{"id":36076,"date":"2018-05-01T06:30:00","date_gmt":"2018-05-01T14:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thestoryexchange.org\/?p=36076"},"modified":"2018-06-21T15:17:34","modified_gmt":"2018-06-21T19:17:34","slug":"empowering-our-young-girls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thestoryexchange.org\/empowering-our-young-girls\/","title":{"rendered":"Ep. 25: Empowering Our Young Girls"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"player_container player-36076\" ><div class=\"spp_player_textabove\"><b>Listen to the Episode  <\/b><\/div><div id=\"sm2-36076\" class=\"sm2-36076 playercontent sm2-bar-ui compact flat full-width full-width-player\"><div class=\"bd sm2-main-controls\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"sm2-inline-element sm2-button-element\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"sm2-button-bd\" style=\"background: transparent url(https:\/\/thestoryexchange.org\/app\/uploads\/2021\/05\/podcast_channel_artwork.jpg) repeat scroll 0% 0% \/ cover 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class=\"sm2-progress-ball\"><div class=\"icon-overlay\"><\/div><\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"sm2-row timestamp timetext\"><div class=\"sm2-inline-time timestamp\">0:00<\/div><div class=\"sm2-inline-duration timestamp\">12:49<\/div><\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"sm2-inline-element sm2-button-element sm2-volume\" style=\"0\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t   <div class=\"sm2-button-bd\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"sm2-inline-button sm2-volume-control volume-shade\"><\/span>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"#volume\" class=\"sm2-inline-button sm2-volume-control\" style=\"\"><\/a>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t   <\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t  <\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"bd sm2-playlist-drawer sm2-element\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"sm2-playlist-wrapper\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<ul class=\"sm2-playlist-bd\"><li><a href=\"http:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/thestoryexchange\/Dianna_Flett_Podcast_Final.mp3\">Ep. 25: Empowering Our Young Girls<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><div class=\"sppbuttons\" style=\"\"><a class=\"button-itunes\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-story-exchange\/id1036000689?ls=1\">Apple Podcasts<\/a><a class=\"button-g-play\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"display:none !important;\" href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.google.com\/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly90aGVzdG9yeWV4Y2hhbmdlLmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz\">Google Podcasts<\/a><a class=\"button-embed\" rel=\"modal:open\"  id=\"button-embed\" style=\"display:none !important;\" href=\"#ex1\">Player Embed<\/a><a class=\"button-share\" data-target=\"btnshare\" style=\"display:none !important;\" href=\"#\">Share<\/a>\r\n\t\t\t\t<div id=\"btnshare\" 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class=\"button-download\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"display:none !important;\" href=\"http:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/thestoryexchange\/Dianna_Flett_Podcast_Final.mp3\">Download<\/a><a class=\"button-soundcloud\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"display:none !important;\" href=\"\">SoundCloud<\/a><a class=\"button-stitcher\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"display:none !important;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.stitcher.com\/s?fid=72717&refid=stpr\">Stitcher<\/a><a class=\"button-sppandroid\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"display:none !important;\" href=\"http:\/\/subscribeonandroid.com\/thestoryexchange.libsyn.com\/rss\">Subscribe on Android<\/a><a class=\"button-spprss\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"display:none !important;\" href=\"https:\/\/thestoryexchange.libsyn.com\/rss\">Subscribe via RSS<\/a><a class=\"button-spotify\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"display:none !important;\" href=\"\">Spotify<\/a><a class=\"spp-button-custom1\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"display:none !important;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.prx.org\/series\/34510-the-story-exchange\">PRX<\/a><a class=\"spp-button-custom2\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/music.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLaK2UyNCu2g2_preGI12R4z2iRXjIH3ah\">Youtube Music<\/a><a class=\"spp-button-custom3\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/5lJgdFK8g9WWXLBYjWytyn\">Spotify<\/a><a class=\"spp-button-custom4\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/pca.st\/B094\">Pocket Casts<\/a><a class=\"spp-button-custom5\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"display:none !important;\" href=\"\"><\/a><a class=\"spp-button-custom6\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"display:none !important;\" href=\"\"><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; font-style: normal;\"> A girl\u2019s self-confidence peaks when she\u2019s 9 years old. Ret. Lieutenant Colonal Dianna Flett is using her military training to run leadership workshops, dubbed Girl Smarts, for girls in 4th and 5th grades.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thestoryexchange.org\/military-officer-teaching-young-girls-confident\/\">Read related article<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"transcript-box\" style=\"float:none !important;\">\r\n<div class=\"accordion-container\">\r\n\t\t<a href=\"#\" class=\"accordion-toggle\">Read Full Transcript<span class=\"toggle-icon\"><i class=\"fa fa-angle-double-down\"><\/i><\/span><\/a>\r\n\t\t<div class=\"accordion-accordion_content\">\r\n\t\t\t<p><p>SUE: (as music plays lightly in the background) You\u2019re listening to Good on the Ground...<\/p>\n<p>VARIOUS VOICES: ...Good on the Ground...<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: ...You\u2019re listening to Good on the Ground from The Story Exchange.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: I\u2019m Colleen DeBaise.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: And I\u2019m Sue Williams.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: If you\u2019re like us, you may want to give up listening to the news.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: It\u2019s sooo negative.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: It\u2019s depressing.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: Toxic.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: Fortunately, we\u2019re here to help.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: We\u2019re here to share more stories...<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: ...of female entrepreneurs who are using the power of business to make the world a better place.