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Real conversations for women who lead differently. Join Yvonne Heimann, Leadership & Efficiency Coach, for honest discussions with female leaders who are rewriting the rules on their own terms.
Every episode explores the challenges women face in leadership - from building effective teams to creating systems that grow your business without burning you out. We dive into what matters: balancing intuition with strategy, building sustainable success, and leading authentically.
Whether you're a digital entrepreneur, executive, or business owner, you'll discover practical strategies for team management, business automation, leadership development, and personal growth. No fluff, no cookie-cutter advice - just real conversations about what works when you're ready to step into bigger leadership while staying true to yourself.
This isn't about following someone else's blueprint. It's about finding your unique leadership style and building a business that supports the life you want. Join us to explore frameworks that help you evolve as a leader without losing what makes you, you.
Perfect for female executives, women entrepreneurs, business owners, and anyone ready to lead with both vision and heart. New episodes cover leadership strategies, business systems, team building, and the intersection of feminine wisdom and strategic action.
She Is A Leader is brought to you by AskYvi.com, where visionary leaders find personalized support to transform their leadership impact through people-centered systems that scale.
Yvonne Heimann [00:00:00]
I want you to think about a relationship you've been in, or maybe you're in one right now, where you were working harder on it than your partner has, where you were the one showing up, fixing things, smoothing things over, trying to make it work, where somewhere in the back of your mind you knew it wasn't right, but you stayed anyway because leaving felt like giving up, because you thought if you just loved him better, showed up harder, it all would just click into place. I know that relationship. I lived that relationship. I put everything into a man who didn't know how to be in a relationship, and my ego told me that was my purpose, that I was the one who could fix it all, fix him. And while I was doing that, my business sat in the corner waiting for me to come back...
Yvonne Heimann [00:01:02]
There's a short going around right now that says the "solution" to this is to stay single. And I get why women are nodding at it and why it's getting the views it's gotten. I would have nodded at it too six, seven years ago, and I was wrong. Today, I wanna tell you why. Not because staying single is bad or because you shouldn't be in a relationship or what- whatever it is.
The problem was never the relationship. The problem was the specific relationship I chose and why I chose it. Hi, I'm Yvi, and this right here is She Is A Leader, the podcast for women that are done running their business like everybody tells them, finally build a business on their own terms. So let's get into it.
Yvonne Heimann [00:02:00]
Here's the video in question. And let me tell you why. Women are nurturers by design. Whatever we place at the center of our attention gets the full weight of our creative energy. When a woman is in a relationship, she pours that energy into her partner because that is what we are built for. But when you are single, that same energy has nowhere else to go, so it goes into you, into your business, into your body, into your career.
I'll stop it right there. She is going further into this conversation, and actually is making my point at the end of the video if you listen closely. Now, let's start in the beginning though, right? Because she does have a point. Her experience is real. Women can lose themselves in a relationship. There's no question.
I've done it. Four years, I've done everything for this man, and yes, let him hold me back. Um, the feeling behind uhe short is completely valid. A lot of women, including me, have exactly lived what she is describing The thing is, w- where all of this changes is when you look at it differently, when you look at it rather than this is what happened to me, to shifting it to this is what you should do.
Yvonne Heimann [00:03:29]
So let me, let's look at this. Saying, "Hey, you need to be single to grow your business," says, "Hey, you have no knowledge to be able to distinguish between a good and a bad relationship." And girl, the moment I was in that relationship, that's exactly what happened. I could not distinguish between a good relationship and a bad relationship.
I had to learn. I got my ego polished by, quote, "saving him." Let's be honest, we can't save anybody. Was trying to make something work, I was trying to nurture somebody. The thing here is, the solution wasn't staying single and building my business. That does not solve the problem. What solved the problem for me is staying single for more than two years.
I didn't even date. I didn't grab drinks with anybody. Not to build my business. That happened on the sidelines, and it happened on its own. I took two years off to learn and understand who the fuck I am without anybody telling me, because I simply didn't have the understanding of me, myself, and I, who I am without my parents telling me who I am, without my partner telling me who I am, without telling social media telling me who I am, and also what a healthy relationship to me looks like. Don't get me wrong, there is base levels of what a healthy relationship is, and then there's your personal level of what a healthy relationship is. Mine happens to be non-nomi- non-non
That is a tongue twister. Mine happens to be non-monogamous. Doesn't mean your healthy relationship is non-monogamous or poly. I consciously made the decision to take two years off, neither date nor do anything, to understand me, and that's the problem We can't blame guys for holding us back because our nature is nurturing.
Yvonne Heimann [00:05:44]
I'm sorry, I can nurture a relationship, at the same time I can nurture my business. And she actually comes back around to women being this life-giving force. Yes, the fuck we are. And a healthy relationship will not undermine that or fight that. It will give you the energy. Why this specific short triggered me so much right now, and I waited to get out of the emotion so this doesn't turn into a full-on rant, but actually into a learning opportunity, is, as I mentioned, I'm non-monogamous.
