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Women, Money, Power…Oh My!!!

“We are still trying to overcome the fear that power and womanliness

are mutually exclusive.” Arianna Huffington

Q. Why do so many women have trouble with money?  (Hint: it has nothing to do with money.)

A. It’s about power…or rather, our fear of power.

Here’s the problem. Most of us have never been taught the secret wisdom of achieving wealth and wielding power, as a woman.  In fact, historically, women have been carefully conditioned to avoid power as a survival mechanism.  As a psychologist once told me: “Powerful women have been burned at the stake.”

Admittedly, many women have attained economic success in the male system, but it usually came at an appalling price. In 2003, New York Times reporter Lisa Belkin sparked a media frenzy when she coined the phrase “the opt-out revolution” to describe the flood of women exiting the workforce.  They were no longer willing to stay in a system that rewarded the sacrifice of self for the sake of success.

But what the media defined as women opting out, I believe was, in large part, women waking up. They were beginning to question the status quo, realizing there must be a way to stay true to themselves and still be well compensated, without selling their souls or sacrificing their values.

For centuries women have come together to trade recipes and remedies, share tips on catching   a man or raising a child—but there is little, if any, collective wisdom for wealth and power.

4 years ago, I began interviewing Mega Earners, women worth millions.    What I learned changed my life.  These women were playing a very different game than the one society models, with very different rules.  I call this game Sacred Success™. And I’m determined to teach this game to as many women as I can.

Consider this blog my personal invitation to join me for one of my  Sacred Success Retreats. The Retreats are meant to be part of an ongoing tradition of women sharing their wisdom, with a new breed of role models who’ve achieved unprecedented success on their own terms, in a very different way than men have been doing it for centuries.

Won’t you join me? Click here for more information or to register.

 

 

Anyone Understand ‘Financialese’?

Have you ever met with a financial advisor, and wished you had a translator?  My sister and I, spouses too, have spent the past few months interviewing various advisors for some family trusts.

Nice people, all of them. But once they got started talking, they were suddenly speaking a foreign tongue.

I thought I knew this tongue. I really did. I’ve written 5 books about money. I even wrote one on Finding a Financial Advisor You Can Trust.

But these folks, at various points in the discussion,  had my head reeling.

At first, I was a bit embarrassed. I mean, I should know this stuff, right?

Then it hit me. No wonder so many women aren’t getting the financial help they need. One conversation with an advisor and their heads are reeling too. And most of them just want to put their reeling heads right back in the sand.

Consider this blog (in part) a Plea to Professionals. C’mon, you guys. Speak in plain English. And then check in with clients at frequent intervals to make sure they’re tracking.

But, truth is, I don’t hold out much hope.

And the truth is the onus is on us. I am a Big Believer in working with professionals…be it for a root canal  or retirement planning.  And sometimes the latter can be as painful as the former! But it doesn’t need to be.

Not if we’re willing to speak up,  ask for clarification, and keep asking until we understand.

It all boils down to this. If  you don’t understand  ‘Financialese,’ it doesn’t mean you’re stupid.  It’s simply a sign to ask more questions.  The payoff is clarity. But, I’m here to tell you, the real reward is how powerful you’ll feel for standing up for yourself.

Can you relate to this post? You can tell me about your conversations with a financial advisor by leaving a comment below.

The “D” word

Finding your purpose is one thing. Pursuing it is another.  And that’s where the “D” word comes in. You know, Discipline.

Oy…I can almost feel you recoil at the very mention. “Not the ‘D’ word…anything but that!”

Hear me out.  Discipline has gotten a bum rap.  Discipline is not a means of punishment. It’s actually the source of pleasure, the essence of power and  the path to Greatness.

Think of it this way. Discipline comes from the latin word ‘disciple,’ and means ‘being a disciple unto oneself.’  Discipline asks you to become your own biggest fan, viewing yourself in the very best light, being kind to yourselves when things don’t go well, doing what needs to be done, as best as you can.

Discipline is Step #3 of Sacred Success™. And it’s especially important to women.

In  my interviews with high earners, I noticed that success tends to be a very emotional process.  Unlike men, we haven’t  been groomed for greatness.

Practically every woman I interviewed made the same observation. In the world of work,  men assume they’re competent,  feel entitled, and tend to risk big.   Women assume they’re inadequate, feel apprehensive and tend to hold back.

So many aspiring women, especially in the beginning, described  feeling:

  • guilt (Do I really have a right to this?)
  • doubt (Can I handle it? Am I on the right path?)
  • fear (Am I doing it right? Will I fail?)

For many, these questions are like quicksand, keeping us stuck, sucking  us under.

What I wanted to know was what enabled the most successful ones to keep going higher? The answer became obvious—the “D” word .

I’m going to talk more about discipline in blogs to come. I’ll tell you about 4 techniques that are anything but traditional. But now I’d love to hear from you. What’s your reaction to the “D” word?

The Beginners Guide to Surrender – Step 2

After you’ve eliminated everything but the most essential you’re ready for Step 2…

Step #2—Allow uncomfortable feelings to surface.

Uncertainty, fear , self doubt–all those demons we’ve been artfully dodging through over-work, over-eating, over-spending and other drugs of choice—will inevitably rear their ugly heads.