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: Especially the one in today\u2019s podcast!<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: That\u2019s right. We headed down to Virginia, the birthplace of our nation, the \u201cmother\u201d of presidents, the state right next to Washington DC...<\/p>\n<p>SUE: ...to talk to a former lieutenant colonel in the U.S. military.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA: My name is Dianna Flett, I am the founder and CEO of the Girl Smarts group here in Virginia.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: Dianna\u2019s company is helping young girls build self-confidence, self-esteem and the skills to become leaders.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: Which right now -- in light of all the sexual misconduct we're hearing about --<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: -- and the #MeToo movement --<\/p>\n<p>SUE: -- makes Dianna\u2019s story more important than ever.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: We\u2019ll talk to this decorated army veteran about what inspired her to start Girl Smarts\u2026<\/p>\n<p>SUE: ...and how she plans to spread her message of empowerment.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: Don\u2019t go away.<\/p>\n<p>*Musical Interlude*<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA SOT: So you have really kind of gone through the whole process of developing a sense of being a confident, capable leader. How many of you want to be leaders? <\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: That\u2019s Dianna Flett.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA SOT: Okay. So I\u2019ll ask you. What do you think is more important, being liked or being a leader?<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: She\u2019s speaking to a classroom full of girls at Rockhill Elementary in Stafford, Virginia.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA SOT: Okay, you vote twice. You think both are pretty important?<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA: Girl Smarts is a series of workshops that works to empower fourth and fifth grade girls with strategies and skills so when they go into more stressful situations in middle schools, they have tools in their toolkit that they can reach into to navigate those challenges.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: Something to point out, before we get too far into this podcast, is that Dianna is the mom of four boys.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: Four. Boys.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: She also spent 20 years in military intelligence, but somehow four sons sounds far more challenging.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: It was actually one of the sons who prompted Dianna to start Girl Smarts.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA: When my boys were in middle school, my number two son, Sam, came home and he was really disturbed by the crash in confidence that he saw his female friends experiencing. That\u2019s when he said to me flat out, \u201cMom, you need to do something.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: That was back in 2009. At the time, Dianna had retired from active duty, and was teaching leadership training at...<\/p>\n<p>SUE: ...The Federal Bureau of Investigation.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: That\u2019s right, the FBI.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: She listened to what Sam -- then just 11 -- had to say about his friends who were girls.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA: He thought that they were making bad decisions. He didn\u2019t like the idea that some of them are experimenting in alcohol and drug use.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: And some of the girls -- at such a young age -- were putting themselves in risky sexual situations.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA: And these were girls that I knew that they were brilliant, beautiful, world at their feet kind of girls.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: She started investigating why this was happening.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA: As I went through my research of what was happening with the girls emotionally I found statistics that said that a girl\u2019s self-confidence peaks when she's nine years old. So I wanted to get into that decision cycle.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: Just nine years old. I mean, that\u2019s so young!<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: Yeah. Dianna felt that much of the core-leadership training that she was teaching at the FBI could be applied to young girls.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA: You know, the Army takes building leaders pretty seriously -- how to communicate effectively, how to delegate effectively, how to use their imagination.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: Those skills, she realized, could be taught to girls at an early age.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: Dianna spoke with a counselor at her sons\u2019 elementary school about presenting a series of confidence-building workshops to girls in 4th and 5th grades.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA: She was all for the idea. She was on the ground seeing what girls were going through.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: So Dianna began designing a curriculum...<\/p>\n<p>SUE: ...combining straight talk and fun activities.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA SOT: All right, so, in your group I want you to identify the primary leader that\u2019s going to come up and talk to me.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA: We only had four workshops when we first started. We had 24 girls, it was only open to fifth graders at that point. And then the idea just took off. And then as more and more schools started to hear about it, more and more schools wanted the program to come into their school.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: After the second year...<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA: I was in already four schools, just by word of mouth.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: She knew she was on to something.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA: And at that point, I had to kind of come to the realization that I was either going to devote myself to this opportunity or I was going to have to start to pursue the financial realities of having four children that needed to go through college.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: With the support of her husband, Steve, she decided to build Girl Smarts. More on that in just a bit.<\/p>\n<p>*Musical Interlude*<\/p>\n<p>SUE: The Story Exchange is a nonprofit media company dedicated to women who mean business. Check out our videos -- including a profile of the entrepreneur you\u2019re listening to -- at www.thestoryexchange.org.