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Welcome to Make Your Passion Pay, hosted by LuAnn Buechler, a seasoned leader with a master’s degree in Hospitality Administration and a recipient of the TLC Award for Leadership. This podcast is designed for business owners who have left toxic environments to create their own thriving workplaces but find themselves struggling with team building and mindset. Join LuAnn as she shares insights and strategies to help you cultivate joy and a positive mindset in your business and personal life. Drawing from her experience working with renowned leaders like Dr. Ivan Misner, LuAnn guides you in building a supportive community and mastering the art of people management. Each episode offers practical advice and inspiring stories to empower you to transform your work environment into one that reflects your values and passions. Tune in to discover how to lead with joy, foster meaningful connections, and truly make your passion pay.
Welcome to the Make Your Passion Pay podcast.
LuAnn Buechler: Where we talk about the 6 C's in the playbook to making your passions pay.
LuAnn Buechler: As a reminder, those would be clarity, connection, community, collaboration, creativity, and commitment. And I'm gonna bet in today's conversation, we'll likely touch on all of the above. And I am super excited to have with me today Barbara Ringrose.
LuAnn Buechler: Barbara, is the founder of WOW.
LuAnn Buechler: Where she helps professional, career-minded women recognize their true potential, enabling them to create the personal and professional lifestyle they desire. She does this through her diverse, supportive, 13-year-old community.
LuAnn Buechler: Called WOW! Women Optimizing Women, a sisterhood built on truth, transformation, and the belief that every woman deserves to rise.
LuAnn Buechler: Barbara, I love that last line, just makes me love you right off the bat, right? Because I believe that, too. Every woman deserves to rise.
Barbara E Ringrose: Oh, LuAnn, thank you so much for that introduction, and also allow me to come on to your podcast, Make Your Passion Pay, because that's one of the things I think we're all looking for at the end of the day. Can I take my passion
Barbara E Ringrose: From something I enjoy doing, is it a hobby? I would ask women a lot. Or is it truly a business? So, making your passion pay, that's interesting that I landed here after saying that for so many years to so many different ladies.
LuAnn Buechler: Well, this is what I have found, is that the right people always show up.
Barbara E Ringrose: You're true. You're so true in that statement, and interestingly enough, people want to say, I need to go big, I need to go large, I need to go really far out there, and sometimes it's smallness. Sometimes it's those few people that have come into your world, as they have with me over my lifespan of
Barbara E Ringrose: going on 70 years now, which I can't believe that I'm actually saying that. How many pivotal people there are along the way?
LuAnn Buechler: Right, so true, right? I'm an avid networker, but there's a conversation we have, even in that, that is build your network deeper instead of wider. Like, really have in-depth relationships with the people that have been there for you and are always there for you.
LuAnn Buechler: And I'm sure that's what you do in your current organization as well. That's what it's about in your community. But before we get into the community, I want to hear your story, Barbara, because
LuAnn Buechler: You know, I say that life is not a linear process, our careers are not linear, and so what's been your journey to entrepreneurship?
Barbara E Ringrose: Interesting that you say that, because when you think of a string, when you think of… I got a 3-foot string here, and I'm holding it in my hand, or a rope, or whatever it is, if you can visualize that, you can stretch that string or rope until it's taut. It will be linear, it will be straight across, horizontally, and you can turn it, it'll go up and down, and then also, if you mush it together, if it's on a flat surface.
Barbara E Ringrose: You'll notice that there will be peaks and valleys.
Barbara E Ringrose: Well, that's, like.
Barbara E Ringrose: many other people, that is my lifetime journey, is there were many peaks, and there were many valleys. I used to call them the highest of highs and the lowest of lows when we would get there, that during those peaks, of course, you were, you know, you were really excited, there were so many good positive things happening in your life, and then there were those things where you went down into the valleys.
Barbara E Ringrose: And you would have things that couldn't have taken you either emotionally or financially lower, and I've pretty much experienced all of those things. So when that pediatrician, when we were having that discussion years ago, that stays in my mind all the time, because it's not just one thing.
Barbara E Ringrose: It's many different things that happen in one's life, and that is what we're going to talk about here today, LuAnn.
