Tag: women - Page 2

Last month I missed a dinner with a bunch of business women because my diary was overbooked and I was stuck in Atlanta instead of being in Los Angeles. I felt terrible. How did this happen? I am beginning to be quite unreliable with this business group and I respect their time and efforts in putting this dinner together particularly since I don't live in the same city.

The leader, a highly successful international business woman with companies in Europe, UK, and Australia, had gathered a small group of people together as a favor to her cousin, for a woman that she didn't know.

Always ready to help out, THE LEADER, gathered seven or so women that all run successful businesses together to meet for dinner. As they all arrived, they introduced themselves and talked about what they did and where their businesses were going. All normal stuff in a meeting of like-minded individuals there for the sole purpose of sharing ideas and experiences regarding business.

"All women are crazy and all men are stupid," said a well-known author when I recently met them at Atlanta's St Regis Hotel for a cocktail.

How true. I know many women will throw their arms up in the air at this one and it is a gross generalisation - but if you think about it, it actually is closer to the truth than most women entrepreneurs would like to admit.

While I try in earnest to be consistent, without too many overwhelming changes to my personality, I think most people who know me well, would say I am a tad crazy - just like all my other female friends. I won't react quite like I use to when it comes to anything emotional or otherwise, because as you get older, the chances are you can hold it in a little more, but YES I do over-think things and I definitely react irrationally at times when I would prefer to not have reacted at all. 

Sitting in the Los Angeles airport after being in Miami Beach for an entrepreneur’s conference, I pick up The Mail on Sunday only to discover a story written about women who meet each other through work.

It’s been five days of the best Miami has to offer coupled by discussing entrepreneurial topics, life and success (or in some cases, lack of) with some very versatile, uninhibited entrepreneurs who all seem content to share stories and experiences while enriching each other’s lives through old-fashion mateship.

An extraordinary thing happened yesterday. I arrived at a client meeting and was greeted by their inhouse / incumbent agency and felt like I had walked into a one-woman war zone.

It was suppose to be a meeting whereby both parties worked together on different projects to accelerate the growth of a company, working on the strengths of each agency - but it didn't quite go to plan.

Firstly, this woman walked into the room, didn't acknowledge me at all and sat down and started typing away on her computer. After 10 minutes, she was faced with having to be introduced to me and as she shook my hand, she nearly broke it. I hear men say that this happens with people who try to make a statement, but in 14 years of business, this has never happened to me. I have never met a woman who has shook my hand so aggressively that my fingers turned blue.

My first thought was about how the meeting was going to unroll and whether it was worth me being there.

Yesterday, I wrote a blog on how women can help their man be more successful. As promised, today I am publishing how men can help their women be more successful (in business).

If you are a man and lucky enough to have a woman that is determined, ambitious, talented and intelligent - as well as owning their own business or having a high flying career - then count your lucky stars. You are in the minority,

This may surprise many who read my blogs, but I am a firm believer that women should support their men.

Coming from a European family, where the men rule the roost and women play the pivotal role of supporting their man, I am an advocate of women doing what it takes to support their families and in particular, the men in their lives.

When I grew up, my father was the provider. He took the rubbish out and mowed the lawn. He fixed anything that needed to be fixed.

I am doing what many people like to do on a rainy day... laying in bed reading.

With a bookshelf full of every book genre imaginable, I am working my way through Small Giants - Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big by Bo Burlingham. My good friend Kingsley Smith (from Kingsley's restaurants fame) gave it to me to read and I can't seem to put it down. Luckily for me, its raining outside and last night I celebrated a friends birthday, so I am little bit weary.

As I read, I am getting more and more inspired. It is encouraging me think beyond  what I am reading and imagining the lives of other business women around the world and what makes one more successful than the other or for that matter, more happier than the person next to them.

What do women want? If you knew exactly what women want, then you would be the richest person on the planet because I don't think I know a woman that knows what she wants and unfortunately, I too am in that boat.

[Picture]
A last minute decision to attend the ‘race that stops a nation’ reminded me why gossip magazines sell so well and how gen-y is absorbed with the idea of celebrity, so much more than I remember my generation ever being.