Wednesday Wisdom: Creating a Pink World
Wednesday Wisdom, Inspiration, Motivation for Women Entrepreneurs, Female Business Owners
A long mahogany table lined with formal nameplates, printed agendas, branded coffee mugs, with a pitcher of water in the table’s center, and a side buffet of scones, muffins, and fruit, filled the familiar room. Twice a year I ventured to this spot on SUNY Oswego’s campus to attend the Business School’s Board of Officers Meeting. I moved up to that position from another board where I proved my loyalty and knowledge along with being a female.
With an outspoken feminist voice, the leaders looking to fill the new business school board member positions, only filled with one woman, asked me to join them. The rest of the board members were men, mostly men in the accounting or finance field, no one in marketing like me, so whether I was a woman or man, it made sense to ask me to join the board. Later, I found out that my gender-equity statements landed me there. I’m glad I was heard, noticed, and participated for ten years.
Next week the Women’s Business Collaborative hosts their 4th Annual Action for Impact Summit. Their mission states,“We will not rest until there is equal position, pay, and power for all business women.” I have been connected to them through Women TIES member Andrea Simon of Simon Associates. They are a powerful, national and global organization of women interested in making the necessary changes for women to advance.
One of their 9 action initiatives is to make boardrooms more inclusive. Their website states, “While the number of women on boards continues to increase, representation still falls short on the S&P 500 (26 percent women) , Fortune 500 (22.5 percent women), and the Russel 3000 (20.4 percent women).” WBC believes having boardrooms represent consumers is paramount to their gender parity initiatives.
So while more women entrepreneurs are running their companies brilliantly and honing business skills, they should also be branching out ad shared. Keep in mind, board membership opens up natural business connections for future business opportunities, and is a way to give back to an industry or community of interest, all while helping to put diverse faces around the table.
Today’s Wednesday Wisdom is to encourage you to consider joining one or two boards of interest to you personally or professionally. You can find organizations through mutual connections or business ties. You can even use LinkedIn’s new Advisory Cloud, giving professionals the chance to join an advisory board remotely through their digital platform. Make sure you consider your levels of expertise or interest and then start searching for board positions. Through Linkedin, some advisory positions pay board members, so check them out.
I also suggest you register for the Women’s Business Collaborative free event on 9/21-9/22 to join in the conversation on how you can help with gender parity as well as connect with women globally. It will be a win-win event and free thanks to Andi Simon. Go to this website link to see how to register for free. I’ll see you there. I wouldn’t miss it for the “pink world”.
Running for Eliza
Friday Feeling, Inspiration for Women, Female Runners
The last time I rose at 3:45 a.m. to run was on April 17, 2017 in Boston. In order to get to the start line of the Boston Marathon in Hopkinton, a bus filled with 100 women running with Team #261Fearless in honor of Kathrine Switzer’s 50th anniversary ground breaking run was leaving. Just like then, I had my running clothes laid out anticipating the fogginess of one’s mind that early in the new day.
But this time I was getting up to run by 4:20 a.m. in sister solidarity with Eliza Fletcher and women all over the country, especially a group out of Delaware, who asked women to run virtually with them. Eliza was a busy woman and ran when she could, like so many of us. Her choice was to run in the early hours of the day before work started and her children rose. A woman’s choice to run is her choice. The time of day she chooses to run is her choice. No one or nothing should stop it.
Unfortunately someone else didn’t see it that way, abducted her and eventually killed her leading to front line headlines and a mix of rage and deep sadness for the loss of a woman who was only out to get in her morning jog.
I wanted to run for her. I wanted to run for sister solidarity. I wanted to run to bring attention to Eliza’s story. I wanted to run because I love running.
The darkness of the sky, only lit by a full moon with a rainbow circle around it, most likely thanks to Eliza watching from above, along with the cool September, dewy breeze, awakened my senses. Living on a country road without lights, I couldn’t run on my road, but my very large deck built into our hill surrounding our pool, was a better choice than running on my treadmill. I wanted to be in the elements just like she was.
With the sound of crickets ringing, I put in my airbuds, turned on my music, and the song “Stairway to Heaven” started playing – a recent favorite song since losing a dear friend to cancer the month prior. It seemed appropriate to keep it on as I ran, repeating it. I blew a kiss up to the sky hoping Eliza would catch it and look down watching me, a total stranger, and all the other women running in her memory today.
