The Tale of Two Phone Call Messages
Thursday Thoughts, Wisdom and Inspiration for Women Entrepreneurs and Women in Business
Thursdays are my day to catch up on phone calls and emails that slipped by busy early week duties of entrepreneurship. As big snowflakes dropped from the sky, I lounged in bed after the alarm clock went off, since I bustled around every other morning. In a sense, I had been on a “book tour” making my rounds between local and state-wide media sharing my alopecia story, new book, and lessons learned to help other women. I was certainly in the public eye for the past two weeks.
Phone messages blinked on my phone waiting for me to listen to them. Hitting replay, the first message was from a 91-year-old woman who called to share a cure for alopecia that worked for her late husband. He died in 2006 but he had alopecia in college and his brother got it too. Both had their hair returned after this one treatment she wanted to share with me. Her voice seemed sweet and positive. My heart was touched.
Following her message was an angry woman calling to voice her unpleasant opinion about me and my company not supporting the recent New York State bail reform law that can put domestic violence offenders back on the streets. “You are disgusting,” she yelled into my message machine and ear. She continued, “How can you say you, support women, when you don’t stand up for this horrific incident that’s putting dangerous men on the street?” I played two messages for my husband. He was shocked at the second one.
I glanced out at the softly fallen, quiet snow and said to him, “These two messages are two different examples of how people respond in the world today – one is kind and the other condemning.” I continued, “If the second woman framed her displeasure differently, I might have called her back to ask how I could further her cause but I won’t do that after being attacked by someone who doesn’t know me, but I will call back the first woman who approached her phone call differently.” The calls remind me the loudest people don’t get noticed the way they really want and the positive, controlled people do. Any person can make a point about any topic facing women, but the positive or negative emotionality in the point is what gets noticed and responded or ignored.
I’ll let you know if people picket my house or overwhelm my phone message box since that is what the second woman threatened if I didn’t do something about denouncing the new bail reform law. I’ll wait for them glancing out my beautiful office window on this beautiful winter morning as I call and speak to the 91-year-old woman who gently said, “She just wants to help me.” What tone will you take today in communicating with people?
If you want to see how positive, caring, and compassionate people helped me “cure” my thoughts on alopecia, buy a copy of my new book “Under the Rose-Colored Hat” and feel good about society.
What is the Month of Crunch Mean To You?
Wednesday Wisdom, Inspiration, and Motivation for Women Entrepreneurs, Women in Business, Small Business
Syracuse has one that appears on the ice. Friendly’s got one that is soaked in ice cream. Nestlé’s has had one for a long time. I just did “it” on a spreadsheet. Can you guess what they all have in common?
The word is “Crunch.” Syracuse has a hockey club called the Syracuse Crunch. My sister’s favorite ice cream was Buttercrunch along with a serving of a Nestlé’s Crunch bar on the side. My “crunch” wasn’t so sweet. It was the task of crunching numbers from my last event to see how profitable the event was.
After giving up my accounting major in college to become a general business major because I didn’t love crunching numbers or figuring out debits vs. credits, I still have to perform simple accounting tasks to reconcile statements, check profits vs. losses, figure out pricing, and bill customers for memberships or sponsorships. No matter how you look at it, crunching numbers is part of entrepreneurship.
After the sweet spending of money during the holidays, most of us are faced with larger credit card debts, less spending cash, blank proposals that need signatures and deposits, and using holiday-given gift cards instead of credit cards to eat out. With the average consumer spending $1,000 on meals, gifts, and travel, it can leave little funds to jump-start the New Year with expenditures.
Women entrepreneurs go back to doing work themselves instead of hiring staff. They frantically get out proposals and try to sign deals. They set spending budgets. They pull back on marketing and advertising too. They try to keep going until business picks up.
I saw some great tips in a recent online article listing six ways to keep sales high after the holiday peak which includes; starting a new sale, selling to consumer’s New Year’s resolutions (travel, health, etc.), releasing a new product, marketing to new email addresses you collected over the holidays, re-marketing and re-targeting your advertising, and not becoming too quiet like all other retailers after a busy season.
