In the last several months I've done something completely out of my comfort zone and area of expertise . . . I started a podcast. If you'd like to listen, go to the App store and download Overcast or click on your favorite podcast app already installed and search on fadedRED. It's a podcast to empower women through education, celebration, and inspiration. It's a place where successful executive women share as a group and then individually about what it looks like to be a successful woman . . . A Woman Others Follow. 

I've been asked numerous times about where this idea or desire was birthed. In looking back, I guess there are three separate and distinct events, two of which I'll share here (the third will be for a later date). 

It was just a year ago when I was in LA for a conference and W. Paul Young, the author of The Shack spoke. He is amazingly funny, transparent, and intelligent. It was an awesome surprise when on the last night of the conference, the main speaker gave up his spot for Paul to speak again. Paul spoke on the origins of mankind from a Biblical perspective. But what he said blew me away and has forever changed my thinking about women. You might even say a veil was lifted. It would be too much for me to go into here, but what I can say is that I suddenly saw myself, my daughters, my granddaughters in a whole new light. A new light that opened a locked door to a total reawakening from something I felt a long time ago, but hid it away until now. 

"The Hiding" happened in my early twenties. I had just come through a short, but very difficult marriage and divorce. The great thing was that as we attempted couples counseling, we both agreed I was the issue. But in the desperate attempt to fix myself to be perfect for my husband, I found something . . . I found healing in some very broken parts of my heart, and I found myself. And that self was pretty amazing . . . I even considered liking her . . . Considered (that's another story). 

Once the smoke cleared and the divorce was final, the counselor asked what I wanted to do in my life. I knew immediately and I emphatically said to help other women understand who they were, who they were intended to be . . . to find their identity, and understand how to stand in it. That's when the triumphant music playing in my head came to a screeching halt and my bliss ended with a slammed door. The counselor I was seeing stopped me and said in no uncertain terms, "If you do that, women will start getting divorced and the church will run you out of it as fast as they can."  

I was shocked (albeit, I see my naivety now about the entire situation) but then, I was afraid and something dark crept in my soul . . . shame. So I quickly and quietly put that vision in a locked chest somewhere way down inside of myself. And though there have been times when I stepped forward to dust that shelf off, shame and fear kept it way up high and out of reach. A lot of years have passed since that time until now, a lot of stuff has taken place, but just beneath the surface has always been that desire to speak life into our gender . . . Into women. And, no I'm not a divorce advocate, but I am clearly an advocate of my gender, however that looks.  

And fadedRED was born.  

The name? At some point I must have purchased the domain, because it was on my list. As I read the name, and contemplated it, a memory was unearthed deep within . . . Something misunderstood, something hidden and not seen clearly, needed to be unveiled and empowered and she's been waiting a long time for this to happen. And then I remembered . . . It was me, and it was you . . .  

Join us today, male or female, you are welcome. We're on a journey to discover who we are and how we were made to be powerful and free. To show up every day in awesome, powerful ways just because we are women --  to actually celebrate each other. We are not at war with the opposite gender -- we've got enough to work on in our own camp . . . So how about it . . . Hmmm? 

Want to go on the journey together? fadedRED.com.