Thursday Thoughts: Icy-Hot Running
Thursday Thoughts, Inspiration for Women Runners, Female Athletes
The gauge on my car read 19 degrees. It made sense that it was mid-January in Central New York on a sunny day. 19 degrees might stop some people from exercising outside but not me. I grew up with a single mother who taught ski lessons on the weekends to earn extra money. My sister and I had to go with her every Saturday and Sunday no matter the temperature or conditions. I think the coldest we ever skied was during a 20-degree below-zero wind chill day. My sister and I drank hot chocolate more than skiing that day but we did ski.
The winter conditioning on my face and in my soul lasted through all 21 years of growing up in that house and then was tucked away inside while I raised my sons and found myself with more free time to exercise again. This time, skiing wasn’t the sport of choice, it was running. At first, I started to run to lose weight after my last son was born, but then it became one of those feel-good addictions that I did daily. But for many years, I ran inside on a treadmill during the dead of winter until 2017 when I started training for the Boston Marathon. Then I needed to hit the roads, hills, ice, and winds to be truly ready for this historic outside run.
A funny thing happened, on April 17, 2027, when I took to the streets of Boston with 110 other women and the fearless Kathrine V. Switzer, female running icon, the temperature was in the low 60s rising to the low 70s that day. Instead of being cold, I was sweating during the 26.2-mile run even stopping by an open fire hydrant to cool off.
After signing up for the New York City Half Marathon which occurs on March 17, 2024, it became apparent my training sessions would be in the middle of winter on days like today. Instead of dreading the run, I embraced it but limited myself to a smaller run distance to protect my lungs. No need to get sick and stop my training altogether if I get bronchitis, I thought to myself.
As my feet hit the black pavement next to the sparkling blue lake with a brilliant sun and water lapping on the lake’s shore, I easily settled into my stride, thankful, as always for being able to run. It wasn’t as cold as I thought it would be because I dressed for it even leaving my scarf in the car. As my cheeks felt icy over time running, my back had sweat running down it hot as ever. It was a dichotomy of temperatures a non-runner might not imagine happening and is enjoyable. As my back reminded me, I was in good condition and warm enough to run, my cold face reminded me not to push the limits even though my heart wanted to.
After finishing my run, I got in my car looked at my face, felt my heart beating, sensed my warm legs, and was grateful for another healthy run and proud I didn’t allow the weather conditions to sideline me on a gorgeous winter day.
Wednesday Morning, Wednesday Wisdom, Hump Day, Advice, Inspiration
As beautiful white snowflakes fell from the sky slowly, they made a perfect backdrop for an interview I had talking about the significant changes I’ve witnessed over the past 3-decades leading woman entrepreneurs. The word I want you to focus on in the wintery description is “slowly” and then buckle into your sled because I’m taking you for a realistic ride right now.
According to the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO), only 4.2% of female business owners make 1 million in annual revenue. This percentage has increased only 46% over the past 11 years! Yes, this statistic is as stark as the winter can be.
The truth is that 88% of woman-owned companies earn less than $100,000 a year in revenue. Despite an increase in female-led businesses, NAWBO states funding is still a huge problem with more than a third of global women business owners experiencing gender bias when trying to raise capital. In the U.S., the percentage is nearly 50%.
When the interviewer asked me what my biggest challenge was in establishing Women TIES, LLC, I said it was convincing everyone it was okay to have woman-only programs, woman-only speakers, woman-only financiers, and woman-only attendees because women earned less than men. Why would I give the sales and marketing spotlight and platform to men, when women needed the support?
In my city, I had both men and women disagree with me. I was shunned by some groups and leaders. It was in the outside regions of Rochester, Ithaca, and Mohawk Valley where the environment and people agreed with my mission. My feminist stance made my business and personal brand recognizable and indisputable. If someone didn’t like the idea of a woman-only everything, than they had other places and organizations to go.
So, when you think your message to the world is taking forever to take hold, hold on a bit longer. Think of the slowness of snowflakes decorating the air and finally taking hold on the ground, building themselves up to feet of snow together, sometimes stopping traffic and humans from doing what they want. They are powerful in their small ways. Their significance accumulates with others like them.
