The following is the keynote presentation given by MilSpouse Transition’s founder, Anna Larson, at the Women’s VetConnect event held at Fort Hood on March 12, 2026. The event was for military-connected women. Veterans and military spouses together.
This conversation sets some things straight. Specifically, that military-connected women are overqualified and under-recognized.
This keynote was built from years of listening to women say things like, “I’ve just been supporting,” or “I don’t know what I bring to the table.” And at some point, we have to stop internalizing that narrative and start calling it what it actually is. We do not have a capability problem. We have a systems problem.
Inside this keynote conversation, we unpack why that belief exists, what is actually happening beneath the surface, and how to shift from simply surviving as a military-connected woman to actually leveraging it.
Read the keynote below or listen to it on the podcast.
Give to Gain: The Power of Women Who Serve
Good morning.
I’m Anna Larson — Founder of MilSpouse Transition, Gallup-Certified CliftonStrengths Coach, and someone who has spent years listening to the stories of military-connected women navigating transition.
It is a privilege to stand in a room filled with women who understand service as lived experience. Some of you wore the uniform. Some of you supported it. But all of you have operated inside this military world that functions on systems that require discipline, flexibility, and sustained commitment.
Over the years, in coaching sessions and transition workshops, I have sat across from women who told me they felt behind. Women who felt invisible. Women who said, “I’ve just been supporting others.” Women who said, “I don’t know if I have anything special to offer outside of the military.”
And then I would ask them to walk me through the last five, or fifteen, or twenty-five years they spent in the military or supporting it. And as they spoke, what they thought was “just life” revealed something else entirely.
- Strategic thinking.
- Operational execution.
- Relational intelligence.
- Resilience under pressure.
- Adaptive leadership.
That’s when I began to see a pattern.
We are not lacking in talent. In fact, we are overdeveloped. I can look around this room and pick out any woman and know that she is likely a strategic thinker, adaptable, responsible, a relator, an achiever, has command, empathy, and discipline.
That’s what we call strengths identified in the Gallup world. You may not call it that. But whatever you name it, it lives in you.
As a Gallup strengths coach, part of my work is helping women recognize their worth. Because here’s what happens in military life — we normalize extraordinary capability.
We call it “just handling it.”
We call it “making it work.”
We call it “doing what needs to be done.”
But when strength goes unnamed, it goes undervalued. And when it goes undervalued, it goes under-leveraged.
So when I was asked to speak on the International Women’s Day theme — Give To Gain — I immediately said yes. And then I paused.
Recognizing what’s inside us is where so much of the Give To Gain conversation begins. Because military-connected women already give. We give. And give. And give.
We give time.
We give leadership.
We give stability.
We give professional momentum.
We give emotional labor.
We give adaptability.
The real question is whether our giving multiplies.
LAYERED IDENTITIES
Raise your hand and keep it up – if you are a professional, caregiver, leader, veteran, partner, entrepreneur, advocate, or spouse.
Take a second and look around the room. There is a powerful community in those raised hands. Those identities are not separate lanes. They are overlapping strengths.
But layered identity also exposes layered barriers. When I asked women in my community what barriers they encounter, three themes surfaced repeatedly:
- Recognition.
- Translation.
- Opportunity.
Let’s start with barriers of Recognition or who you are. What you’ve done. Your training. Your experience. Your skill sets.
Taylor Schwartz, a military spouse, told me about an interview she had where she was told she was a “flight risk” and “unreliable candidate” because she was a military spouse. She said, “It really requires a true conversation and cultural shift to provide real protection to spouses. And a better understanding of the unique skills and talents that we bring to the table, that make us assets rather than burdens.”
Let’s talk about barriers of Translation, or does any of what I’ve done or who I am mean anything outside of the military community? Does serving for this greater purpose mean anything in the civilian world?
