What was the best piece of career advice you received when you were first starting out?

I was 22 years old, in my first job for a large corporation, and I watched our Vice President tell my Manager, who was considering cancelling his family vacation to attend a meeting our Director (my manager’s boss) asked him to attend, “Our company will never remember you cancelled your vacation to attend that meeting, but your family always will. Go back and say if they really need you at the meeting to schedule it the following week. Nothing here at work is that important – family time is most important.”

What quotation inspires you and motivates you to be yourself and do what you love?

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” – R. Buckminster Fuller

I am convinced we cannot change the current corporate structures to operate in a way that allows for the diversity, equity, equality, flexibility, and civility I desire. I believe the only way to get there is for women to take the lead in building businesses. Women are going to have to build the new model so people can see how the new model will look, feel, and operate. We will never get the current model and structures to change – at least not in my lifetime. At the current pace of getting women CEOs into the Fortune 500, it will be 300+ YEARS before we reach parity. Building the new model is a better use of my time.

What does the world need more of? Less of?

The world needs more of the feminine. The reason everything is so unbalanced is because we have a complete lack of the feminine vibration in our corporate, political, and societal structures. I want the working women of today to be known for bringing forth the feminine by building new business structures. What I mean by bringing forth the feminine is operating in a way that is absent from most of the work structures most of us work in. There is an imbalance of the masculine and the feminine vibration and energies in today’s work structures. Bringing forth the feminine will bring balance, for everyone. I believe women have a unique opportunity today to build business structures intentionally with a balance of the masculine and the feminine.

“You have nothing on which to pattern a positive image of the empowered feminine. So men are striving to be male and women are striving to be empowered through a male vibration because you do not have a clear vision of the empowered female. You must create it." (Bringers of the Dawn: Teaching from the Pleiadians by Barbara Marciniak, 1992)

Knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently when you were first starting out?

Even though I stepped out of Corporate America in my 30’s to work independently, I wish I had not waited until my 40’s to start my first company. When I used to teach at the University of Denver, I would always ask my classes, “How many of you have been told you should start or run your own business”, most of the men would raise their hands. None of the women would raise their hand. We need to be telling women to start and run their own businesses.

If you were given $100 million, would you run your business any differently? How so?

Since my current business is just getting started, I would hire the leadership team I want to scale my business. I would pay everyone working for me a true living wage. I would build beautiful spaces to work in. I would contribute a significant percentage to our communities, and I would fund GirlAuthentic to provide other women funding for their businesses.

You’ve had multiple successful businesses over your career. Where were you in life when you decided to start your first business?

The reason I decided to do this…is my children. When they were in middle and high school, after I had worked corporate jobs for 20+ years, I realized I did not know any business structure that I would want my children to head off into and devote significant periods of their time. I’m not saying they don’t exist. I believe they do as currently hidden structures. I want us to find them and grow them. I want new structures with a balance of the masculine and feminine to be part of supporting those who want to live whole and complete lives instead of the culturally fed views many of us receive of what “having it all” looks like. I believe women are going to have to build these new businesses. So, I wanted to be an example. That’s why I started my businesses.

Michelle M. Meyer is the Founder and CEO of MatterProviders, a WBENC-certified business.

Order reprints of Boss Babes Magazine here.