I have an AWESOME resource for women who want to change their financial future for the better.
A few weeks ago, I spoke with Ginita Wall and Candace Bahr, two powerhouses when it comes to expertise on helping women achieve financial independence. Ginita is a financial expert, advisor and columnist for the likes of iVillage, CNBC.com, Cox Interactive Media, and Divorce Magazine. Candace is co-founder of Bahr Investment Group and has been named one of the Top 10 Brokers in the Country by one of the top industry magazines.
I’m just tellin’ ya, these ladies know their stuff. And, the mission they hold close to their hearts is giving women the education and resources they need to be financially independent. Their tagline, which I LOVE, is ‘A Man Is Not A Financial Plan’. And they put their money, time and considerable expertise where their mouths are.
Enter the Women’s Institute For Financial Education (WIFE.org) and The Money Clubs. Candace and Ginita started WIFE 20 years ago and the site is a wealth of information on financial issues of all kinds: Investments and Savings, Retirement, Budgets, Family Planning etc. They have all kinds of simple financial decision making tools and calculators. Their site is sooo worth checking out.
And, one of the most helpful and unusual things they offer through WIFE is something called Second Saturdays. Second Saturdays are workshops designed to empower women who are in any stage of the divorce process. There are currently 15 of these workshops held regularly around the country so there may be one close to you. Not a pleasant subject obviously, but Candace and Ginita know that all too often women come out of a divorce in much worse shape than they would have had they had some support and advocacy in that process. Second Saturdays give women what they need to come out of a divorce in as financially healthy a state as possible.
Ginita and Candace also formed The Money Club to give women like you and me all the information, resources, and support they need to form and operate groups (could be friends or family) whose goal is to improve the financial health of its members. There are already 500 of these clubs across the country.
The Money Club offers 21 day makeovers for getting out of debt and boosting your savings. As Ginita and Candace wisely point out, taking a small step every day adds up to a big success. With that in mind, the 21 day programs give you one thing to do every day that will lead you to your financial goals.
This wealth of information and resources is a labor of love for Ginita and Candace. WIFE is a non-profit organization and any money made out of these activities goes back in to support their mission. Their WIFE newsletter goes to 50,000 women a month so you know it is making an impact.
I encourage you to go to their sites and choose one resource for yourself or a friend that will make a difference in your respective financial lives.
I know some of you may be skeptical about the idea of finding friends or creating a sense of community out there in Cyberland. What kind of friend could I possibly meet on my computer, you might ask. If that would be you, I know from whence you come. If you’d asked me about that a few years ago I would have been a little dubious myself. But, I have to tell you, I’m becoming a Believer.
I just spent a weekend in Detroit meeting my gracious and lovely friend Karen from the wonderful midlife coaching site, Midlife’s a Trip. It was kinda like online dating only for friends. That’s a dynamic that consists of: meet someone, exchange a few emails, find yourself getting curiouser and curiouser, have some phone calls, let yourself begin to think this has some possibilities and then, gulp, decide to meet. It’s always up in the air isn’t it, whether the chemistry will exist face to face or not.
Any concerns I might have had about flying across the country to meet Karen, and any concerns she may have had about inviting pretty much a stranger to stay in her charming home for a weekend were laid to rest with that first hug at the airport. We confirmed what we had suspected, that, in the vastness of Cyberland, we had each discovered a kindred spirit.
We spent a delightful few days together scoping out Detroit’s DreamCruise, visiting the zoo (how FUN was that, when did you last hang out at a good zoo?), looking at fabric samples for Karen’s office makeover, drinking white Sangria with Brazilian tapas, and sharing lots about ourselves, our hopes and dreams for this midlife trip we’re on. We even managed to create a video together:
I’m discovering that through visiting and reading other women’s blogs on Blogher and Midlifebloggers.com, and having them stop by to comment on my blog, I’m getting to know them in a way that feels so real to me. I kinda know what’s going on with them, I know what keeps them up at night, I know how they think about things….it’s not so different really than finding a new friend anywhere else.
