Every Friday I am going to feature a woman that I adore. They exude all the qualities of an Alpha Female and I want to dig into their lives to get some nuggets of knowledge to help us all live happier, healthier lives finding harmony between work and life.
Definition of an Alpha Female
An Alpha Female is a powerful and assertive woman. Her confidence is due to being an intelligent and intellectual problem-solver. Being an Alpha Female is a State of Mind based on choosing ambition and being proud of it. She strives for a happy and healthy work/life harmony.
Type A Alpha Females often come across as strong willed and selfish. However, when we stay true to our authentic selves and our missions we shine. An Alpha Female puts herself first so that she can fill up her cup or gas tank or put on her airplane mask first so that she has enough energy for her friends, family, and coworkers. She strives for synergy with the world around her. She knows that work/life harmony is found by staying true to your priorities and what makes you happy. She is never complacent about striving for better and nurtures relationships with all the people in her life.
Meet Diana House!
Diana is an authenticity driven entrepreneur who is constantly seeking, creating, developing, growing and learning. She is passionate about business, personal development, wellness, travel, spirituality, productivity and maximizing her time and life to live exceptionally across all facets: faith, relationships, business and health.
Her sensitivity coupled with her entrepreneurial mindset allows her to see opportunities through a unique lense leading to an overflow of ideas, reiterations and progress led execution. Being very unsure of her career path in her youth, she became even more unclear after completing law school. Pushed to find her passions she started her first company Tiny Devotions Inc. after taking a sabbatical in Bali post-graduating. Being keen to identify niches – Diana literally started an industry with her company selling mala beads and intentional accessories. Now with hundreds of competitors, Tiny Devotions founded in 2009 is still the innovative leader in the space.
After dabbling with many other small ventures including angel investing and business coaching, Diana started Cole + Parker with her now Husband Jeff House. Cole + Parker is a social enterprise and luxury sock company that creates bold, colourful socks for leaders, legends and entrepreneurs. Jeff and Diana have recently sold the company.
After marrying Jeff their union also led Diana to be involved in many facets of real estate including multiple development projects, an asset management portfolio as well as assisting with complex real estate transactions. Her real estate experience coupled with her entrepreneurial success led her to seek out private financing lending deals which is now one of her current focuses.
Last but not least, Diana is extremely passionate about startups and entrepreneurial ventures of all sorts. She has been part of the Canadian Tech Accelerator for Cole + Parker and is always actively seeking out unique and high potential angel investing deals.
Having come from a very entrepreneurial family, the buzz of business, startups and deals is part of her DNA and a constant adventure no matter where she is in the world on her extensive travels with her husband. Diana has also been honoured locally as a top 20 under 40 recipient, as well as nationally as part of the W100, one of the top female entrepreneurs in Canada.
How are you an Alpha Female?
I’m a very strong (but sensitive) person who often makes the big decisions at ADJ Holdings our private lending company, leads people at Tiny Devotions and takes massive action every day in all of my ventures.
I am a really strong problem solver but my main goal each day is to develop the people around me to grow, learn and shine so that they can solve big problems, make tough decisions and lead others. At the same time, my other focus is to be the best wife, friend and family member that I can be – I always try to be there for people and have a dynamic life full of hanging out with my family, hosting dinner parties with our friends and taking time out to have fun and play. I think that’s what makes me an alpha female.
Does work/life balance exist?
I don’t think a perfect balance of anything exists in life. I think some days you prioritize work and other days you prioritize personal things and the most important thing is that when you’re prioritizing work you’re not feeling bad about yourself for not prioritizing the other and vice versa.
I think everyone needs to figure out what their work capacity and their personal fulfillment requirements are and then try to create space for both. It won’t always be perfect. There’s nothing wrong with a tension in two areas – sometimes this sort of tension can be really healthy!
What are you most passionate about?
I’m most passionate about faith, love, business, wellness and life. I really love inspiring people and I’m thankful that through Tiny Devotions we get to inspire a global community of women to live with more intention.
What are your daily health habits that keep your immune system boosted?
I really make sure I get a lot of sleep each night… I think most nights I’m way over the 8 hours a night mark. I eat pretty healthy and drink a lot of water and take vitamins and a few supplements daily. Nothing too special, but if I haven’t slept for 8+ hours I can’t really function so that’s the one I monitor the closest.
What is your weekly fitness routine like?
My husband and I go to the gym most mornings (about 5-6 days a week) I do a lot of cardio and some resistance but I leave the focussed resistance training workouts to my trainer who I meet with twice a week. On weekends we like to take long hikes in nature to relax. I’m super thankful that my husband Jeff loves going to the gym because on days I don’t really feel like going he drags me and vice versa!
How do you challenge yourself fitness wise?
I challenge myself so much with my work that I don’t lead the challenge with fitness – I’ve hired an amazing personal trainer to do the pushing and challenging for me. I would really prefer to just take long hikes to decompress instead of doing squats and lunges. My trainer, April, is an expert in the field so I rely on her to push me to the next level of fitness each week.
What are your daily habits for winding down at night and reducing stress?
These are so important! If I’m staying in then I take a salt bath, make dinner with my husband and we take our dog Coconut for a really long walk and talk about our day and decompress. Sometimes I journal as well in the evening if a lot has happened and sometimes curl up and grab a good book to read with a glass of wine (currently reading It’s Your Move by Josh Altman).
What are you daily/weekly nutrition habits that keep you well nourished?
I usually have a protein smoothie every morning and some hard boiled eggs for breakfast. I do my best to make sure I eat a big green salad everyday with protein for lunch or dinner. For the other meal I usually do a lean protein with vegetables. But, I also don’t really restrict my diet – if we want pizza for dinner we do it – no drama, no guilt, no stress. If you’re eating really healthy 80% of the time I think you can have treats here and there and not lose sleep over it.
What are pain points that Alpha Females are constantly problem solving for?
I think as an Alpha Female we are often judged by both women and men for being strong. Many statistics and surveys have shown that both men and women would “prefer to work for a man.” When a man is a leader with a vision and works hard to execute it he is praised whereas sometimes when a woman does the same she is labelled “intense, overpowering or a b%&*h”.
As Alpha Females the challenge is to stay 100% authentic and true to yourself and to be confident on your mission and what and why you are doing what you are doing and to not let people who try to tear you down or block your path affect you. Sometimes it’s realistically means going home and balling your eyes out in private. That said, I’m so lucky to have some really supportive people in my life who really allow me to be the leader in my life and encourage and support me each day.
What is your definition of happiness?
Happiness is living in gratitude and awareness for all of the gifts you have in your life (the people, the places, the things, the skills). I’m really big on gratitude journalling as it’s really helped me stay positive in challenging times in my life or when I’ve run into big issues on the rollercoaster ride of entrepreneurship.
Ok, so back to my definition – being in gratitude and working towards a vision of your life that lights you up. Happiness is a verb – it’s being and doing and progressing down an authentic path that you created for yourself in a world where culture is telling you what to do.