Retired US Air Force Colonel Michelle Gardner sent me this message, “Women across the military ecosystem develop extraordinary leadership capacity through service, sacrifice, and the responsibility of sustaining the mission at home and in uniform. But when they step into civilian environments, much of that experience becomes invisible.”
And, we all know about barriers to Opportunity. Opportunity to access, equal pay, and consideration.
What I see through the lens of strengths coaching is this: Women often downplay their most powerful strengths because they developed them inside environments where they were expected, not applauded.
When those strengths are not translated into language institutions recognize they become invisible.
That invisibility is not a capability issue. It is a systems issue.
And that is exactly what military spouse Taylor Schwarz and retired Air Force Colonel Michelle Gardner are saying when they speak about a cultural shift not being real until systems reflect it.
AIMING STRENGTHS TO STRUCTURE
At MilSpouse Transition, we don’t just stop at identifying our strengths. We aim them. We aim them through five areas of wellbeing:
Financial.
Career.
Physical.
Social.
Community.
These are not soft categories. They are infrastructure.
Financial wellbeing determines security and independence.
Career wellbeing determines growth and trajectory.
Physical wellbeing determines sustainability.
Social wellbeing determines support.
Community wellbeing determines belonging and influence.
When strengths are aimed intentionally through these five areas, women stabilize not only themselves, but the systems around them.
And that is where Give To Gain becomes tangible.
Strength without direction exhausts. Strength aimed with intention multiplies.
HISTORICAL STRENGTHS
And that is not a new idea. It is the pattern we see when we look back at women who came before us.
International Women’s Day has existed for more than a century. For over one hundred years, women have been organizing, funding, correcting, building, and advocating — often without recognition, often without immediate return.
Their strength was not always visible in the moment. But it became visible in what endured.
There’s a story I read in a book called We the Women. We all learned that the Declaration of Independence bears the names of fifty-six men. But there is a fifty-seventh name on the printed copy — Mary Katherine Goddard. Mary Katherine Goddard was the printer for the Declaration of Independence. She printed it. She put her name on it. In doing so, she attached her business, her livelihood, and her life to a treasonous revolutionary act.
That is a strength aimed.
She was not the loudest name in the room. She was not the most celebrated. But her action embedded permanence into history.
And that is the difference between participation and structural impact. And that is what Give To Gain invites us into.
Women before us gave so we could stand where we stand now. Not because they were guaranteed outcomes, but because they believed progress compounds and multiplies.
At MilSpouse Transition, we see this every day in women navigating life changes. Transition is not just a career pivot. It is identity reorganization. It is financial recalibration. It is physical exhaustion. It is rebuilding community. It touches every one of the five areas of wellbeing we talk about.
When one woman stabilizes those areas for herself, she strengthens her household. When systems stabilize those areas for women collectively, they strengthen the ecosystem.
THE SHIFT
So what does this look like now?
Because what I hear from women — especially military-connected women — is not a reluctance to give. It is fatigue. They are giving until they are depleted. And depletion keeps systems functioning, but it does not redesign them.
If we are serious about Give To Gain, then our giving must move from keeping systems afloat to shaping how they operate.
That is why stories like Monique Street matter.
Monique wrote about what she calls the “hidden workforce” — military spouses. She made a distinction that reframes the conversation entirely:
“Being employed is not the same as building a career.”
Military spouses are not short on talent. They are operating inside systems that reward uninterrupted continuity — something military life rarely provides.
Monique did not ask for sympathy. She asked for equity.
Equity, for Monique, looks like leaders willing to revise hiring practices. It looks like promotion pipelines that account for mobility. It looks like pay scales that reflect capability, not résumé gaps caused by service.
Those are the strengths applied to the financial and career pillars of wellbeing in structural ways.
Now consider Moniek James.
Fifteen years after removing her uniform, she still wrestled with finding space for all her roles. Woman veteran. Military spouse. Professional. Leader.
She wrote to me that she has learned to look for rooms with a wide enough lens to include her.
That phrase matters.