For me, my biggest fear was being invisible, disappearing, not mattering.  I knew that was exactly what I had to face.  Because, I knew very well, on the other side of  fear is power. And, more than anything, I wanted to retrieve all the power I had given away in a myriad of ways.  So, too,  I yearned to retrieve all that creativity I felt I lost.  To that end, I also knew that uncertainty, as anxiety producing as it was for me,  is  the natural beginning of all creative acts, a primal state of pure energy, a very fertile time.

It’s been an emotional roller coaster, but I buckled in for the ride. As I wrote in Overcoming Underearning: “When you learn to face that which makes you fearful, it need never control you again.” I genuinely believe that!

Check back tomorrow for Step 3 – Reassess, reevaluate….

The Beginners Guide to Surrender – Step 3

I’m here to tell you,  it’s going to be very tempting to jump into idle distractions–like going on a shopping spree or planning an ambitious project—anything to avoid those difficult feelings. What I did, when I found myself looking for excuses to escape (ok, I admit I fell off the wagon a few times), was to throw myself into Step #3.

 

Step #3—Reassess, reevaluate

The first question most people ask themselves, when facing uncertainty, is: what should I do? I’m here to tell you, that’s the LAST question to pose.  The first questions should always be: What do I need to  let go of? Where am I giving my power away? A big piece of surrender is letting go of what’s holding us back, reclaiming our power. How do you know what needs to go? Whatever you’re most afraid to release.

For me, I was willing to let go of writing, speaking, my business in general, my identity in particular….I was willing to make space for whatever was to come next.

I used the time to ask myself questions: What am I here to do? How do I want to live? Who do I desire to help? Where do I want to make a difference?

I journaled, meditated, read A Course in Miracles, joined a master mind group, processed my insights daily with friends.

Self reflection became my major focus.

Coming up – the result of my self reflection.

Good News about Women and Power…It’s Fun!

You can’t imagine how much I’m learning from my interviews with women making millions. These conversations have been about far more than money.

These women are showing me a new, distinctly feminine paradigm of power.Good News about Women and Power…It’s Fun!

These women are creating wealth and wielding clout on their own terms, in a decidedly womanly way.

These women have figured out how to ‘play with the big boys’, make the big bucks, all without pursuing the top-down, male-model of control, domination, and self aggrandizement.

These feminine pioneers of power are achieving extraordinary success, based on qualities that come naturally to women—partnering, nurturing, collaborating, empowering, helping others—and working toward goals that genuinely inspire them. Instead of playing like a man, they realized that they could change the rules to correspond to their values.

The late NY Congresswoman Bella Abzug, once said, “In the twenty-first century, women will change the nature of power rather than power changing the nature of women.” That’s precisely what’s happening.

“Men see power as an end. Power exists to have power”, explained Kaye Fittes, in an article on internet site Nightengale.com. “For women, power is a means to an end. To embrace power, women must see what good can come out of it.”

In other words, while men covet the cachet of the corner office, women crave the chance to make a difference.

That distinction is critical. The women I interviewed recognized that making millions was not an end, but a means, a tool for creating the life they wanted to live, becoming all they were meant to be, and making a difference in areas they deeply cared about. For them, the goal wasn’t to rival Bill Gates, but to build their own creative muscles and, in turn, benefit others, in the most meaningful, authentic, and lucrative way they can.

During our interview, Cynthia Good, co- founder of Pink Magazine, herself a woman making millions, beautifully described this phenomenon. “I have a visual of business women as race horses lined up behind the gates, ready to take off, and not just take off, but do it on their own terms by being fully themselves. That is the big difference, and that is why they want to take off, because for the first time, it’s fun because we can be who we are.”

Are you having fun yet???

How Powerful are You?

Not long ago, BusinessWeek ran a cover story on Women and Power. They featured a series of women that ran the gamut of economic status and job titles. It immediately reminded me of an important lesson I learned from successful women:

Money does not give us power

Power comes from the choices we make. That’s a very important distinction. Not all high earners are powerful women.

In my research, successful women fell into two groups. The Successful High Earners and the Hard-driven High Earners.

The Hard-driven ones are  superwomen on steroids, classic workaholics.  They are NOT powerful women. In fact, they have more in common with underearners than their higher paid peers. They live in deprivation…not necessarily money, but time, joy, freedom, and control of their life. They feel trapped, often by the money itself.

You know what makes Successful High Earners so powerful? Conscious choices based on self awareness. Most of these women actually take time to for self reflection, to figure out what was really important to them.  Their decisions are based, not on fear, but on their priorities, their most cherished values.

One of the most poignant examples was a woman who went to a workshop where she was asked this question: If you were on your deathbed, looking back at your life, what would make you feel happiest and satisfied with how you lived?  From that came a list of her top 5 priorities. Soon after, she was asked to be on the board of a business start-up in China. The meetings would be all expense paid weekends in SF. There was a time she would’ve jumped at the chance, but, she realized, Chinese business wasn’t one of her priorities.

“It would’ve been fun,” she told me. “I would’ve met interesting people, but it would’ve taken me away from my partner, the book I was writing, all those things that are really important.”

Spoken by a truly powerful woman. How about you? If you were on your deathbed, looking back at your life, what would make you feel happiest and satisfied with how you lived? When was the last time you identified your top priorities, your deepest values? More importantly, are you living them now?

Meet Barbara Huson

When a devastating financial crisis rocked her world, Barbara Huson knew she had to get smart about money… and she did. Now, she wants to empower every women to take charge of their money and take charge of their lives! She’s doing just that with her best-selling books, life changing retreats and private financial coaching.

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