In late September, I had the honour of moderating a panel discussion at a Ladies Who Launch event, which drew 300 female entrepreneurs to the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto. It was a beautiful evening of community, education, and inspiration as we celebrated and heard from tenacious women in business. Ladies Who Launch is an international organization, acclaimed for lifting women up through educational events around the world.

The women behind Ladies Who Launch have a few lofty goals: To give entrepreneurs an opportunity to network and meet other like-minded women in business, to share tools, tips and tricks to grow their businesses and to dole out Oprah-level inspiration (the kind that can fuel your hustle for months). Let me tell you, they delivered! The event was stacked with some of the most exciting female entrepreneurs in the business including keynote speaker Joanna Griffiths, the founder and CEO of Knix, a world leader in wire-free bras and functional underwear that empowers all women to be unapologetically free.

The panel I moderated was on the topic of business and branding and included a discussion with the director of product & offline marketing at Shopify, the founder of Kotn (a Toronto-based brand of ethically-made clothing) and the co-founder + inventor of SleepBelt and Joeyband (a revolutionary product that prevents infant drops during skin-to-skin breastfeeding).

Despina Zanganas moderating the “A Passion for Business:Building and Nurturing Your Brand” panel at the Ladies Who Launch Event with Hayley Mullins, Arati Sharma and Mackenzie Yeates

As the founder of a national women’s organization and a realtor who specializes in working with women, I’m a huge proponent of bringing women together to celebrate, support and learn from each other. It was so inspiring to hear how the women on my panel were fueled by passion and purpose for their businesses. No one touted overnight success. Each entrepreneur shared stories of tenacity, determination and overcoming roadblocks to accomplish their goals. When you’re a solopreneur, it’s so important to hear these stories. It can be hard to see the forest through the trees when you’re building a business, but I think everyone in the audience left feeling excited and inspired about the big picture, their passion and their purpose. Joanna from Knix was the first to admit that she values resourcefulness over always knowing the answer: “No one has all the answers so you have to be able to work through it and figure it out,” she said.

Beyond that, you also have to believe in yourself. Joanna urged the audience to question the critical voices that say you can’t do it. “Turn off those voices and turn up the belief,” she said. “That’s so much of what we’re about as a brand and the more you can do that, the more impact you can have. I really think that women can change the world, and I think that the world needs us.”