This document profiles Dana Theus, founder of InPower Women, InPower Coaching, and InPower Consulting. It summarizes her career path from public affairs and project management to becoming an entrepreneur focused on empowering women. It shares insights from her work experiences and lessons learned about following your passions, speaking your truth, and leaving a positive legacy through empowering others.

1. Recognizing and Celebrating Working Women
Every week we will feature the adventures of one amazing woman. We aim to celebrate the varied and
colourful roles women play within industry and business. Experience inspirational, real stories by real
women; Interested in being featured? Please send your adventures to info@zarsmedia.com For previous
adventures please click here
Adventures of Dana Theus
Founder, InPower Women
InPower Coaching & InPower Consulting
At the end of a 25+ year career of public affairs, technology marketing, strategic planning, project
management, strategic branding, and now leadership development; I became an entrepreneur, so I guess
one could say I gave my current role to myself!
My job now is to help rewrite the narrative on women and power in ways that help all women in all
circumstances understand and experience the power they have INside themselves. I do this through
blogging, coaching (online and offline) and working with corporate clients to bring leadership and "culture
by design" expertise to their senior women and the executive teams who want to run an open and
innovative organization.
There isn’t a routine to my working day. I write a lot, market my websites, give workshops and webinars
and engage in business development every day. I also am training to host a radio show here in the
Washington DC area. I work out of my house so I have flexibility, which is nice, but with one son still at
home, things can get busy! I've learned to be centred at all times (through yoga and meditation) and that
helps a lot.
I sometimes wished I'd gotten an MBA instead of an MA because I might have gotten into the core of
business operations earlier than I did (and I do love business). On the other hand, not having that, I started
off my career working as a policy analyst and advocate in Washington DC for international clients and
travel the world in my 20's. What a fantastic learning and life experience. My path has been one of self-
discovery through my work. Our culture doesn't really support such a quest so I believe that no matter what
path I chose, I would have ended up blazing that trail the hard way anyway. It's hugely satisfying, even if
one of hard work.
Are there any job opportunities or careers I would have liked to explore? No. I got around to pretty much
all of them. I still plan on exploring novel writing someday, but that can wait.
However a lack of mentors who had an appreciation for what I wanted to do was one of my career
obstacles. I had mentors and they were helpful but few of them really knew what to do with me. Because I
was on a journey of self-exploration, I'm not sure that was my path anyway. In the end, my biggest career
obstacles were my own limitations in what I believed I could do - until I removed those limitations and
understood that I could do anything I wanted. This didn't mean the path got easier. Perhaps it got harder.
But it's been much more rewarding.
I'm very successful on some things and still learning on others. It's a challenge to build an online
community. I'm always learning and growing. Luckily people are coming. They're helping me see what is
valuable to them so I can sharpen my value proposition and give them more of what they crave. I'm not
sure there's a pinnacle of success in this business, so I'm content with the success I have that people like
what I offer, come back for more and bring new people in. I love that people tell me they find my work
inspiring. Who can ask for more?

2. Women ARE making a difference in the workplace, simply by being their most authentic selves. Women
bring unique blends of talents and skills to the workplace that our modern business cultures desperately
need. The most important thing we can do to help unleash this power in the business world is for women to
stop worrying about what other people think of them, or convincing themselves that they're inadequate and
invest their energy in BEing their best, more authentic and most powerful selves. I did a TEDx talk on this
recently (video will be up here: http://www.inpowerwomen.com/the-research-behind-my-tedx-
massavewomen-talk/)
All the amazing women I meet and know. I see their power even when they don't and when they tap into it,
it's the most beautiful thing in the world. I live for being around women when they awaken to their own
power.
Follow your heart and your head. Learn to help them work together. Be true and authentic to yourself.
Choose not to live in fear. When you are true to yourself, even when you evolve and you become true to
your evolution, others will be attracted to you and support you, just as you will learn to support them.
Learn to speak your truth without letting your voice waver and you will be forever strong. Don't let them
shout down your inner voice. Learn to listen to it and value it. Make sure you learn to spend time alone and
enjoy it. Remember also that it's all game. The tabloid images of perfection are a lie. Your boss is human.
Your client is human. Learn to find something to enjoy in every experience and you will be forever
entertained.
When I quit my corporate jobs I gained flexibility, which doesn't mean I've always been home. My
husband and I are a team. Also, I have learned to invest in myself enough to become and stay happy. My
children benefit from having a "whole mom" and I benefit from having a life beyond my family, while
always keeping my family at the core.
For my legacy a wake of INpowered people who have learned to use their inner power to be more content,
more effective and more impactful - each of them leaving a slightly better world behind them; that is
legacy I would like to leave behind.
My success secret? Have an intention for success. Stay true to it, but evolve it and allow it to evolve you.
Now to end my adventures one of my favourite quotes;
I beg you... to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions
themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the
answers, which could be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to
live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually,
without even noticing it, live your way into the answer..... ~ Rilke
Dana Theus, Founder
InPower Women
InPower Coaching
InPower Consulting