IT’S A WOMAN’S WORLD

Women of the world, I am speaking to you. Not from a platform of unreachable heights, but from my heart, standing right beside you.
There has never been a better time than now to make the final break with outdated traditions in the business world. As old paradigms fade, new opportunities, methods, paths and successes are springing up all around you. Open your mind and your eyes will follow.

The Great Recession turned the economy upside down. While corporate jobs were being lost, new small businesses sprouted up at a phenomenal rate as people created their own streams of income. According to the Intuit 2020 Report, contingent workers will make up over 40 percent of the total workforce by 2020, with the greatest growth found in personal and micro-businesses.

Whether you were born an entrepreneur or found your way into self-employment out of necessity, there are more of us than ever before, and we have the power to change the world.

We’re living in a new era. And after years spent following the lead of men, climbing our way up the ladder, and hammering at the glass ceiling, it’s women who are leading the way as the dominant economic force.
Yes — welcome to the Sheconomy!

Would it surprise you to learn that Gen-Y women are enrolling in and graduating from college at a higher rate than men? Women make up half of the workforce, and we are creating new businesses at twice the rate of our male counterparts.

What excites me the most about there being more women entrepreneurs is that we have an opportunity to lead differently and shape a better world. A study by the Guardian Life Small Business Research Institute shows that women are more likely to include community and the environment in business plans, are committed to creating opportunities for the people around them, and care deeply about paying employees well and providing better healthcare.

This is only one small glimpse into the values and ideas we may sow into the Sheconomy.

We are at the beginning of a revolution, the biggest shift since women charged into the workforce. It’s a movement that is bigger than any one of us. It’s an exciting time to be a woman!

WHAT BURIED PASSION IS WAITING TO EMERGE?

Did you have a dream early in life that was stifled or submerged by classical schooling and cultural “norms?” It’s not uncommon, and with all due respect to society and its childhood institutions, the typical path can be quite lacking in its capacity to cultivate creativity and vision.

This is one reason why decades later, so many women find themselves in roles they didn’t choose, or that don’t match their early dreams and passions.

Institutional dream-crushing started for me at the tender age of 13, when a few middle school teachers started insisting that my childhood dream of being an “entrepreneur-author-teacher-speaker-astronaut” was quite positively out of the question.

This probably happened to you, too. Once it does, you are herded down an ever-narrowing tunnel of “opportunities” with the rest of your unsuspecting classmates. Each tunnel is labeled with its own pleasant archetype and the steps you must take to get to the end.

It used to be that women who showed interest in the medical field were often led down the tunnel labeled “nursing,” whereas a male in the same situation would be expected to walk down the one labeled “doctor.”
Make no mistake, these were predetermined, designed, well-trodden paths where your interests took a back seat to your “career.”

Sure, you got a few “choices” along the way, like where you wanted to get your diploma, but really, the rest was pretty much standard procedure.

I was guided down the “lawyer” tunnel. I clearly remember sitting in front of my computer, eagerly awaiting the results of my “best career choice” from a personal inventory software program. I was secretly hoping the result would be CEO or entrepreneur. My aunt and uncle were business owners, and I wanted to own companies like they did.

When the software program spat out LAWYER, my heart sank a little. I told myself, “Well, the computer probably knows what’s best,” and I resigned myself to becoming a lawyer right then and there.

Through movies like Legally Blonde, I tried to convince myself that life as a lawyer could be fun because, of course, Legally Blonde is such a realistic depiction of a career in law… I thought I could still honor the entrepreneur in me by starting my own firm. “Yeah, it won’t be that bad,” I remember thinking.

I earned good grades and decided to go after the logical degree, Business and Political Science. Nobody stopped me. No one questioned my thought process. No one talked to me about entrepreneurship being a viable option for me.

They should have. There is sunshine at the end of that tunnel, however. In hindsight, I learned one of my first and most valuable lessons:

Be your own person, listen to your inner voice, and vigilantly stand guard at the door of your own mind. No one loves you more than you do. Be a good gatekeeper — your life depends on it!

ONLY YOU KNOW WHAT IS IN YOUR HEART.
NEVER LET SOMEONE ELSE TELL YOU WHAT YOU LOVE. MORE IMPORTANTLY, DON’T LET THE PRESSURE
OF EXPECTATIONS DICTATE HOW YOU