Today’s guest is an award-winning executive with over 30 years of experience. She has climbed the corporate ladder across multiple sectors, including high tech, consumer and nuclear sensors, aerospace, film production, and glass manufacturing.

To say that she had a unique and difficult start in life is a major understatement. At just 18 years old, she fell blindly in love with a pimp and ran away with him. Tragically, most women who are targeted in this way never escape. She not only escaped but thrived.

She wrote about her true-crime experience in her first book, “Never a $7 Whore,” which was a #1 hot new release on Amazon. Her second book, “The Daytime Lives of the Ladies of the Night” details lessons learned from her time spent living with the Ladies of the Night,  And the third book in this four-part series about her life is “Bullets and Bosses Don’t Have Friends,” which shares how to assume leadership with the serious edge you need to succeed in the corporate world.

On her journey from a lady of the night to the lady in the boardroom, she became certified as Professional Engineer, a Six Sigma Black Belt, a Certified Professional Manager, trained in Japan and was inducted into the New York YWCA Academy of Women Leaders. Currently, she is the President and CEO of her own company, Just Once.

Please join me in welcoming Toni Crowe.

In this episode we discuss:

• her thoughts on leadership: “Leadership is about possibility. It’s about possibility for both the person who is leading and for their team.”
• how her spouse was the first person to recognize leadership potential in her and how his encouragement helped her step into her power.
• how a local library with books for one penny gave her the knowledge of life being bigger than the world she was living in, and how books saved her.
• her experience of falling in love with a pimp and overcoming that, leading her to become an author and a leader in the business world.
• how the writing process has brought about people in her life.
• her thoughts on networking and her process for connecting with others.

Listen, subscribe and read show notes at www.OnTheSchmooze.com – episode 121