“After becoming a mother, I didn’t have the energy for stuff I would make excuses about before. So, I began to whittle away all of the b.s. in my life. That included people but it was also places and the programming. Turning 40 was another breaking point for me and this phrase kept coming to me, I will no longer abandon myself in service to others,” said Erin Gallagher, Author, Entrepreneur and Hype Woman.
How often do you feel powerful enough to address your needs? We tend to have a lot of control within our homes and communities. Yet, it doesn’t translate into optimizing how we live. Despite our incredible contributions and brilliance, women remain underfunded, under researched, under supported and underpaid relative to our male peers. But what if we could change it?
There is Power in Motherhood
Erin said, “When I became a mother, I saw more power inside of myself than I knew I possessed. There was the physical experience of not just birthing, keeping alive and then rearing a child, but what it meant for me to now have the role of ‘mother’ in the world.”
We discussed how mothers are still judged harshly by society, and there’s no winning the approval game, even when you try really hard. She added, “Those expectations of mothers and the stigma and shame that comes along with doing, and not doing everything, required a whole other level of psychological fortitude I needed to strengthen.”
But it Doesn’t Translate into Economic Power
Mothers, as a group, haven’t achieved the career growth, stability, peace or financial abundance we deserve. Despite our elite project management skills and capacity. Traditional workplaces still value always-on-presence and most of us are so exhausted post-kids, we slide into survival living.
And fatigue, is not a great foundation for wellbeing or growth of any kind. Women are being pushed from the paid workforce again in record numbers this year, especially mothers and Black women. It undermines courage, as the economic conditions add more strain to our families. So, how do we escape the losing end of the wage, wealth, and leadership gaps?
Tap the Power of Hype
Although the US economy is in currently in free fall for everyone, the infrastructure beneath it never worked for women. Even before the launch of her new book, Hype Women: Breaking Free From Mean Girls, Patriarchy and Systems Silencing You, Erin has been not so quietly building a movement. With the intention to disrupt the penalties women pay, especially in our careers and post motherhood opportunity-sphere.
She said, “The work I do is really to hype women to remember who they are and to heal themselves, because that is sustainable. When we’re seeking outside of our bodies all of the time, it’s difficult to maintain. But when we self-source and figure out how to find answers inside of ourselves, that is true power.” Amen!
Celebrate Women’s Achievements
Erin said, “I was writing pretty prolifically on LinkedIn for about 5 years. Because I was finally outside of corporate America and starting to come into my own. So, I started to tell the truth in a place where I had been told it wasn’t appropriate to have these conversations, on the world’s largest professional network.”
Her movement gained traction when she published a LinkedIn post that went viral. “I saw this image that sparked a fire inside of me of Jamie Lee Curtis celebrating Michelle Yeoh as she won best actress. The image is Jamie elated with her arms outstretched, screaming. And when you see the photo if you don’t have the context, you think that Jamie won something. And that’s what got me! This idea that a woman was celebrating another woman’s success as if it were her own.”
Opt-In to Community-Led Growth
Women excel at organizing everything from holiday parties and parent-teacher organizations to meal trains and fund drives. Yet we’ve been socialized against using this power to advance each other. We discussed how men open doors for each other, without fear there’s ‘less’ available or that they’re taking some huge risk by doing so.
Over the summer, I was fortunate to join one of Erin’s Fairway dinners for women in leadership. It was transformative. We shared openly, laughed and got to know each other, around a communal table and great meal. She held space for us to ask each other for support for our projects. Erin explained, “We’ve hosted 33 and over 1,500 women in these ten major cities we have increased our collective wealth by more than $33 million. More importantly, we have inspired one another to break free from the people, places and programming that are holding us back.”
Face Your Inner ‘Mean Girl’
Erin said, “The first thing to do is to acknowledge that we all have a mean girl inside of us because we’re taught that women are our competition. That ‘inner mean girl’ rears her head sometimes in those moments when you see someone else succeeding and feel ‘less than.’ Like when you feel nervous about something you’re putting out into the world, and you start to compare yourself.” But we can reverse this ‘mean girl’ programming with intentional action.
Reframe, Retrain and Build New Habits
Erin said, “What many of us end up doing, if we feel that way about other women’s achievements, is shaming ourselves. Women will have this self-hating internal monologue, like ‘why would I think that? What’s wrong with me?’ We’re all alone in our homes having these horrible thoughts about ourselves that are not our fault.”
She added, “Acknowledge and then act. For example, ‘I’ve been taught my whole life to do that so, I’m going to do the opposite right now.’ Because when I do, I will begin to rewire my brain. When I participate in that act of hyping I will release endorphins inside of my body that make me feel good. And I will teach myself, this is the way forward.’ As with any sort of habit that you want to break or ritual that you are participating in without thought, you have to replace it with something that is healthier and better.”
And Remember, Hype is a Verb
I am a grateful recipient of Erin’s hype, after we met in Boston and pre-ordered each other’s books. Erin said, “Hype is a verb. That is the difference between being an admirer of women or silent supporter. Hype requires action and so when your book is coming out, what I don’t do is sit in my house and send you good wishes with my head. That’s not what I do. I text you, congratulate you, preorder your book and I post about it using my social and political capital on platforms where I’ve created enough of a following. Where I can then encourage other people to go and purchase your book. You have to show up for other women.”
Use Any Power You Have for Change
Erin’s Hype Woman movement is as much about building as it is dismantling a broken set of rules that never worked for women. She said, “It was all rolled up in my identity. To see other women succeed in the world, my role as a mother and what it meant when I followed the ‘good girl’ rules. I decided the rules were rigged in a game that that we were never going to win if we kept playing it that way. It all just kept swirling in me until I decided enough was enough. And the more you talk about what’s really happening with people you care about, you realize that this system isn’t working for so many of us. And we need to make some serious shifts.”
Many thanks to the talented Erin Gallagher!
Buy Erin’s amazing new book launching next week, Hype Women: Breaking Free From Mean Girls, Patriarchy and Systems Silencing You. Sign up for her launch party October 14th and events on her website, And follow her great adventure on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram,
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About Erin Gallagher:
Erin is the CEO + Founder of Ella (an inclusive network unlocking women’s access to human, social and financial capital), the Founder of the Hype Women Movement and Host of the Hype Women Podcast.
She brings 20 years experience leading global marketing, business development, media relations, branding, communications and organizational and culture change to the many roles she currently plays: small business owner, disruptor, entrepreneur, system-challenger and mother to two young boys.
She was named a 2023 Top 100 LinkedIn Creator and Top 10 DEI Voice (#5) and penned one of the Top 100 Most Influential LinkedIn Posts of the Decade. Erin has counseled The White House and C-suite and senior leaders at some of the world’s biggest and best brands and companies — from LinkedIn to United Airlines to Carhartt to McDonald’s, to name a few.
Through her work forging relationships with change makers and leaders who believe in the power of diversity, equity, inclusion and access, Erin has become (as one Global CMO so succinctly put it) “the not-so-secret weapon so many leaders count on to drive real change…she knows everyone.” Erin is the creator of The Fairway (Dinners, Membership and App): inclusive, intersectional, intimate spaces where every woman has a seat to give and get business.
