Video: Ellyn Spragins of What I Know Now Enterprises

About this Video

Ellyn Spragins: Corporate speaker on leadership issues, women in management and self-reflection topics. New York Times best selling author and former financial writer and editor, Ellyn works with large corporations and small firms.

Video Transcription

During my career as a journalist, I spent a lot of time writing about business, everything from news, to corporate analysis, stocks, bonds, investing, personal finance, SmartMoney, Newsweek, New York Times. And when I started out with this idea for a book of letters written to a younger self by very well known women, I had no idea it would turn into a business, probably the last thing on my mind. It turns out, though, there is a lot of power in this dynamic of looking back at yourself at a difficult time and understanding what you've learned and you wish you could tell that younger self.

What I Know Now Enterprises creates products and services that help women discover their inner wisdom and share it with each other. The What I Know Now Seminar actually is implicitly very tailored to a particular client because they choose the three women within their company with whom I will work and collaborate on a letter to their younger selves. I'll speak for about 15 or 20 minutes and then invite the panelists up. They share their letters, and then we have a really fun, exciting Q&A session with the audience. And if you are watching one of these women from your company, it's a revelation because you find out, guess what, you're not so different from each other.

I think our audience members really are surprised by the seminar. They find it enlightening because they're learning about wisdom that very accomplished women are sharing with them. But more importantly, there is a vein of acceptance about difficult experiences and very personal experiences that may or may not have felt very safe to talk about at work. And there's a lot of research out there about how a diverse group working together really produces better decisions.

When individuals book me for a seminar, it's usually an executive in charge of talent or diversity or the women's interest network. And let's face it, times are really hard right now. Revenue is stalling. Companies are restructuring, laying off people. Very hard time to make a choice about spending money. I think that companies ahead of the curve understand, though, that building their leaders, growing their leaders is the best investment they can make. More productive workers will eventually see them through this tough time.