LuAnn Buechler: Absolutely. Absolutely. So, you began in business with?
Barbara E Ringrose: Yeah, when I… well, I was one of those people, when I was, an adult, young adult, I would do different things like jewelry sales, real estate. Sales seemed to be my thing. It was something that attracted me. I had a deli, and I started that, and that lasted so long, and then we sold the deli. And then when I really got into business, I was about 27, 28 years old.
Barbara E Ringrose: when I met my children's father, and I joined him in his passion, which was video, arcade, game rooms, that kind of thing. And we ended up growing our own, unique
Barbara E Ringrose: brand, if you will. We called it Fun Attic.
Barbara E Ringrose: fund, A-T-T-I-C, and we grew into 13 locations in 4 states. Well then came the recession in the late 80s, and boom, I went. And, my whole world was shattered at that time, and there was a significant day
Barbara E Ringrose: And I mentioned it to you.
Barbara E Ringrose: It was 3 days before Christmas. It was 1993, and my whole world shattered.
LuAnn Buechler: What happened, Barbara?
Barbara E Ringrose: Well, my husband walked out on me with a 2-year-old, a 4-year-old, and a 5-year-old, and I was running the business, the office, support, if you will, from my… our home, and it was my bookkeeper who came to me and said, hey, want to let you know, your husband just told me he's leaving. He left with a suitcase.
Barbara E Ringrose: And he's not coming back.
LuAnn Buechler: Oh my goodness, well, he left you the business!
Barbara E Ringrose: Well,
Barbara E Ringrose: In name only, in name only. And of course, after a series of things, I realized I had no income.
Barbara E Ringrose: I had no way to support myself. The business had, again, shattered because of the recession. We grew too fast.
LuAnn Buechler: Right.
Barbara E Ringrose: happen. We really go too fast.
Barbara E Ringrose: And it seemed like, oh no, here I am. What in the heck am I going to do? You know, you go through the legal stuff that takes time. You're living in a home that you purchased years ago. It takes time what to do with the real estate, the property, the business, so here I am alone, and, handling my children with daycare and, whatever activities those, those
Barbara E Ringrose: children needed at the time, and I was devastated by what I was facing, and it was horrendous. It was one of those situations in life, and I'm sure other people that are watching your podcast, they can relate to it, and it hits us in a variety of ways, but
Barbara E Ringrose: facing foreclosure, facing bankruptcy, facing a new home, and what was that new home going to look like, LuAnn? That was something that was completely overwhelming, and I felt like I
Barbara E Ringrose: coasted, drifted, that winter was harsh, there was ice that time, it was very cold, so it couldn't have happened at the worst time.
LuAnn Buechler: Oh my goodness.
LuAnn Buechler: And yet, you persevered. Here you are. What was next? How did you…
Barbara E Ringrose: We ended up in a shelter.
Barbara E Ringrose: We ended up in a shelter, luckily enough, and I know that sounds horrible for some people, that you end up in a shelter. My friends, my family, really, they couldn't support me, help me at that time, and in talking to our priest at the church, he said, hey, we have this, sister parish.
Barbara E Ringrose: And they have a shelter for women that would be perfect for you, and here I'm thinking, how could anything in a shelter be perfect for me? But it was, so for 10 months, I lived in a shelter with about 5 other women and their children, and the common denominator was, when they selected us for this shelter, you needed to be homeless or in a situation
Barbara E Ringrose: Where you couldn't, you know, take care of yourself, your children any longer. You met one of those dilemmas in life, like I had.
Barbara E Ringrose: And they would bring you in, embrace you, and they would give you the support services that you need there. But the common denominator in addition to those denominators was you need to… needed to be pursuing, or in pursuit of, a college degree.
LuAnn Buechler: Huh?
Barbara E Ringrose: already started some college courses, so I felt like, oh great, yummy, this is great for me. I'm getting a place to live, I'm getting the support, I could work through all of the legal dynamics.
LuAnn Buechler: Sure.
Barbara E Ringrose: home, the foreclosure, the bankruptcy, and I could do that with the support of someone else, because there are times in life you really can't do things on your own.
