Do You Deserve Your Great Success?

February 25th, 2010

Kathy Caprino, M.A.

As a career and life coach for women, it’s not often these days that I’m surprised by women’s behavior. I know women – especially midlife ones – quite well, or so I thought.    But I must say, I’ve been rocked recently by a potential finding that’s emerging as I conduct my research study on Women Succeeding Abundantly.  

About the study, I’m conducting a qualitative research study with over 100 working women across the country, ages 25 to 75, who are experiencing abundant success on their terms, and are thriving and living joyfully.

Here’s the official description of the study:
This qualitative, in-depth study focuses on women who consider themselves highly successful in life and work, and have advice and lessons to share with other women about achieving success, fulfillment, and well-being and living with a sense of passion, power, and purpose.

The target audience resonates with the statement: “I know what I want in life and work, and I am achieving it on my terms and with great success.”

The results of the study will be dedicated to expanding our understanding of the specific choices, actions, behaviors and thinking that help women across all generations achieve abundant success.

A trade book and a variety of education and coaching programs will be among the offerings.

(If you’re interested in learning more or participating, please let me know!)

So here’s the thing - I’m getting the inkling as I move forward that women are MUCH more comfortable talking about how things are not what they want in their lives, than they are sharing about their successes. They just don’t want to come forward and admit, “Hey, I’m really successful!”

A great new colleague of mine – Viviana Sutton of Work Her Way – shared with me that when Shirley MacLaine won her Oscar in 1984 for her role in “Terms of Endearment,” in her acceptance speech she was certainly grateful, but also said “Thanks, I deserve this!” 

I checked it out on YouTube, and loved it! (here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqSEH_bVRz8)

Nuggets of Shirley’s speech…
“I don’t believe there are such things as accidents.  I think that we all manifest what we want and what we need.  I don’t think there’s a difference really between what you feel you have to do in your heart, and success – they’re inseparable…Films and life are like clay waiting for us to mold it, and when you trust your own insides and that becomes achievement, it’s a kind of principle it seems to me is at work with everyone…God bless that potential that we all have for making anything possible if we think we deserve it.  I deserve this.  Thank you!”

From that sentiment of her feeling of deservedness (which I think she offered a bit tongue in cheek), there was great backlash – in other words, people thought “How dare she say she deserves to win!”

Wow…I guess we better not even whisper that we’ve earned our great success and that it’s deserved – that’s simply not acceptable, particularly for women.

What I do know is that hundreds of women contacted me when I was researching my first book Breakdown, Breakthrough about their professional crisis and breakdown.  They longed to share their stories of challenge and turmoil.  It was healing for most to come clean about how things weren’t working, and talk about how they overcame or handled their crisis.   And I’m thrilled they did – I know from direct experience that telling our stories of challenge can heal our lives (turning our mess into a message is a cathartic experience). 

But what about talking about our successes?  Can’t this be strengthening and empowering as well?  Can’t we access important parts of ourselves and be inspirational to others in the telling of our success stories, just in the same way as telling our tales of woe?

I’m thinking – but I’d love your help here — that this reluctance in women to talk about their success may have a number of contributing factors, including perhaps that women:

1) Don’t recognize or “feel it” when they are successful
2) Don’t want to sound as if they’re bragging
3) Have as a top priority their sense of connection and relationship to others, and don’t want to alienate anyone who isn’t feeling successful
4) Don’t want others to envy them
5) Don’t want to jinx their success by speaking openly of it
6) Don’t want to sound like they are “more deserving” than anyone else
7) Aren’t sure they really measure up to some outside standard of “abundant success” (“Wait a minute, am I really that successful?”)

The women who have come forward to tell their stories of great success in my research study so far are courageous indeed - I’m so grateful to them!  Their stories have been anything but conventional – they’ve been about vulnerability, surprise, risk, heartbreak, practicality, ingenuity, and being a “finisher” – going the distance through the challenges and fear.

So help me solve this mystery, would you?  Here’s my informal poll below – I’d LOVE your comments:

Kathy’s “Abundant Success” Poll:
1. Are you:
Male
Female

2. How successful do you feel in your life overall:
(  ) Very
(  ) Somewhat
(  ) Not at All

Why?__________________________

3. If you feel “very” successful, how likely would be to talk about your successes to:
Your family                 Very      Somewhat      Not At All
Your friends                Very     Somewhat      Not at All
Your colleagues        Very      Somewhat      Not At All
A researcher (like me) Very  Somewhat     Not At All

4. What might hold you back from discussing your abundant success?

Thanks for your comments!