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: So let\u2019s get back to Dianna Flett.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: We really should talk more about her time in the military.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: Definitely -- it\u2019s really an important piece of this story. Dianna is a combat<br \/>\nveteran who has won many awards, including a Bronze Star for her service during the Gulf War.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: She comes from a bit of a military family.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA: My uncle was in the Army, my father had served in World War II and I was comfortable with the concept of actually entering service to the country.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: She\u2019s also the first in her family to go to college.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: Which was a decision that her parents weren\u2019t particularly involved in.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA: It was really outside of their comfort zone and I knew we didn\u2019t have the money to actually put me through college, so I went through the process of applying for a four-year ROTC scholarship.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: That\u2019s the Reserve Officer Training Corps.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: Dianna went to Rutgers University in New Jersey.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA: I went to the summer camp at Fort Knox. Then I was sent to Fort Bragg, North Carolina to train on tactical intelligence opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: She was 19.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA: I was drawn toward military intelligence, especially with a political science background.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: She graduated in 1981 as a second lieutenant.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: The next year she began active duty in Europe.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA: The reality in the 1980s was that women were coming into a lot of different roles that they hadn\u2019t experienced before. We were all pushing to stand up for ourselves and we were really the experimental group of women coming in to actively train side by side with the men and to pursue military roles from an equality perspective.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: Sue, you interviewed Dianna on-camera for our video profile. I know you asked her specifically about harassment.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: I did. Let\u2019s listen to our exchange.<\/p>\n<p>SUE SOT: So think that being a woman in the military has something to do with what you do now --<br \/>\nDIANNA SOT: Right.<br \/>\nSUE SOT: -- those experiences, so I do want to touch on a few of them.<br \/>\nDIANNA SOT: Sure. There were definitely people that wanted to challenge you. And I had one non-commissioned officer, the first time I met him, told me that his goal while I was his supervisor was to make me cry. And every chance he had, he would push my buttons to see if he could break me and it was a good learning lesson for me to kind of learn to keep my composure, to not back down when I knew something was right and to really pursue standing up for myself. And so he actually supported me and made me stronger and never made me cry.<br \/>\nSUE SOT: Does he know that?<br \/>\nDIANNA SOT: Nope.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: Maybe it\u2019s her military training -- but she\u2019s so amazingly straightforward about that experience.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: Yeah. When you meet Dianna in person, you get the sense right away that she was a formidable lieutenant colonel. And yet there\u2019s clearly a warmth, and a softness to her. It makes for a very good combination, especially for her work with young girls. I really saw it when she remembered how her son prompted her to start the workshops.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA SOT: Okay. Give me a second to get myself together.<br \/>\nSUE SOT: So that\u2019s the path to Girl Smarts, right?<br \/>\nDIANNA SOT: It is. It is, and these girls are so incredible. So. I got to get through this or else I\u2019m going to be a wuss the rest of the --<br \/>\nSUE SOT: Don\u2019t worry about being a wuss. Do you have Kleenex down here?<br \/>\nDIANNA SOT: Yeah, toilet paper maybe, in the bathroom. You better not put this on there (laughs), it\u2019ll blow my whole Army thing.<\/p>\n<p>*Musical Interlude*<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA SOT: And how many of you have been to every single workshop over the last<br \/>\ntwo years? Good.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: So we haven\u2019t really talked yet about how Dianna is building this company.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: And it is a company. She has chosen to incorporate as a for-profit...<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: Yeah, rather than a 501c3, which is your classic nonprofit.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA: I don\u2019t love the idea of being an empowerment program that has to ask for money. You know, I want to have the opportunity to be empowered by having a product that\u2019s so good that people want the product.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: And right now, that product is the Girl Smarts program.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA SOT: All right, good. Let\u2019s go get \u2019em, girls.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: Which Dianna believes is truly valuable.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA: I\u2019m here to tell you there\u2019s about 3,000 girls that have gone through that would agree with me and a bunch of parents that I suspect would tell you that this was a good thing for their girls to experience.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: The program is tuition-based, although it\u2019s reasonably priced and parents generally pay less than $100 for a 5-part workshop series.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA: Honestly, the business side of this is not the driver for me personally.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: And revenue is indeed on the low side.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA: So in 2016 after I paid all of the instructors and all the supplies and everything, the Girl Smarts group made about $5,000.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: But what\u2019s important to Dianna is that the program is self-sustaining.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: Unlike a lot of entrepreneurs we interview, Dianna is in a special financial situation, as a retired military officer.