Ditch the Soggy Bread

I hear it again and again from women I work with… “I make a comment or suggest an idea and nothing happens. Then a man suggests the same idea five minutes later and everyone says, ‘good idea!” We could go down a road of looking how society diminishes or makes invisible women’s voices. But I have a juicier place to look: how YOU are creating that dynamic.

I’d invite you to listen to your own language with a keen ear for the next week. See if you can hear how you publically disqualify your own ideas or thoughts. You might be amazed at how frequently you are your own worst enemy when it comes to taking yourself seriously. And practically speaking, if you don’t…why should we?

I’ve come to appreciate how women – myself included – have been encultured to create kind of a verbal “soggy sandwich”, so that the substance in the middle gets lost or watered down to mush. Here’s how it typically looks: we start a sentence with a disqualifier such as “This might be a crazy idea…” or “You’ll probably think I’m off the wall for suggesting this…” or “I’m sure I’m the only one who feels this way, but…” Then we share our insightful thought or bright idea. Finally, we finish it off with a straggly ending, often tapering it off to the point of just muttering: “…told you it was out there…” or “…but that’s just my two cents…”

The impact of this is that people stop listening before you’ve even began sharing your thoughts. If you think about it, why would they after that stellar beginning, eh? And if you did successfully hook someone with what was undoubtedly a sound idea or valid point, your straggling ending loosens their tenuous hold on it like a slippery noodle. They literally can’t recall what you’ve said amidst all those other soggy words.

Do we do this ALL the time? Not at all. Nor am I suggesting we do. But, I would wage a bet that you do this more often than you realize. Test it out. Enlist the support of a trusted colleague or friend to track your comments over the course of a week and see what you can learn. Then laugh it off and move along. In my experience, once you realize what you’re doing to detract from your own impact, you will catch yourself as it happens and will correct it. Eventually you will catch yourself before it happens, and voila! You’re there!

I feel passionately about this because we are at a time in our history where women – what they think, experience and have to say – are being called forth more and more to center stage. There is a window of opportunity for women to advance themselves – and the world. But this will require us to take ourselves seriously and to get our voices out there – crisply and cleanly, no holds barred. As Maddie Dychtwald writes in her new book Influence, “This is moment historians will look back on, pointing their fingers and tracing the era on timelines for students of the future: See it there! See the rise of the woman at the dawn of the twenty-first century! …The lightning’s moving closer; the storm is about to break….but this moment won’t last forever.”

Seeing Is Believing

I have this sign on my fence – strategically placed so that I see it multiple times a day. I see it when I pull into my driveway. I see it out the window when I’m coaching clients. It’s that important. In many ways, it represents the belief on which my business – no, really my life – is based.

Sure it’s a bit rusty and dented, but you would be, too, if you were a cheap piece of metal from the Christmas Tree shop asked to endure the rugged Maine winters, only to be knocked off your cheap nail time and time again when an overly-zealous child slams the adjoining gate a bit hard. But I still see it.

That sign has stood the test of time and so has my belief.

Magic is amazing when it just appears before you – manifesting seemingly out of no where and delighting us with feelings of serendipity and mystery. But calling in magic. Drawing it down to you like the moon pulls the tides? That takes moxie. And guts and courage, sweat and faith. And, if you’re lucky, a hearty tribe of like-minded people that believe in you.

This week has been filled with examples of that sign. And that is worthy of pause and celebration. This week, I’ve witnessed women taking sharp intakes of breath and finally walking over the threshold of their dreams they’ve brought to reality. I’ve shared in the excitement as women have handed in their resignation letters, reinvented their marriages and said YES to themselves for the first time ever. Without guilt or looking back. All of them have referenced magic.

They are believers. And I am honored to call them my clients. Here’s to having moxie.

Of COURSE It's Terrifying!

The potency of anticipation is so often underrated. It can be quite a sticky-wicket to set realistic expectations. Especially when you’re scared. Or full of doubt. I mean, you make a BOLD decision, you finally COMMIT to something that’s important to you, you take that FIRST step toward your dreams, you LEAVE the fleecy blanket of comfort for the open tundra of the unknown and what….you thought it would be…Easy? Comfortable? The same as before? Uh, yeah. Think again.

It’s all about that sharp intake of breath in anticipation – like the moment before you plunge into an icy cold ocean on a warm day. That’s what I’m talking about. It’s all about that moment.

