From Building A National Movement to Building Up Women in Midlife: Shannon Watts, Founder of Moms Demand Action and Author of Fired Up

Millions of Americans were saddened and outraged by the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in 2012 that took the lives of twenty children and six adults, and were left feeling helpless about the epidemic of gun violence in the U.S. that, sadly, continues to this day. But for our guest today, Shannon Watts, her feelings of devastation about the shooting turned to rage and fueled her unlikely rise to leading Moms Demand Action, which she grew into one of the largest grassroots organizations in the country, mobilizing millions of volunteers to push for stronger gun safety laws. “I wanted to stand shoulder to shoulder with a badass army of women because that’s who gets things done in this country,” she says. 

In this inspiring conversation with Raise the Line host Michael Carrese, Watts pulls back the curtain on how the group achieved its successes and the philosophy of "losing forward" that kept volunteers showing up year after year. In her recent book Fired Up, Watts describes how she is bringing insights from that experience to a new mission: helping women identify their values, abilities, and desires and acting on them without waiting until everything is perfect.

Tune-in to learn about: 

• The "false fires" women mistake for passion;
• Why losing estrogen and testosterone in midlife might actually make women braver, not less so;
• The one exercise she does with every woman she coaches. 

Mentioned in this episode:

Fired Up book

Moms Demand Action

If you like this podcast, please share it on your social channels. You can also subscribe to the series and check out all of our episodes at www.osmosis.org/podcast