Powerful Women Rising - A Business Podcast for Female Entrepreneurs
Welcome to Powerful Women Rising, the no-nonsense, laugh-out-loud podcast for heart-centered female entrepreneurs ready to make an impact (and a profit) while staying true to themselves!
Forget cookie-cutter, one size fits all advice. Each episode provides customizable advice and strategies to help you grow and scale your business - from leveraging authentic connections to mastering the art of marketing without feeling like a salesy weirdo. Plus, you'll hear insightful interviews with experts who shed light on those sneaky blind spots in your businessand dish out practical, no-BS advice for making more money in a way that feels good.
Tune in and transform the way you do business – because when women rise together, the sky's the limit!
Overnight success is a myth. The real path to impact is resilience and community.
Entrepreneurship is often glamorized, but the truth is that building a business that truly matters is hard. It takes resilience, community, and a willingness to keep going, even when life throws everything it has at you.
In the fourth epsiode of our 2024 Powerful Women Rising Award winners series, you'll hear from two extraordinary women who know this journey firsthand:
🔥 Kim Munsch (2024 Resilience Award Winner) – An event planner and single mother of five, Kim shares how she built a successful business while navigating divorce, job loss, and even stalking.
💡 Aleta Wagner (2024 Impact Award Winner) – As the founder of Mountain Mama Pelvic Health, she turned her expertise as an OT into a thriving wellness practice while homeschooling three kids.
Their stories shatter the myth of overnight success and highlight the real, raw, and often messy parts of entrepreneurship that no one talks about.
We Discuss:
✅ The truth about balancing business, family, and personal challenges ✅ How to cultivate resilience when business (and life) gets tough ✅ How having a mentor (someone ahead of you), peers (at your level) and helping those behind you creates a balanced support network
Building something meaningful isn’t easy—but you don’t have to do it alone. Tune in to learn what it really takes to create a business with lasting impact.
This episode is part of our 2024 PWR Impact Awards Winner Series, featuring women who are making a difference in the business world. Want more inspiration, strategies, and real talk from award winning women? Subscribe now so you don’t miss the next episode!
Melissa Snow is a Business Relationship Strategist dedicated to empowering women in entrepreneurship. She founded the Powerful Women Rising Community, which provides female business owners with essential support and resources for business growth.
Melissa's other mission is to revolutionize networking, promoting authenticity and genuine connections over sleazy sales tactics. She runs an incredible monthly Virtual Speed Networking Event which you can attend once at no cost using the code FIRSTTIME
She lives in Colorado Springs with two girl dogs, two boy cats and any number of foster kittens. She loves iced coffee, Taylor Swift, and Threads.
Good morning ladies. Welcome to the Powerful Women Rising podcast. Good morning. So excited to have two more of the winners of the 2024 Powerful Women Rising Impact Awards here on the podcast. I have Kim, who is the winner of the Resilience Award, and I have Alita, who is the winner of the Active Impact Awards. We're going to talk a little bit about what those awards mean, but first, why don't you guys just tell everybody a little bit about you and what you do and who you are? Kim, do you want to go first? Sure.
Kim Munsch:
So, Kim Munch, I live in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. I am a single mom of five. My kids' age ranges are 24 down to 10. And then I also have two grandsons. So stay very, very busy. I have a business getting to do my passion and what I love, and that is events. I like to not even like to, but I love to create experiences for people at those events. That's awesome.
Melissa Snow:
And how did you get into event planning?
Kim Munsch:
So I've been in the administrative field for, oh my goodness, probably 27 years, like since high school and part of my job had always been doing events. I lost a job back in 2016. And I remember I was completely devastated and one day, like it was just this light bulb of I figured out why, and it was because 90% of my job there was doing events. So I started it was Kim Louise events and designs at the time and just a few months ago, rebranded to the Kim Louise experience.
Melissa Snow:
I love that. That's so awesome. Okay, I'm going to come back to you in a little bit, but first, alita, tell us a little bit about you and who you are.
Aleta Wagner:
Yeah, my name is Alita Wagner and I live in Monument, colorado. I own Mountain Mama Pelvic Health. I'm a pelvic floor occupational therapist. I worked for about 17 years and started doing pelvic floor kind of dabbling in it about eight years ago for my own pelvic floor dysfunction and then really dove in and started my own company in 2023. So two years in love what I do. I love serving the women in our community and educating the women in our community. It's a fun job. I get to work with pregnant women. I get to work with postpartum women. I get to work with teenagers. I get to work with perimenopause and menopausal women. It's just a fun, fun job to be able to support women.