Y’all, I get it! And, I’m busily planning what we’ll do when Karen comes to visit me in Texas! And, am looking forward with enthusiasm to continuing to cultivat my community of online friends!
WomenBloom has been getting some good press lately in some regional media outlets. The most recent is a cover story on our local CBS affiliate, KEYE TV, Women Now Have Their Own Midlife Website.
Of course, I’m happy about getting more visibility for what I hope is a great resource for women in their mid 40s to mid 60s. But, what also makes me even happier is doing my little part to change the way society sees, I guess I’ll say it, middle-aged women.
And, maybe the way we see ourselves.
I mean, why the heck should just the term ‘middle-aged’ make us wince? I mean why??? Well, I suspect it’s because we buy into this image of a tired, rapidly going over the hill, hormonal, dowdy woman. No NO NOOO! Not to say we aren’t sometimes tired or consumed by hot flashes, or uncertain what to wear, but we are so much more than the sum of our temperature, our age, and our dress size. We just have to believe that.
Being the first generation of women to enter the workforce in great numbers in history, we know a freakin’ lot of stuff. We are more well-rounded and seasoned than any group of women before us. Personally, WomenBloom has given me the chance to focus everything I’ve learned about communication, marketing, writing, evangelizing, technology, business, and people dynamics in one project. And, I’ve been pleasantly shocked at just how much I know.
And, I’m pretty certain that I am typical. Not in the particular combination of things I know, but I bet a dime to a doughnut hole (what does that MEAN?) that the rest of you out there would be equally astonished if you stopped to take inventory of yourselves. Really, just think about your Mom….then think about you. See what I mean? Our Moms, God love them all, lived in a different time and place.
So, one of my goals with WomenBloom is to help change the way society sees us. And, true to Gandhi’s words, we have to be that change. We need to believe in ourselves and be confident in our experience and wisdom before the rest of society will believe.
Goodness knows the world needs a big dose of what we have. Knowledge, experience, some wisdom for heavens’ sake, and a feminine perspective. The guys have had the run of the planet now for quite a while and I don’t know about you, but I think we could do with giving the girls some time on the field!
So, do me a favor and stop for a few moments to reflect on the gifts and talents you bring to the world. Then, look in the mirror, I mean look deep into your eyes, and say to that lovely woman, “Girl, you are a special creation with an abundance of gifts and talents. I love and acknowledge you.”
And then, think of one way today you can bring more of that self to the world.
Today, I’m so pleased to have as a guest blogger Marilyn Kentz, co-author of a beautiful book highlighting women full and strong in midlife, called Fearless Women: Midlife Portraits. Marilyn and her writing partner, Nancy Alspaugh, have also written a book called Not Your Mother’s Midlife: a Ten-Step Guide to Fearless Aging. These ladies have done some thinkin’ about this midlife journey we’re on. And, they have some interesting things to say!
Every 7 minutes, one of us will turn 50. That means that within the time it takes you to shower, blow dry what’s left of your hair and pluck the one on your chin, 5 more women will be looking at the maturing reflection in their mirrors and asking themselves, “Good God, when did that happen?” And that’s just the first glance. Added to our physical adjustments are some true challenges that plop right into our ample laps during our middle years - like losing our parents, our jobs, and our sex drive (well, maybe just the married ones). There are 38 million baby boomer women pioneering their way through this new version of growing old. It’s NOT your mother’s midlife. We are in uncharted territory. Thanks to modern science, 20 more years have been added to our lifespan and they’ve been added to the middle! Our new battle cry has become “50 is the new 40.” And some of the more optimistic claim it’s the new 30. Yeah, 30 with arthritis! The challenge becomes how to make those extra years more enjoyable and meaningful.
So how do we find balance in our lives while trying to keep the youthful glow, fighting off lethargy, taking care of mom and dad and, finally, getting that bunion surgery in the name of cute shoes? Our girlfriends! Thank God for our sisters. They are the ones who will laugh with us and cry with us when things get out of hand. They are the ones who come running over with a bottle of wine to commiserate about what a jerk our ex is.
