Women and Leadership, Part 2
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Barbara Walters – ABC News and ‘The View':
… On the other hand, I have been blessed with a fascinating career. One I never expected to have when I began as a writer on television. And if today, if a young woman comes up to me and says, ‘I’m in journalism because of you,’ I think that is my reward. I never had a mentor, and I am both grateful and so proud that I could be that for someone else.
Jonelle Procope – CEO, Apollo Theater Foundation:
You should always be open to opportunities and new experiences. You don’t always know where life is going to take you and where the next opportunity is going to come from. If you’re open to trying different things, you can eventually find yourself at the right place at the right time. Very often, you have to create your own opportunities by building on the expertise you have and capitalizing on it. You also have to be able to understand your strengths. Many women never step back to determine their strengths and look at their accomplishments, whereas men do that all the time.
Nancy Andrews – Dean, Duke Medical School:
… But in my senior year, some friends from Yale medical school persuaded me to apply to a combined M.D. / Ph.D. program so that I could work in areas of science that wouldn’t be as open to me with only a Ph.D.. This was in the late 1970s, and it never occurred to me that being a woman might be a problem. That was probably a good thing.
Sheryl Sandberg – COO, Facebook:
What I am asked about career strategies, I respond that you need two things: a long-term dream and one- to two- year plan. A long-term dream allows you to work with purpose to achieve real fulfillment. A short-term plan, makes sure you are learning and growing from the work you do each day. All the stuff of the middle is confusing at best and anxiety producing at worst. … When you try to plan every step, you miss opportunities. I believe that if you are open to opportunity and respect the people who share their dreams with you, the rest will take care of itself.
Helene Gayle – CEO, CARE USA:
I went into medicine because in keeping with the values my parents had instilled in us, I wanted a profession that allowed me to give back. When I was doing my residency training in pediatrics in an inner-city hospital, I saw so many children who showed up in the emergency room at night for non-emergency care because they didn’t have insurance to pay for regular health care. I realized that many of the things my patients were facing really were linked to broader issues. If I really wanted to have an impact and keep that child out of the emergency room, I had to look at other ways of helping tackle the underlying issues.
… we put a special focus on empowering women and girls, because we believe they hold the key to long-lasting social change in communities.
Dara Torres – Olympic medalist:
I’ve been in five Olympic Games in 24 years. People have told me how I inspired them. That’s a much more rewarding feeling than bringing home medals. People think they are too old to do something. Others put off doing something or don’t think they could balance being a parent to doing their work, so I guess they like my story. I feel like I’m going out there and doing my thing and loving what I’m doing I didn’t do it to try to show that a 41-year-old could do this. It just ended up that way.
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November 13, 2008
Women and Leadership, Part 1
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A few weeks ago in Newsweek, they had short interviews with a number of women with successful careers. I thought they had a bit too many involved in the entertainment industry, but in general I think they did a good job with it. I would love to give you the link to read the whole thing on the Newsweek web site, but their site is not organized well and their search is shitty. I spent a lot of time looking and couldn’t find this article on their site anywhere.
However, some of the quotes were quite inspirational and I’d like to share some of them here:
Julie Hembrock Daum – Practice Leader, Spencer Stuart:
Even today, there are times when a woman might find herself the only woman in a room. In all situations, but particularly then, it is important to be present in the room and to make sure you are part of the conversation. Women have a tendency to hang back a bit in a group and think that they shouldn’t speak unless they have something that is either absolutely 100 percent correct or astonishingly brilliant. In fact, if you don’t speak up, if you’re waiting for that opportunity and it never comes, people just assume you had no ideas and will write you off. In a meeting or gathering, you should try to be one of the first handful of people to speak even if it is only to ask a question. If you don’t, it will become harder and harder to enter the conversation.
… but unfortunately, women have a tendency to speak with hesitation and, it appears without strength, in their conviction. They may be afraid of making a mistake – and you will make mistakes
And think this was my favorite of all the quotes – it certainly describes my behavior and is something I need to work on!
Carla Christofferson – Attorney and Co-owner, L.A. Sparks:
My advice is to be fearless. I failed at a lot of things it didn’t kill me. Sometimes it’s embarrassing, but I really got used to people saying no, and getting up, pretending it didn’t happen and trying something else.
When you’re looking at a big problem or task, break it down into small, manageable parts. Then if one or two things don’t work, its easy to try something else. Don’t let the overwhelming nature of the entire burden that you’re trying to carry or the entire improvement stop you from taking the first few steps. Even if you think there’s no way you’re going to get to the end it doesn’t matter. You have to take the first steps.
I need to work on that fearless part!
Lisa Dennison – Executive VP, Sotheby’s North American:
You have to project change and growth. And you have to be somewhat demanding and make sure that people recognize how you have grown so that you are given the opportunities you have earned. Women often don’t ask for what they deserve. They accept what comes their way and make the best of it.
