Are Women Pro-Creating a Different Work World?

 

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY TO ALL the MOMS!!

INTRO:  As a single-mother of 5 children for the past 13 years with challenges more difficult than the usual divorce (including, but not limited to, homelessness and financial loss of approx. $1 million in assets–spoil alert:  there’s a story there in my upcoming book), the past 2 weeks of shows on my Tamara Leigh’s TREND ON on the Linked Local Network were especially inspiring and candid conversations with a group of amazing women about women, work, motherhood, and the ever-changing work cultures.

Are women rewriting the present for the betterment of our futures while remaining true to our genesis of the past, particularly as mothers?

Where do you find yourself in this evolved home and work culture where roles and careers are no longer strictly gender specific, and the opportunities for women are ever-increasing?

In all this discussion, do we “Lean In” as Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg asserts, or do we emulate more man-like leadership as Marissa Mayer of Yahoo did in reeling in remote workers (an appealing and practical work option to women or men assigned the primary home caretaker task).

OR, do we carve our own path, creating what works for us as individuals, as my Tamara Leigh’s TREND ON guests the past 2 weeks have done:

In PART I, on 5/1/13 of  Tamara Leigh’s TREND ON, Denise Hansard, Dream Builder Coach–Transforming Your Dreams Into Reality, set the stage for the following week, 5/8/12 TREND ON by asking our audience (as she does with any audience when she speaks) to first define what their dreams are and then work through a 4 point process to give life and form to those dreams.  As children, or sometimes world leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. and President John F. Kennedy – who had dreams of racial equality and putting a man on the moon, respectively, our dreams are concrete, actual obtainable, goals that often get lost along the way to adulthood.  Denise has devoted her life to helping others find and fulfill their life dream.  For many women/mothers, the dream is as simple as staying asleep long enough to have one.  I know it was mine for a couple decades and counting!   To contact Denise go to:  http://denisehansard.lifemasteryinstitute.com/

 

On PART II, Jill Salzman, a life-long entrepreneur, mother of two pre-school children, and Founder of Founding Moms — Helping Moms Get Down to Business — began the organization to bring together other innovative women launching enterprises or careers.  Local chapters of Founding Moms provides resources and support for women and their businesses while understanding that they’re also mothers managing the responsibilities of parenting.  Jill exemplifies the up and coming generation of women who don’t see the need to polarize career and family.   Rather, Jill and Mom Entrepreneurs like her, integrate work in and outside of the home into the whole of who they are.  Why wouldn’t they use their education when they worked hard to earn it, or why wouldn’t they build a cottage-industry when they’re capable of doing so successfully and still maintain their most important job as mom, especially when the internet has made it  more possible to do so?  If you’re interested in joining a local chapter of Founding Moms, or availing yourself to the Founding resources, go to:   http://foundingmoms.com/

My next TREND ON guest, Gia Claire, Author of “Head First, A Memoir”, Speaker, and Improv Comedian, worked in corporate for a decade plus, with all the demands of a 12 hour day in a 9-5 job that never is!  Gia persevered professionally with great success, in spite of personal hardships of miscarriage, infertility, and divorce.  Whether there was a cause-effect or mutually exclusive relationship for Gia between office and home, Gia defines her “release” from Corporate, for which she is thankful, as a pivotal point that lead to her path now–exactly where she is meant to be.  Gia takes all of her past sales and leadership experiences to deliver honest insight to audiences.  In Gia’s words,  her “gigs are 100% rich in content, part comedy, inspirational… with a healthy dose of spirituality to get un-stuck in life and achieve your personal best.”  Listen in for more on ou TREND ON conversation and check out Gia Claire’s website at:  http://www.giaclaire.com/

“Women work in a world predominantly and historically created by men,” says Mary Chambers-Pienta, CEO/Pres., Soul Reintegration Coach, Success/Inspirational Speaker MonUmental Moments, Inc., Master Life Success Coach, The Secret to Life Coaching and also our guest on TREND ON.  That’s not necessarily the modern man’s fault or cause to be a man-hater.   From cave days forward, men forged a society to function as they did -–to validate their existence in a world of work and one in which labor, hunting and gathering were necessary for survival.  In only very recent history has this changed, although not always across work cultures everywhere.

Even with all these positive changes, often women must still leave money on the table to tend to primary childcare responsibilities, perhaps even more so, with the ever-increasing number of female head of household families, not unlike my own situation.  Ironically, as I was working on writing this blog post this past week, I had the opportunity to listen in on a sales training by a successful male mentor who in his earlier career, would make his last sales presentation on his home bound  journey.  At that point, he told his trainees, he would also then call his wife to let her know he was 20 minutes out from home so she could start dinner.

In the real world of women’s work, women usually don’t have such luxuries.  It’s much more likely that as a women tries to get 20 minutes out from home to work, she is going to get that call to come back for a kid’s lunch, or will  at the end of the long work day have to run into the store to grab something for dinner 20 minutes out on the way home, or will have to put work calls on hold throughout the day to avert some crisis on the home front!  As Jill recommends (and provides resources to do so through Founding Moms), getting organized, scheduled, and getting help (i.e. delegate tasks and be thankful they get done vs. doing it all yourself) are keys to being successful both in both career and family.

Mary Chamber-Pienta added, that “Success is defined in many forms; however, success is about whom you must be in order to create what you want. It takes the willingness to grow.  Creating balance should be a goal in your life, but is based on the individual, meaning there is not one set of rules. It is for the individual to decide what balance is in his or her own environment.”

Since the conversation on TREND ON with Denise, Jill and Gia opened up great dialogue and Mary had much more to offer listeners in teaching new thought processes and providing encouragement focused on well-being, we’re going to have Mary return as a guest in a few weeks on 5/29/13.  Listen LIVE &/or call into the show at: 1323-580-5755 or  http://www.blogtalkradio.com/linkedlocalnetwork/2013/05/29/tamara-leighs-trend-on-with-mary-chambers-jeff-percival  For more on Mary Chambers-Pienta go to : www.linkedin.com/pub/mary-chambers-pienta/39/204/77b

 

In TRIBUTE to my own Mother (& Father), my Granny (who lived to 102 yrs. old), my Sisters, my Daughters (& Son), & Mother-in-law (in Hawaii) who loved unconditionally through life’s paradox of  Joys and sorrows.