Tag Archives: advice

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.)

Woman in a Man’s World

Can you imagine being the first women in venture capital?  To put this in perspective, today after 30+ years of women in venture capital there are fewer than 4% of senior VC’s who are women! Now imagine, again, how out of place Kathryn Gould must have been in these early years in a man’s world.

Kathryn gave the commencement speech at University of Chicago this year, and if you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend reading it.  She has been on the investing side and the entrepreneur side, and shares some wonderful advice.  These are some highlights of her speech.  These are really great gems of wisdom for anyone, especially a woman entrepreneur in her first start up.

1. “So, about your adventure:  should you have a plan? Maybe. But don’t follow it. Planning prepares the mind, and chance favors the prepared mind, but chance usually messes up plans!”

2. “Don’t be afraid to take a step down” (Kathryn left as marketing manager for a $100 Million  business to join Oracle, a $1 Million business.)  I agree, if your intuition says it is a good idea, but all the outer world says “no stay at your good job”, chances are it is time to take a leap.  I talk about this often.  When I left IBM to join a small start up that later became what we know as the cellular industry, no one thought I was making a wise choice.  But my intuition said jump!

3.  “Build Your Skills Not Your Resume.”  We live in a work world of resumes, but not once you become an entrepreneur.  When you are starting your own business, you will be doing jobs from janitor to book keeping at times.  Broaden your skills at every chance you can, before and after you take the plunge.

4.  These are some gems she learned along the way:

  • “How to cold call –adrenaline, real time, 3 seconds to grab their attention—learn this!”
  • “Also the adage As hire As, Bs hire Cs—absolutely true—be careful of the company you keep.”
  • “What goes around comes around. Help people with their careers, their ideas, contacts—and I’m serious, good things come back years later.”
  • “I also learned that the first time without a paycheck is a little scary.”

5.  “Find Your Obsession.”  I should put this at the top, the middle and the end.  Without a burning desire for achieving something you will not have the needed fire to fuel your path as an entrepreneur. 

6. “It’s Not the Calls You Take, It’s the Calls You Make.  You are the creator of your destiny. In whatever business you’re in, there is always so much coming at you that you can stay insanely busy just responding.  Don’t do that. Always think about what is your agenda, what do you want to make happen, what do you want the future to look like.  This is not so easy.”  I think this might be the number two reason people fail at start-ups or careers.  (The number one reason is not having a goal they truly are passionate about.) Years ago I moved my family to the country.  Initially there was no cell phone coverage on our land and although we installed a phone line, we worked on one side of our 88 acres and lived on the other.  Our one land-line phone meant we were away from the phone most of the day. When our answering machine broke people became irritated they could not leave us messages–playing the now familiar electronic version of tag, your it. However, I found such freedom in not responding to everyone else’s requests that I stalled considerably getting a new machine.  I recognized in that experience the perpetual vortex of being sucked into other people’s priorities, and the power of stepping out of it.

I leave you with Kathryn’s ending remarks:

“Break rules, find your obsession, be extraordinary!”

In life — Eat one bite at a time!

“The distance is nothing; it is only the first step that is difficult.”
Madame Marie du Deffand

I love this quote!  It reminds me of wisdom I have had to learn over and over again.  That wisdom is: It is not essential to know all the steps of how to accomplish a big goal.  What is essential is taking the next step.

So often we become paralyzed by the scope of our goal or the number of things looming over us needing to be done and we fail to move forward at all.  Each step, no matter how small, will move you closer.

When I hit this place it appears every aspect of my goal is tied to the next and will create a domino affect if I make the wrong move, or miss the magic answer.  If the project feels like climbing Mount Kilimanjaro sometimes I spin in circles trying to put all the pieces into some systematic order that will make the job come together.  From this place decisions are impossible and forward motion ceases.

Yet, truly all that is needed is for me to take the next step.  And with each step the next one becomes more obvious.  Each step simplifies the path and brings the end goal closer.  And my taking action not only moves me closer to the goal, it also reduces my anxiety and clarifies my thoughts.  This simple solution has solved more problems for me than almost anything else.

