Are you ready to react?

How often are you advised to count your blessings or feel lucky you have what you have? With all due respect to a higher power, when you're a woman waiting for others to recognize your contribution you can wait a long time. You can turn into a victim of circumstances you ignore. What's a wise woman to do? Be ready to react to what life hands you so that you can make your own blessings and luck.

Perhaps you want to be blessed with a great job that changes peoples' lives and brings you the ability to control your money and give to causes you care about. What are you doing today:

• to create that job?
• to be in the right place for that job?
• to let others know you want it?
• to let others know you're the right person to do the job?
• that communicates you're worth every $ you ask for?

Will you be ready to react when it comes or will you let it pass you by?

Do you say "yes" or "no" to the possibilities?

I had meetings with 2 very different women today. One that says "yes" to opportunities that come her way and another with a woman who's immediate response to any idea is "no" or who will take on the work (because it won't be her, is implied.) The first meeting was full of information sharing, general collaboration, hope and moving forward our mutual agendas. The second was hard to get through. It was as if our work together was useless and didn't matter. Which was not at all the case. Like pulling teeth.

I know which of these two women I want to follow and is a leader.

When will we be worth it?

I was talking with a stressed out friend today. She's gone months from one grueling project after another without a break to reflect and appreciate what she's accomplished. I asked her to step back and consider whether anyone really wants her to feel as crappy is she does or if she is just not asking for help. Turns out, she hasn't asked for help.

I (and she) know she's an extremely bright and accomplished individual. She works for one of the rare companies that is leading edge in this economy and is on course to make money hand over fist. It seems as she's buying into a reality that just isn't hers. I encouraged her to step back and embrace the energy of the possibilities she is creating, ask for what she needs to make those possibilities a reality (even sacred/carved out time during the day for her own strategy and management reflection) and then move forward. She deserves as much help to pull the economy forward as the rest of us. It's a big job and we need bright, energized leaders who aren't exhausted and feeling punished to bring us forward.

Jack v. Katty & Claire

I received 2 interesting article today about women in business. Compare and contrast:

"Former General Electric Co. Chief Executive Jack Welch has some blunt words for women climbing the corporate ladder: you may have to choose between taking time off to raise children and reaching the corner office."http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124726415198325373.html?mod=dist_smartbrief

"While the pinstripe crowd fixates on troubled assets, a stalled stimulus and mortgage remedies, it turns out that a more sure-fire financial fix is within our grasp -- and has been for years. New research says a healthy dose of estrogen may be the key not only to our fiscal recovery, but also to economic strength worldwide." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/10/AR2009071002358.html

Clearly, the questions of women in leadership is a hot topic. Where do you stand?