LuAnn Buechler: Yeah.
Barbara E Ringrose: yeah, it was a good opportunity. Then, finally, I got help, I got assistance, we were able to get out, go rent, I continued my education. I thought, well, I'm never having this happen to me ever again.
Barbara E Ringrose: So I started pursuing a college degree in biology. My thought was to become a nurse, a nurse practitioner, a physician assistant with that degree, and that would take me places. But I was wrong.
LuAnn Buechler: Well, you were in corporate America, so you weren't in an institution, so now you gotta tell me what happened next.
Barbara E Ringrose: Well, the interesting thing was, it would be years, for me to get through that, biology degree. It took me 6 years.
LuAnn Buechler: Wow.
Barbara E Ringrose: for, you know, somebody who's 18, 19 with no responsibility, no children, or whatever, that's doable, or even 3 years, if they really push through it. But for me, it took me 6 years, and then I ended up going through my master's, working on my master's in counseling, and I met with a career advisor as we were just
Barbara E Ringrose: just, like, like, two semesters away from finishing my master's in Counseling, and he said, you know, Barbara.
Barbara E Ringrose: He had done, career advising for 25 years. His name is David Baer, and he said to me.
Barbara E Ringrose: You could really do anything. You could be an airline stewardess, you could be a hospital administrator. He said, but I think you're a mortgage loan officer, and look, I've got years of experience, have you ever considered that type of occupation?
Barbara E Ringrose: Well, I didn't even know what a mortgage loan officer was. So, I had done a mortgage, well, several mortgages by that time, but I still didn't understand what it was.
Barbara E Ringrose: So a year later, I ended up in that profession. LuAnn, for over 20 years, I was a mortgage loan officer. And along that way, I found my passion, much like your passion.
Barbara E Ringrose: My passion was really to help women, so I started, WOW, Women Optimizing Women, back in 2012, and I realized that this is actually my 14th
Barbara E Ringrose: anniversary here, September. I was thinking it was 13, but yeah, we're just now embarking on our 14th year.
LuAnn Buechler: That's amazing!
LuAnn Buechler: Awesome.
Barbara E Ringrose: And I found a lot of other women had dealt with a lot of other situations like mine, changing career paths, having a traumatic experience in life, whether it would be something medical or professional, a auto accident.
LuAnn Buechler: So many things can cause that moment.
Barbara E Ringrose: exactly the loss of a parent, or having to take care of a parent. You know, those are things that we don't necessarily plan for in our future. And some people turn to drugs, some people turn to alcohol. I turn to…
Barbara E Ringrose: just helping other women, talking to them about what was needed. We started that networking group where locally, 10 times a year, for about 10 years, we would host events at your business, or somebody else's business, small business, corporate businesses, nonprofits, government offices, where we could introduce to each other what we did, and it would be a safe environment.
Barbara E Ringrose: for women to come together and talk about anything they like, their hopes, their dreams, their passions, maybe they needed a career change, maybe they had just lost a job, or maybe they had to take on a part-time job and they weren't sure what they wanted to be when they grow up. And WOW really grew from there, and we would have anywhere from
Barbara E Ringrose: 13 to 80 women come to our events, and that was a lot of fun. It was a lot of organizing while I was working 60 to 80 hours a week in my profession, mortgage loan officer, but it really was…
Barbara E Ringrose: Something that was in my core. I wanted to help other women, just like I had been helped.
LuAnn Buechler: So I want to make a point here that I think might not be clear, or at least I need to reiterate it, right? So you started WOW 14 years ago.
Barbara E Ringrose: 2012.
LuAnn Buechler: 2012, but you were in the mortgage business still until what year?
Barbara E Ringrose: Okay, so I retired July 29th, 2022.
Barbara E Ringrose: Okay.
LuAnn Buechler: So for 10 years, you ran your mortgage business and you ran WOW.
Barbara E Ringrose: Yeah, but it was only a monthly commitment now, and basically, I was the organizer of that event, where I would showcase one of the local ladies in the community, so the amount of time I had to invest isn't really significant. It wasn't until I decided to take WOW virtually. I realized in my mortgage business that through technology.
