I recently watched the documentary about Lilith Fair and it pulled me straight back into my body.
I went to at least two of those shows in the late 90s and even the 2010 Revival Show. I can still see it — warm air, thousands of women, artists rotating the stage instead of guarding it.
At the time, the industry said it wouldn’t work.
They said you couldn’t put multiple female artists on one ticket.
They said women don’t sell together.
They said audiences wouldn’t show up.
They were wrong.
The tour filled amphitheaters. It became one of the highest-grossing tours of its time. It contributed millions to local women’s charities. But the numbers aren’t what stayed with me.
What stayed with me was how it felt in my body.
There was room.
Room for different voices.
Room for different styles.
Room for power that didn’t need to elbow its way forward.
Standing in that crowd, I remember feeling something shift in my chest. No one was shrinking. No one was clawing for spotlight. No one needed to be the only one.
There was enough stage.
I didn’t know it then, but I would later learn what it feels like when the stage doesn’t expand – when space is controlled instead of shared.
Watching the documentary now — as a mother and a grandmother — I felt proud that I had been there. Proud that I witnessed proof of something my younger self desperately needed to believe.
What Shared Power Leadership Really Looks Like - What I Saw Behind the Curtain
The part we don’t talk about.
Flash forward, I made it – I was a Hay House author. I spoke on stages with hundreds of people. I moved in spiritual circles that talked endlessly about empowerment, mentorship, and rising together.
And behind the scenes?
It wasn’t always that clean.
There was competition.
There was subtle hierarchy.
There were rooms where folks smiled publicly and measured privately.
Empowerment was preached from the stage. But in the green room, you could feel territory being guarded.
I learned quickly that spiritual language can sound expansive while the room itself feels tight.
That realization was sobering. And necessary.
Because when empowerment is performed but not embodied, and your nervous system knows. You can feel the contraction. You can feel when mentorship is really positioning. You can feel when collaboration is conditional.
I don’t say this with anger.
I say it with clarity.
I have stood in rooms where empowerment was preached and competition was practiced.
And I have stood in a field of thousands where women shared a stage without devouring one another.
The difference is unmistakable.
One expands the body.
One tightens it.
The Nervous System of Expansive Leadership
I realized that I couldn’t continue to work behind that curtain, so I stepped out of that circle onto my own path, right or wrong – you know, like Frank sings, “I did it my way”. At this stage of my life, I care less about being on the stage and more about how the stage is built.
I care about whether power is clean.
I care about whether rooms feel regulated.
I care about whether women expand around one another instead of contract.
Shared power is not accidental.
It is designed.
It is modeled.
It is protected not through control — but through integrity.
I know the difference because I’ve stood on both kinds of stages.
Lilith Fair didn’t argue with the industry.
It built something so successful that the old belief became irrelevant.
That’s what architecture does.
It doesn’t shout.
It stands.
Just like every artist at Lilith Fair played her own music her way – standing independently together. That, too, is part of shared power.
Building a Leadership Legacy for Future Generations
Watching that documentary gave me hope.
Not naive hope.
Evidence-based hope.
I have seen women collaborate at scale. I have seen shared stages fill amphitheaters. I have seen power multiply instead of fracture.
And I have also seen what happens when ego masquerades as mentorship.
Both are true.
The difference is who we become when we hold power.
As elders — whether we claim that word yet or not — we are responsible for modeling the version of power we want inherited.
For my daughter.
For my granddaughters.
For the women building businesses and communities now.
The stage we build is the world they inherit.
And that doesn’t begin in an amphitheater.
It begins in our bodies.
In how we breathe when another woman rises.
In whether our nervous system expands — or tightens.
If this stirred something in you — if you’ve felt the contraction of guarded rooms or the expansion of shared stages — I created something simple for you.
It’s a short guided recalibration called There Is Enough Stage.
It’s not about mindset.
It’s about your body.
About releasing the imprint that power must be guarded to be preserved.
About anchoring into deep leadership — the kind that expands when others rise.
No pitch. No program. Just a recalibration.
Because the stage we build in our own nervous system is the one the next generation will stand on.
Build the stage you wish you had.
Let it be wide.
And remember to notice what your body does when someone rises.
That’s where the work begins.