I do have a partner up north, um, in a long-distance relationship, which is an interesting dynamic. And I also just found another interesting dynamic locally here in Austin. And I'm telling you, the creative energy, the force, the... I don't even know h- the energy l- the energy in general that I am getting currently out of this relationship here in Austin, the amount of automations I have built in Claude, the mapping my business out and SOPs and with the team, and that productive and creative energy I have right now is because of my partner here in Austin, plain and simple.
Yvonne Heimann [00:07:15]
So we can't say, quote, "When you are in building business mode, you should stay single to put all of this energy into your business and not into a relationship." Stop blaming outside forces. That's our decision. It was my decision to stay in that relationship for four years and put everything else on hold.
Just as much as it is your decision to be in what is a nurturing and thriving relationship for you, however that looks like. Yeah, when I was in that bad relationship, my business didn't get this kind of energy. It didn't get my focus. It didn't even get my support or his. But all of that came from my choice of being in that relationship, not being in A relationship, but being in a specific relationship.
And I still got something out of it. My ego was happy. I took care of somebody. It felt right. So let's move to the next step where once I left that relationship, 'cause it was definitely not healthy or supportive for me, I stayed single for two years, no dating, no nothing. And again, the reason was not because I believed being in a relationship just hurts my business or to build my business.
Yvonne Heimann [00:08:43]
No, it was to figure out who I am without anybody else's voices in my head, any external, anybody telling me who I should be, who I could be, who I'm supposed to be, and really just find a new baseline for myself and starting to work on me, on figuring out what is a healthy relationship to me, how, who, and what do I want this relationship to be.
And later on, I actually went through a process and an exercise with my, um, bio tuning coach of 21 points, 21 points of how my partner makes me feel. Guess how I found my long-term partner up north who- Who marks all of those 21 points? Note to self, add location into those points. It can make life a little bit easier.
And it's, it's a complete different to say, "I'm staying single to figure myself out," or, "I'm staying single to grow my business." Two different things. Because this is not a gender thing. It really isn't. In the video, she proceeds to talk about women always come out better after a breakup, hotter, more successful, with more money.
And I'm like, have you watched guys come out of a breakup? My ex was funny to watch. Um, suddenly he finally decorated and cleaned up the house, went to the gym, lost all of the pounds, shaved, cleaned himself up. Didn't last long, but he did. Same things happen. It's not a gender thing. It's a, "Watch me, I can do better without you."
Yvonne Heimann [00:10:34]
We've all done it. The problem isn't being in a relationship, the problem is the one that's consuming us more than it is returning. Being in a relationship to feed your ego. Um, since then, I used to be full on 100% anxious attachment style, the nurturing anxious attachment style, meaning every time I felt insecure in a relationship, I nurtured it more, and more, and more.
See, see the pattern here? Since I've been working, I've been... Since I've been working on, on me, on the business, on my perception, on the voices in my head, I have become way much more secure in my attachment style. In leisure partners, I don't hear from you in a couple of days, yes, initially, my anxious still might show up, "Am I good enough for this?
Does he really wanna see me again? Don't get me wrong," um, some of those voices are still there. However, I don't act on them anymore. I don't suddenly turn into a 16-year-old with a huge-ass fucking crush and send 10,000 messages. No. I'm like, I recognize the behavior that's happening and an old pattern that is still there, and I'm like, "Thank you, I'm safe. It's all good," and I move on. I don't need that ego fix anymore to save somebody or to be needed. I'd rather push this energy into my growth
Yvonne Heimann [00:12:14]
And it's also not a gender issue. Neither of these relationship, neither of these stories is a gender issue. Men do the same thing, women do the same thing. It doesn't matter if you have a male-female relationship, if you have a male-male relationship, if you have a female-female relationship. It's the dynamic, it's the type of the relationship.
It's the non-supportive, it's the I exist to support you. Now, yeah, do we women have the tendency based on our nature to be more like that? Yeah Because we are supposed to be raising children. Not here. We have just as many nurturing men out there that might fall into the same trap And now looking at the two partnerships that I'm in, one of them not even really sexual.
It's more of a play. If, if you were in the kink scene, it's more of a play relationship, where the secondary here is more of a energetic sexual, which is exactly why it helps me recharge my battery, why it brings up the energetic, why it also allows me to continuously work on my anxious attachment style throughout the relationship, whatever that looks like, whatever you wanna call it.
Yvonne Heimann [00:13:51]
Because he's a really good guy that is focused on the experience and the energetic exchange. It's a dynamic that's completely different. And it also means he has his life, I have mine, and when the timing aligns, we recharge each other. Clear, open communication. We gotta work a little bit on the desires and boundaries simply because I went into this without no expectation, and it's starting to shape into something.
