120 years.

That’s how long it could take women-owned businesses to reach revenue parity with men-owned businesses if progress continues at its current pace.

When I came across that number, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Women are already building extraordinary businesses.

Women own 39.2% of businesses in the United States, generating approximately $3.3 trillion in annual revenue.

Yet women-owned businesses account for just 6.2% of total business revenue.

The economic opportunity is staggering.

Research highlighted by the National Women’s Business Council estimates that if women-owned businesses generated the same average revenue as businesses owned by men, it could add $10.2 trillion to the U.S. economy.

$10.2 trillion.

Imagine what becomes possible when more women build significant wealth.

When we raise our prices.

Make the offer.

Ask for the business.

Step onto the stage.

Use our voices.

Lead.

Grow companies.

Employ people.

Invest.

Become fully available for the success and impact we are capable of creating.

This is bigger than confidence

Structural and economic barriers affecting women entrepreneurs are real. Those barriers need to change.

We cannot mindset our way out of systemic inequality.

There is also work we get to do within ourselves.

I have spent years working with brilliant, accomplished women, and I have seen another barrier operating beneath the surface.

The unconscious ways we learned to shrink.

Maybe you learned that being ambitious made people uncomfortable.

Maybe you learned that talking about money wasn’t appropriate.

Maybe charging more felt greedy.

Perhaps visibility opened you up to judgment.

Maybe being a “good woman” meant taking care of everyone else first.

Perhaps you learned not to brag, not to stand out, not to be too loud, too successful, too demanding, or simply too much.

Those messages do not necessarily disappear when you start a business.

Sometimes they follow you right into it.

They show up when you know it’s time to raise your rates, yet you hesitate.

They show up when an extraordinary opportunity appears and you immediately question whether you’re ready.

They show up when you have something important to say, yet you soften the message.

They show up when you know greater visibility would grow your business, yet you find yourself hiding behind your work.

They show up when the business grows, yet you continue carrying everything yourself.

Sometimes they show up in the most surprising place of all:

When success starts working.

You reach the next level and suddenly find yourself overwhelmed, exhausted, procrastinating, overthinking, or pulling back.

Consciously, you want more.

Another part of you may be asking:

Is it safe for me to have this?

This is the work I care deeply about

I help successful women release the unconscious patterns that taught them to shrink so they can become more fully themselves.

To be seen.

To be heard.

To earn more.

To lead more boldly.

To receive more.

To build success without abandoning themselves in the process.

The women I work with usually do not need another business strategy.

They already know a lot.

They have experience.

They have clients.

They have credibility.

They have invested in themselves and their businesses.

Their next level is not necessarily about learning more.

Sometimes the next level requires becoming the woman who can fully hold what she has been working so hard to create.

This is the heart of the work I explore in The Millionaire Brain: releasing the hidden patterns that cause brilliant women to shrink and reconnecting with the clarity, courage, and confidence to be fully seen.

This matters far beyond one woman’s business.

Wealth in the hands of women changes things

Every time a woman grows a thriving business, she creates possibilities beyond herself.

She employs people.

She hires other businesses.

She invests.

She supports causes she believes in.

She creates more choices for herself and her family.

She becomes an example for another woman who is still wondering whether she can do it.

When one woman stops shrinking, another woman gets to see what standing tall looks like.

That ripple matters.

I want the systems to change.

I want the barriers removed.

I want women to have greater access to capital, opportunity, networks, and resources.

I also want women to stop waiting for permission to become as successful, wealthy, visible, powerful, and influential as they are capable of becoming.

120 years?

No.

I don’t want to wait that long.

Do you?

Source: National Women’s Business Council, 2024 Annual Report, featuring findings from the Impact of Women-Owned Businesses research.