As the Fitbit hit 4:20 a.m., the time Eliza was abducted, I was starting to get my runner’s high enjoying the physicality of my body, tenacity of my spirit, and beauty of the dark. I thought of all the women running today and over the weekend thinking of Eliza and proving women can run when they want as long as someone doesn’t stop them.
Thank you Eliza for your spirit running with me, just like my 261Fearless sisters ran with me at the start of the Boston Marathon. With a woman by your side, or in your heart, running and life is beautiful. We shouldn’t stop doing what we love, no matter the reason or cause.
The Adventures of a New Group Sport: Disc Golf
Thursday Thoughts, Motivation for Women in Business, Women in Sports, Outdoor Lovers
There was a wee bit of confusion as six of us walked up the steep hill to a sign announcing the map for our two hour adventure. Only one of us had ever tried the sport – my son – who only played nine holes. You might imagine with that descriptive we were about to venture onto a beautiful smooth green with a PGA approved tee box, but we weren’t. Instead, we were venturing onto a Disc Golf Course, five minutes from my home on rolling hills that surround and dot our horizon.
With bright colored discs in a carrying bag, which I purchased in anticipation for trying this new sport with my son’s fiancée and her athletic parents along with me and my husband, we wondered how to play the game. None of us actually looked up the directions until we lost two discs into the woods on the second hole. “Wait a minute,” I said to our investigative players deep in the weeds, woods and poison ivy, “I think we better see what happens when a disc goes out of bounds and read the rules.”
By the time we realized we had lost two new discs, we found two others with the names and numbers of their owners on them. How wise! Now we knew, we needed to do the same with ours since the game of Disc Golf is typically played near or in woods, overgrown bushes, streams, small lakes, and beautiful vistas found around every turn. The only way to tell where the next hole began was on an electronic map on my son’s phone, the white pads you stand on to throw your first disc, and eventually the iconic wired baskets (aka the holes) where you aim and eventually score to move onto the next hole.
If you like nature, hikes, scenic seasonal flowers and bushes, along with critters and bugs, you will love Disc Golf. A red bridge appeared over a quaint stream on one hole, followed by a flat, mowed, open lawn on the next, followed by a trip back into the woods in the middle of tall trees. It is an adventure of sorts and we all thought that was pretty cool. We only wished we brought bug spray, water, more discs (yes we lost a few more), and sweat rags to wipe our brow by the time we were done. All in all, we burned close to 700 calories each in a span of 9 holes and each couple scored the same score.
Here are some of the comments from my guests regarding Disc Golf:
* It is harder than they thought.
* They wondered if it was easier to play in snow?
* Shorter holes are much easier than the longer ones
* It was very scenic.
* It was aerobic and used many muscles.
* It is not as frustrating as real golf.
* It is less expensive than golf with no course fees and only the need for discs.
So if you are looking for a new kind of sporting adventure and you have “adventurous” friends willing to try, we all recommend Disc Golf complete with colorful discs, a carrying bag/backpack to carry everything, bug spray, water, camera, and a healthy sense of sporting fun.
Wednesday Wisdom: Throw Open Your Opportunities
Wednesday Thought for Women Entrepreneurs, Female Business Owners, Small Companies
Opening the window meant air was going to flow in. It looked gloomy outside but being September, I couldn’t quite tell if the air was humid and slightly warm or dry and cooler. Honestly, there was no way of knowing until I unfastened the lock and lifted the glass upward. It oozed sultry damp oxygen into my face pleasantly reminding me of Florida. It was much warmer than I expected.
Along time ago, I learned agreeing to a new meeting, personal occurrence or business opportunity was like opening up a window or walking out a door into an unexpected experience for a moment. Unfamiliar feelings switch gears to the known quickly and one’s spirit settles down into its reality rapidly. The same happens the moment our children head off the first day of a new school year, we set foot in a new vacation locale, or we agree to meet someone new to know them better. We always hope the experience will be what we imagined or better, but we can remain fearful until we know for sure.
Having just hosted my son’s future in-laws in our house both days and nights for the long weekend, I must admit I was trepidatious about how well it would go; but within thirty minutes of welcoming them into our humble abode and breathtaking backyard, the nerves dropped and the bonding began. It ended up being a lovely, enjoyable, and memorable weekend. Sometimes, our mind can conjure up too many intimidating situations playing with our sanity.
