Wednesday Wisdom: You Matter Most

Inspiration, Wednesday Wisdom for women entrepreneurs, female business owners

“It’s not where you are, but who you are with that matters,” a favorite lyric to a Dave Matthews Band song struck a recent heart cord. We have all heard the expression, “Home is where the heart is.” The quote has been true of my personal life living through multiple parental divorces, accepting step sisters and half siblings along the way, and trying to remain grounded in what mattered most to me which was being with my family. As a teenager, even my friends had to pull me away from family to get me to go out sometimes. Call me a homebody in one regard, and not in another.

Then the line of the song rings again in my ear lifting my spirits realizing I’ve done more things fearlessly than most people have thought of doing like running in the 2017 Boston Marathon, traveling over the pond to run with 3 International women I didn’t know in England’s all-woman’s marathon, public speaking to audiences of hundreds time and again, starting and running two companies, raising two perfectly adjusted sons, taking 150 women to the Women’s March on DC, standing up for pay inequality, and living life the best I can as a bald woman at the age of 56 which includes daily biking 10 miles a day.

Through all the adventures, I’ve always felt that who I’ve been with matters most, and sometimes in the isolation of dealing with becoming and being bald, I spend the most time with myself so that time must matter. I push away self-pity and trepidation only to find myself in another gloriously morning biking next to a lake with the sun reflecting both water and my shiny head as I lift myself up and think about the people who have stuck with me right up to this moment in time. Some members have left over 16 years of running a membership based company, while others have stayed. 3 siblings have broken ties due to their own misunderstandings of situations, but 4 have remained. People come and go and what remains is how we feel about ourselves.

Whether it is our physical beauty, special people who held prominence in our lives, economic woes, or entrepreneurial struggles, in the end every woman entrepreneur and every woman must think they, themselves, matters most. How else can we carry on every day if what we need is other people’s approval, acceptance, or involvement in our personal circles? The most important person “who matters” is us and how we feel about who we are.