My mission in my work has just shifted this very minute while writing this – it’s now about helping women claim out loud their great success – to help them get over their reluctance to speak about it openly and enthusiastically, and to teach other women how to openly embrace the beauty, joy and fulfillment of abundant success. 

In the words of Shirley MacLaine – you deserve it!

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In First Place: The M3RACE Grand Prize Winner is Sarah Stevens

February 24th, 2010

Sarah Stevens wins $100,000 for Creating Jobs from Count Me In on Vimeo.

I’ve said it before: 2009 was both exhilarating and excruciating. But even in the toughest economic times most of us have ever seen, we are still surviving, succeeding, and creating good jobs. If anyone could doubt our strength, just a few days ago our movement of one million women creating million dollar businesses took a great step forward with the announcement of the Make Mine a Million $ Business RACE Grand Prize Winner.

The Make Mine a Million $ Business RACE Grand Prize Winner is Sarah Stevens of Stevens Technology, who grew her business by 131% last year. She employs 21 people who earn an average of $70,000, and when I had dinner with Sarah on the night before presenting her with her award, she told me that she credits a lot of her success to having her staff engaged in creating and executing the vision and mission of her company.

Sarah is a beacon to all of us. She shared something very precious with me and the audience when she accepted this award and spoke, with her 10 year old daughter by her side, about her mother’s encouragement. If you are an entrepreneur, and employee, a mother or a daughter, I’m sure you will be as moved as I was.

Believe in You,
Nell

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What Twitter Really Can Do For Your Life

February 23rd, 2010

I follow slews of fascinating people through their blogs and Tweets, and today I read a compelling blog post written by Scott Stratten who runs his company, Unmarketing. I simply love what this guy has to say!  I find his ideas and posts so interesting, authentic, funny, insightful and just plain old great.

 

Here’s his latest blog about What If I Didn’t Use Twitter:
http://www.un-marketing.com/blog/2010/02/22/what-if-i-didnt-use-twitter

 

I was moved to write a comment on his post, which is here:
Scott - I love your description of what you’ve learned and received from Twitter.  My guess is that you’re the kind of person who gets enormous benefits out of anything you dive into.  But that being said, there’s something about the Twitter experience that helps you stretch into wild new territories that you’ve been deeply longing for, but didn’t even know it!  It’s so damn powerful - to connect with thousands of people, to use your voice in new ways, to put your one-of-a-kind ideas out there, to develop a tough-enough skin so that you can shrug off the occasional snarkiness of others, and to feel the love and support of one-time strangers who become dear friends.  Love your work, Scott!

 

When people ask me “Do I really need to use Twitter,” I have so much to say about it that I don’t know where to begin.  So I’ll begin here…

 

Who Gets the Most Out of Twitter? 

People who:
1) Have something of interest to say
2) Don’t care to just blather on about the everyday minutiae of their lives (most people’s lives are boring – let’s face it!)
3) Enjoy giving as much or more as they do receiving
4) Have a generous, kind spirit and can support others’ thinking and work
5) Understand that using Twitter effectively is about building relationships and is not a “get rich quick” scam
6) Get the fact that what you put into something directly correlates with what you get out of it
7) Don’t use it as a way of talking about how great they are, and how they can make you rich
8 ) Do use it as a way to become better, bigger, smarter, funnier, more helpful  – more of who you really are at your core

 

So, if you’re wondering what you can get out of using Twitter, I’d say this:

 

With an attitude of openness, curiosity, commitment, and generosity, you can get:

- New friends
- New ideas for books, writing, projects, seminars, talks, etc.
- New interests and passions
- New customers and supporters
- New ways to see yourself and your life and work
- New coping skills for when strangers write you and say your ideas stink
- New like-minded colleagues to partner with
- New directions to pursue that light you up
- New ways to make money
- New, helpful insights about yourself – what you’re great at and what you’re not so great at

 

It occurred to me that what Twitter has brought to us might have some parallels to when television first emerged on the scene –  it opens up a fascinating new avenue through which you can connect to a whole new world of ideas, feelings, perspectives, teachings, directions, along with passionate, inspiring people who have so much to share and give.  That is, if you’re selective about what you choose to focus on.

 

So have at it, friends!  And as Scott Stratten says, I LIVE for comments, so please leave yours.

 

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Ease - Are You Blocked From Experiencing It?

February 11th, 2010

Someone (I can’t remember who unfortunately) recently shared with me the saying, “Turn your mess into a message.” 