Melissa Snow:
That's awesome, yeah, and you've only been in business for a couple of years, but you are all over the place. I think everyone I meet here I we live sort of close to each other 20, 30 minutes and I meet so many people who also know you, which is so fun. And one of the things that I love about being an entrepreneur and especially about like networking and being in entrepreneurial spaces with other women is hearing about all these different types of businesses. Women start right Like you think I'm going to go into business, but for myself. So am I going to be a doctor? Am I going to open a law firm? But it's like there are so many different. I didn't even know that pelvic floor was a thing until I became an entrepreneur, and it's cool to be able to then go talk to all the non-entrepreneurs who are like can't jump on the trampoline without peeing their pants and be like you know who you need to talk to. Yes, all right.
Melissa Snow:
So let's talk a little bit about these awards that you won. So, Kim, you were the winner of the Resilience Award, and that award was given to someone who had overcome significant challenges in their journey, who showed exceptional resilience and who was inspiring other people through their determination. So obviously you've made a big impact on some people because you were nominated by your peers and then you were chosen as the winner by a panel of judges. Tell us a little bit about you alluded to the fact that you some some job loss. That was devastating. You have a lot of kids. Tell us a little bit about your experience with resilience in your entrepreneurial journey and how that has played out for you in, but as an adult.
Kim Munsch:
Even before the incident in 2016, my first husband was an abusive alcoholic that I one day realized what am I doing? And we had three kids together long story, but I managed to leave and I became a single mom of three. I went back to school, continued to work because it was just me taking care of them as a single mom. I got remarried. We had two more kids and we were still married in 2016 when I lost that job. But shortly after that my husband at the time decided he wanted a separation and that quickly turned into he wanted a divorce. So then I found myself a single mom of five.
Kim Munsch:
I had started that business before that divorce, but it was shortly after that those other things transpired and it had to just be put on the back burner. It stayed on the back burner for a really long time Because I was a single mom. I didn't have the ability to just build a brand new business. I had to have what I call my day job or my paycheck job to make sure that I could survive and take care of my kids. A few years after that, I ended up in a relationship and eventually ended that relationship, and that ex-man became a stalker, and that went on for two and a half years and I continued to still go, because I was going for two things. The two things that made me go were my kids. My five kids counted on me and I had to keep going on me, and I had to. You know, I had to keep going, I had to keep surviving. I had to show them that you can be strong and you can do this, no matter what comes about.
Kim Munsch:
I continued to work the business in very, very tiny, little, bite-sized pieces and even you know, through that stalking incident, what I found was is even those baby steps were still helping and I'm terrible with baby steps, it's still a work in progress Like I just I want to go, I want to do it, I want to have it done, right, and so I just I kept going and there were times where I was like I'm out, I'm done, I can't do this, it's just too much, it's too overwhelming. But yet that still followed me. I was then suddenly like I tried to stop the business. But then I was suddenly getting inquiries and somebody had said to me once they're like you know, when you're doing what you're meant to do, it's not going to go away and I knew in that moment like she is right and this is my passion and I'm, even if I do have to do the baby steps along the way.
Melissa Snow:
Yeah, what I love about that story well, there's a lot of things I love about that story, but I think some of the key takeaways that I want people who are listening to this to hear and I think this is something that is really important that we talk about more in entrepreneurship is, first of all, that period of time that you were like I'd really love to be working on my business full-time and I need a J-O-B. I think for so many entrepreneurs, getting a job means you failed. Right. There's this like we tie our identity to being entrepreneurs Our community is entrepreneurs and then to have a time in our lives when it's like I can't work on this right now. I have to get a job For some reason.
Melissa Snow:
There can be like shame and embarrassment in that, which is silly, because the rest of the world also has a job. Right, like there's probably it should be more shame and embarrassment and like I'm sitting here not making any money and I have five children, and so I love that idea of just like you had to do what you had to do at the time without actually letting go of the dream. And I also love what you said about the baby steps too, because, especially now in this world of online businesses and all of these celebrity influencer business coaches. It's all about like how fast can you make six figures? Right? I went from making $52 a month to making $52,000 a month following this blueprint and your story is very much like sometimes I moved inches at a time, sometimes I moved miles at a time, but I kept moving. It wasn't a race, it wasn't how fast could I get there, it was just keep moving and I think that's so, so important.