Do you sometimes get paralyzed by decisions that feel too huge, or a project that feels overwhelming?  Try this next time.  Take just the very next step.  Decisions become easier and mountains of tasks slowly shrink to a manageable size.

Are you burned out?

I find when I am becoming burned out it is a sure indication that my days are filled with things I need to do but not things that inspire me.  I can work long and hard when I am inspired.  Burn out is a key indicator I am off track.  Forbes recently did an article about this very topic with 3 tips for combating burn-out.

Here is my strategy when I feel the heavy beast of burn-out eating away at my drive and my productivity.

The first thing I do is take time to break my daily cycle, whether it is an hour or a whole week away.

During this break I make two lists.  I list all the goals that would make me feel great if I was pursuing them or had accomplished them.  These aren’t plans, they are goals.  Things that make me stretch outside my current comfort zone and the successful outcome of would bring a huge grin to my face.

Then I make a list of what normally fills my day.

If I am not spending some time each day on things that move forward something on my first list I can be sure I need to change something.  Sometimes the change is drastic — like quitting my job.  But often it is just waiting until noon to answer emails and spending the first hour of each work day on a creative project rather than at the end of the day when all my “to-do’s” are complete–which rarely happens and I have little creative juices.

Making progress each day towards what really makes my heart sing is the key to my productivity — in everything else I do.  If you don’t know what makes your heart sing, take my free quiz and get a free meditation audio to help find it.

Do you have an internal saboteur?

It is half way through 2014.  Are you creating the life of your dreams or are you revisiting the same daily actions and trivia you have been managing for years?  Staying alert to the subtle ways we sabotage our own success is critical to achieving our dreams.  But what do you do once you recognize you are off course?

At our last women’s retreat, we created a list of powerful actions to stop our internal saboteur before it gains power over our ability to manifest.  Having this resource can be your ticket to freedom and finally manifesting your goals, so I decided to share it with everyone.

If you begin to feel defeated, deflated, or depleted….STOP, and remember to reach for one of these tools:

  1. Scan you body.  Where are you holding the block physically?  Breathe into that area.
  2. Take a chance! Be bold when you feel timid, undecided, or confused.  Most failure comes from lack of decision, not the wrong decision.
  3. Set 3 objectives each night before bed for the next day that relate to your important goals. (Not the stuff that will consume your day, but the stuff you wish you had time for and never do.)  These are small steps towards these important goals–steps you can complete tomorrow.  Leave them by your bed and read them again when you awake.  These are your priorities for the next day.  Your unconscious has had time to creatively work on them overnight.  Do them before other tasks.
  4. Be Here Now. Remember to focus on the current moment; let go of ruminating over the past or worrying about the future.
  5. Speak you truth.  Be yourself.  Share your true feelings.  Remember truth is a powerful enzyme and it continues to transform over time.  (Let go if the results are not immediate.)
  6. Stop, rewind.  Cancel-clear.  Find a phrase to say when you notice what you are thinking or saying is not what you CHOOSE.
  7. Cultivate a daily practice.  Meditation, yoga or some other practice can keep your soul renewed and your spirits strong.
  8. Listen to the soft, calm voice of knowing we all have but often ignore.
  9. Stop the fearful chatter.  Be the boss of your inner dialogue.  Say “that’s enough!”
  10. Embrace the new or uncomfortable.  Rather than resist it try saying, “Wow!  I’ve never done THIS before!”
  11. Rewrite “the story” when you feel yourself stuck in one.  How could you see this from a different perspective?  What else is possibly true?
  12. Cultivate play, laughter, joy.  See a funny movie or do another energy changer.  We are more creative, productive, and better leaders when we act from a place of happiness.
  13. Take the next small step.  Don’t worry about the full list of what is required to reach your objective, just move forward everyday in some way.
  14. Connect with another supportive person.
  15. Do tapping or EFT when your energy is off.  If you don’t know what this is or need a reminder go to http://www.thetappingsolution.com/ or google Emotional Freedom Technique.