Today’s Wednesday Wisdom is to remind you of a few things. One, if you aren’t happy with your revenue, do something about it. Get counseling or coaching. Take on a stronger sales approach in 2024. Work the numbers, work the phones, and work your connections. Two, strengthen your brand identity so others understand without a doubt who you are and what you and your business stand for. There is no one exactly like you, doing what you are doing; just like every snowflake is unique. Grab ahold of your unique position and market it.
Finally, no matter what type of business or how much revenue you bring in, you can’t grow without others helping you. Make a plan to surround yourself with the right people and build up your base so you can maneuver into 2024 more successfully. Then take time to watch the snowflakes drift down from the sky inspiring and reminding you of yours and their significance.
Friday Feelings: TGIF I am Running!
Inspiration, motivation, and Friday Feelings for Women in Sports and Female Entrepreneurs
TGIF morning greeted me for the first time with a glimmer – maybe even a sliver – of sunshine in our rather cloudy winter. The shine was enough to motivate me to stretch, grab my trusty sneakers and iPods, and get outside before the clouds overtook the light. It was Friday too – when that extra weekend energy boils in one’s veins.
My training schedule for the St. Patrick’s Day NYC Half Marathon encouraged me to run a 5-6 miler today to stay on track with my training. As soon as the first breath of clean air hit my lungs, I knew it was going to be my day to run. Sometimes running is easy, other days hard. In less than five minutes, I knew it was going to be a good day.
Could my positive attitude come from the small amount of sunlight? Or the fact I didn’t run the day before so I had lots of energy built up? Or the fact it was Friday with an exciting weekend on hand? Maybe, just maybe, it was because running is not a chore for me, but rather a gift, a pleasure, a happy part of my day, that I give to myself.
Thank God I don’t run to lose weight because no matter how long or hard I run, I don’t lose weight. Chalk it up to my genes or being 59 or maybe eating a bit too much pizza, which also brings me pleasure. I run because it feels good. It makes me feel strong. It lightens my mood.
It doesn’t mean some days aren’t hard, or tough on my aging knees and hips, or painful because I “have to” add on mileage to train for another half marathon. But when I do my cool down walk to the end of the pier on the lake that I run next to and the endorphins hit, I’m so very proud of myself and my attitude for getting out there and pushing through.
Silver linings – and even sunny slivers of light – are sometimes all we need to inspire us to do better, be healthier, and feel good. It shouldn’t be the first day of a new year that inspires us to run or exercise, it should be about the feeling it brings in the end.
Wednesday Wisdom: Courageous
Wednesday Wisdom, Motivation, Inspiration for Women Entrepreneurs, Females
What would you say if I asked you what was the most courageous thing you have done? What memories come to mind? Do your palms get sweaty all over again and your heart beat wild? Perhaps instead, you get a smug smile on your face, a tingling of glee all over, and pride oozing out of your pores.
Whether as girls, women, or female entrepreneurs, we have had to take courageous steps along our journey. Sometimes because we wanted to take the risk to be brave and other times because we had no other choice. Our reactions to those gutsy decisions redefined our sense of self whether we chose it or not.
Looking back on our lives or even our company’s existence, can we say we were braver initially because we didn’t know better or braver as we aged? If we became more courageous over time, was it because we were happy to take on challenges or because they were forced upon us?
Sometimes I wonder if my 59-year-old love for trying risky sports started when my parents taught me how to ski downhill at the age of 5 years old, or when I ran the Boston Marathon in my mid-fifties, or even when I got into the ring to try WWE Wrestling with some men only last February. I’m not sure but somehow I believe a combination of my DNA, life experiences, and a willingness to try anything new has gotten me to where I am today – very courageous, and I relish in it.
Next Tuesday, I am fortunate to be a part of a panel of national women over 50 sharing our stories and insights on courage. I invite you to attend the free Zoom event especially if you don’t feel like you are as brave as you want to be. The intention is for you to walk away realizing you are braver than you think or inspired to become more courageous in 2024.
I promise, if you take me up on the lesson, I won’t pressure you into trying something exciting and new with me……unless you want to!
My New Year’s Wish For You: “Live in the Confetti”
Inspiration, Motivation, 2024 Wishes for Women
Little squares fell from the stars in all shades of the rainbow. They floated, rode, and dangled in the sky as they approached street level. The avalanche of color was captured perfectly by my son and daughter, guests at the New Year’s Eve ball drop in Times Square because my son was the project manager for the building holding the crystal ball.