Kim Munsch:
For sure. You know and there I'd be lying if I said there weren't days when I was forget this, I'm not getting out of bed, forget this, I'm going back to bed I did those things. I let myself feel what was going on, have the emotions that I had Maybe not everybody is like that, but for me I had to in order to work past it and start moving forward again.
Melissa Snow:
I think if any entrepreneur tells you they never had a day and they were like forget it, I'm done, I'm going back to bed, they are definitely not telling the truth. I want to come back to that idea of like how you keep going when it's really hard, but I want to go to Alita first and talk a little bit about your award. You won the active impact award, and that award is for a person who is consistently engaged and active, who shows up in conversations, events, in online spaces with a positive energy, with enthusiasm and dedication that inspires other people. So tell me what you thought when you first found out that you had been nominated or that you had won this award.
Aleta Wagner:
I would say it was a huge surprise to me, but I'm so thankful and honored. Like I said, I've been in business for two years. I've been an OT for 17, but kind of transitioned from working in orthopedics at the Children's Hospital and hand therapy into pelvic floor. I love what I do, I love being a part of the wellness community. I love being a part of the entrepreneur community and I never thought of myself as an entrepreneur throughout my career and it just kind of happened one day. You know, I just decided I need to do something different and I have a passion for women. I want to help women.
Aleta Wagner:
So being involved, so I also homeschool. I have three kids, I homeschool them. So just being involved in a homeschool community, talking to moms, talking to peers and just seeing what the need was in our community. There are so many options, I think, for pelvic floor dysfunction and a lot of times it's recommended to get surgery, it's recommended to take medicines and I feel like, no, we should really start with functional movement, getting to the root cause in the body and then, if we're really struggling, then maybe moving on to those other alternatives, but just being being a voice in the pelvic health space, being a voice in our community, being a part of different groups where I can encourage and support other women.
Aleta Wagner:
I love to just have conversations, I love to educate. So I do workshops in our community, just educating, and so many women say why haven't I heard about this before and how come I didn't get taught this when I was a kid, or how come my OB didn't tell me this when I was pregnant? So there's so many women that just don't know, like you said, melissa, like what is pelvic floor therapy? What do we do? There's there's so much to it and I'm super excited to have won this award and to continue to have impact in our community.
Melissa Snow:
So I want to give you an opportunity to kind of well, not kind of I want you to, I want you to toot your own horn, because there are lots of entrepreneurs out here I mean, I don't know if there's as many in other places as there is where we live but we got a lot.
Melissa Snow:
And there are a lot of people that I meet at networking events who are out meeting people doing the things, connecting with people. What do you think it is about the way that you do things, the way that you show up in the community, that is creating such an impact for people?
Aleta Wagner:
Yeah, I don't. It probably is partly my personality. I just I love people, I love, you know, just that connection with people and I strive to make those genuine connections. For me it's not, yes, it is about a paycheck, but it's not about a paycheck if that makes sense, like I want to make a difference, I want to help people, and so just my openness and hearing from people and there is something to be said for being an occupational therapist we are people that I think other people open up to more.
Aleta Wagner:
I'm not a counselor, I'm not a psychologist, but I ask questions, I ask open-ended questions. I leave space for people and just hold that space for people, and so I think I'm easier to talk to in that instance. But I also, so I will openly share. I am a believer and I think that light also shines through to where that helps maybe make connections with people though I don't, you know, that's not the first thing I say to people, but I think just having that in my history and in my background it shows, and maybe that that shows up in in those conversations that I have with people.
Melissa Snow:
Yeah, I'm hearing several things and they totally match up with what I've heard from other people about you too, which is authenticity, like staying true to who you are. It's very much what I teach when I teach people how to network like a human, and not like a salesman right.
Melissa Snow:
Going up as a real person, having real conversations, creating connections, being curious, wanting to learn more about people, without an agenda to pitch them or sell to them at the end. Right, like you just want to know who they are and what they're about, and maybe they never need a pelvic floor therapist. Maybe they know somebody in the future who does. But your desire and your genuineness in connecting with them doesn't depend on that, and I think the other thing, too, is your willingness to openly provide value to other people. You don't have this like well, I could help you with that if you want to pay me right. Like, of course, we all need that to a certain extent, because none of us are here to like hey, can I pick your brain for the next three hours? For no money. But it seems like you have a good handle on that balance between, like, genuinely providing value to people and also still running your business.
Aleta Wagner:
Thank you.
Melissa Snow:
Yeah, I love that and that is absolutely how you create an impact in the community, in your networking spaces with your clients. I mean, that's the kind of stuff that creates clients who want to refer you to people which is you know. I always say, like your former clients are probably the most important part of your network.
