Tag Archives: women

Adapting Our Skills Is Our Strength! Use It!

Resilience, adaptable leadership and goal-driven are skills three women veterans in this Forbes article by Geri Stengel translated from military duty to entrepreneurship.  These are skills you too can bring to your business and evoke in those you work with.

I love how each of these women took their existing strengths in the military and found how well they translated into the business world — even though thet seem miles apart.  Unfortunately, most women neglect to recognize their own strengths, let alone capitalize on them.

I remember hearing a humorous story about a husband and wife bantering over dinner about who had the harder job.  The husband thought his wife, who stayed at home, was not “working” — as so many people do.  (I even caught myself saying the other day when I stopped working, referring to when I stayed home to raise my children!)  To settle the matter, they decided to trade jobs for a week.

As you might guess,  the story ends with the wife competently managing the family business and the husband exhausted, overwhelmed, and begging to trade back before the time was over.  It is a funny story about women being able to juggle schedules, manage ten things at once, deal with daily crisis, manage a tight budget, make quick decisions, and still have a delicious dinner on the table at the end of the day.

The real message behind the humor though is not being heard by most women.  What are all the skills you already possess?  What talents have you demonstrated mastery of in your personal, volunteer and work life?  You have a well of untapped potential.  Stop sitting on it and start using it.  Believe in your skills, even if they were not performed at the head of a Fortune 500 company.  List them, know them, be willing to brag about them.

One of the most poignant parts of this Forbes article was the end.  Geri points out that each of the three women veterans she interviewed ALL got outside funding for the businesses they started.  This is dramatically different from the norm, where women tend to avoid asking for money and perhaps do not feel qualified to get it.

You are qualified for so much more than you give yourself credit.  What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?  What would you consider doing if you did not have to ask someone else for money to get started?  Consider the possibility of doing it anyway!  The people who backed these three women entrepreneurs got their money back and a whole lot more.  Maybe you not asking for money is not only holding you back, perhaps it is actually preventing others from getting rich because of the value you will provide when you learn to believe in YOU!

Why do women have great friends and horrible networks?

I have been coaching women entrepreneurs for awhile and am dismayed by our gender’s general lack of networking when we are so good at creating social circles and deep friendships. Too many business women work hard to get ahead and fail to create the professional networking so vital to advancement.

Women are known as the sex that is better at relationships, communicate more and more effectively, and have stronger compassion genes. Yet, study after study show that women regularly fail at networking when it comes to their careers.

A recent article by one of my favorite Forbes contributors, Geri Stengel points to many of the pitfalls my clients have fallen into when they come see me about jumpstarting their stalled career or helping their start-up take flight.  Geri offers 6 tips for improving networking skills including “get over your inhibitions.”

However, I find most women are not shy, so this does not necessarily point to the real issue but is more of a symptom.  What I have learned coaching women is they are hard wired to supporting other people’s requests (their boss, co-worker, or family) but find it extremely difficult to ask others to help them, to ask for what they need. Period.  No amount of “getting over your inhibitions,” cracking the confidence code, or leaning in will unwire this because it is not about assertiveness.  Women can be plenty assertive at pitching their deal, rally for a cause, or going to bat for an employee.  Where they fail to speak up is asking for themselves.

To ask for something for yourself requires a few key things.  It is about knowing what you want, seeing how others could help you, and reversing genetic conditioning that stops you from recruiting others’ help. Let’s look at the first one, knowing what you want– since without that step the others are meaningless.

Many years ago I had a counselor send me home with the assignment of writing down everything I would ask for if I had the guts, and not ask.  She just wanted me to start to know what it was I would ask for if I felt I could.  Whoa!  Once I got going I realized there were a lot of things I was not asking for.  It was a great exercise and because she did not send me off to start asking for what I wanted, I was able to see more clearly all the areas that I was holding back.  If she had recommended I go start asking for what I want, I am sure I would not have been able to think of anything to ask for.

You, too can start this with just a pad a paper.  You don’t have to ask your boss for a raise or an investor for money.  At least not yet.  Start with a clean sheet and just think. If I could not loose–what is it I would ask for.  Start to really make long lists. List all the people you would ask.  It will help grow your muscle of seeing yourself as capable of asking.  You might surprise yourself and start asking sooner than you think.

Are you unstoppable – like this woman?

This woman suffered outer circumstances you and I could not imagine.  Yet, she is unstoppable.  Are you?

Jane was pulled out of school by the age of 9 years old,  married by 12,  had 5 children and lived in poverty.  Yet, Jane decided to make sure her own children were educated.  Then she decided to become educated herself. (Note: decisions are key, you can wish and whine until you die — or you can decide.)  She learned basic math, bookkeeping, and income-generating skills, as well as how to save money and secure loans as part of the income training in The Unstoppable Foundation’s 5-pillar development model.  She developed skills that positioned her as a leader in her community.

Her decision and subsequent actions created inspiration for her husband who also got educated.  Then he organized the men in the village to become educated.

Next, their village agreed to stop marrying girls by age 12 and now commit to everyone being educated.

8 years later from her decision to come out of poverty she has changed her whole village to one that is prospering and sustainable.  You can read more about her and others like her here.

The key to being unstoppable is going after something you have a strong desire for, like Jane when she determined her children (even her girls) were going to be educated.  If you are doing what you are passionate about — you will be unstoppable!

How do you figure out what you are passionate about?  Take time to listen to your quiet inner voice through meditation, retreats and journalling.  Take time to fantasize the life of you dreams.  Dream big.  Notice what things make you feel enlivened and what things drain you. You can start today.  Take my free quiz and then listen to the free meditation audio you will receive.  It will help you move your imagination until you can dream of a life that brings you joy, not every once in awhile–but every day.

 

Your New Life Awaits — Part 1

I read a statistic today that 93% of women are depressed or despondent towards there future!  I don’t know how they calculated this or if it is a gross exaggeration of the actual study; but ladies, even if we cut the number in half something is terribly wrong here!

Depression and despondency come from a lack of passion and joy in our days and weeks and months as they pass by.  They come from feeling trapped in a place, a job or a relationship that does not feed our soul.  They come from a life not lived–but merely endured or survived.

Most of us have moments of both joy and depression.  The question is in where are we most of the time?  Do our moments of joy kindly spice an otherwise dull existence just enough to keep us there?  Or do our moments of depression and despondency come when we occasionally forget to take care of ourselves and exhaustion sets in?  The first is a prescription for trouble.  The second is a wakeup call to recalibrate our priorities.

Many of us in the first scenario of joyful moments feeding us just enough to keep us stuck happen because we have created our own prison.  Before you put up your defenses and your story–stay with me.  Reflect on your own passage to your current life.  Most of us at some point or another choose to follow a certain “path” of how we project our womanhood to the world.  Whether it is because we were rejecting who our mothers were or because we followed their tradition does not matter.  How we got here–whether we saw power in this path or because we ran from the reaction people had to us when we attempted another path, or something in our history–no longer matters.  

What matters is what path we choose today.  Does it empower us to feel alive, or have we carved away huge parts of our feminine soul in order to “be” the role we have assumed.   Next time we will look at some generalized paths women are taking, how they affect us, and how we can break free from our own imposed prison if we find ourselves less than fully enthusiastic when we awake each day.