Today’s Wednesday Wisdom should inspire you to do a few things this week. Crunch your numbers so you know where you stand with how much you spent over the holidays and then establish a new personal or business plan. Second, re-purpose your marketing to mid-winter and early spring specials to attract cash. Third, re-energize your business by ratcheting up new products and services. Finally, if you don’t have money to spend going out and networking or treating clients to lunches or gifts, spend the time crunching your numbers and preparing for April 15th to get it done.
After you accomplish those bookkeeping crunches and maybe even your New Year’s exercise goals of more stomach crunches, you can take yourself out to a Syracuse Crunch Hockey Game accompanied by at least one Nestle’s Crunch candy bar and enjoy yourself.
Reminder: Publicity Begets Publicity Entrepreneurs
Wednesday Wisdom, Inspiration, Motivation for Women Entrepreneurs, Women In Business, Small Business Owners
Two years ago yesterday I rose at the crack of dawn and drove down Route 90 to the state’s capital to sit in the audience with other #MeToo women. I was fortunate to be invited by one of the Governor’s staffers. The event had pomp and circumstance, metal detectors, national figures like Tarana Burke (founder of the #MeToo Movement), and an energetic audience of politicians and invited guests to listen to the State of the State Address. Just like on television, different groups of people rose and sat, applauded and stayed silent, when they agreed or disagreed with an item in the speech. I felt like I was at the heartbeat of the nation that day.
If you wonder how the Governor’s staff knew I was a #MeToo survivor it was because of two things: taking 120 women to the Women’s March on Washington and promoting it and paying attention to national news stories and social sharing my experience using the #MeToo hashtag. The national story was everywhere and women were sharing their stories with me prompting me to share mine. Once again, sisterhood enveloped my desire to be open and honest to help others.
The invitation was also a product of speaking at a special forum on the need for an equal pay law when the New York State Labor Commissioner came to Syracuse. I testified on behalf of women entrepreneurs, who wanted an equal pay law passed since they follow the principles of corporate women who are underpaid. I never testified before but took a bold step to see what I could do and make positive changes for women. There I met staff from the Governor’s office.
As I look to reconnect with my paid members personally this year, I plan on inspiring them to gain more publicity for themselves. Any recent publicity about my plight with alopecia, means I have a chance to speak about the Women TIES mission and membership to drive more traffic to our site so others learn about the women business owners in our group. If saying “yes” to opportunities and being honest on social media can bring publicity to your door, which leads to more publicity, why not follow in my footsteps this year and try it?
Today’s Wednesday Wisdom is to motivate you to create a publicity plan for your business and yourself. Women entrepreneurs are their businesses so sharing personal successes, interests, involvement, and even struggles can gain media attention which provides valuable marketing exposure. Why do I show my bald head around town? Believe me, it’s not because I’m vain but because it gives me a chance to share my mission supporting women in business, sports, equality, and life with media looking to cover other women in future stories.
As I left the Bridge Street show yesterday after my appearance a reporter said, “Hey Tracy, I’m doing a special segment every week on people that are doing good things in the community, do you know of anyone?” I replied, “I sure have a bunch of awesome women entrepreneurs I can suggest now that you mention it!”
P.S. Let me know if you are doing something good in the Central New York community!
It Takes One Step To Start Again
Monday Motivation, Inspiration and Wisdom for Women Entrepreneurs, Women in Business, Women in Sports
It takes one step. One small step or one large leap but that’s all it takes. “It” could be a business move, running again, losing weight, writing a book, becoming a public speaker or even reconnecting with your audience. 2020 is upon us and it requires steps in a positive direction.