I simply love that – perhaps because without realizing it, I’ve been doing that for a full eight and a half years since 9/11, and since I woke up and decided to transform my (messy) life and career.  I had, and still have, a good deal of mess to transform into messages!

This week, I had a powerful shifting realization, thanks again to my dear friend and financial consultant Denise Hughes, that one of my most intractable “messes” is around my resistance to “ease.”  Ease is not something that has been a part of my professional identity or life.  In my twenty-seven years as a contributive professional, there’s been nothing easy about it. 

Sure, I’ve achieved things I’m very proud of and excited about, and I’ve met many of my large goals.  But still - I can’t say that any of it came “easily.”  No way, no how.

This week, as I was exploring the idea of ease and why I resist it so fiercely, I had a very painful memory flash.  It was of my early teen life.  I recalled clearly how someone close to me used to say to me (and to everyone else) in a very critical and hateful tone, “Everything comes so easily to Kathy.”  This person used to brandish those words like a weapon, as if it were a terrible thing to have an easy life, and that it simply wasn’t fair, because her life was hard.  The implication was that God shined his light on me, and cruelly bypassed her, leaving her thwarted and miserable. 

As I tossed that memory around in my mind, I experienced the real ‘aha’- I realized that all these years – my whole 49 years on this planet — I’ve internalized the belief that if things come easily to me, then I don’t deserve them.  Wow…

Believing I’m not deserving of ease has two damaging aspects –  first, deep down, it tricks me into believing that I don’t deserve all the good that I’ve created or attracted, and secondly, it traps me in a fearful place, worried that others will judge me negatively, hold me apart from themselves, be envious of me, and think I am not worthy of what I have.

Well…I can tell you that as of this minute, I’m DONE with my resistance to ease.  Done, gone, finished.  I’m shifting it consciously.  Be gone!

Here’s what my spirit knows to be true - When things come easily, it means you are in the flow – of life, of yourself, of your soul and spirit.  It’s not a bad thing that things come easily to you.  It’s supposed to be easy.  When you have ease, it means that you have consciously and completely given up your resistance to ease, and your attachment to struggle.

Each day, I receive an inspirational email message from a neat group – Mike Dooley’s TUT Adventurers Club – and recently got this message worth savoring and embracing:

“Kathy, it’s supposed to be easy.  Everything is supposed to be easy.  Everything is easy.  You live in a dream world. You’re surrounded by illusions, and the illusions change when you change your thinking!

Tell yourself it’s easy.  Tell yourself often.  Make it a mantra.  Eat, sleep, and breathe it.  And your life shall be transformed.

It’s supposed to be easy.”
(From Mike Dooley’s Notes from the Universe)

I’d add this – if ease is not your experience, there’s most likely something blocking you from believing you deserve or want ease.  Please take the time this week to dig deep and explore what might be keeping you from believing you can and will have ease from this moment forward, and that having ease is what you deserve.  You are strong enough to have ease, and to handle the envy of others who don’t.

Ease is beautiful, perfect, and as it should be, for you and for me.  Let’s allow it into our lives, together, now.

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What Do You Really Want - a Job or a “Calling?”

February 8th, 2010

By Kathy Caprino, M.A.

 

Knowing what you want in your life and career is the most important step to achieving it.  So what do you want – a job or a “calling,” and are you prepared to get it?

 

In coaching people to achieve a true breakthrough in their lives and careers, I’ve observed (and also personally experienced) the powerful impact of asking yourself the question, “Am I longing for a job or a calling?” – and answering it with brutal honestly.

 

Several months ago, I read a very thought-provoking article by Michael Lewis, columnist for Bloomberg News, about the difference between a “calling” and a job.  He had some powerful insights about the differences. 

 

Here’s the article (it’s certainly worth a read, especially in today’s times):

A Wall Street Job Can’t Match a Calling in Life

 

What struck me most were two intriguing concepts:

 

“There’s a direct relationship between risk and reward. A fantastically rewarding career usually requires you to take fantastic risks.”

 

and

 

“A calling is an activity you find so compelling that you wind up organizing your entire self around it — often to the detriment of your life outside of it.”

 

I couldn’t agree more.

 

Many people dream of having a fantastic and thrilling career, but in essential ways are not willing to do the work (either externally or internally) to achieve it. 