A wide enough lens means institutions that translate lived experience into value. It means leadership models that recognize influence beyond traditional pathways. It means community environments where layered identity is an asset, not a complication.
That is Give To Gain that multiplies across career, financial, and community wellbeing — not just individual survival.
Neither of these women was appointed a champion. They used the influence they already had. Writing. Speaking. Persisting. Choosing spaces wisely.
And that is where this becomes personal for all of us.
SPHERES OF INFLUENCE
We talk about systems as though they exist somewhere outside of us.
But systems are built from repeated decisions. And repeated decisions happen inside spheres of influence.
Every woman in this room holds a sphere of influence.
Some of you influence hiring.
Some of you influence budgets.
Some of you influence unit culture.
Some of you influence households.
Some of you influence professional networks.
Some of you influence how health, rest, and sustainability are prioritized in your own lives.
Influence is not measured by title. It is measured by what changes because you were present.
Give to Gain is not women helping women cope. It is women directing strength toward structural access — across all those areas of wellbeing wellbeing.
And that work does not require dramatic action. It requires deliberate repetition, and that brings me to my favorite word in the whole world…
Micro Actions.
At MilSpouse Transition, we use micro-actions constantly in transition support. Because when a woman feels overwhelmed by her partnership or career or identity shift, the answer is not a five-year plan. It is small, focused steps that move one pillar of wellbeing forward that day, that week, or that month.
Micro-actions build confidence.
Confidence builds momentum.
Momentum builds trajectory.
And the same principle applies to structural equity.
We’re going to be interactive for just a minute. Apologies to all of you introverts that I’m springing this on without any warning, but if you’re willing…
Turn to someone near you.
Tell her one area you would call your sphere of influence, or where you make the biggest impact. This could be in your home, your workplace, your religious, or your volunteer work
Ok – not we’re going to think about microactions for a minute – one small action you can do inside that sphere of influence to affect change
When I’ve facilitated this before, I’ve heard commitments like:
“I will intentionally interview military-connected women for open roles.”
“I will advocate for a deserving junior woman in promotion conversations.”
“In our home, I will normalize equal division of labor for my daughters and sons.”
Now tell her one small action you will take this year that strengthens that space for another woman.
Those statements may sound small. They are not. They are directional. Repeated long enough, they alter patterns. Patterns alter systems. Systems alter culture.
THE GAIN
Give to Gain. We’ve talked about giving. Let’s talk about gain.
Military life conditions many of us to endure without asking. I once believed strength meant not needing anything.
But one of the most pivotal moments in my life came because another woman extended access to me. An introduction shifted my trajectory. She did not lose credibility by opening that door. She expanded the room and let me step inside.
Give To Gain requires both sides of that equation.
Giving and receiving. To strengthen those areas of wellbeing for women collectively, we must also allow ourselves to receive opportunities.
Receiving is not a weakness. It is participation in equity.
THE POSE
I’d like to invite you to do something with me. We’re going to do the International Women’s Day Give to Gain Pose. Stand or remain seated – your choice, but place your right hand over your heart.
Extend the other outward with your palm up.
The hand over your heart says: I know my value and I am deserving.
The extended palm says: I will use my influence.
This is not symbolic. It is structural. When we women understand our strengths and direct them intentionally across the pillars of wellbeing, it stops being about sustaining systems and starts to reshape them.
CLOSE
I do not want to end by asking you to do more. You already carry more than most rooms will ever fully understand. But I am asking you to aim your strengths.
Aim your influence.
Aim your credibility.
Aim your lived experience.
Women before us aimed theirs so we could stand here. Now it is our turn to make choices that build patterns. Because patterns build systems and systems build culture.
And culture is what the next generation inherits.
Hold this pose for a moment.
Right hand on your heart — your value.
Left hand extended with the palm open— your influence.
Together, that is how Give To Gain becomes culture.
I’m Anna Larson. Thank you for spending a small part of your morning here with me today, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your conference.