This morning after taking my first light jog since May 2019 when I tore my hip muscle, I became immediately exhilarated. The emotion didn’t come from my memories of running the 2017 Boston Marathon or running with International women in England in 2018, but from putting one step in front of the other and running slow for 2 miles and doing it! The success of those steps – as small as the seemed compared to other runs or mileage – was as important to me as the big accomplishments. I raised my hands in the air and said, “Good job Tracy! Do it again tomorrow!”
As I stretched my hip after the run, Jenna Bush Hager was interviewing Oprah Winfrey on her new “WW 2020 Vision Tour” which she began in Fort Lauderdale, Florida this week with special guest Lady Gaga. Oprah invited different passionate females to join her on stage at each tour stop – Girl that list is impressive! When asked by Jenna why she was doing a tour Oprah said, “I miss the connection with people like I had when I had a live TV audience.”
I know how Oprah feels since I have missed the same connections the past two years taking a part-time medical sabbatical to deal with the life-altering disease of Alopecia. To take care of my mental and physical state, I needed to retreat to someday reclaim my position in my company, society, and my community. I did lose business, members, and financial supporters but it was the price I had to endure to take care of myself to get through the ordeal.
Like Oprah, I hope to re-enter 2020 with a new radiance and hope to spread larger messages with women about self-image, wellness while working, changing as women age in business and more. I hope you’ll join me even if the events aren’t large or if you don’t believe I’m back. I’m committed to my audience starting with one step, one event, and one big goal of continuing to make a difference in the world for women. It is a risk I’m willing to take.
I know I’m not Oprah, but I know I have a passion like her to impact the lives of others. If you do too, take one step and join me at some of our events this year.
Your One Word for 2020
Inspiration, Tuesday Thoughts, New Year’s Eve for Women, Women Entrepreneurs and Women in Sports
I lay quietly in bed for the first time in two weeks. My sons left our family celebration, filled with warmth, joy, and love, to go skiing with their friends for the New Year. My husband returned to work after a full week’s vacation. The house was quiet. My desk and “business” were downstairs waiting for activity while I took a few minutes to myself.
Leaving a monumental year, like 2019 was for me, deserved reflection. Gleaning some time to myself, I tiptoed back through each month reliving the memories and lessons. I should have expected it would be a revealing year when I accepted an invitation to Blue Mountain Lake Lodge in mid-January with a special friend and 15 other women to focus on moving forward in the New Year. It wasn’t until the last day of the retreat I admitted in our women circle I was wearing a wig and was actually bald. I felt like I was at an AA meeting announcing a truth.
As I left the rustic lodge and tranquil landscape, I was given a book called One Word That Will Change Your Life by one of the women in attendance. Everyone who reads the book contemplates a series of questions and arrives at their own one word to live out in the next year of their life. After reading the book, I arrived at my word which was acceptance. Accepting a radical change in identity and becoming a bald woman took acceptance on my part to move forward with life and business.
To my surprise just two months later, the Syracuse Post Standard, featured a two-page article on my diagnosis with Alopecia and a photo of my big, bald head on the front page. The video accompanying the photo had 10,000 views after a week shocking me in its outreach. Phone calls and text messages arrived from other people with Alopecia and love came from my members and community.
Four months later on a hot July afternoon, donning a pink baseball hat in my hometown with my best friend since the age of 4, acceptance took on another meaning as my friend Lynda wrote a check to fund my first book Under the Rose-Colored Hat to share the lessons of my story of acceptance, compassion, and kindness from others. I had to “accept” this very generous monetary gift to move forward. Last January 1st, I never expected to be a published author by the end of the year, and yet I was.
Two months following the gift from my friend, my youngest son’s friend, and 3 other young barbers, hosted an Alopecia Fundraiser to raise money for me and my cause; I had to accept $5,000 from the event keeping some of it and sharing the rest. Two months later, I accepted and applauded the people who donated $800 to the National Alopecia Areata Foundation on my Facebook birthday fundraiser. Accepting the monetary and personal generosity of so many gracious, giving people made my “one word” that much more special. A feeling I would have never known feeling last January reading the book and selecting my word.