This might feel familiar to you when you enter a networking event with a room of strangers or when you meet a potential client for the first time or speak to a new vendor about pricing; but if you give the opportunity your best shot, you might end up with a new positive relationship that lasts for years. It has been this way for me as I grew Women TIES out of the safety of just Syracuse to areas including Albany, Utica, Binghamton, Ithaca and Rochester. If I never opened the car door and walked into a new region, I would have missed so many wonderful women who have filled my life with joy, knowledge, and even more “ties.”
Today’s Wednesday Wisdom is to remind you, as a seasoned woman in business that just like we tell our children or grandchildren to go out confidently and bright-eyed into a new classroom, we must do the same. The pandemic is mostly behind us and so are the restraints that have held us back from developing new business relationships, especially at networking events. Remaining inside the cocoon for too long will only stymie us and future opportunities.
I say “throw open your window” and allow whatever comes in to gently hit you in the face, rattling your senses, calming limiting thoughts and reminding you that a breath of fresh air is what you need sometimes and that includes meeting new people, experiencing new adventures, saying “yes” more often, and jumping into more risk. Let the new era begin!
Thursday Thoughts: We Can’t Get Tired Yet
Thursday Thoughts, Wisdom, Inspiration for Women in Business, Women in Sports, Women’s Equality
Walking into the room was a tall figure dressed in orange clothes with a white blazer followed by her entourage. They passed the table of six purple, white and gold jacketed women with the word “highlight” down their arms – an all-female sky diving team with suffragette colors. From my table of guests which included women entrepreneurs and women who love sports, we could see the star speaker sit and relax. I recognized her immediately and went to grab a photo.
As a feminist waiting for a woman’s sports number to be retired at our hometown Syracuse University, I was excited that Felisha Leggette-Jack, a Syracuse native, former SU player, and now first-time female coach of the Syracuse University’s Women’s Basketball team, not only had her basketball jersey hung in the rafters next to all the male athletes at a football game last year, but that a female was going to lead the women’s team.
Interviewing females in sports, I had a chance to interview a woman responsible for hiring female coaches for the university program. I asked her why there weren’t more female coaches, especially female coaches for the women’s teams. Her response was that she hired the best candidate who applied. I begged to differ with her knowing she knew there weren’t enough women in high coaching positions, and she as a female, had input on changing that.
Women’s roles in sports, business, politics, and life will not change unless women change the world for women using as much power and persuasion they have – especially when it comes to hiring practices and pay equality. In my company I have only hired female staffers because I believe in giving them a leg up and paying them since we don’t have a pay equality law yet; and who knows when we will.
As Felisha said yesterday, giving me chills down my arms, “Women have to keep doing more. We haven’t done enough yet and we can’t get tired now because others need to see our name and know they can do it too.” Amen sister, Coach Jack to you, your upcoming success, and the inspiration for women to keep making their mark in the world. You’ll see me court side this year supporting you and the women’s basketball team!
Wednesday Wisdom: Changing Your Style
Wednesday Wisdom, Inspiration for Women Entrepreneurs, Female Business Owners, Small Businesses
Unexpected invitations come out of the air sometimes, and so do answers to intentional goals put out into the universe. Impatiently waiting, tapping our toes, wondering why, and often believing the “thing” we want to do or have happen won’t occur, is more our mindset; when instead if we just wait another moment or day, “it” might come to us.
Opportunities arrive at least expected moments and so it is necessary to stay open and flexible in your planning. As much as we might want to fill our calendars and business plans with set-in-stone events, instead leaving flexible openings is as important. Random unique opportunities may present themselves; and you need space to accept them. Stop tapping your toes and gently release your intentions into the air instead and go on with the plans you already have lined up, the rest come.
This mindset isn’t typical of what they teach in school or entrepreneurial classes, but it works, especially as you or your business age and there appears less time, but more urgency, forcing us forward. Instead of holding on tightly, with a frozen grip on everything you feel you can control, loosen it and remember that water can’t flow through your hand if your hand is a tight fist.
Today’s Wednesday Wisdom when the summer season officially slips away on Labor Day and we switch back into a more regular way of doing things because “we must,” remember you have the choice to be more open-minded or rigid in how you approach everything. Perhaps choose looseness over regimen, less strict work hours, expanded lunch periods, and part-time staff or interns to ease your work, since they can be better options.
There is another style of working, and as the owner of your own company, you get to choose it. When you remain flexible, you open yourself up to those unexpected invitations to accept when they come your way. Live in anticipation for them by having a more open timetable.