Barbara E Ringrose: We can kind of equate it to AI and what we're experiencing today. The trend in mortgage, like many other… you were doing banking online, you were paying your credit card bill online, you were doing so many other things online. I thought to myself, we can go from an in-person… I can meet more women across the country, ladies like yourself.
Barbara E Ringrose: If I take WOW virtually, and I start doing it from my website, WOWomenUS.com.
Barbara E Ringrose: And the next thing I knew, well, I remembered, very clearly how effective our monthly calls, weekly calls, etc. were done on our intranet through… when I was in mortgage lending, and I thought, I can do the same thing with WOW. We can do virtual meetings. You're using Zoom. I use something called Zoho. My son introduced me to Zoho as a CRM,
Barbara E Ringrose: So I could collect the data from all the ladies that I met along the way, and then I could reach out to them via email or campaigns.
Barbara E Ringrose: Zoho actually has a myriad of different apps you could use as a small business owner, so I took advantage of that and started hosting virtual WOW meetings. That was May of 2023. So we've been doing that successfully now for a little over 3 years.
LuAnn Buechler: Now, wait, back up, Zoho, how are you spelling that?
Barbara E Ringrose: just like it sounds, Zoho, like here, Zoho, Z-O-H-L. It was a business started by two Indian, East Indian men, and they wanted to have a virtual and CRM, option for people, small business owners.
Barbara E Ringrose: People can find it by doing Zoho One, Zoho1, I believe.com, but it has been instrumental in me getting the word out of what.
LuAnn Buechler: Never.
LuAnn Buechler: Heard of it before.
Barbara E Ringrose: Well, any small business people that are listening to this, I know Zoom, people realized after 2020 that Zoom was the place for me to go, or they were used to Google Me because of Google and the apps there, but little do people know, small business people know, and small business people tend to pay, especially women, a lot of money to connect with the outside
Barbara E Ringrose: world.
Barbara E Ringrose: well, through Zoho, with their different apps, and people can go on, they can do a trial period, check it out. I'm not trying to sell it, but I know for me, it was a great place for me to start my business, not just start a website. It was a great way to connect, and they do, like, your bookkeeping, they can do analytics for you.
LuAnn Buechler: Oh!
Barbara E Ringrose: Yeah, the CRM was where I started. That was the pivotal part, was how do I take and condense all of those contacts I had created over the years, and how do I put them in one place?
LuAnn Buechler: So, like me, it sounds like you didn't have a CRM for a long time.
Barbara E Ringrose: No, and a lot of us, you know, my son said, Mom, you've got these people in your closed group at Facebook, you've got people in your e-vite, you got people that are in your email. You need to put this together, and he was right. I needed to put that together in a place where it was one-stop shopping, and it could help me grow as a small business professional.
LuAnn Buechler: Right, so I think I went 13, 14 years without a CRM. Certainly not using one as it should be used, but using tools inappropriately. And then I found a tool called the Less Annoying CRM.
Barbara E Ringrose: Oh yeah, I've heard of that.
LuAnn Buechler: Have to mention it. It was very… it was absolutely because of the name that it attracted me. I was so tired of looking at all the other options that felt so complicated that its name alone attracted me in.
Barbara E Ringrose: Aren't they out of Chicago?
LuAnn Buechler: I don't know.
Barbara E Ringrose: I have a rep in Chicago, actually, that was one of my speakers on, one of our meetings, and…
Barbara E Ringrose: At that time, there was, like, 700 and some CRMs out there. So, how can you, a small business person, or maybe even you want to use something like that, if you have an extensive collection of names, addresses, etc, sometimes an Excel spreadsheet doesn't quite cut it to do all the things that you want it to do.
Barbara E Ringrose: So, and then to research all these CRMs, and for
Barbara E Ringrose: business people, we don't have time to do that. Right. And then I talked to other people that use Zoho, and I thought, this is very friendly. I can record my meetings.
Barbara E Ringrose: Much like you're doing, you can have a chat, much like you're doing here. After the chat, people can click on the chat button after they close out of the meeting, and they can actually get the chat with all the information, where people during a group meeting online, a virtual meeting, they can actually save that chat, and they can connect with people.