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA: I\u2019m very thankful that I have a pension, my husband has a pension and he also has a very good job. Truly, this is the kind of business that needs to be driven by your heart.<\/p>\n<p>SOT: I just made something on my own.<br \/>\n-Take credit for it, girl.<br \/>\n-Yeah.<br \/>\n-Good, all right. Give it up, give her props!<\/p>\n<p>SUE: She and her husband self-financed Girl Smarts, to get the program off the ground.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA: My husband and I put the initial baseline money into it.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: And they\u2019ve reinvested any profits.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA: The program is a pretty low cost program and I\u2019ve kept it purposely low cost because I want to make sure that every girl can afford an opportunity to attend the program.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: But there\u2019s a lot of potential for scaling this program.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA: Yes, if I were to franchise the program, if you run summer workshops, if you run school workshops, if you run after hours workshops, I mean a public speaking Girl Smarts workshop for middle school girls would be phenomenal. So there\u2019s lots of opportunities to that end.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA SOT: Keep that strong handshake when you go up to meet somebody. Show them that you\u2019re there and that you mean business.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: I recently called Dianna to get an update. She just had another 500 girls go through the Girl Smarts program. She now has five paid instructors and more than 20 schools signed up. Plus, she\u2019s launching summer camps.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA: I think that if the program is good and people see the value in it like I do that the program will be successful.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: Dianna\u2019s really a remarkable woman -- and she\u2019s winning more awards.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: Yep, she sure is. Though this time not for military service, but for the work she\u2019s doing with girls. She was a finalist in 2017 for a Clara de Hirsch Award for extraordinary women.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA: When you can teach a girl how to say \u201cNo\u201d and stand up against something that she doesn\u2019t want to experience, then you really have given them an opportunity to take control of who they are.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: Woo! Go girl.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: You go girl. We thank Dianna for sharing her story with us.<\/p>\n<p>SUE: You\u2019ve been listening to \u201cGood on the Ground\u201d from The Story Exchange.<\/p>\n<p>DIANNA SOT: So that\u2019s why I consider this business to be a continuation of my selfless service -- 21 years in the Army and now -- doggonit.<br \/>\nSUE SOT: I\u2019m just wondering how you survived 25 years in the military when you\u2019re this emotional.<br \/>\nDIANNA SOT: It crashed after my first baby. Honestly, I went from standing up face to face, toe to toe with men and tearing into them to looking at an Ajax commercial and crying while I was watching the Ajax commercial because the floor was so pretty.<\/p>\n<p>*Musical Interlude*<\/p>\n<p>SUE: Join us next time to hear more stories about innovative and inspirational women doing the things you\u2019d never dream of. Or...maybe you would. This has been The Story Exchange.<\/p>\n<p>COLLEEN: If you liked this podcast, please share on social media or post a review on iTunes. It helps other people find the show. And visit our website at TheStoryExchange.org, where you\u2019ll find news, videos and tips for women entrepreneurs. Sound editing provided by Nusha Balyan. Interview recorded by Sam Shinn. Executive producers are Sue Williams and Victoria Wang.<\/p>\n<\/p>\r\n\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t<!--\/.accordion-accordion_content-->\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A girl\u2019s self-confidence peaks when she\u2019s 9 years old. Ret. Lieutenant Colonal Dianna Flett is using her military training to run leadership workshops, dubbed Girl Smarts, for girls in 4th and 5th grades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":36077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":false,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[19665,19824,19726],"class_list":["post-36076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-podcast","tag-gender-equality","tag-leadership-development","tag-youth-empowerment"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.3 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Dianna Flett&#039;s Girl Smarts: Empowering Our Young Girls<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Dianna Flett, a former military officer, started Girl Smarts to teach confidence to girls in 4th and 5th grades.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thestoryexchange.org\/empowering-our-young-girls\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Empowering Our Young Girls\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A girl\u2019s self-confidence peaks when she\u2019s 9 years old. Ret. Lieutenant Colonal Dianna Flett is using her military training to run leadership workshops, dubbed Girl Smarts, for girls in 4th and 5th grades.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/thestoryexchange.org\/empowering-our-young-girls\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Story Exchange\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/TheStoryExchange\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-05-01T14:03:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-06-21T19:17:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/cdn1.thestoryexchange.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/22215952\/empowering-our-young-girls_thumbnail.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"657\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Colleen DeBaise\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Ep. 25: Empowering Our Young Girls\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@TheStoryXchange\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@TheStoryXchange\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Colleen DeBaise\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Dianna Flett's Girl Smarts: Empowering Our Young Girls","description":"Dianna Flett, a former military officer, started Girl Smarts to teach confidence to girls in 4th and 5th grades.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/thestoryexchange.org\/empowering-our-young-girls\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Empowering Our Young Girls","og_description":"A girl\u2019s self-confidence peaks when she\u2019s 9 years old. 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