Aleta Wagner:
Absolutely 100%.
Melissa Snow:
So I want to ask both of you actually, because I know Kim won the resilience award, but I know Alita has got a lot of resilience in her as well Super impressed by the fact that you're homeschooling children. I mean, I'm impressed by anyone who keeps a human alive, let alone five of them, or five of them that they're also educating while they run a business. But I would love to hear from you guys and Kim, you touched on this a little bit in terms of just like, allowing yourself to feel those feelings and move through them. But when you're struggling with those days of like, why am I still doing this? I'm done. This is hard. Everything sucks. What is it that keeps you going?
Kim Munsch:
I think of that all the time, when it comes up right In that moment. What is it that I need to keep doing this for? And it's for me. It's not only just my kids, but it's for me. The passion that I have for what I do and doing events and creating those experiences for people is so strong that that's one of the things that makes me want to keep going. What about you, alita?
Aleta Wagner:
I think I mean there are lots of hard days with, like you said, homeschooling, just dealing with myself and my kids and our attitudes and behaviors. I think for me it is really getting to like what. What is the heart of what I do and and why and I think, kim, you touched on this too is I. You know I do this for for myself. I do this for the women in my community. I do this because there's not someone who does the same thing exactly the way that I do it that has the same exact heart that I do. There's other pelvic floor therapists, there's other great pelvic floor therapists, but I'm different and we're all different. So, just having that different heart, I will say I didn't say this earlier, but I went from a mobile practice to having a small office space that was kind of secluded. It was on the second floor of a building, I did not get any foot traffic, and now I'm in a wellness collaborative and that was all in the span of a year and a half. Well, actually less than that. It was in the span of A little over a year actually, because I kept my mobile practice for about six months before I was looking at office spaces.
Aleta Wagner:
But just I wanted, I wanted to keep moving forward. You know, there's that saying of just like, take that step, keep taking that step and when you're scared, just do it. Just jump off the fence and do it. And I sat on the fence for a very long time doing public for education, looking at things and not doing this as a career, until one day I just went. I'm not happy where I'm at. There's something that needs to change. My physiology is not doing what I need it to do to be able to be there for my family, for myself. And so I had a friend actually, who called and asked hey, I heard you got a certification in pelvic floor. Are you seeing clients? And I said no, do I need to? And she said yeah, I want to see you. And that was what really made me jump off the fence and get my LLC started and just decided to open my company. I could have just seen her on the side and not made a company, not become an entrepreneur, but something I don't know. There was just that little fire inside me that said do it, you can do this.
Aleta Wagner:
And I think growing up I had five brothers and so I always was having to get my voice out there Right. And you know, just like you said, melissa, having that resilience, I think just having people believe in me it wasn't just me that went. Okay, I'm just going to do this. You know, my husband was supporting me. I had friends that were supporting me.
Aleta Wagner:
The person that I'm in the office, the wellness collaborative with Katie bear she's also an entrepreneur in the community she was very much supportive of me and wanting to promote my business too, and I just feel like if we have people that can stand by us and give us that support, it helps on those hard days. It helps to be able to just have somebody to call and say this day sucks, and have somebody to encourage you. And I know, like I said before, I'm a believer, so I do find encouragement in God's word and the scriptures, but sometimes that doesn't help, even though it should right, it should be the one thing that helps you. But sometimes you just need to have somebody else to believe in you and just say you know what? Hey, you can do this. And let's look at the next step. What is the next phase? What is your next goal? What is just that one step further that you can take?
Kim Munsch:
I don't think I could have overcome a lot of the challenges I've had, but what I feel is like the constant challenges without that support. You know, I had one of those challenges this morning, right before this, and I reached out to those women that have just been there rock hard, never sugar coat, but are gentle, that supports, and give it to me straight who helped me get my mind back in the right place.
Melissa Snow:
Yeah, that's one of the reasons that I am so big on networking and really I mean I say networking is really just anything that you're doing that connects you with another human, because having that community is so important.
Melissa Snow:
Like, our husbands want to understand, they want to be supportive, but sometimes they just don't understand in a way that's supportive you know, like they don't have a better response than like well, I hope that works out for you and you're like thank you, but talking to other women, talking to other business owners, talking to other people who either have been where we are and now are where we want to be or are still where we are, there's something about that that just is so helpful in knowing you're not the only person having that experience.