 

What is required then?  Here’s a list of traits and characteristics that are essential to having a fantastically reward career (or following a calling):

 

-          Deep and ongoing commitment (this is not about wanting – this is about committing to having)

-          A wellspring of energy

-          Frequent and continual leaps of faith and hope

-          Self-esteem and the confidence to know that your dream is achievable

-          Openness to learn from your mistakes and to get help when needed

-          A healthy dose of reality about what’s necessary to succeed on this path

-          Abundant risk-acceptance and tolerance, and the ability to proceed amidst instability

-          The belief that you can’t live without pursuing this career

-          A very tough skin

-          An ability to “power up” (gain strength, skill, confidence, and self-mastery) as you expand

-          And finally, strong boundaries that allow you to speak up for yourself and protect yourself from others who would say, “You’re crazy and stupid to do this.”

 

I agree with Michael that neither a job or a calling is better or worse; they’re just different.  “There are costs and benefits to both.”  You may have a job you enjoy (or can live with) yet know that what makes you feel passionate and powerful is not your job, but outside interests and experiences. 

 

Or you may feel you have a calling, and will do anything to follow it.

 

The key to a fulfilling life is to follow your authentic path (not somebody else’s).  Figure out what that lights you up on the inside, and motivates you to be all you can be, and do it!

 

Michael’s final words hit the mark – the critical question is not what the world can give you, but what you can contribute to the world, in a way that fills your soul and brings you great joy while doing it.

 

So ask yourself today:

 

1)       Am I longing for a job or a calling?   Which path will work best for me and my life?

2)       If I know I have a calling, am I ready to do what it takes to pursue it?

3)       And where will I get empowering guidance, support, and help to follow my calling successfully so I thrive in the process (rather than be crushed by it)?

 

Either way, having a great job or following a calling is a choice.  But making this choice consciously — with commitment and aligned action — is the difference between a frustrating, lack-luster experience that fails to satisfy, versus living full out – and expressing your true spirit each step of the way.

 

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Collaboration or Cut-Throat Competition - Which Will Take You Farther?

January 26th, 2010

by Kathy Caprino, M.A.

Happy National Speak Up and Succeed Day!  (Thanks, Diane DiResta, for reminding me!)

As I do the work I do each day – giving seminars to women’s groups or connecting with new colleagues to partner with, working with my support team or communicating with my clients – I’ve begun to notice something quite interesting about how people work.

There are two fundamental ways in which people attempt to expand themselves in the world.

These two ways are:

Collaborating with others in a respectful and empowering way, to help each other be all you both wish to be

Or

Attempting to crush out the competition through snarky, denigrating, and low-spirited tactics

Which approach are you engaged in?

The first approach encourages you to:

- Feel good in your interactions
- Expand your skills and know-how
- Experience yourself as purposeful and beneficial in your interchanges
- Learn more about how to do what you love to do and how you are special
- Discover new skills and endeavors you’re capable of
- Grow faster and more effectively through positive synergy

The second approach encourages you to:

- Feel lousy and critical about your interactions
- Constrict your thinking about what you’re capable of
- Mistake yourself as someone who is higher and more important in the hierarchy
- Believe that there simply isn’t enough to go around
- Remain stuck in the jealous, insecure “Am I good enough?” mode
- Move slower, with less success, ease, and fulfillment

In short, collaboration allows you to Say Yes! to yourself, to others and to expanding yourself to what you truly long to do.  Fearful competition keeps you stuck in the constricting, “NO” mode.
 
How can you tell cut-throat competition when you see it?

Here are some key hallmarks:

1) Language and action that indicates, “I’m smarter, better, richer, more successful than you.”
2) Over-selling – making a point over and over again so that the receiver ends up saying “OK already!”
3) Deep insecurity about being challenged or receiving constructive feedback
4) A lack of receptivity, compassion, and openness to learning from and being with others
5) An energy of “take, take, take” without giving back
6) A haughty or superior energy/attitude that says, “I’m father along the path than you, and you’ll have to learn the hard way, like I did.”

Be mindful about whom you choose to associate with in the world and how you go about getting what you want.  The “how” of your approach is more impactful than specific tactics you use.  Overall, if your colleagues, partners, and friends are individuals who make you and others feel great about themselves in an authentic and enlivening way, then they’re on the right track, and so are you.

On the other hand, if you, your associates or friends are stuck in the diminishing, competitive “there’s not enough to go around, and I’m getting my piece!” mode, it’s time for a breakthrough to a collaborative spirit.  Without it, the path you’re headed down will most certainly take you where you don’t want to go.

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The Antidote to New Year’s Resolutions

January 5th, 2010

Kathy Caprino, M.A.

Happy New Year, Friends!  Hope your holidays were beautiful.

