The power of mentorship

Betty is passionate about advocating for those who think they don’t have a voice. She is also passionate about helping girls and women reach their fullest potential through mentorship.

Mentorship is much like planting a seed and coming back months later to see this beautiful bloom!

Betty built her non-profit, EmpowHer around her passion. Passion leads to vision. Action, even on a small vision, can have a huge impact. Likewise, it takes confidence to take action. It’s often necessary to push fear aside. Doing so leads to positive action and inspiring results.

The Power of One

Similarly, Betty wants us to know the power of ONE. One person can make a difference for many people by taking action on that ‘small’ vision. Betty didn’t realize that she was creating a ‘movement’ that would contribute to gender and racial equity. But that is exactly what she and her organization do every day by empowering the girls and women that are involved with EmpowHER.

Together, through mentorship, they are changing the trajectory of those who once thought of themselves as voiceless. Each of us has the power to become part of a solution and help solve problems in society.

First Phase

Betty’s first phase was in sales and marketing for tech companies like IBM and other major brands. As a teen, she could never have dreamed of her life as a Sales Executive managing hundreds of people and $100 million budgets. She was the first in her family of 8 to graduate from college even after becoming a teen mom right out of high school.

Betty has traveled to over 50 countries and lived abroad in South Africa after leaving corporate America in her 40s for a job with more meaning and purpose.

Second Phase

She found her second phase by becoming aware that her life would have meaning if she could share what she had learned during her lifetime. Upon this realization, she set out to enhance the lives of others. Betty realized that money, fine cars, and clothes did not provide her with lasting satisfaction. She was designed for a purpose.

It was not a straight line to get to her second phase. She actually started an Executive Coaching business and had many satisfied clients, but coaching wasn’t satisfying her. In fact, she was developing EmpowHer at the same time that she was coaching. Betty realized that her joy came from helping people and making a difference in their lives. She further realized that she wanted to focus on helping those who might not have the chance to become an executive unless someone like her was there to mentor them and show them the way.

Starting the EmpowHer Mentorship Program

Upon this realization, she decided to let her coaching business go and adjusted her lifestyle to give her time and talent by creating a path for teen girls to avoid the pitfalls that she had fallen into. She had seen the evidence of mentoring teen girls when during her time in corporate America. As she mentored young women she witnessed the impact she could have on another person’s life just by sharing her knowledge and encouraging them to dream big dreams. That is what EmpowHer does with more than 100 mentors who volunteer and help students imagine what is possible.

The Power and Value of Mentorship – Giving and Getting

There is a tremendous amount of power and value in mentorship. Mentorship is about giving and getting.

EmpowHer is based in Los Angeles, California, and exists to help teen girls become the best version of themselves by providing them with tools to build strength from within. The organization partners with middle schools in under-resourced communities that are invested in building the next generation of compassionate leaders and developing the social-emotional skills that will contribute to the success of these students. EmpowHer is the only external agency that is embedded as part of the school day as a gender-specific class. The EmpowHer Institute serves over 400 teen girls annually while providing a safe environment to overcome trauma and excel academically.

About Betty

Betty LaMarr, Author/Founder/Executive Director of EMPOWHER INSTITUTE, is passionate about serving others through coaching and mentoring. While living in South Africa, Betty saw the devastating effects poverty and powerlessness have on girls and women. She also saw what happens when girls and women are offered even modest opportunities for empowerment: Women discover independence; girls seek education and life chances for entire families and communities are positively altered as the cycle of poverty and dependency is broken.

Inspired by her South African experience, Betty came back to the United States and founded EmpowHer Institute in 2003. Her mission was to create self-driven success for low-income middle and high school girls to reduce the high school dropout rate by more than 50%. The strategy is providing sisterhood, relevant training, power of choice and resiliency as a means to overcome poverty and to help young women meaningfully serve their communities.

Betty earned a BA in Business Administration from California State University in Los Angeles, and an MBA from Pepperdine University. She is a featured author in books: Discover Your Inner Strength, The Heart of Women in Business, Million Dollar Conversations, and Life Moments for Women. As an activist for change, the Mayor of Los Angeles and California’s Lieutenant Governor honored Betty for outstanding community service as well as her contributions to a variety of youth organizations. Betty was most recently awarded the Pepperdine Graziadio School Waves of Service Award to an alumna whose career demonstrates a life strengthened for “purpose, service, and leadership”

“Belief in yourself, you are better than you believe – Take the risk and believe in yourself.” – Betty LaMarr