After a Facetime call from the street level five minutes before midnight so we could experience the crowd’s energy, they sent us the video of the confetti drop. I was mesmerized by it from the first time I saw it, to the fortieth time I watched it, as I drifted off to sleep in a promising new year.
Every January 1st, I choose a word to represent me and what I hope for the year ahead. I’ve used “undaunted” for two years as I navigated my full baldness due to alopecia and my love for adventure and trying every sport once. Undaunted means to be fearful but to do something anyway. I love its meaning. I’ve lived it.
For 2024, I want to use a phrase, not a word. The phrase I’m choosing is, “Live in the Confetti!” What does that mean? It means saying yes to more opportunities or invitations. It means living life to the fullest every single day. The memories will be the confetti. The confidence created by the fearlessness of trying something new will be the confetti. The fun will be the confetti.
As I thought back on 2023 as I biked on New Year’s Day, I realized I didn’t plan on doing the following when the confetti fell on 1/1/23 but it happened because I said yes when invited or because I created the opportunity:
Kicked-off 2023 in NYC with my oldest son’s wedding
Tried WWE Pro Wrestling in February (aka Tracy Higgs – my new wrestling name)
Fell into the Ice while Ice Fishing in February
Invited to the star-studded Global Citizen Conference in NYC in April
Watched the best PGA golfers back-to-back days in the PGA Championship in May
Stopped wishing my hair would grow back and accepted baldness in June
Parasailed with 5 women who were undaunted in their fear of heights in July
Watched my youngest son get married oceanside in Cape Cod to his 10-year love
Got a third story published in a Chicken Soup for the Soul book in September
Train and ran in the Boston Half Marathon for Cancer Research in November
Closed my wonderful 18-year company in December
What unexpected events and experiences did you have that felt like a whirlwind of confetti?
My wish for you in 2024 is that you say yes to every single new experience you can muster up and enjoy so when the ball drops and the year changes to 2025, you’ll be living in your own avalanche of confetti memories, feeling, and moments that mattered and empowered you. Happy New Year.
Wednesday Wisdom: Moving into 2024
Wednesday Wisdom, Inspiration, Motivation for Women Entrepreneurs, Female Business Owners
As I watched a recap of the moments of 2023 on a popular show, one commentator said when it was over, “I can’t believe how much has happened in one year.” When you watch glimpses of horrific, beautiful, sad, and exciting images from a full year, you understand life is ever-changing. The most important message is to remember that no matter what has happened in our personal or business lives in the past year, we are alive and well.
Being a female business owner means the images of 2023 include a mix of personal highlights of both my sons getting married as well as business successes. Most of the faces in my “highlight reel” are of the women who attended business and sporting events we produced this year. The highlights include established women business owners who live our mission of buying from the women we promote year-round.
On my desk is a quote from a significant year-long lesson inspired by someone else’s event that said, “Don’t forget your roots.” It reminds me as I approach the 29th year as a woman entrepreneur that at my core I am an excellent event planner, manager, and promoter as well as someone dedicated to improving the lives of women.
Today’s last Wednesday Wisdom of 2023 is meant for you to take a few minutes to answer these questions: What are the core principles you live and work by? Truthfully, why do you run your business? What have been the most significant business moments in 2023? What one lesson did you learn this year that must propel you in 2024?
As it is, and has always been for me, I love inspiring, networking, and being with women. I will continue this through our Women’s Athletic Network sporting events in 2024 to bring adventure, added risk-taking, personal success, and stronger bonds with other women. I hope you’ll come along for the ride.
I will also go back to my roots by accepting event planning and management contracts which is why I created my first business in 1995. Those event planning and publicity roots are still firmly planted in the ground.
Wishing you the best business year yet, filled with personal and business accomplishments and adventures accompanied by the presence of your roots and history.
Wednesday Wisdom: The 14 Clicks
Inspiration, Wednesday Wisdom, and Christmas Message for Women, Female Entrepreneurs, Everyone
The blue counter in my vest pocket started at 000 and ended at 014 three hours later. Every click on the counter meant helping someone in the hospital during my volunteer shift. I clicked the gadget every time I was done with one person or task. At the end of my shift, I tallied and recorded the clicks on a sheet for the supervisor.
14 clicks might not seem like a lot until you consider who or what the 14 clicks truly represented. Let me share some of them with you.
