Why I REFUSE to label myself a “female” CEO…

Summary

• Don't label yourself a "female CEO" or "female founder"; you're a CEO, a founder. Labels can become crutches, hindering you rather than helping.
• Using labels like "female" in a professional context can make you feel different or inferior, when in reality, your gender does not change your abilities as a leader.
• Labeling oneself with specifics like gender can actually widen the gap of inequality instead of bridging it, which contradicts the intention of promoting gender equality.
• Harvard studies indicated that women who were reminded of their gender before a math test performed worse, showing that internalizing stereotypes can negatively impact performance.
• By expanding your network beyond just women and interacting with male entrepreneurs as well, you learn and grow without limiting yourself to gender-defined groups.
• If men referred to themselves as "male entrepreneurs," it would be unusual and create unnecessary distance. The same applies to women labeling themselves based on gender.
• Choose to empower without reinforcing the gap between genders. While there are physical differences in sports, there is no intellectual difference that should separate a "female CEO" from a "male CEO."
• Accept that life isn't always fair. Focus on things within your control like improving yourself and gaining respect through competence, instead of attributing setbacks to gender.
• Own your personal power. If you face disrespect because of gender, see it as a challenge to be so skillful that your performance speaks louder than any labels.
• Ultimately, aim to be an iconic entrepreneur without the gender qualifier, because your achievements should not be overshadowed by gender perceptions.

Video

How To Take Action

I would suggest dropping labels that limit your view of yourself, like "female CEO" or "female founder." Just call yourself a CEO or a founder. Labels might make you feel different and less than others. They can also make you focus on the label instead of your abilities.

Here's a good way to show your strength: If someone disrespects you because of your gender, use it as a push to be so good at what you do that your skills speak for you, not labels.

Work on expanding your network. Don't just stick to groups of women. Meet and learn from male entrepreneurs too. This way, you grow without limiting yourself.

Remember that life isn't always fair. But instead of getting stuck on gender issues, focus on what you can do to be better and earn respect through your skill and hard work.

Lastly, aim to be an iconic entrepreneur without including the gender qualifier. It's your achievements that matter, not the perceptions of gender.

So, don't let a label be an obstacle. Be known for how amazing you are at what you do, not just because you're a woman. Your personal power is in how well you do your job and how you handle challenges. Keep focusing on your goals and growing your skills. That's the best way to shine.

Quotes by Leila Hormozi

"I do support women more than anyone, I am a female CEO, but I don't support people labeling themselves"

– Leila Hormozi

"Stop using being a woman as a crutch, it's not a reason for why people don't treat you well"

– Leila Hormozi

"I just want to learn how to be a better CEO or be a better entrepreneur"

– Leila Hormozi

"I prefer my opinion to the other because I do think it's more empowering"

– Leila Hormozi

"I have to be so f**king good that it doesn't matter if I'm a male or female CEO"