Today’s final post of the year is meant to inspire you to consider one word to guide you into 2020. The book suggests unplugging from noise, answering a few questions like – “What do I need?” and “What’s in my way?” and “What needs to go?” When you are ready, listen to the answer in your heart and allow your higher faith to guide you with the answer. Once you discover your word, write it down, keep it in front of you, and live it! Watch what happens as your year unfolds.
Before the ball drops tonight on New Year’s Eve, I hope you take time to reminisce, contemplate, search, and find what you need most for the New Year ahead. Find your one word and put it in action. You might unravel the most perfect 2020 for you and you alone. Happy New Year!
End of Year Inspirational Thoughts for Women Entrepreneurs
Monday Motivation, Inspiration, and Wisdom for Women and Women Entrepreneurs and Women in Business
The grey clouds looming in the sky might be a physical reminder of the end of the month of colorful sparkling lights, the absence of loved ones who were near us this holiday season or the end of a difficult business or personal year. But above the gloom and heaviness of the clouds is a bright sun streaking across a blue horizon dotted with puffy white clouds and a clearer more tranquil view.
As we embark on the last two days of 2019, remember both the jolting and soothing lessons that guided you from January 1st to now. What news or situation jolted your spirit, business, bank account or mindset? How long did it last? How did you get out of the situation to clarity? On the other hand, what lessons touched your heart and spirit moving you forward in personal or work situations? List the lessons and keep them close to your heart and within view as you approach the New Year.
With a couple more days to go in 2019, why not start listing and acting on goals to launch the year ahead. Don’t wait until the ball drops in Times Square to begin. Today is a good day to start as everyone else waits to begin. If you’d like to sign up for one of our January events to get you started, become a member of our organization for year-round PR, and set 3 big goals to help you burst into a new scene in 2020.
The New Year begins my 15th year promoting, publicizing and uniting women entrepreneurs in regions around the state with business, sports and equality focused programs. As I embark on my own “quarter of a century” as a woman business owner, with a new book and enlightened spirit, I hope you reach out to me, attend events, and seek my advice if I can be of service to you.
Nothing about my passion for helping women has changed; it’s only gotten stronger in the past 25 years. I can’t wait to see you soon and enter 2020 arm-in-arm together.
Happy 2020! Support women in business, sports, equality, and life.
Christmas Reflection for Women Entrepreneurs
Inspiration for women entrepreneurs, women in business, small business owners
The soft light from the electric candle still providing light, as the moon set and the world lightened, illuminated near me on my windowsill with large snowflakes falling from the sky. Still covered by a warm steely blue-grey blanket my sister gave me, I reached for my latest gift from a friend The Book of Joy. Her handwritten note on the cover jacket described our shared friendship and joy of each other. On the front of the book are two unlikely, or perhaps likely, friends the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu smiling at each other.
I promised myself, after another year of health issues and reflection; I would take the same amount of time and patience during my medical sabbatical to greet the day to stay balanced and well. The book opened to the right page where a quote caught my heart, “Nothing beautiful in the end comes without a measure of pain, some frustration, some suffering. This is the nature of things. This is how our universe is made up,” said Archbishop Tutu.
The book discloses the three factors that seem to have the greatest influence on increasing happiness which is our ability to re-frame our situation more positively, our ability to experience gratitude, and our choice to be kind and generous. I know without a doubt a year and a half of reflection and attention on having alopecia opened my eyes to these three essential factors in order to return to who I used to be even without hair. My attitude was shaped by the caring of so many people – especially people like you reading this Wednesday Wisdom blog post.
We don’t feel joy when something sad happens to us. Sometimes the only thing we can do is to re-frame our mindset to seek the light in the darkness, appreciate the very smallest gifts we see and give away as much kindness as we can muster because others need it more than us. In giving we receive, and in receiving we can give again. This is where I am now and how grateful I am for coming through this ordeal intact and enlightened.
