Wednesday Wisdom: Lifetime Work Takes Action
Wednesday Wisdom, Inspiration, Motivation for Women Entrepreneurs, Small Businesses
Where’s Waldo is the title to a 1987 book where its main character is dressed in a red and white striped shirt and hat carrying objects to help him on his travels. You have seen many renditions of Waldo hidden in puzzles, books, and magazines in this fun find-it game.
But my business question for the day isn’t Where is Waldo but “Where and what does women’s entrepreneurship look like around the World today as it relates to gender equality?”
I was in search of an answer after listening to a few online conferences with staggering statistics. Here is what I’ve discovered according to a July 2022 article at WeForum.org
* In 2021, women started 49% of new businesses in the US, up from 28% in 2019.
* Women and entrepreneurs of color are leading the boom in new business creation in USA.
* More than 5.4 million new businesses were created in 2021, setting a new record in the midst of a once-in-a-century pandemic.
* Women entrepreneurship is growing around the world, but many obstacles remain and men still outnumber women by 3-1 in ownership.
* Outside of the agricultural sector, about a third of women around the world are self-employed in informal work which tends to be home-based, small scale and focused on sectors like retail and service.
* The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report in 2022 shows more women than men continue to be impacted by the pandemic.
Unless Waldo becomes a working woman, turning his red striped shirt into a pink one, my interest in him disappears as easily as he does, because it isn’t related to the population I support the most – women entrepreneurs. It’s been 30 years since I became one and sometimes I only notice small positive changes in our progress forward and upward.
Recently talking to someone about foremother Susan B. Anthony brought up the fact, she never got to vote, even though she worked a majority of her life fighting for women’s suffrage. She would have needed to live 14 years pass 1906 to see the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Can you imagine working that hard to not see fruition on something? The popular quote “The journey, not the end goal, is life’s true reward?” But is it?
Today’s Wednesday Wisdom is meant to rouse up the fire in your belly about working harder and faster on the things, projects, and business missions that mean the most to you to change in this world because we don’t have forever and time doesn’t wait. We can stare at statistics as long as we want hoping for them to change, but they won’t unless we truly focus on how to make a larger impact and speedier resolution to issues important to us.
We have to stop wondering where Waldo is and focus instead on where women are making gains in equality, status, money, and business to keep them climbing upward.
Women TIES 