Wednesday Wisdom – We Shall Shine

Wednesday Wisdom for Women Entrepreneurs, Female Business Owners, Women, Girls

The room grew dark as the lights dimmed after the dignitary spoke. All eyes readjusted and focused on the light now emanating from the big square screen. Music began playing from a video being shone on the canvas. Bright, bold colors adorned the heads and bodies of women of all ages, cultures and skin tones, some of them playing native instrumental music, smiling – some with teeth and some without – and all with a depth of character of lives well, or not economically, lived well.

“One Woman: A Song for UN Women” played for 4 minutes enlarging my heart vessels as the positive vibes struck my feminine blood flow. I remember being instantly moved sitting, and then swaying, in the ballroom where I was invited to celebrate and speak at the 2012 International Women’s Day in beautiful Saratoga Springs, New York. Unity with other women has come easy for me but in that moment seeing the images of women from all over the world struck a new desire to connect with global women but I had no idea how to do it.



Three years later, not remembering the Saratoga experience, I joined female running icon Kathrine Switzer in a New York City brownstone for a weekend with unfamiliar women from Iceland, Australia, Malaysia, Austria, England, and New Zealand, along with five women from around America to learn about and help launch a new global running organization for women. Was sitting in the Saratoga ballroom, being moved by that song, the reason I agreed to go to New York? Was it serendipity or fate? I’m not sure but what I know for sure is it was one of the most exhilarating opportunities of my lifetime which opened my relationship with international women some who have been amazing supporters of mine even though they are oceans away.



In 2018 without a thought, I flew over to beautiful Devon, England to run with a team of international women in an all-woman’s marathon with team members from Malta, England, and Switzerland. Sitting in the warm, English field after the race was done in a circle of teammates and other international friends from New York City, we toasted to our success with Prosecco reminding me of the song I heard in 2012.

Opening Monday’s Women TIES International Women’s Day Celebration with women from around New York State, I played the same video that moved me nine years ago hoping to move the women at the Zoom event, and perhaps opening a place in their minds and hearts to secure business connections with female entrepreneurs across our world’s vast oceans. To help with this mission, I committed to inviting my international friends to be speakers in upcoming Women TIES programs to have business women contemplate international connections. If not now, when? The coronavirus has proven we are a world-wide community.


Today’s Wednesday Wisdom is to inspire you to think of ways you can connect with international women in your own industries and networks. Do you already have strong female relationships across the oceans? If so, can they turn into networking and economic opportunities? Could you update your business marketing plan to expand globally? What will it look like or take to accomplish?

If you need some inspiration to move forward, click here to listen to the “One Woman” song and remember some of my favorite lyrics, “We are one woman. You sing, and I sing along. We are one woman. Your dreams are mine, and we shall shine. We shall shine. We shall shine, shine, shine.”