LuAnn Buechler: And meeting, huh?
Barbara E Ringrose: Yeah, I love that about…
LuAnn Buechler: That's fantastic. Well…
Barbara E Ringrose: The interesting thing was, through my meetings, as I started to meet people like yourself, you're not right next door. As I started meeting people, I thought I want to radiate across the state of Maryland. I want to… because I'm in Manchester, Maryland, which is outside of Baltimore, I wanted to radiate across the country. I wanted to find more women to add to my CRM. I wanted to find out what other ladies, much like the logo
Barbara E Ringrose: ladies here, in my rural county are doing, without me having to drive somewhere, an hour or so to meet with people, you know, network for that half hour, have your lunch and engagement, whatever it happened to be, and then stay after and network a little bit more, and have that long drive time back. I was realizing I was investing 5 to 6 hours just for one networking event.
Barbara E Ringrose: And these virtual opportunities are so great at saving time, money, as you know.
LuAnn Buechler: Yes.
Barbara E Ringrose: And, I also realized, when I connected with some of these networking groups, one in particular I was using, NRG, I'll put in a plug, N as in Nancy, R as in Richard, G as in George.
Barbara E Ringrose: Mike Weiner started it over 25 years ago, and that was, like, the catalyst
Barbara E Ringrose: for me, then, to radiate across the country, and I met this amazing woman.
Barbara E Ringrose: LaQuinsia Nichols, she has her small business, experience-coaching.com. She's in Surprise, Arizona. She… I'm what… I'm East Coast, she's, like, West Coast. She was born in California.
Barbara E Ringrose: moved to Arizona, so we started a podcast, Optimize Her Tool.
Barbara E Ringrose: And that was… we just had our first anniversary, August 19th. So, while…
Barbara E Ringrose: did all the things I wanted it to do. I could do my meetings, I could record them, I could meet ladies across the country, and then it allowed me opportunities to meet some unique ladies that now appear on my Optimize Her 2 podcast, which I have invited you, and you have accepted as well.
LuAnn Buechler: I look forward to that very much. And we already, interviewed La Quuncia, so if you haven't listened to that podcast on my Make Your Passion Pay, we got that out there as well. And I didn't remember that she was in Surprise, Arizona, which is just kind of funny to me.
Barbara E Ringrose: Yeah, yeah, I love the name of her town. And that's where it all… it's like connections. We all need those human connections, granted. I know there's a lot of isolation. I know people feel like after 2020, they didn't want to step out their front door. When I talk to technicians that come into my home, whether they're doing my plumbing or my electrical, one of the things that they've noted to me
Barbara E Ringrose: just over the last couple years, is people don't want to go out anymore. My husband and I, we like to interact with a lot of different people, and we notice at 8 o'clock at night, there's nobody on the road. It's like everybody stays at home, so…
Barbara E Ringrose: how do you draw people out who are almost… they… I don't know necessarily that they're afraid anymore, let's say, of contracting something, but I think they…
Barbara E Ringrose: got into this… yes, they got into this sofa, this… if you will. They've been sitting on the couch so long, and even though the springs are weakened and so forth, and cushions aren't as supportive as they once were, they've gotten into this way, women in particular, that they're not getting out, and they're not engaging with other women.
LuAnn Buechler: Nope.
LuAnn Buechler: So, you have… Online, but you still have in-person gatherings also.
Barbara E Ringrose: Well, we… I pretty much dropped the in-person.
Barbara E Ringrose: Because participation had gone down so low after 2020, but we do one in the spring that's local, and we did something called a Leading Ladies Summit this summer, August 13th, which was phenomenal, where we had several of the WOW ladies that were presenters doing yoga, meditation.
LuAnn Buechler: Nice.
Barbara E Ringrose: arrangement, introduction to Reiki, dance, we actually dance, it was an all-day event, and it started out being for professional business ladies, especially small business ladies, and the next thing you know, I got my 9-year-old granddaughter coming, and a 73-year-old retiree coming, and realized, really, women were thirsty to get together. So, as far as in-person events, I love doing the one in
Barbara E Ringrose: spring, and perhaps I'll delve into that again next fall. It takes a lot of coordination to do that, and to draw women out and get them, but once I've found women, get into the habit of engaging, whether it's here, on your podcast, my podcast, whether it is a virtual meeting that we do, or a in-person meeting, once we get people more engaged in these things.
