Tory Johnson brought her spark, and a little hustle, to a PartyLite conference I attended last week in Minneapolis, MN. As Tory took the stage, she shared how she overcame fear and failure to turn her passion into profit. Her message for the 2,000+ entrepreneurs in the audience was to connect with your why, stop making excuses and ask for help when you need it.

Here are 3 Truths About Women I Learned from Tory Johnson:

Women leave money on the table: Tory shared a case study she did with women and men to find out why women earn less. In the study, both women and men were told they were being paid between $5 – $12 for participating in a focus group.  They were all paid $5. The men immediately asked for more, wondering where the other $7.00 was.  The women took the $5, saying things like, “That’s Ok.”  When asked why they didn’t ask for more, the women shared that they felt bad asking for more money and didn’t want to make a fuss. We’re not earning as much as men simply because speaking up to ask for more is not in our DNA. Teaching women how to speak up, ask and negotiate for what they are worth can change that.

Women use their family as an excuse: Have you ever thought or said, “I can’t (fill in the blank with any goal or dream) because of my family?”  Tory’s response drew an applause from the audience: “My family is the reason I work my ass off.”  For many women entrepreneurs, family is the reason they left a corporate job to fulfill a dream of building a business from home. Women can easily work 40 – 60 hours a week to make someone else’s dream come true, but when it comes to their own dreams they hold back, blaming family as the reason why they can’t commit to achieving their goals. After all, our families need us, don’t they? Turns out we teach our kids more lessons when we dream bigger, and empower them to think and do for themselves. If you want more for your family, show them the value of hard work, persistence and determination. Your children will follow your lead.

Women play the blame game: In my best selling book, Success Secrets of a Million Dollar Party Girl, I share my personal story of failure so I totally related to the “blame game.” Failure gave me PLOM disease, Poor Little Old Me. Like Tory, I crept into my “loser world” and grabbed a pint of ice-cream (or a glass of wine) to whine my way to sleep.  My failure was surely due to the economy, lack of support, the products and the people.  Heck, let’s throw the weather in there, too. Tory’s recommendation is to look in the mirror. The answer to your failure will be looking right back at you. Reflect on what went wrong and what you can do differently to get a different result. Then get back to work.

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