As we’re on to a new year and decade, there have been skillions of articles and blogs published about how to create what you want in this new chapter of our lives.

I like to be a contrarian, and offer up ideas in opposition to the norm, to get us thinking.  Towards that end, here’s one:

Let’s NOT create New Year’s Resolutions this year.

I’m not a fan of resolutions.  It seems that “resolutions” are somehow associated with failure…the things we say we are going to do, but in the end, don’t achieve, because we lack the commitment, energy, drive, or wherewithal to complete them.
 
Let’s not make resolutions this year.  Let’s do something different.  Let’s designate “areas of intensive focus” and watch what emerges as the year unfolds. 

Here’s my plan:

I’ve written down four outcomes that are very important to me – areas or experiences that I have now but want more of in my life — that I intend to focus on going forward. 

To me, focus is everything. If we can determine in some detail what we want to create, understand and validate why we want to create it, then look intently for new opportunities and possibilities around that particular goal or outcome, success happens (or at least we progress towards it in a much easier, fun, and fulfilling way than would otherwise occur). 

Wonderful occurrences and synchronicities that we simply couldn’t expect or predict fall into our experience, as we focus intently on our desired outcomes.  New doors open, new friends and supporters make themselves known, new lessons learned, new paths revealed.  If we don’t focus intently on what we want to create, we miss so many chances for moving forward on the path we long for.

Here’s what my “intensive focus” areas for 2010 look like:

Focus Area #1:
What Do I Want More Of?
Creating high-demand national seminars, products, and training programs that give women the tools they long for to transform their challenges into breakthrough to a new level of great success. 

Why Do I Want It?
Because these programs will help teach women how to manage and shape their lives successfully on their own terms, and be great fun and reward for me to share and participate in this learning and teaching process. 

Focus Area #2:
What Do I Want More Of?
Attracting coaching and consulting clients whom I LOVE to work with and who love to work with me.

Why Do I Want It?
Because coaching groups and one-on-one with folks who resonate with me energetically and in their thinking and behavior, is great joy to me, and allows me to interact in deeply personal ways to help people make the changes they long for.

Focus Area #3:
What Do I Want More Of?
Learning as much as I can (then sharing back that wisdom) about what contributes to abundant success – personal, professional, financial, and spiritual – in the lives of women across all generations.
 
Why Do I Want It?
I love to research human behavior and thinking, then develop my own personalized “model for change.”  Researching abundant success represents the next level for me – it will teach me lessons I’m yearning to learn, and also help others who’ve had an initial transformative breakthrough, but now want more.

Focus Area #4:
What Do I Want More Of?
To treasure and appreciate and receive deeply — in every cell of my body — all the bountiful blessings in my life now and those blessings that are forthcoming.  My blessing list is long, and includes my precious children, husband, health, parents, family, friends, work, creative endeavors, and the list goes on.

Why Do I Want It
I’m not so hot at receiving.  It’s an area I definitely want to grow in.  When I am in the place of full-on receiving, it feels absolutely fantastic physically and emotionally, and the effects are long-lasting and delicious.  I’m ready for more receiving! (Thanks to my new financial consultant and colleague, Denise Hughes, for facilitating that powerful revelation).

That’s it for me.  Out with the resolutions, and in with some intensive focus on what I love in my life, and what I’d love to create more bountifully this year. 
 
So how about you?  Will you do the above exercise for your 2010?  What would you like to focus on creating this year, and why? 

Let’s skip the resolutions, and replace them with a validation of your heartfelt longings, and your clear-sighted focus on what you’re passionate about, and what you want more of this year.

This is YOUR year.

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A Beautiful Season

December 22nd, 2009

Kathy Caprino, M.A.

As I’m sure you have, I’ve been receiving skillions of “Happy Holidays and New Year!” newsletters and emails, many of which are beautiful and touching.  I’m grateful for these lovely reminders and chances to reflect on this past year, and what my hopes and dreams are for 2010.

I’ve decided not to send a “Happy Holidays” email, but instead, to write to you here, and thank you for being a part of my cherished community.  It’s quite a blessing - to blog regularly and to receive fascinating, diverse, often passionate comments from steadfast readers who follow your words and thoughts, and care enough to share their insights.  It’s a privilege, and I’m most grateful for it.

This season carries with it beautiful childhood memories for me - of fuzzy, fat Christmas tree lights, of smooth skating on frozen ponds (I grew up in upstate NY after all!), of the splendor of snow falling lightly on trees, of out-of-tune caroling with young friends around the neighborhood, and of family basking by a fire dancing with multicolored flecks (created by a “magic” powder my dad would throw in!).  When we have these warm and comforting childhood memories, they color our experiences well into the future, giving us rose-tinted recollections to savor for many years.