Melissa Snow:
You are, there's nothing wrong with you. This isn't like a sign from the universe that you're doing it wrong. It's like this is just you being a normal human trying to build a business, and everybody else has gone through this too. So if there was one piece of advice that you would give to a woman who's listening to this podcast, who is thinking about starting a business maybe she just started one, but she's like oh my God, I have no idea what I'm even doing. Or maybe she's been at it for a couple of years and she's in that space of like shouldn't this be working by now? Should I think about wrapping it up? What would your one piece of advice be?
Aleta Wagner:
I would say find that network, find that supportive group of women. They don't need to be entrepreneurs. They could be entrepreneurs but not in the same field as you, or they could be in the same field as you. I'm an abundance mindset person and so I network with other pelvic floor therapists as well.
Aleta Wagner:
But I think, finding that support network, finding people that you can bounce ideas off of, and it doesn't have to be in person, it could be a virtual group that meets up and I know having that in-person connection for me I love that in-person connection, but I've also had great connections with people virtually who are in the same space as me, just in a different state or in a different city, and just doing something. So I think, just finding that supportive group of people, even if it's just a handful, it doesn't need to be a hundred people, it could be five, it could be three, it could be two, but just somebody or some people that you can call if you need to ask a question. Or let's get a group together and bounce some ideas off each other for how to, you know, do social media or whatever it is, but just having, just having something that you can kind of step back on, especially when you're starting out. I think it's good to have that support. I know it helped me a ton.
Melissa Snow:
Yeah, absolutely. I read something that said there are at least three people that every entrepreneur needs in their network a mentor, a peer and a protege, like someone who is ahead of you, someone who is where you are and someone who is where you've been, and I think there's so much value in all three of those things.
Kim Munsch:
For sure it was that support system. It is so important, not even just professionally but personally. I remember being in a group, a networking group, and sharing that. I didn't feel like I was good enough to be there. I didn't feel like I was on the same level as everybody else that was there. I was totally in the comparison mode. In the comparison mode and at the end of that meeting I found myself surrounded by a group of women from that meeting wanting to hug me and just tell me like yes, you are, you do belong here and you are enough. And that was insanely powerful.
Melissa Snow:
That's when you know you found your people. Yeah for sure. Ladies, this is awesome. You've both done such a great job, sharing some really good wisdom that is going to help any entrepreneur at any stage, and also sharing a little bit of your story. I just love hearing other women's stories of entrepreneurship and what they've gone through, how they've had to be resilient, how they've kept going when it's hard. I think anytime you have an opportunity to share your story, you should, because it's very inspiring and motivating for everyone. If people are listening to this and they want to know more about you, they want to keep in touch with you. They want to know more about what you do. Kim, what is the best way for people to get in contact with you? Go to my website kimlouisexpcom.
Kim Munsch:
That would have all the links to find my socials. You can contact me through there and also my email.
Melissa Snow:
Great, I will put all of those links in the show notes. And how about you, alita? What's the best way for people to reach out to you?
Aleta Wagner:
You can find me at Mountain Mama Pelvic Health on Instagram. I also am on Facebook. You can DM me on either Facebook or Instagram and then the links to my website and I have a newsletter, a monthly newsletter that I put out. It's just once a month, so it's not something that's going to clog your inbox, but a monthly newsletter just to increase your body literacy and that pelvic health knowledge. That is something that you can find a link to in my Instagram.
Melissa Snow:
Awesome. I will put links for those in the show notes as well, and everybody listening to this feel free to reach out to them and connect with them, Even if it's just to say hey, I heard you on that podcast and you're awesome. Everybody loves to get those messages.
Kim Munsch:
Melissa, if I may, I just want to say thank you. Whoever was that nominated me, I was completely blown away, and whoever the panel was that chose me as resilient, it meant more than I could even describe.
Melissa Snow:
Well, it sounds like you're very deserving and there's many people in your community who recognize that and see you and see what you're doing both of you and so definitely take that in. I think we're so quick when there's something like we don't get the client or somebody says something crappy about us or something like we'll obsess about that for days. And then it's like and you won this award, and we're like oh weird, okay, anyway, take it in, let yourself really feel that and experience and this is for everybody when you get a win, like really let yourself take that in and see like there were people I don't even know who they are, but there were people in the world who saw this award and were like you know who I should nominate, like out of all the people that they know, they thought I should nominate you and the panel of judges was a bunch of badass business women. So the fact that they picked you guys is huge. So let yourself live in that, at least for the rest of the day.
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