Next week at this time, I’ll be gathering with my loved ones and celebrating Christmas. I know I am more fortunate than most to have two healthy beautiful sons and husband, a warm house, a business filled with women I love supporting, enough food to give me nourishment, faith to surround me and enough money in the bank to keep going with this business into its 15th year and my 25th year as a woman entrepreneur. A day doesn’t go by when I am not grateful for the women who have supported and cared for me and my company this year.
Today’s Wednesday Wisdom post is simply to wish you a beautiful, joyful Christmas filled with quiet moments of faith and appreciation. Enjoy what you have, no matter what it is, and don’t focus on what you don’t have. Revel in the beauty of the moments that surround you and fill your heart and the people who care about you – including me. I wish you one morning where you can quietly look out your window at the gentle falling snow, tucked under a favorite blanket, counting your many blessings.
I truly count you as one of my many blessings. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
My new book with inspirational thoughts of acceptance, kindness, and joy can be found by clicking here.
Monday Motivation: There is Joy to Be Found
Inspiration, Monday Motivation, and Wisdom for Women Entrepreneurs and Female Business Owners
In the new bestseller “The Book of Joy” featuring His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu written by Douglas Abrams, the following quote touched my heart, “Wherever you have a friend that’s your country, and wherever you receive love, that’s your home.” It is an old Tibetan saying the Dalai Lama shared with the author and his close friend as the three discussed the meaning of joy.
I knew what he meant because I feel like I’m home in the company of women entrepreneurs no matter where I go, who I meet or hug, and what kind of business they conduct. Saratoga and Utica were my “countries” last week as I traveled there to host intimate inspirational and educational luncheons for women. In January, Binghamton, Syracuse, and Rochester will be my countries as I travel there.
My friend Shannon gave me “The Book of Joy” for my birthday with a simple note inside, “Tracy, who is full of Joy.” I in return surprised her with my book “Under the Rose-Colored Hat” with lessons learned from almost two years of hardship with alopecia when joy was hard to find until strangers greeted me unexpectedly with hugs, advice, loving gestures and prayers when they saw my bald head under a pink hat.
I didn’t write my book to add one more thing to my resume, but to share a similar lesson of love, kindness, compassion, and acceptance by others towards me, just like I have done for years to people I see. One line in my book says, “All I wanted to be was kind at the moment,” as I described an experience giving my warm food to a homeless man in Boston and holding the hand of an elderly woman almost taken away by the wind in the parking lot one day.
“We create most of our suffering, so it should be logical that we also have the ability to create more joy. It simply depends on the attitudes, the perspective, and the reactions we bring to situations and to our relationships with other people. When it comes to personal happiness there is a lot that we as individuals can do,” the Dalai Lama shared.
As the countdown to Christmas comes this week, as busy women entrepreneurs rushing around hoping to finish all your work and personal tasks, realize you have time to be kind to yourself and others and to find personal happiness inside. I hope you find what I found on the street, compassionate people who want to show even the smallest amounts of kindness to brighten your day. I hope you receive it and give it as well.
P.S. My book with its lessons of kindness, love, and acceptance can still be bought and shipped in time of Christmas for yourself or a loved one who could use some kindness inspiration.
“The Book of Joy” can also be found and shared at this link.
Ice Cold Ideas for a Successful Life
Inspiration, Motivation, Thursday Thoughts, Wednesday Wisdom for women entrepreneurs, small business and women in business
I remember the day I was challenged to dump an ice-cold bucket of water on top of my head to support a national phenomenon. My son was filming the action when I dumped the bucket of ice water on my head and then half jumped, half dove into my pool which was right next to me. For some reason, the video has made me the laughing stock of my family. To be honest, I understand why my awkward attempt to do more than just dump the water on my head made them laugh.
