that a Queen delegates her overload tasks to other, lower-paid women.
Voila! personal 'empowerment' for the Queen...
...but no mention of how those who serve her also become queens in their lives???
In other words...this queen metaphor/business model does NOT produce real empowerment. Instead, it produces ONE women who switches positions from prey to predator so she can personally flourish in an unjust system.
I want something MORE for all of us.
I want us to change the rules and change our business practices and change the whole damn game so we can ALL flourish.
I don't want there to be queens who thrive and servants who barely survive. And that's what those 'queenly' business practices give us.
So, feeling queenly energy, sure; using queenly business practices, no.
Because nope, 'Queen' is NOT a feminist business model.
-----
I'm Kelly Diels and I'm a #FeministMarketing consultant. One of the first thing I do with clients is help them figure out their business model aka HOW THEY MAKE MONEY ( their pricing, their offer, their accessibility strategies, their time)...
...and I do it through the lens of justice. #moneyandjustice
#changemaking #womensempowerment #empowerment #socialimpact #feministeducator #feministcoach #feministcoaching #mindset #feministaf #feminism #socialjustice #feministbusiness #feministfounders #entrepreneurialfeminist #buildingtheinstitutionsofthefuture #emergent #consciousbusiness #emergentstrategy #girlboss #goaldigger