How many of you think you do this?
Lauren Zalaznick – President, Women & Lifestyle Entertainment Networks, NBC Universal:
I think that people more likely to assign the word “emotional” as a negative trait to women leaders who have incredibly strong convictions. Instead of saying about a male business leader, ‘He has very strong convictions, he is so emotional,’ the perception stops after the comma and it’s only perceived as a positive.
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August 27, 2008
One World, One Dream
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I’m not really into sports and think that we as a species would be much better off if instead of getting together to compete with each other we would instead get together and cooperate on solving problems like poverty, the environment and all the various diseases we could have cures for if we really put our minds to it.
Nevertheless, I did pay some attention to the Olympics this time. I really like the slogan China chose: “One World, One Dream”. There were a couple of songs written around that slogan for the Olympics too. One of them was played at the Opening Ceremony – “You and Me”. The other was called “One World, One Dream”, and if you search you can find it on YouTube.
I thought a lot about the slogan and the lyrics to these songs and felt very inspired by them.
“You and me. From one world. We are family.”
The accomplishments of one of us are really the accomplishments of all of us. We all gain and grow.
It may not seem that way for us as individuals in our daily lives.
But in the big picture – we are all one.
“You are me, and I am you.”
If one of us discovers a cure for cancer – we all gain from it. Whomever finds the most efficient and practical method of collecting and storing solar energy – helps us all – regardless of which nation on this planet they come from.
“One World, One Dream.”
If one person performs the best at the Olympics the point isn’t that they won, but that they just pushed the limit and showed what humans can do if we put our mind to it.
“When there is hope, there is a chance. That all our dreams will come to pass.”
If we still have hope and are determined to make changes in the world – we can do that. We can make the dream of one world – one world united to make life better for all of us – come true.
“And then we can open our arms – and fly”
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July 28, 2008
If life hands you a tree make tree-ade
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If life hands you a tree make tree-ade – or so they say. Actually they say ‘if life hands you lemons, make lemonade’. But you have to work with what you got.
Of course the point of the saying is that when something seemingly bad happens, you should try to find some way to make good use of it.
And that is true, many times things don’t turn out the way we wanted but in the end we find something in the situation that isn’t so bad. If fact sometimes we end up with something better than the thing we originally wanted.
Like in Office Space when the one guy backs out of his driveway, gets hit by a car and is severely injured and ends up getting a bunch of money from it and becomes rich.
Certainly my career hasn’t turned out the way I had planned or had wanted it to. On the other hand, now I’m able to work from home and will, hopefully, someday be able to be a work at home mom and spend more time with my child than I would have been able to otherwise. And, if I work real hard and run into a bit of luck I may even be able to make more money than I would have if things had worked out differently.
However, in our case – today we were handed a tree on top of our shed and vegetable garden:
The only tree-ade I can see with this is that I hadn’t written a post up yet for today – then the tree fell – and it gave me something to write a quick post about without a lot of effort.
So see – there’s always a bright side to everything!
Want to see more pictures?
Here is the shed from the front:
Here is a picture showing the vegetable garden covered with tree:
From the back:
The back from the other side:
A couple other pictures:
And for those interested, our neighbor Bob had part of a dead tree fall on fence a couple weeks ago. Lots of tree-ade in this neighborhood lately.
So remember – when things don’t turn out how you wanted – look for ways to make tree-ade lemonade out of it!
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July 21, 2008
How to get your focus back in focus.
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Now and then we all need to reevaluate where we are in life and figure out what we need to do next. Its easy to get caught up in the details and the smaller goals that we have set for ourselves along the way and lose track of what it was we were trying to accomplish to begin with.
This weekend I found myself at one of these crossroads again and didn’t know which road to take. I felt overwhelmed with all the choices.
I had to remind myself what it was that I really wanted to achieve so that I could put everything into perspective again.
When I do this I always put health at the top of the list – I know that if I’m not keeping myself as healthy as I can I won’t be successful with the goals I’ve set for myself.
So what does keeping healthy consist of? I always break it down into these 3 basic things:
1) Sleeping – make sure you get enough sleep so you can think clearly
2) Eating – eat healthy foods, not junk foods, so you will feel better both on a short term scale and also stay healthier the rest of your life
3) Exercising – exercise also has both short term and long term benefits
Of course putting health at the top of the list and actually behaving as if its the most important are two different things. This time however I’ve been doing pretty good. I slept good last night, and I’ve eaten healthily so far today. I used the treadmill today even. But I haven’t done any strength training exercise for a while and its starting to catch up with me. My back is killing me today!
Once I get the health part going in the right direction I’m usually able to see more clearly what I need to do to achieve everything else. Then I can write out a list, break it down to smaller tasks and prioritize them.
At that point I feel like I’ve made a decision and that I’m on the right road again.
What methods to you use to keep yourself focussed or to find your focus when you lose it?
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