Barbara E Ringrose: They can truly benefit.
LuAnn Buechler: Yes, it is getting them engaged, so I'm glad you have those opportunities for them. I really had the impression, we talked the last time that it was more in-person and less online, so how far do you reach online? Like, are there people from all 50 states, or…
Barbara E Ringrose: Interestingly enough, in our podcast, well, in the WOW, we have ladies all over the country, coming to meet, from time to time. We do the first and third Mondays of each month from 11 to noon Eastern Standard Time, and we have on our first Monday of the month, that's normally a guest speaker for about 20-25 minutes.
Barbara E Ringrose: And then we decided, you know, it needs to be interactive. Whoever the speaker is, no more PowerPoints, let's do some interactive pieces, so our speakers are being more interactive with the audience. And then to have another interactive segment, we do breakouts. So whatever time we have remaining, the ladies can then get into maybe 2 or 3 participants in breakout groups, so they can
Barbara E Ringrose: Actually get to know each other better, and share their business, or share their experiences.
Barbara E Ringrose: And, women will talk about virtually anything and everything. They have a whole bevy. They are multifaceted, as I say all of the time. You mentioned the six C's, LuAnn.
Barbara E Ringrose: And I've delved into accountability, and a lot of what we talk about is being accountable, whether you're in the business life, whether in your personal life, but I… and you said we may cover some of those C's, and one of the things that I like to point out is three primary Cs, if I may.
LuAnn Buechler: Great.
Barbara E Ringrose: You know, your background means a lot, where you came from, how you were raised, whether or not you want to succeed. But whether you want to succeed, whether you're in business, or whether you're in your personal life, you want to grow your friendships with other people, you want to expand your horizons, learn more, do more, it's about clarity, commitment, and consequences.
Barbara E Ringrose: So whenever we're doing something for clarity, we need to know what it is we want to do, and some of that comes about with time, much like that linear rope, that 3-foot rope or string, that I spoke about. You know, it can be a straight line if you pull it tight, but clarity. Okay, so I realize I've got some ripples. Hmm, let's be clear about what it is those ripples represented. Is it something maybe
Barbara E Ringrose: I made mistakes on, is something I can do better on, and the commitment.
Barbara E Ringrose: I've noticed a lot of women, their commitment, they seem to really want to do things, and this probably applies to men as well, because 60% of our viewers on Optimize Her 2, believe it or not, are women, and 40% are men, and now we're actually attracting that 18- to 24 year old segment of our population, which I found astounding when I learned that last month.
Barbara E Ringrose: But commitment, if we don't stay committed.
Barbara E Ringrose: if I'm accepting your invitation to a tea party, and then the day before, I decide, you know, I really don't want to do that, I don't know that I want to meet those people, and
Barbara E Ringrose: another opportunity comes along, and I think I'd rather do that. It's always committing to what… your first opportunity. And I notice a lot of people… I found out this summer that women seem to have
Barbara E Ringrose: 10 excuses in their back pocket, why they don't want to commit to something, and you may have experienced something similar. Yes. But the other thing is, if we don't keep those commitments, whether it's a personal commitment, or it's a professional commitment, that says a lot about the integrity of who we are. And therefore, there's the third C, consequences.
Barbara E Ringrose: You're gonna reap the benefits, the rewards, if you will, by keeping those commitments, and that's why I chose those 3 C's.
Barbara E Ringrose: or you're going to get the backlash, if you will, if you don't follow through. So, clarity. What is it? Who do I want to be when I grow up? And know that.
Barbara E Ringrose: Just like that rope that I spoke about, if you kind of mush it together.
LuAnn Buechler: -
Barbara E Ringrose: at your peaks and your values. Know your clarity can change with time. As you mature, as you meet people, as,
Barbara E Ringrose: We have experiences along the way. Hopefully, we have more positive experiences than negative. Hopefully, those traumatic ones we can recover from, we can find the right support system, as I once did had to, in order to survive. Glad I didn't turn to
Barbara E Ringrose: crutches, like alcohol, drugs, I chose education, because I think, the more that we learn, and that's why WOW and OptimizeHer2, they're so closely linked.
