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The podcast "Empowering Women to Lead" explores women's potential in leadership through stories of breaking barriers and inspiring future leaders. Tracy Duxon, mayor of Des Moines, shares her journey and commitment to community service. Tracy emphasizes the importance of having a vision and plan in leadership, building bridges, and empowering women to lead by encouraging and supporting them. She addresses challenges faced by women in leadership, focusing on overcoming barriers and staying focused on positive actions. Tracy's approach includes listening, understanding, and engaging with community members, even in difficult situations, to foster understanding and collaboration. She highlights the value of acknowledging people's passions and intentions, even in disagreements, and finding common ground to build connections and promote positive change. Tracy's leadership style emphasizes humility, consensus-building, and empowering others to succeed, demonstrating a commitment to serving he Welcome to Empowering Women to Lead, the podcast where we explore the incredible potential of women in leadership, and in each episode we will dive into stories, challenges and triumphs of women who are breaking barriers, redefining leadership and inspiring future generations. Whether you're an aspiring leader or someone already on the path to success, this show is all about equipping you with the insights, strategies and tools to step confidently into your power and take the lead in your life, career and community. Join us as we uncover what it takes to empower women to lead, boldly, authentically and unapologetically. Let's get started. Today I am joined by my friend Tracy Duxon. Tracy is the mayor of the city of Des Moines, which is located on the south side of Seattle. She is currently the president of the Sound Cities Association and plays an active role not only in our town, but in our larger community. And I happen to be in Tracy's town, so welcome Tracy, as the mayor, as my mayor and for being on our podcast today. Oh, thanks for the invitation. I'm really looking forward to this. Appreciate the invite. Yeah. Well, Tracy, I wanted to start off with a question that I do with the other podcast guests. Could you share with us one thing that people don't know about you or something that's fun about you? Well, in my fair time over the last, you know, couple of decades, I've been a finished carpenter. We flip houses and I can operate a backhoe. It's amazing. I can only imagine. Operating a backhoe. That would be a little bit beyond my scope, but I have no idea if you can do that. Well, just to give our listeners a little background into you being a mayor, can you share a story about your journey into being a mayor and how it has empowered you as a woman to lead? That's a good question. Okay. So my journey into it, I have four kids and they were just about done transitioning into adulthood. I was at a crossroads deciding after always pouring into the community in one way or the other, whether it was youth leadership or being the wrestling van driver mom or whatever it was, what was I going to do now? And I was approached by a friend and colleague who said, you should run for city council. And I thought, no way. That is a foreign country with a foreign language. It was never on my radar. But within a week, I went running. I just thought, why not a great way to serve my community? And I was up for a new adventure. Yes. I remember that year, actually, because we didn't have a lot of women on our council. Actually, to this day, we still don't have any women on our council. So I do really appreciate your role there in our town. And one of the things that always hit me, Tracy, about your leadership was that you took your leadership seriously. It wasn't just that you were out there talking to people. And our town is actually located on the water, on the beach of town, and we have a marina. And you weren't just walking around the marina just talking to people just for fun, but you took it seriously and you wanted to find out from the people some situations that were going on or what they thought about the town and what they thought about the city council. And in my business as a leadership trainer, I look at leadership in kind of five different stages. And I would say that you are on the stage four and five as a leader because your leadership is in the job of helping to develop people. And so I have seen this over and over again since 2018, is that not only helping our citizens to develop and become more involved in our community, but you're leading by consensus and you're leading in humility. And in both conversations, I see how you constantly are listening and gleaning from what people are saying and trying to help people to understand. So I'd like for you to speak to our listeners for a minute about the challenges that you face as a mayor and as a woman. And how has this, even in your conversations, how has this, either you've overcome it, the conversations with the community, or how has it helped you as you've led the community? Wow, great question. Thank you for your kind words, by the way. Yes, I think my paradigm about leadership is not, I don't have a ladder that I want to climb and a place that I'm trying to go. I feel like I've got a message that I carry, a vision, a mission, and I feel like I've got a plan about how to accomplish that. And a lot of people don't have plans. They have the same passion. So I think that's important in leadership. You don't aspire to lead. You aspire to succeed in some kind of a vision with a plan. And then people, if you believe in yourself, people will believe in you. But also for me, I am totally tunnel vision to anybody who's standing in front of me. If you're standing in front of me and talking to me, I'm so interested in you and affected by you. And I want to either connect you with people that will succeed with you, that you will succeed with. So I'm a bridge builder. I love to see people find who they need to be with. And I feel that way even in policy and pushing forward issues. It's like, do you guys want this? Okay, let's go for it. We'll see if we can find a way to get that done. So I love to listen. I love to help people succeed and to succeed with a team. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I think that that's a great word for you is a bridge builder. And I've seen you do this over and over time within our community. I remember a conversation when I was in Rosarito with you and you were sharing with some people about a situation that was going on. And you were not trying to convince them to vote the way you thought, but you were trying to help them to see why voting this way could help our community. And I think that that's so important because citizens don't always get what's on the ballot. They don't always understand what's going on. And I've just been able to see you to do that. So that has been wonderful, Tracy. Thank you. Thank you. All right, if we could shift our thoughts for a second. How have you been able to empower women even in our community to lead? They say in politics, and I think it's in leadership, many leadership circles, that to run for public office, women need to – men do it because they want to do it. Women need to be invited. And they need to be invited three times. So when I talk to women and they're considering even not just running for office, but whatever, some big thing in front of them, and I encourage them, say, you can do this. And then I say, this is number one. This is the first invitation. And so go look for the next ones. And so I always want to see women succeed. We still run into – we live in a society that touts loudly that we have come so far. But women in leadership, even in this deep blue region here, still really face a lot of barriers. And how do we overcome that? I would say how I overcome it the best I can is if somebody won't let me in, they won't give me the information I need, they don't want to partner with me, I've got enough energy to go do a different project. So then I'll say, fine, I'll go look for another need, another something that needs somebody to help, and I'll attack that. And even if it's small or somebody doesn't think it's important, you begin stacking those things up successfully. And it's really hard to disrespect a stack of small successes. And so I'll just keep busy about something I can do. Yeah, okay, I like that. Because you're able to find – like, if you get a roadblock, you're able to, like, go to the right or the left, and you can walk right around it, find another thing that can interest you or to help you with the change. Or not get bogged down by offense, right? That's just going to rob you of energy. So if I get offended and I'm doing that for a while, I'm further behind in getting something good done. So I just, like, let it roll. Okay, so tell me the one thing that you feel like that has helped you to be able to not take offense or not be hurt by that situation. Well, it's not that I'm not hurt. I do get hurt and I do get offended, but it's how I decide to respond to it. I've got to put it away. I'm not going to act on it and beat it by going out on social media, writing somebody a letter, writing an email, or sitting down and talking about it with somebody who can spread it around. I just say, I'm going to swallow this and I'm going to go – again, I'm going to just go find another avenue of success if these people are going to offend me. And then sometimes I just, to repeat, there are a few avenues of that that are continual on, for example, social media, and I just refuse to read it. Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about social media for a minute because I think our town has the most interesting Facebook site, and I don't read it very often, but I do remember back before COVID that there was a couple of issues that people just kept bringing back up. You were so kind to try to explain it to them. Okay, here's my question to you. Why did you take the time to do that, and did you find it profitable? I find it profitable about 80% of the time for two reasons. Sometimes you do answer people's questions and change their mind, but it's super important to recognize that no matter what passion that you're coming up against or coming up in front of your face, it's coming from almost everybody that's wanting to do something good in the world. And so when they disagree with you vehemently about something, they want to do good. And if I can connect with that, it makes a huge difference. And so when somebody is, I don't care how angry they are or nasty they are to me, if they're taking the time to write to me or write, I thank them for that. Thank you for taking the time to share your concerns with me because somebody invested their time in this because they care. That's why people are so angry. So if I can recognize that and connect to, if I can get them to see that I care too, then now all of a sudden we're on common ground. We both care. And if I compliment and recognize that somebody has invested their heart and time and mind into something, that's meaningful to them. It's like, she recognized that about me? Okay, now I can listen to her. It's not a trick. I really do open my heart to people. Some of the people I've been the most offended by and frustrated with are spicy women. But I can't help it. Spicy women are irresistible to me. And so I let them know that. I really honestly do love that. So, yeah. Okay. So first of all, you're speaking gold. I mean, this is like so good what you're sharing. Because I think we, as human beings, have a difficult time when somebody says stuff that, I mean, it's offensive. Right? And honestly, as a counsel person, I do believe people do say it to your face because they think they can. And so I think it's really, what you're saying is so important. And listeners, I hope you're listening to what Tracy has to say. Because this is the way in which you can overcome and have a mindset shift from people who are, maybe they're not trying to be angry at you, but they sure do sound like they're being angry at you. And so I appreciate that, Tracy, for being able to share kind of what you're able to do and how you're able to cross the bridge to the other side and not get angry back at them. Yeah, you don't want to get down on the playground and start taking dirt and pebbles at people. You just, you cannot go there. You've got to find out where, how can I move ahead with this conversation. Sometimes it just means letting them have the last word. That's okay. I'm going to go on to my next good deed. You know, let it lie. I refuse to humiliate a citizen. So even if I'm right, I will go be right in person unless I absolutely must correct something publicly. But that's the last thing I ever want to do is humble or humiliate somebody out in public in writing. Right. So I take it private. Yeah. No, thank you. And I appreciate that. And I think our listeners can, all of