For me, this is a beautiful season.  No matter what challenges have come before, this season softens the rough edges and rounds out the year with celebration, family, reflection, and gratitude.

I hope this season — that brings to a close such a deeply challenging and humbling year — has been beautiful for you too.

May your 2010 be what you dream it to be — as expansive and glorious a vision as you can hold.

Happy holidays to you.

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Money, Movies and Drinking with Gloria Steinem

December 9th, 2009

I was with Gloria twice yesterday. First at the New York Women’s Agenda Star Breakfast, which was attended by over 1200 women. I was there to receive a Star Award and was introduced by my friend Susan Sobbott, President American Express OPEN. Gloria was there to introduce Jane Fonda, who received a Lifetime Achievement Award. Gloria’s introduction of Jane was beautiful - she talked about seeing Jane in a line outside a movie theater in the 1950’s- before Jane had appeared in a movie and before they really knew each other. Gloria said of Jane: “She was amazed that someone so beautiful could be so shy.” Gloria also set the record straight about what Jane said in Hanoi that has been so distorted and lied about all these 40 years, that Vietnam was an American tragedy that would take many, many years to recover from. Bottom line: Gloria said Richard Nixon was wrong about Vietnam and Jane Fonda was right!

I saw Gloria that same evening at a party at her magical apartment on the East Side. Drinks were served in the bedroom and an incredible crowd gathered to listen to New Zealand film Director Jane Campion talk about her new film Bright Star, the great love story of Keats and Fanny.

Gloria’s place was packed with Jackie O’s sister Lee Radzewill, Sara Jones, Ann Curry, Erica Jong, Jane Campion, Carol Jenkins, Amy Richards, Jennifer Newsome - just to name the folks I recognized. As she always does, Gloria introduced everyone there so Jane knew who she was talking to. Jane talked about her early days in film when the Australian government was giving money to women to make films - they don’t do it anymore but she said it was great fun. After Jane’s talk about Bright Star, which she made because she loves poetry and fell in love with the love story of Keats and Fanny, the conversation turned to why so few women make films. The crowd decided it was about money. I say it is about women needing see film making as an art and a BUSINESS - the more we understand the business of making movies the sooner more women will be making movies.

Women need to think about film-making as a business because it is. I learn so much every time I get in Gloria’s orbit.

Believe in you.

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When “Nice Girls” Negotiate

December 8th, 2009

Kathy Caprino, M.A.

In a recent Harvard Business Publishing blog on Can “Nice Girls” Negotiate?, Whitney Johnson writes about the negative repercussions of women negotiating for themselves in the workplace.  Her piece is right on, from my perspective, and reflects the volumes of both qualitative and quantitative research recently about women, culture, expectations and the challenges they face in the nation’s workforce.

I’m always fascinated by the range of comments these posts elicit, from complete agreement to vitriolic dissension to something in between.  One individual wrote:

“I’m not sure this is a man vs. woman thing. Men can ask for a raise/promotion and don’t get it as well. The trick is to ask for something that you know you’re able to get (studying your value in the company, as well as the company’s financial stance). Note that you don’t have to deserve the raise in order to get it.”

I’d bet you anything that this comment is from a man.  Women know exactly what they’re facing in the workplace, yet men are still slow to recognize and acknowledge it. 

My two cents:

I couldn’t agree more with this article.  As a women’s career coach and work-life researcher, and from my national study with hundreds of professional women about the 12 hidden crises working women face today, it’s abundantly clear - with research to support it.  Women are often viewed and evaluated negatively when displaying the exact same traits that successful professional men exhibit – speaking up, challenging, negotiating, using powerful language of leadership, etc. 

It IS a gender thing, folks.  But this doesn’t mean men are out to get us.  Not at all.  This means that women are dealing with deeply-ingrained cultural stereotypes and gender role definitions that create challenges in terms of what women can successfully say and do in business, and how they’re judged when they do it. 

So what to do about this?  Just what Ms. Johnson suggests…women must speak up for themselves, and be completely prepared for the consequences. We simply can’t change this dynamic if we stay mum.  It’s time for a breakthrough movement for women, and for that to occur, women have to act. 

Question of the week – As a working woman, are you able to speak up and negotiate for yourself well?  How does it go for you when you do?  Please share your tips and successes – all comments are welcome!

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