But it's an energy generation. It's not an energy drain. It's the complete opposite of everything she is talking about in this video. So please don't make the mistake to point outwards, to say, "Oh my God, I can't grow a business when I'm in a relationship." Yes, you can If you've done the relationship work, took me a few years to do it, being in the right relationship can, as she also mentions later in that video, tenfold what you are doing.
If you really listen to this whole short, she contradicts herself at the end of the video, and still it is, it is just hitting me. Because right, six, seven years ago when I was in that relationship, I would not have listened to the end of the short. I would not have listened to the contradiction that's happening there and be like, "Oh, yeah, it's his fault that my business isn't growing."
Yvonne Heimann [00:15:29]
No, it's not. No. It was my decision to get into a crappy relationship for the wrong reasons. While I was building this episode and scripting it out and making sure I cover all the talking points I want to cover, I almost said she clearly couldn't focus on her business because of a misaligned guy, and then I stopped myself because it's the same exact move she made.
She took her story and handed it to everyone as a map, as a rule, as a law, and I realized I was about to do it right back at her. I don't know her story. She might have been in the same situation I was in or something completely different. I don't know. I'm only getting, getting a small point and part of her story.
The catch is the episode, not the ritual, this moment. That's the lesson I want you to take away from this episode, the moment where I stopped myself from doing the same thing I'm pushing back on. I was going to judge just as black and white that Short as she did in that Short. We all do this. We all find something true in just that little piece somewhere in a Short or in a video that we find true in our own life.
And often enough, we take our own stories, put them together like this, and hand them as a truth, and as a law, and as a framework back to others. So with that, I want to bring this completely back around to coaching, to mentoring, to being a friend. And I think it's one of the reasons the coaching industry is, huh, cleaning itself out right now.
Yvonne Heimann [00:17:28]
'Cause when you watch it and she says, "Every woman should be single when growing a business," the question isn't, should I be single? The question is, what is that relationship feeding in you that you are afraid to look at without it? Let me ask that question again. What is that relationship feeding in you that you are afraid to look at without it?
Why was I in that relationship nurturing somebody else that didn't reciprocate the same way? 'Cause I believed I'm only worth something if I'm taking care of somebody else. Just taking care of me is not enough. Just being me is not enough. Those were my limiting beliefs. And interestingly enough, the less he cared, the more I took care of him.
Maybe there were other relationships in my life- If I would have put, put focus on my business and fully on my business, I would have seen that this is not the right relationship for me, and I would've been alone. Nobody wants to be alone. Let me repeat that question. What is it that this relationship is feeding in you, deep inside of you, that limiting belief, that old pattern, whatever it is, that you are afraid to look at?
Asking those questions, asking those questions yourself, and asking those questions to your client, rather than telling them, "Oh my God, you should be single because you are growing your business," that's where you'll find the truth. Because taking our experience and making it, quote, "the law" is just as bad as you going to Facebook and asking if you should buy a Mac or a Windows, because all you're gonna get 99% of the time is somebody else's opinion.
Yvonne Heimann [00:19:18]
Somebody else's opinion doesn't mean shit. They didn't ask the question of, "What are you working on daily? How much horsepower do you need? Do you work in an environment where it makes sense to be in Mac?" I've been on both platforms. I've, I've coached people through and recommended platforms based on their needs and their budget.
I love the simplicity of switching between my iPad, my MacBook, my iPhone, and all the things. I'm still not using Apple iCloud. I'm still using the Google environment, and I figured that out because I ask questions rather than just give statements. Asking questions does more than any statement. So the next time when you see somebody say, "Oh my God, this is the only way to reach that," bullshit, they're still in the middle of their fear response and haven't asked the right questions yet.
And when you've played this game often enough, yes, the emotions are still gonna be there. Like, I was heightened in that emotion and I was gonna... I was ready to point fingers at her, and then I had to dial it back and I'm like, "I'm doing the same thing." I don't know what happened behind the scenes. And honestly, listening to the whole short, she contradicts herself at the end.
Yvonne Heimann [00:20:41]
With that, I invite you, start asking questions rather than just telling. How specifically? For what purpose? My NLP training is coming out. And if you heard yourself in any part of this episode, in my story, in that relationship, in the version of me who thought saving him was my purpose, I want you to sit down with one question: What is it that relationship was feeding or is feeding in you that you haven't been willing to look at?
Let me ask that again. What is this relationship feeding in you that you haven't been willing to look at? Not should I leave, not should I stay single, just that one question, because the answer to that question will tell you more than any advice from any short ever will. Your story isn't her story, and her advice isn't your answer.
Neither is mine. I'm Yvi, and this is She Is A Leader. If this hit home, share it with a woman in your life who's been working harder on a relationship than on herself. She's been waiting for somebody to name it. I'll see you next week