Monday Motivation and Manic Miracles
| The dotted circle on the black screen spun, and spun, and spun, until my mind joined it spinning in the same way wondering how to get into the black vault of my newest computer. Sure, it was a Monday morning when things can go wrong but good luck had been on my side lately so tenacity was having the best of me. Finally realizing there was an issue, I hauled the big black computer box over to Staples for a look and hopeful repair. Remembering it was Monday, the answers to my dire situation – because aren’t all computer issues dire – wasn’t immediate. Patiently I’d have to wait a week for the hard drive to be sent out to another location for analysis. I already knew when the young dude at the counter said, “Oh, you got a BLACK screen, that’s bad!” I was in for it. 57-years-old doesn’t make me a novice when it comes to technology. Before I could get back to my home office, I already whipped up a plan to conquer this major disturbance by grabbing a laptop I only used for power point presentations and started creating easy access to all my accounts so I could change passwords in case the guys looking at my hard drive could take off information and get access to my financial accounts. That was my main worry along with realizing I hadn’t backed up my documents that had my large excel spread sheet on regular and adventure sports I had, and hadn’t yet, tried. Remembering earlier in the year when I announced that sports goal, someone asked for the list so I graciously emailed it to her and had recently, as of four days ago, changed my personal website www.tracyhigginbotham.com to reflect this new goal, so I breathed easier getting access to that list again. The beginnings of the sports book documenting my new life adventure weren’t recoverable but my blog hosted many of my experiences and could be copied again. Today’s Monday Manic and Motivational blog post is to simply, yet loudly, remind you to back up your most important documents as often as you can – maybe even daily – so if your big black computer stops working and all you see is circling white dots, you feel less panicked about retrieving vital files and folders. This message is one of the most general pieces of business news I’ve shared in a blog, but its essentialist to a mentally happy woman entrepreneur is imperative. Spend some time this week backing up your computer, files, folders, and passwords so you can sail into a new work week more easily than I did today. |
Wednesday Wisdom: How to Enrich Your Life
Wednesday Wisdom, Motivation, Inspiration for Women Entrepreneurs, Female Business Owners, Small Businesses
Entering the conservative Federal style chapel, with its distinctive three-story main body and interior design, including three bays on the eastern façade and eight bays of double hung windows along the north and south side of the building, set the unique and beautiful tone for the ceremony. Inside clean, classic wooden pews were dotted with people of all ages and walks of life waiting for the event to begin. An ebony grand piano sat on stage along with a simple podium, dried hydrangeas, a wooden box, and a photo of the ceremony’s honoree. Breathtakingly simple and poignant.
“A Celebration of An Extraordinary Life” began with a welcome, opening remarks, reading, and pause, followed by a tribute, musical reflection, and closing. Each speaker was hand picked with close ties to the life being honored. Every word, smile, laugh, tear, and thoughtful silence led back to the life of this one person. The music performed by special students who wrote and sang unique, yet familiar, tunes creating chills up arms.
This special event was the celebration of life for a beloved woman who was both educator and entrepreneur for thirty years touching the heart strings of so many. Looking around the room you could literally see how one’s work affected the lives of so many. I think we want our careers to have more meaning than money, but that’s a question and answer for each woman entrepreneur. What matters most – the people’s whose lives we touch or the amount of revenue in our bank accounts?
When you think your work doesn’t matter, contemplate your own real-life scenario within the walls of a quaint historic chapel filled with past clients, vendors, friends, students, and even one-time exchanges and see that it does. People love you. People believe in what you offer. People watch you lead and follow. Don’t believe for one second your work isn’t of value, because it is to someone, and in most cases, to hundreds.
Today’s Wednesday Wisdom is to lift your eyes beyond your accounting binders, bank statements, and purse holdings to consider the real gold you have achieved over your lifetime of work in your career – the contributions you have made to people. It isn’t about enriching our individual life, as much as enriching others’ lives. This kind of money is the only one that truly counts.
Be grateful for your work, yourself, the people you touch, your physical ability to conduct your work, the use of your brain, and putting out into the world positive influences on a daily basis. For this you will be remembered. For this you will be rewarded.