It’s easy to fall prey to the seductive lure of the irrational expectations, isn’t it? Especially when we’re about to embark on a whole new chapter or we’re poised to take a leap of faith into the unknown abyss. It’s a way we psych ourselves up for actually taking that leap or making that change. Perhaps that’s why the phrase, “ignorance is bliss” was created. It’s all part of the hokey-pokey of navigating change.

If I sound like I’m making light this dance we do with change, I kind of am. And I’m guilty of it, too. It’s just that sometimes we’re so adorable as humans, it’s kind of endearing to witness ourselves dipping our toes in and out and in and out of the icy water. Or running up to the edge of a cliff and then screeching to a halt. What we’re really talking about is a rite of passage. And feeling it in our bones. Deep down, we know the person on the other side of the leap isn’t going to be the same person anymore. So of course it's terrifying. Whatever happens as a result, you will ultimately land on the other side of the sharp intake of breath. You might still be holding your breath, but you’re on your way to an exhale. So that feeling – call it terror, fear, or exhilaration - it’s kind of part of the package. In that context, there’s really no escaping it.

Giving birth? Yeah, it hurts. Getting a tattoo? Yeah, that hurts, too. Falling over on your bike when you’re using clipless pedals on your bike for the first time? Hurts. Disappointing someone you love or feeling guilty because you put yourself – just this once – at the top of your priority list? Ouch. Leaping out of a plane and potentially going splat on the ground? Yup. Uber hurt.

But I think hurt and fear get a bit of a bad rap in our culture. We brace for it, we cringe in anticipation and contract all our face muscles as we avert our eyes. Like getting a tetanus shot at the doctor’s office. It’s only natural, right? A human response to avoid pain. But what if we turned into it instead? Anticipated that sharp intake, so when it came time, it was more of a friend than a foe? What if we named that feeling without shame, but with honor? Reverence, even.

Would that rob us of an essential ingredient of transition? Would it still constitute a rite of passage if we didn’t feel the terror or grip of fear that taking such a risk can elicit? I’m not sure. This is my fervent wish, though: I hope we can move to a place of pride in those intake moments. As when a baby crowns or the icy water engulf us in a polar plunge, I hope we can one day exhale and say, “Ah, this is to be expected…”

Cannonball

Like a good piece of fat wood thrown on a fire or the exuberant face of a child's first cannonball, June arrives with a POW and makes itself known in a hurry. June is a bit like being shot out of a cannon - it's all dark and muffled at first and then before you know it, you're airborne, sailing high above the crowds gathered under the big top. It's exhilarating and a bit wildly out of control. Like an eager bull busting out of its pen for the first time in the season, June reminds us how good it feels to be alive and casually shrugs off our angst and caution by telling us to just hold on tight and pray for a soft landing. And land we do - with splashes and big noises and cheesy grins. "Again, again, we cry!" as we climb back in the saddle for another go of it. And so goes June - reacquainting us with the blessed joy of taking risks or trying something new and demonstrating the value of just plunging in and getting all wet. With it's longer days and hotter nights we shed our layers and cut loose a little (okay a lot) as we are reunite with our fiery spirits and passion. We emerge from June with a few bruises and sore places, but feeling scrappier, happier and heartier than we thought possible. Go figure.

Now You See Her, Now You Don't

I’m not too keen on what we do to older women in this society. It seems we have become quite adept at making them invisible and that bothers me deeply, partly because I will eventually be an older woman myself and also because I have this nagging sense that I’ve unwittingly played a role in perpetuating this tendency to marginalize older women.

There are many wonderful books about the phases of a woman’s life – from Joan Borysenko to Christiane Northrup and Jean Shinoda Bolen – but my mental model has essentially three phases: the maiden, the mother and the crone (like the waxing, full and waning phases of the moon.) But unlike some of the ancient cultures which appear to have reverence for the wisdom of age, our western society tends to diminish it or – worse yet – turn away from our older women as if they didn’t exist. This is what I mean when I say we “make invisible”. Take a look and you’ll see it all around you – from the “anti-aging” creams to the subtle and not so subtle “tuning out” that occurs in our board rooms and at our dinner tables. I know it’s ugly and we don’t like to talk about it, but I’m going there. You with me?

When I took belly dancing a few years ago when I was swollen with a baby in my belly, I looked around the room and marveled at the beauty of all the different women – all shapes, sizes and ages – moving in their bodies. The instructor told us about the women in her family and how her heritage (Lebanese) is one that believes a woman’s belly dance gets better and richer with age – because they have lived more and experienced more and can add that into their dance. She said the elder woman of a family will often be the last to dance in accordance with this belief, and I imagined a room brought to silence by the sheer power of a wise woman dancing her life story.