What are your favorite ways to keep yourself positive, motivated, and on track for the important goals you set?

After graduation what will she find?

If you have been following me for long you know I am passionate about empowering women around the world.  Empowering myself.  Empowering you.  Empowering your friends.

Yet, I believe the biggest change we can make will come through empowering our daughters, the next generation of women.  I have three daughters and I feel incredibly passionate about their experience being more authentic, strong, and celebratory of their feminine nature than mine.

I spent my adolescent, teen and early adult years trying to avoid the unwanted attention of male teachers, male friends of my parents and early bosses.  This made me feel ever so self conscious of my sexuality, any sensuality, and my affect on others.  The message was do not let your energy shine because it draws creepy and sometimes flat out assaulting behavior in people you are suppose to trust!  Unfortunately more women than not have similar stories of their youth.

As a young woman I also saw that power was solely in positions that men held– leading me  to develop my masculine side through becoming assertive, honing my decision making skills, and becoming highly competitive. As far as I was concerned, why would anyone want to live in a disempowered place–and this was what it took to not be powerless.  Many of you have had similar experiences in order to attain power and influence in the world.  I just did it to extreme–like most things I pursued in those years I was using my successes to validate my worth.

I suppressed anything that hinted I was feminine in my work life.  Upset and feel overwhelmed?  Whatever you do DON’T CRY.  Feel lonely and isolated?  Work harder to get ahead, getting attached to co-workers makes it harder to become their boss anyway.  Have a strong intuition that something is not right, stifle it because no one will take you seriously if you told them and worse they will stop listening to you in general.  Feel enthusiastic and have a spontaneous idea, find some market research or statistic to support your idea or keep your enthusiasm to yourself.

By the time I had my first child I had lost touch with so many parts of me that my new role as mother was like landing in alien territory.  Being spontaneous, unplanned, full of emotions, fully bonded with another human being was not natural to my ego and the role I had learned to play.  During the next chapter of my life I began to unravel this masculine mask and re-engage my feminine self.

What I realized was I had become a good man.  I never had role models of what it looked like to be a woman AND be powerful so I had traded my femininity for power.  And I am not alone.  Maybe you too gave up a piece of yourself to pursue something important.  I have been hearing from women every day, from all different walks of life that this same pattern has been played out in many ways.

The real terror of this situation is by working so hard to prove ourselves capable of the same things men can do we have been teaching our daughters the same thing we were so appalled by– that being feminine is not a position of strength.  You can be a woman these days, but certainly not a juicy, emotional, intuitive, creative, life giving female!

My new vision is to support young women becoming adults who believe in themselves–not just as a person, because that still denies their being feminine–but as the female person they are.  Let’s help them not only endure their volatility and sensitivity but relish their femininity.  Feminine strengths are missing in all aspects of our culture– education, health care, business, law and government.  If our young girls enter these areas with their femininity in tact maybe each of these areas could find new solutions to our current problems.  What are these feminine traits?  Intuitiveness.  Sensuality.  Multi-tasking. Tribe building.  Creativity.  Relationships.  Communications.  Power sharing.  Consensus building and many more!

I will explore ideas about how we can create an environment that helps our girls become women who celebrate their femininity, demonstrate their strength in our culture, contribute in big ways to our world and have a better chance at healthy relationships because they start with a heaping dose of loving themselves–just as they are!

Be Your Own Boss

Working for someone else can be easy, comfortable, and safe.  Yet, it often does not let our light shine and our hearts sing.  Do you have an idea in you that you have not allowed to see the light of day?

Awhile back fellow Harvard Business School grad, Jules Pieri, wrote this inspirational blog about empowering ourselves by starting our own business rather than managing a dead end career moving like a tortoise to “the top.”  It was relevant then and still is today.

If you consider starting your own company, but then stay where it is safe…. read it today! Xconomy Blog by Jules Pieri