Barbara E Ringrose: Because our purpose is to educate, elevate, and empower. And now I know it's not just women.
Barbara E Ringrose: that are appreciating that part of what we do on Optimizer 2, just like at WildWomenUS.com with Wow Women Optimizing Women, all of us, all of us want to learn. And when we stop learning, we know what happens.
LuAnn Buechler: Right, excellent, excellent 3Cs. I love that so much. And, and you said consequences can be positive or negative. The minute I heard consequences, my mind went to negative. So it's a good reminder, right?
Barbara E Ringrose: Yeah, ultimately, those consequences are so important. If… it's like that old adage, if you keep doing the same thing over and over again, what's the definition of that?
LuAnn Buechler: Different results is insanity.
Barbara E Ringrose: Yeah. And I'm guilty as charged. When I talk about a lot of subjects, sometimes people will get the feeling that I'm speaking at them, but in essence, what I'm doing is.
Barbara E Ringrose: I'm, giving up part of what I have learned, because I have made some really bad mistakes.
Barbara E Ringrose: And I know sometimes it's hard for some people to learn by others' experience. I hope when I talk about my experience, other people can say, hey, I'm in a bad situation, I don't need to continue doing what I'm doing. I can look at the education, I can visit my local college, community college, online college experience.
Barbara E Ringrose: And I can then deepen my knowledge, I can then go to support groups like WOW, and I can join other women, and the important thing is that education isn't just necessarily something that you're getting.
Barbara E Ringrose: from that college experience, through a professor or a lecturer, if you will. It's through other ladies or other people in your community. That community can be small, it can be, you know, right in your own hometown, it can be through your local state, it can be across the United States, or it can even be global, because, like I said earlier, technology has brought us all
Barbara E Ringrose: altogether.
LuAnn Buechler: Alright, so, excellent. You brought us right back to community, which is so important. We need that support, we need each other, and you're creating a safe space for women to come, and men get that.
LuAnn Buechler: opportunity to have support from others and be in community with others. And I want everybody to remember that what appears on the surface of people may not be all that lies beneath what they have experienced and endured or persevered through in their life, and be.
Barbara E Ringrose: So true, LuAnn.
LuAnn Buechler: Yeah, be open to those individuals.
LuAnn Buechler: Barbara, this has been fantastic, and I know we could go on and on and on, you and I.
Barbara E Ringrose: 100%, LuAnn.
LuAnn Buechler: there.
Barbara E Ringrose: 100%.
LuAnn Buechler: So what we'll do is we'll have you back again.
LuAnn Buechler: I want to wrap it up for today. I want an invitation to come to one of the Monday events, now that I've got the realization they're on Zoom, and I, too, can participate.
Barbara E Ringrose: It's Zoho, actually, I use for my meetings.
Barbara E Ringrose: And anyone can reach out to me, they can look at WowwomenUS.com, and they can connect with me. If you have in your, description the email, you can include my email for them to reach out to me. Tomorrow night, I mentioned that WOW is the first and third Mondays of each month.
Barbara E Ringrose: Our Optimize Her 2 are, Tuesday evenings at 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on YouTube at Optimize Her 2. Tomorrow night, we have a wonderful woman who is a counselor, Laura Rhodes, who will be speaking. You probably won't have this out on your podcast in time, but at least they can go to, YouTube at Optimize Her 2, follow us, like, share, all the things.
Barbara E Ringrose: But yes, I will definitely add you to our e-vite list for our upcoming WOW events.
LuAnn Buechler: That would be great, and yes, we'll put all the links in the show notes, so that
LuAnn Buechler: connect with you in multiple ways, and we really appreciate your being here, and I really want to show gratitude for creating an event, an organization, for women to rise and be supported.
LuAnn Buechler: And make their passions pay. So thanks again, everybody have a great day. We'll see you next time.
Barbara E Ringrose: Stay well, LuAnn. Everyone stay well. Bye now.