us, including myself, can learn from what you just shared with us. So thank you so much. Thank you so much. And I do want to make a note of something that I saw you doing about two months ago. And this is how Tracy leads with humility. She, there was an issue that was going to be on the ballot. And I knew Tracy so wanted this issue to be passed. And she talked to multiple people. I saw her at a very different time talking to multiple people. And the issue didn't pass. Didn't pass. And she had, the things that she was sharing with other people was correct. I listened to her. I knew exactly what she was trying to do. She was really trying to help the people. And, and so Tracy told me, like, well, that's super disappointing all the time you spent doing that. And you always learn from work you do. And so even if not passing, I learned so much going through the process. So the very night that it doesn't work, you just dust off your knees and go, okay, we got a lot of work ahead of us. We better spend our energy on figuring out how to succeed with what we now have. That's the only way to make it. You've got to learn to succeed with what you have. So I just wallow, how can I wallow in pity about all that? No way. We had a lot of work to do. And thank God we moved forward and got through it so hard. Hey, here we are in a new adventure. Oh, my word. You're killing me. This is awesome. Thank you so much, Tracy. That is great. Because I think that, you know, even as women, is that we get, if we really put our neck out and we go out and we try to get the job or we try to do the thing. I mean, just even you being there, right? We only have like two women on our council. I was the only woman for two years. There we go. And so, you know, you put your neck out there and you know, I know you had comments about you being the only woman on the council. I know that because I've been in situations where I was the only female representative. And so I hope, listeners, that you're hearing about what it takes to be encouraged as a woman and how it takes, how to be empowered so that we can lead others into the future. So, Tracy, if you had one thing to encourage the women that are listening right now, what is it that you would say to them about being empowered? You shared that question with me earlier, so I actually wrote something that I wanted to say. I'll start with this. I remember about 20 years ago I wanted to write a book and I felt daunted. And I walked into a Borders book one day, not on purpose, I was there looking for a book, and I stood in the middle of the store and all of a sudden I had an awful moment. I looked around the entire, it was huge. We don't have these huge bookstores anymore. Paper is, I don't even know how to spell it anymore, but. And I looked, there's probably 10,000 books in that room. I thought, there are 10,000 people represented in this room that finished writing a book. Are you kidding me? You mean I can't do it? Of course I can. These people don't have anything over me. And so I want to write, I want to say this. If you're feeling daunted, look at the women around you that you know and that you don't know. Consider how many women have done incredible things and you have got to believe that almost all of them are regular, just like me. They have to bathe and eat and blow their nose and even more crass things. Right? We are all basically humans. Are you really incapable? Of course not. Of course you can do it. But you need to recognize that no one, I mean absolutely no one gets a free ride. Right? People prepare years for the moments that seem to just appear. It's mind-boggling hard to write a book, to get elected, to build a house. But if thousands of others have done it, so can you. Looking right at the camera. It doesn't take intelligence as much as it takes grit and determination. Just don't give up. In order to lead, people need to believe in you and they will believe in you if you do. Tracy, that was beautiful. Thank you so much. I know I benefited from that. I really appreciate it. You know, Tracy, I just, I knew when I asked you to come and be a guest on our podcast, I knew that I wanted to hear from you and I loved your humility as a council member in my town. But today I have seen your heart and that means a lot to me. Because when we are going to continue to be the women that we were created to be, then we are going to do just like you said. We're going to step out. Sometimes with grit. Sometimes it just takes perseverance and determination. But it takes us deciding that we're going to do it. And you're exactly right. It takes reaction. And so thank you so much for taking your valuable time to share with us today. I believe that as we talk about empowering women to lead, I believe that our listeners will hear and be able to understand exactly what it takes to be an empowered woman who's leading. So if you'd like to connect with Tracy, we've included her email address in the show notes. And maybe you have thought about running for council or for mayor in your town. I know Tracy would be a great resource and help you to continue that conversation. So please, don't hesitate to send her a note. And if you're wanting to take a deeper dive into how you can find your purpose and be empowered to lead, please check out our Purpose Journey program that's on our website. It will walk you step by step through the areas that you need to grow and to see your life empowered. So go to the show notes, click the website and find out more information. Now we also want to encourage you to invite a friend to listen to this podcast. So please share this with your friends and with any woman who needs to be encouraged that she too can be empowered to lead. And she too can be empowered to write a book, to do anything that she wants to do. Absolutely. And if you like, please subscribe to our podcast. We'd love to have you. Tracy, I do have to ask you one question. I sure got to ask you. Sure. Did you ever write the book? No, not yet. Okay. So that is something that we want to hear about when you're done. Because here on our podcast, we are on a quest to help empower women to lead. So until next week, we want to keep encouraging you to learn and understand what it means to be empowered. And for those of you who know of an empowered woman who is touching the lives of other people, please email us and share with us how she would be a great guest on our podcast. So until next time, we'll see you again. Thank you, Tracy. Thank you, Ruth. Appreciate it. Okay.