You can clearly see that Mamie Francis Hafley had a few tricks up her sleeve to help her power through life. Here she is hamming it up with her faithful friend and steed, Napoleon.
Mamie knew how to thrill audiences and had a horse diving act riding off a fifty-foot-high platform into a barrel of water just ten feet across! Between 1908 and 1914 she performed this stunt 628 times. The fact that she couldn’t swim never stopped her!
She also performed as a sharpshooter, and did her rifle shooting from horseback in Wild West shows. Francis was teamed with Princess Winona in a vaudeville-shooting act known as Winona and Francis. Always drawing on her toolkit of experience and lessons learned, she continued to re-create herself and her performances throughout her life.23
This is my “Cowgirl Power Toolkit.” It is based on my life experiences that I described throughout the book. The toolkit contains easy-to-read, quick summaries of all of the main ideas in the book for easy reference. These are some of the sources of positive personal power. They are limitless and are available to everyone. I’m sure there are many more than I describe here. We will each find our own unique sources. These sources of power are not bestowed on you. Some you earn, some you adopt because they speak to you, some are inspirational directions.
Read through the ideas and pick two or three that are interesting to you. Then begin to apply them and practice at purposefully getting better at them. Think about ways you can stand out, inspire people, and build your power. The good news is that you don’t have to attend a conference or go to a seminar or endure an in-house training session to learn these techniques.
Think about these different approaches from a long-term perspective. How could implementing a few of these impact your family and your career in five years? Or twenty? How could these ideas help your children have happy, successful lives?
How can you string some of these ideas together? If you want to be a better public speaker but you are not super confident, add a serving of self-deprecating humor to your opening remarks. You’ll be fine. You will see lots of opportunity to mix and match the recommendations.
Work with your confidants, the Rough Riders. Experiment with this in the safety of that close-knit group of trusted advisors. Talk to your friends and co-workers about these ideas over lunch. Share information about what works and does not work for each of you. The more you make this tangible, the more effective it will be for you. Practice, practice, practice.
I sincerely believe that if we all change the discourse and stop focusing on our lack of power and instead focus on building our own personal power, we can change the realities of our lives for the better. We can show our children pathways to success. We can live happier, more fulfilling lives.
The toolkit is a working, living document. It has more ideas than I was able to cover in the book.