My first click was helping an elderly blind woman, with no family with her, from the doctor’s office to the pharmacy for a Covid shot. Our conversation wasn’t political or judgmental about whether a shot was needed it was just about its importance. She told me she encouraged her children and grandchildren to get protected too because she worried about them. When she was done, I wheeled her out to the cab and complimented her on her shiny pink hat. She proudly told me it was from her son. She beamed and her blind eyes sparkled like the speckles in her hat.
My second click came when a woman with two young daughters, who was attempting to wheel her mother, asked me if I could take her mother to the lobby so she could get the car and pick her up. Although it should have been a short drive from the parking garage to the front doors, the daughter forgot her purse on the back of the wheelchair and had to repeat her steps with the daughters in tow. Her mother, who didn’t speak English, asked me questions in another language but all I could do was use universal signs of understanding and compassion to communicate with her until her daughter arrived.
Three individual clicks of the day came from transporting blood to a laboratory in another building. As I carefully carried the contents with plastic gloves on, I prayed the lab would find good results for the person who was waiting for the answer. I know what that’s like. I wasn’t carrying five golden rings, as the Christmas Carol says, but the content felt like someone else’s gold.
Three additional clicks came from helping one couple multiple times in the day maneuver in and out of elevators with heavy walkers and not enough hands. The couple sought me out after I helped them the first time. They offered to take me home to help cook and clean but I declined politely telling them I certainly appreciated the offer. We laughed and waved goodbye after they were safe in their car.
The last click was my favorite – a mother and her daughter the age of 3 – skipping down the hallway after their appointments and heading home. The little girl had a dynamic smile with deep dimples. She was the cutest thing I’ve seen in a long time. All they needed was help in finding the garage where they parked. Click #14 was purely heartwarming. Sometimes we need kids to remind us to be more joyful.
When I remember what each click represented, I surmised them to be – smiles, appreciation, relief, reassurance, and trust. If I had to put these five clicks into the first part of the 12 Days of Christmas song it would go like this
5 Golden Smiles
4 Appreciative Gestures
3 Nods of Trust
2 Sighs of Relief
1 Universal Feeling of Love
My hope is St. Nicholas brings you a counter this year to use in 2024 to click the positive things, people, and lessons you learn, help, or provide to others. I wish you and your loved ones a blessed and joyful Christmas and a wonderful and hopeful New Year.
Wednesday Wisdom: Planning for 2024
Wednesday Wisdom, Inspiration, Motivation for Women Entrepreneurs, Female Business Owners
During the last meeting with a group of my members who are mostly 70-80 years old, I became enthusiastic as they shared launching new products and applying for new leadership opportunities. One of them, turning 80 next month, ran for a board position in her Florida condominium landing the role of Vice President. How cool to be rocking 80 as a Veep! “Julia Dreyfuss, step aside here comes Sadieann,” I thought as she shared her news.
Depending on your age, you may or may not have friends, like I do who are considering retiring from their main careers – teachers, corporate accountants, and even business owners. While on the other hand, friends primed to set sail into retirement, are working part-time jobs to stay social and active or taking on high-level volunteer roles. Life doesn’t stop just because the calendar year advances.
Sometimes you can’t plan for how you’ll feel about your future until the time arrives. You can chart business, marketing, and financial plans but emotionally we don’t know if we’ll be ready for change until it arrives on the doorstep or if we’ve been contemplating it for a while.
One of the women at the member meeting last week thanked me for taking an entire year to slowly end Women TIES as a fully active business. I appreciated someone noticing I was doing my best to complete promises in an ever-changing, and less active, event marketplace while taking care of my members.
Today’s Wednesday Wisdom, as a new year arrives in a few weeks and you update personal or business plans, is to remind yourself that you can factor in most tangible elements into strategic documents but the emotional elements might linger or arise unexpectedly. Make sure you allow some empty time in your 2024 planning calendar to account for them.
A recent quote I saw says it all, “Change is hard because people overestimate the value of what they have and underestimate the value of what they may gain by giving something up.”
In Service to Others: A Volunteer’s Perspective
Thursday Thoughts, Inspiration, Motivation for Women Entrepreneurs, Females
45 minutes after leaving home, I arrived with my bright aqua vest on, hanging yellow identification tag, and an eager spirit to start my first individual volunteer shift at a local hospital. All that was required to volunteer was a four-hour-once-a-week commitment greeting guests, helping them to elevators or appointment desks, pushing wheelchairs, running between floors if something needed to be transported, and being a friendly, upbeat, helpful person to anyone I met. Doable, I thought. Enjoyable, I hoped.