And yet, when I look at my own culture and the older women in my life, I see a very different picture. I watch as older women fight to be heard (literally yelling at times), are dismissed and not taken seriously for their thoughts or ideas, and are silenced or excluded from the conversation. In truth, we could make the case that we do this with our very young and our very old in this society, but I’m most curious about the women.

And how am I culpable? What are the subtle– and not so subtle – ways I perpetuate this cultural behavior as a “full moon” woman? I start with me because I believe change begins with each of us asking ourselves that question. If we are to rewrite the script for how we will be perceived as older women, we must begin by taking responsibility for our role in “making invisible” the older women in our lives today. Start there. Go there.

Hardiness Zones for Women

Sometimes it’s really lonely being a woman leader, isn’t it? I have found this to be true in my own experience and hear it echoed time and time again among the women leaders in my practice. And it’s no wonder why: we live in a society that tends to be obsessed with pitting women against each other. This is more than a little disturbing because – when you really look at it – it is just not in our nature to attack each other. So this loneliness? It’s a product of our culture. There's even a name for it: internalized sexism.

Having seen (and sadly, taken part in) this dynamic with women during my corporate career and as I watch the proliferation of media that swirls around us, I can despair at how women can be their own worst enemies. Then I participated in a Hardy Girls Healthy Women training on creating Hardiness Zones for girls and felt a light bulb of hope turn on inside me.

Hardiness Zones for middle school girls, which is based on the research of Lyn Mikel Brown, is about a creating a safe community for girls to be allies for each other in an otherwise “toxic soil”. Adopting a strength-based approach, the girls in these coalition groups examine their experiences, realities and reactions so they are able to gain perspective on them and, ultimately, make choices that give them control. In these groups, girls are not necessarily friends with each other, but respect each other enough to tell the truth, validate and stand by one another. Research has shown it works. More than that, it’s just plain inspiring.

So what if there were Hardiness Zones for women? Different than a social gathering, affinity group, or mentoring programs, these would be strategic and diverse coalitions of women in the workplace designed to support women in being allies for one another. Far from another diversity program or a "fix the women" initiative, this group would be a place where other women could validate and help you to name what you’re feeling or experiencing. Imagine anger being seen as a strength for creating change instead of a personal weakness? Imagine looking around and seeing you’re not alone? What if you felt other women standing with you as you fortified yourself to resist the status quo and push for change? What if you had a place in which to process how it went with like-minded women who cared?

How might your experience as a leader be different? What might you be cabable of then?

Spine a Shotlight

You know when someone says something by accident? And it turns out to be this profound statement of truth? I witnessed one of those recently.

It happened during a conversation about leadership with some other women at the Maine Women’s Fund. The essence of the conversation was about women stepping up more immediately up as leaders; not waiting for permission, authorization or “just the right” convergence of circumstances and gumption. Up until this point in our dialogue, we had touched upon the many reasons that women don’t step up – our penchant for influencing from behind, our low appetite for receiving credit, our exhaustion and tendency to “pick our battles.”

At one point, a member of our group blurted out (in her frustration), “We just need to spine a shotlight on the need for women to step into leadership roles…. I mean shine a spotlight.” We all chuckled and then paused. There was something in that turn of phrase that was magical and struck a chord with me and the other women in the group. Our conversation shifted after that. We began to talk about not waiting and doing something today to “be the change”. One woman shared a quote made by a friend recently, “every step I take is a women’s movement.”

Maybe that is invitation to us as women: to SPINE a shotlight; to embody the spotlight and let the light come from within each of us, rather than assuming it will somehow manifest outside us. Wouldn’t that, indeed, be the perfect image of women as agents of change? I instantly got the image of women walking around in the world with the light of their own visions for change radiating out from their solar plexuses.

In my work with women leaders, I often pose the question, “What if YOU were the leader you’ve been waiting for?” Too often – in myself and in my clients – I witness us waiting, pausing, second-guessing our instincts, our ideas or our value at the table. If more women were to “spine the shotlight”, perhaps we might bypass our minds and allow the full potency of our force for change flow from our core – unadulterated, unfiltered and unmistakable. Like the Kundalini energy of creation that ancient cultures believe lies coiled and ready at the base of our spine, women could awaken this dormant energy in ourselves and be virtual spotlights for our world.