Tag Archives: role model

Mentors, role-models and inspiration

Did you know that some people’s mentors are not even alive, yet influence their success immensely?

It’s true. You can be led and guided just by learning about someone you respect and see as having reached greater success than you.  

That is why so many successful people read biographies of famous people–to learn their secrets as best they can. In Napoleon Hill’s work he talks about convening regular meetings with people long dead to review his problems from each of their perspectives, as best he could imagine having studied them.

Who might you convene, if you could, to help you find creative solutions to your own problems? Here are a few ideas to get your creativity going.

  • Mother Teresa
  • Oprah Winfrey
  • Marianne Williamson
  • Queen Elizabeth I
  • Eleanor Rosevelt
  • Golda Meir
  • Margarent Thatcher
  • Marie Curie
  • Margaret Mead
  • Indira Ghandi
  • Sandra Day O’Conner
  • Rosa Parks
  • Gloria Steinem

The list of powerful women is endless. Find those that you admire, respect, or even those with a certain quality you lack and would like to cultivate–even if you do not like the person’s views.

For this same reason, I bring to you each month my Interviews with Influential Women.  In each interview you get a glipse of what each of these women did to achieve their success, the stuggles they surmounted, and their views on issues facing women, like you, today.

To read this month’s interview, and any of the prior ones, click here.

Headwinds Slowing Your Career?

Every once in awhile you have to ask yourself if you are taking advantage of prevailing winds, or trying to move directly into a headwind.  All of us at one time or another, let others stall out our goals through their doubts, skepticism or dismissal of our capacity to achieve them.   As women, we can let the proverbial glass ceiling become our reality because sometimes our gender can feel like a strong headwind.

If you are like me you probably enjoy learning from others how they dealt with similar situations.  If so, read this article by Adam Bryant in the New York Times, about four top executive women.   Each of these women talk about the challenges of being a woman at the top, and on the way to the top of the corporate world.

The keys to overcoming the headwinds and changing your sails to make your progress smoother are many.  Here are a few key ones brought to light by these women:

  1. Be clear, not angry, when boundaries are crossed.  Be willing to take a stand. (Dara Richardson-Heron M.D., CEO Y.W.C.A USA, talks about insisting she be judged on her performance, not her dress early in her career.)
  2. Claim your seat at the table.  Don’t downplay your successes.  (Sharon Napier, CEO Partners + Napier, points out if you are going to be a leader “you have to be comfortable owning who you are, and owning it big.”
  3. Go for leadership positions because when we have more female leaders it will be easier for all people to think a female voice is the voice of leadership.  Let’s start to assume our position as influential women and change the perception.  (Jody Greenstone-Miller, CEO The Business Talent Group, feels many of the feminine traits that supposedly hold women back are actually a symptom of so few women at the top.)
  4.  Speak up for what you want.  Don’t assume people will know where you want to take your career.  (Jenny Ming, CEO Charlotte Russe clothing chain, talks about being passed over for a promotion because her boss thought with three children she wouldn’t want to advance.)