My oldest son Thomas went to Boston College and was part of the athletic department as manager of the men’s basketball team for four years so when we heard of Pete Frates, a captain for the BC baseball team, diagnosed with ALS we were saddened like many. Thomas also knew Dick Kelly, the Boston College Media Relations Specialist, who battled the disease, loved the basketball team and died from it. I also knew someone with it, a friend named Mark Airel, which made me eager to take the Ice Bucket Challenge to raise funds and a cure for ALS.
The biggest take-away for me in the past year running my business, while dealing with alopecia, is the realization that life and business goes on when you have a medical diagnosis. Fortunately for me, alopecia is not a life-threatening disease only a life-altering one. But Pete’s death this week, after a seven-year championship run with the deadly disease, reminded me that sometimes life’s lessons are not to defeat us but to lift us to a higher place where we can make a difference for others.
Sometimes there isn’t a reason or rationale for being dealt bad luck in business, poor health, unhappy marriages or defeats in corporate endeavors, but if we look at the challenges as opportunities to advance our strength, insight, and selves while helping to give back, share or comfort others going through a similar situation, then our sorrows turn into unexpected abundance. It was a reason I took the risk of publishing my first book about the loss of my self-identity and lessons in kindness and compassion since becoming a bald woman. Instead of thinking, “Why me?” and being sad, I thought, “How can I help others in a similar situation?” and then I acted.
Today’s Wednesday Wisdom is to remind you we all face challenges. There is no escaping the truth of life’s full experience. Some of us are dealt a better hand than others and the choice is all about what we do with that hand? Can we find fortune where there is ruin or wellness where there is sickness or hope when there is none? I believe we can. I know I have. I continue to believe it is a choice as evident by Peter Frates who decided to take his diagnosis and turn it into good for others facing the disease in the future.
When we choose to focus on the positive things we can do with our businesses and lives, we might just end up like Pete raising 100 million dollars for research and a cure while touching the lives of millions with a cool bucket of ice-cold water.
An Early Christmas Present
Friday Feeling, Inspiration and Motivation for Women and Women with Alopecia or Breast Cancer
Huge, white snowflakes dotted the air as four new female friends exited the government building. Thirty minutes prior, they did not know each other although they are connected by a medical diagnosis hidden under real hair wigs and a rose-colored hat. The government guards asked for photo identification when they first arrived never noticing anything out-of-the-ordinary about their appearance.
Thirty minutes earlier the women, along with the father of one of the young women in attendance, shared their struggles with their diagnosis of alopecia, an autoimmune disorder that affects 6.8 million people in the U.S. One woman brought the listeners to tears as she recounted her twenty-one year battle as a woman entrepreneur covering up her condition from customers and sharing heartache about her teenage son with the same disorder. Another very stylish woman who went last telling her story, admitted to wearing a wig since she was fifteen just like the young woman whose father brought her to the meeting to share why having a wig was essential for her well being.
I was wearing my new rose-colored hat, without a wig, so I could take off the hat and show the people at the table my baldness from the disease while speaking about losing my identity and revenue as a small business owner after a year and a half of losing my hair with medical sabbaticals. The stark look of my round, shiny head has become my unexpected business card in many ways and if I wanted to make an impact I felt I had to show it to our state senator’s assistants as we pleaded for their support of a bill that would make wigs an approved medical expenditure by insurance companies and Medicare. The fifteen-year-old girl was brilliant at explaining her struggles playing sports, being bullied at school and living a normal life. Her wig costs $10,000 to start and another $5,000 per year to maintain.
We knew we impacted the listeners who promised to share the bill and its importance with the senators. Realistically they told us, it might take some time, to get passed but they thought their bosses would back the small, simple bill. Emerging from the building with some hope for our shared plight, the snowflakes felt like a sign from heaven telling us we did well.
What else can you do but hope when you approach something new that could make a positive impact in the world? All it took was four brave women, one committed father, people listening with an open heart and a sign from above in the form of snowflakes to feel good about our efforts on behalf of so many other people. It was an early Christmas present, I won’t forget.
Look for the miracles this season.
Women TIES 