– Leila Hormozi

Full Transcript

if you are new my name is leila hormozy i'm co-seo acquisition.com which is a portfolio of companies that does about 85 million per year in revenue and my mission with this channel is to get you from where you are to between three to ten million dollars in revenue for free so that is what i do on a weekly basis is just think of tools and tactics that i can provide and insights so that you can get to that point with your business and today um this video has absolutely zero to do with getting your business to between three and ten million this is actually a video that i wasn't really hesitant to make but it kind of just came out of uh a tweet i made the other day which came out of and asked me anything i did on instagram and basically what it was is that i put out you know ask me anything i was like sitting in the car waiting for some appointment or something and i had like probably five women say you know how do i succeed as a female founder female entrepreneur and female ceo and you know the first thing that like came to my mind is i was like stop calling yourself a female ceo or female founder like you're a founder you're a ceo and i tweeted that and it's just gone viral and so i felt like obviously that hit a vein with people because you know honestly i feel like i'm isolated in my opinion and i feel like anytime i put anything out there that's like why are you calling yourself female something like [ __ ] you you don't support the women i'm like i do support women more than anyone i am a female ceo but i don't support people labeling themselves and so that's kind of why i wanted to explain this video is why i don't call myself a female founder female ceo and instead i just call myself ceo or founder or an entrepreneur and the first reason for that is i don't believe in labels i don't find them helpful i don't find them useful and the reason i don't believe in labels is i think most of the time a label becomes a crutch right and so i'll give you two examples one that's not related to this topic and one that is the first one is you know there have been multiple times where i've talked to founders and they say well you know my therapist my doctor my mom tells me i have anxiety and so that's why it's so hard for me to do x y and z that label was probably put there by that person to help them to understand why they're feeling the way they're feeling but what i see so often is labels like that actually then turn into they identify with being a person who has anxiety and has stress and they take more actions to confirm the label that they didn't even put on themselves and then that label no longer is helpful that legal label becomes a crutch okay and so then they just point to that label and say that's why i can't do this that's why i'm so nervous that's why i'm this rather than you're [ __ ] human right and this is human experience and so the same goes for female there was a woman in my business this is about two two and a half years ago and she felt like the leadership team wasn't listening to her and so she came to me and she was like leila she's like i have to say i feel like nobody's listening to me because i'm a woman like i hate to say it and i was like interesting i was like well okay maybe because there are some men who don't want to listen to women which that's life and life's not fair but let's really dissect this because in my mind i was like that's definitely not why um and i broke down while there's not even just you on the leadership team there's three other women do they not listen to those three other women do they not listen to me who's the leader and she's like well no i think they listen to all of you i was like so then is it fair to say that they are discriminating against you because you're a woman or because maybe you're not worthy of respect yet because you are an inexperienced leader and she was like [ __ ] she's like i'm an experienced leader i was like yeah i was like stop using being a woman as a crutch it's not a reason for why people don't treat you well but if you constantly are identifying with being a female this a female that when something goes wrong or someone doesn't respect you or someone yells at you you're gonna be like oh it's because i'm a female rather than like maybe you suck maybe you're not good at something maybe it's the and it's the same reason that for anybody else and so that's the first reason why is i just believe that people start off with labor labels to empower and those labels actually end up hindering them and being a crutch to them and so i don't believe in labeling yourself that being said a second point to that is i'm not gonna call myself a tall ceo i'm not gonna sell myself a persian ceo what does that indicate about my ability nothing in my opinion you know it's just like it's just identifying more differences between people so it's funny because people seek out labels and they seek out titles they're trying to bridge inequality i think between men and women but in doing that you actually widen the gap of inequality because you are differentiating yourself you're saying being a female ceo is different than being a male ceo which makes no sense to me a second point to that to just kind of explain that labels this isn't just my opinion this is based on a lot of facts which is there are multiple studies done at harvard which were before someone would go into a test they would ask them for women they would say are you a female yes or not and then they would have them take the math test the women who were asked that question before the math test did worse than the women who weren't asked that question so it's funny because like these stigmas are still stuck with women and so when they're asked because women are uh statistically uh not typically as good at math as men so when they're asked am i a female before they take a math test something's like i'm a female maybe i'm not as good at math and they question themselves and so you know this is something that i think some people i'm sure will be upset by that life isn't fair and like these are the facts and so constantly labeling yourself as a female rather than just seeing yourself as equal with all other men on the playing field i just feel like it hinders you and so that's the first thing that i don't do it the second reason is i really believe that you limit your community i have so many amazing male