Being related to doctors my entire life, I’ve often wondered if I would have chosen that field if my parents’ entrepreneurial example and spirit didn’t influence me more. Since becoming totally bald due to alopecia and losing dear friends to cancer, I felt a tug at my heartstrings to volunteer with cancer patients – especially young ones if I could. Although I do not have cancer, I feel very associated with it and empathic to people I know who have it.
Last week during Catholic mass, the priest talked about the importance of serving those less fortunate or those in need in the ways Mother Teresa did in her life. I have always felt my calling was to “serve” as evidenced by my volunteer, activism, and fundraising experiences starting at age 9 and continuing through high school, college, and adult life. I’ve never, not served and I made my sons create their own community service projects in high school to benefit others.
But this new commitment feels different. I’m volunteering in an area that is calling me based on what others think I have wrong with me. The compassion people have shown me thinking I’m a cancer patient with no eyebrows, eyelashes, or hair on my head made me realize how kind people are. I, for one, want to return that feeling by serving children and their families dealing with a cancer diagnosis, to return some love and compassion. I get to do that after this five-week volunteer training period.
I really wanted to share some “wisdom” gained in one four-hour volunteer shift to shine the light on what it is like to help others in this capacity:
* Every single person I approached or helped appreciated the support and made sure to say “thank you” no matter what.
* Old, young, strong, weak, black, white, and brown people understand the universal feeling of compassion and empathy.
* Even if someone doesn’t ask for help or looks like they don’t need help if you ask, they will tell you they do and be thankful you asked. If they don’t need your assistance, they are still grateful you asked them.
* You never know someone’s story by looking at them.
* Generosity of spirit and deed goes a long way.
* Kindness is the currency people need most.
9,000 steps later when my volunteer shift was done and my mileage equaled a typical 5K run I do daily, it hit differently. It was so much more rewarding to have walked those 9,000 steps in service to others, and not just for myself.
Wednesday Wisdom: 51% Buying Misson
Wednesday Wisdom, Wednesday Morning, Buying Mission for Women Entrepreneurs, Females
According to my online research, it takes between 2 to 8 months of consistent practice to break a habit. Simple habits might take a couple of weeks whereas lifelong habits can take years to fully break. I am sure images pop up in your mind of hard-to-break habits you wrestled with throughout your life.
I often think of Susan B. Anthony and our foremothers when I think about how hard it was to change the minds of people to allow women the right to vote. Although voting wasn’t a habit, it was an established way of life that took centuries to change. Susan didn’t even get to vote in her lifetime, dying at the age of 86, thirteen years before women’s suffrage was passed.
Years ago, speaking at a Rochester event with a high-powered female entrepreneur in the room who was speaking after me, I shared my 3-decade plea for women to buy from, or hire, women first and foremost to change the financial present and future for females. I noticed the woman staring straight at me without blinking wondering what she was thinking.
When she approached the podium after I introduced her, she said, “Thank you, Tracy, for sharing your feminist buying message with us. In all the years I struggled in a male-dominated industry and becoming highly successful now, I never thought of placing my money in the hands of only female vendors or hiring them first.” She said to her assistant out loud, “Make sure we buy from female vendors from here on out.”
It is a moment that never left me because a woman with extraordinary buying power received the message and was going to act on it. I’ve seen other women over the years look blank when I suggest this buying philosophy and I also have seen women act on it and support it as a new habit. Will every woman, everywhere change their buying habits because of my personal mission? No, but that’s okay because change takes a while and hopefully with a domino effect of women sharing the philosophy, it will happen one day.
Today’s Wednesday Wisdom is intentionally meant to motivate you to buy from woman-owned businesses during this high shopping period of the year. Please earmark at least 51% of your purchasing budget to buy online or in-person gifts from woman-owned companies. Help me by living this mission and sharing it with others. Ask me if you need the names of women who have items you are looking for.
Some day when I meet Susan B. Anthony in heaven, I hope to explain to her that I saw a significant change in the way women purchase and hire other women before I died.
Remember – “The World Won’t Change for Women Unless Women Change the World for Women!” by Tracy Chamberlain Higginbotham
Women TIES 