Tuesday Thoughts: Protections For the Entrepreneur
Tuesday Thoughts, Inspiration, Motivation for Women Entrepreneurs, Female Business Owners, Small Companies
My first female boss was a dynamic woman at SUNY Oswego. At the time I thought she was wise beyond her years since I was a 21-year-old bright-eyed professional taking notes from this 40-year-old, seasoned career woman. As a manager she was the perfect blend between educator, disciplinarian and friend. I learned two of the best business lessons of my career working for her that I still remember today and want to pass on to you.
I remember walking in her office for my first employee evaluation confident I could ask for a substantial raise because she liked me and I was doing work above and beyond my job description. She looked me directly in the eye and said, “Tracy, you are doing a good job but not enough for me to grant you a raise. Work harder and we can talk about it again.”
I remember walking out of her office deflated but determined to work harder to earn that raise. Three months later she surprised me with a 60% raise in my salary! I’m not sure I worked that hard, I think it probably demonstrated how low I was paid when I started working, but the lesson learned was if you don’t ask for what you want you won’t get it.
The second lesson came from a dark period in the office when my boss discovered the staff bookkeeper wasn’t keeping the books correctly and the company was in financial despair. With an audit coming within a month, the attitude in the office shifted from positive to downbeat within a day. My boss from that day forward made sure every single employee documented their work, documented communication, and documented agreements.
I often said I learned to “document the world” when I worked there. Documentation of verbal agreements, phone conversations, contract negotiations, and more have always served me well, especially as an entrepreneur, when unexpected communication issues and business problems have developed with vendors, clients and associates. An extremely successful local company hadn’t paid me for a job three months prior so I faxed them our contract again and again until a check appeared in the mail. Legally binding words work wonders.
Today’s post is to remind you about the importance of asking for the money you deserve and to always document communication whether it seems important or not. Both will eventually get you what you want. We must be our own best advocates. We can’t be afraid to ask for what we feel we deserve, we must remain mentally strong when it comes to finances and negotiation, and we must always take a stand if we are treated unjustly. Bottom line, it is up to us and no one else to watch out for ourselves.
Monday Motivation: Rise and Grind Tips On Expansion
Monday Motivation, Monday Thoughts for Women Entrepreneurs, Female Business Owners, Small Businesses
Bold, Daring, Brave, I’m not sure exactly how to refer to a woman entrepreneur who in the middle of the Covid-19 Pandemic buys a popular restaurant, retaining all its employees, opens up a small café next to her already existing popular restaurant and then decides to clone the small café into another one in a highly trafficked new part of town. Which word would you choose? And don’t say “crazy” which is a term this woman, Marty Richardson, used to describe herself yesterday when I stopped in her new place to give her business.
The rain was coming down, as if Noah’s Ark needed it to float, as we found the new café tucked into a new spot in Township 5 in Camillus. Near the medical office buildings made sense for its locale since so many patients have to wait for medical exams or tests and have nowhere to grab a cup of “Marty” or just sit and wait. A perceived need was seen by this serial entrepreneur and the second “Rise and Grind Café” was finished two weeks ago.
A tradition of getting coffee after Catholic mass, I told my husband we had to find Marty’s new café and spend some money there, following my 3-decade dedication to putting my money in the hands of other women owned businesses whenever I can. We walked through the doors into a beautiful small, comfortable café with stuffed chairs, small tables, a table bar near the windows, and a bustling counter. It was clean, quaint, and a perfect place to go on a rainy Sunday morning.
Marty smiled her fabulous smile at me when she saw me since we have become friends through a shared cause. A high school student, who Marty and I both met a couple years ago at a meeting with Senator Schumer and Senator Gillibrand’s Syracuse staff to talk about passage of a new bill to have wigs covered by insurance, was working the counter given the job by Marty.
Sitting down for a few minutes, Marty shared some tips on opening this second locale:
* When you are opening up a second location of an existing business, it runs smoother because you already have a model to follow.
* When you see a “need” for your product or service, taking the risk seems wise.
* Having a pool of staff to draw from, when you have existing businesses, is helpful when opening a new location.
* Obtaining news coverage on the opening (which led me to go to Rise and Grind on Sunday), is essential to get the word out on an expansion.
* Ensuring good signage to direct customers to your new spot is essential for sales success.
And finally, from my perspective, having young, personable female staffers working your front counter and serving a great tasting product, is a excellent way to have first-time customers come back for more. Check out Rise and Grind at 4119 West Genesee Street, Syracuse, NY or at 240 Township Blvd, Ste. 50, Camillus, NY and be really glad you did.
Women TIES 