entrepreneurs and male ceos that i get to connect with on a daily basis on a weekly basis i get to learn from and i know a lot of women who they don't want to join groups that are mostly men or male dominant or whatever because they're like well i need a group with more females and i've just never even had that thought because i'm like i just want to learn how to be a better ceo or be a better entrepreneur i don't need to put myself just in room with females i can learn just as much from men and so like if you imagine if a man said i'm a male entrepreneur immediately there's like more distance between the two of you than there is likeness because they're putting oh i am this thing and that's what they're identifying with and so when we do that it does the same thing for men honestly i think if i did call myself a female ceo and a female entrepreneur i would probably attract more women and i would deter away men and personally i just don't like the label so that's what it is and maybe i'll attract less women to watch my content because of that i don't really give a [ __ ] i am who i am and i'm not gonna change who i am because of how people want me to be or what's gonna get more likes and shares right and so i just feel like when you can find yourself in a gender box you just completely shun the rest of the population that's not there you know i think that's honestly for anything like if i just constantly talk about how i'm persian and persian i'm iranian and all this stuff like i would attract more iranians but then i would also deflect everybody else who's awesome who's asian and black and white and so like i don't identify with that because i like people in general and i don't want anyone to not want to hang out with me and even if that means that i have less people who are more attracted to me that's fine i don't care so that's the second reason and then the last reason is i think that most women and i know this is their intention is that most of times they want to they're for equality right and so they want to close the gap rather than widen it by saying i'm a female ceo right by empowering women but when you seek to empower by putting that label on there you're actually just reinforcing the norm because you're reinforcing the fact that there's a difference between a man and a female ceo and here's the thing is that in sports it makes complete sense men are physically superior to women i don't know why and how we've gotten this mixed up but they are physiologically speaking i literally learned this in college 10 years ago where they were like statistically men are superior to women that is why there are separate sports because they could maul and kill women if you put them in the same sports which you know we're doing nowadays but whatever i don't my opinion doesn't matter that being said a lot of women i see their argument to be well there's women's mba and then there's the men's mba so you know we're gonna have i'm a female ceo and we're enough male ceo but if you look at studies there's no difference in intelligence between men and women so you're basically saying like inherently like without even knowing that there is a mental handicap for women to be ceo when you say i'm a female ceo there is absolutely a physical difference between men and women there does not have to be an intellectual difference there are probably social norms that don't work in your favor as a female there are probably beliefs that you hold from people that you grew up with that reinforce the fact that you shouldn't be a ceo you shouldn't have that kind of power they shouldn't have that kind of responsibility that you should be doing other things but it's not biologically speaking there's no difference and so every time you say female ceo or male ceo you're reinforcing this idea there's some mental [ __ ] handicap and there's not and so what's the difference and so that is why i don't call myself a female ceo because i think that it is reinforcing the gap in gender rather than helping the gap in gender and ultimately here's the thing even if it's harder to become a ceo to become a founder to be a female entrepreneur if you are a woman because maybe some men don't want to listen to you plenty of men don't want to listen to me here's the thing you can't control it so if every time something happens to you and you say it's because i'm a woman and you just puff and huff and all that [ __ ] and you complain it's so disempowering because you can't do anything about it whereas if it's because i'm not good enough yet i'm not worthy of the respect yet i need to be more talented at this then i can do something about that but if every time somebody doesn't respect me they don't look me in the eyes they don't talk to me they don't acknowledge me they don't come up to me an event that i think it's because i'm a female all i'm doing is taking away my own personal power and the thing is is that you can't control it anyways and at the end of the day even if men don't always not as many men will respect female ceos as they will male ceos because of the gender biases and all that crap from whatever even if that's the case and even if there's truth behind it even if studies have been done what [ __ ] good does it do to think about it like really how is that gonna help you be a better ceo you know what i'll say if that's the truth and i know because i have experienced many people who maybe don't respect me as much maybe you don't want to listen to me as much i can say that i've had experiences and i don't give a [ __ ] why because all i think every time that happens is i'm like guess i gotta be better i have to be so [ __ ] good that it doesn't matter if i'm a male or female ceo that is exactly what i think and that is an empowering thought to me and so if you are a woman out there or if you are you know a man who's married to a woman and you're in business together maybe this will shed some light off for her or maybe if you're a woman and you've been calling yourself a female ceo maybe this will help you with something but honestly you know i prefer my opinion to the other because i do think it's more empowering at the end of the day i would rather be known as an iconic entrepreneur not an iconic female entrepreneur she's got a point she's an icon she's a legend and she is the moment so with that i hope you have a great rest of your week day month i will see you on the next one