But how often can we get together to talk about all the challenges that come with this new passage? We need each other much more often than our penciled-in catch-up dinners or emergency crying jags. In today’s world, the ways we communicate, and the frequency in which we do, have dramatically changed compared with our mothers’ day. While the majority of us have cell phones and e-mail to keep us connected no matter where we move - or even while on vacation for that matter - and the Internet keeps us updated, these modern conveniences have also diminished that important face-to-face time together.
We work more than our mothers did at our age. We watch cable television instead of sitting on the front porch and chatting with neighbors. When was the last time you quilted? Okay, maybe that’s a bit much, but did you know that socialization has been on a steady decline since its peak in the 1960s? Our parents’ generation averaged 12 dinner parties a year. That’s once a month of cocktail dresses and sit down dinners. Remember the popular backyard luau? That was just one of the many themed parties our parents conjured up on a regular basis. They also played bridge, attended church, joined in weekly family meals with their own parents and went on picnics - yes, picnics — many times throughout the year. In their generation, neighbors truly knew and depended on one another. The idea of growing old using cable TV as our best friend and benchmark is not all that gratifying and cannot give us the kind of support we need.
Believe it or not, Oprah is just not enough.
Make a regular “date night” with a few close friends either weekly or once a month. Make sure everyone gets at least 15 to 20 minutes to talk, don’t start drinking until after everyone has “checked in” and you will find the rewards to be wonderfully fulfilling.
Have you ever noticed how some people just seem to go with the flow of life, good and bad? And other folks just seem to take (or make) everything harder, having a difficult time dealing with the challenges life throws their way? It’s quite an interesting conundrum, to consider why people fall into one category or the other.
Resiliency is a term I’ve heard used to describe this phenomenon. It refers to a person’s ability to roll with life’s punches, to surrender and accept what is and work with it rather than getting stuck on how they wish things were, or more importantly, denying reality altogether. Those last approaches don’t seem to change anything and they divert valuable energy to resistance rather than moving through and past the issue.
I’ve pondered this quite a bit and have concluded that ‘surrender and acceptance’ is key to cultivating a resilient habit of mind.
I have a friend from long ago who makes Job’s trials and tribulations look like an all-inclusive resort stay at a 5 star hotel in Cancun. I mean, between an abusive husband, precarious finances, towering debt and no job, bitter divorce, and much more, she would certainly have had every reason in the world to lapse into a depressive coma and stay there for the rest of her life.
But amazingly, she has a remarkable outlook on life. Maybe it’s just a case of when so many things are so bad, you begin to get grateful for the smallest of things because you know how very bad it COULD be. I don’t know, but I do know that now things have evened out a bit for her it’s pretty hard these days to faze her with anything.
And, I’ve noticed that she is pretty frictionless when it comes to accepting the ‘what is’ of life. After the initial realization of an ugly situation, she simply refuses to spend emotional energy on fighting the reality of it. She just says, ‘OK this sucks BIG TIME, but it is what it is…now what am I going to do with it?’
I think as we get older resiliency is an incredibly important quality to have. I’ve noticed that older people who don’t have it seem to get brittle, and bitter. It seems to me that all the things we do not accept and resolve—the things we don’t say, the resentments that build up, the unhealthy relationships we don’t address, the boundaries we don’t set– gradually build over the years until they simply collapse on themselves, often spectacularly, in a painful way that seems to drag out forever. I’ve observed this a number of times, and it’s a terrible thing to watch.
The good news is I believe resiliency is a habit of mind that can be developed over time. The bad news is, like working out physically, you can’t suddenly get down and do 100 push ups one day if you’ve been a couch potato for years. It takes exercising that resiliency muscle.
Some books that have helped me tremendously in this department are, first, the old stand by, The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck. This was popular back in the 80s but many of his points have stuck with me all these years. Another is Conversations With God by Neale Donald Walsch. Be forewarned: this one challenges a lot of mainstream religious (but not spiritual) beliefs and in fact, pegs some of them as the source for a lot of our pain. But, it has been the single most influential set of ideas for me in developing my resiliency habit. It incorporates a lot of what we know about quantum physics and ties it in with spirituality. Another that I’ve heard wonderful things about is Rabbi Harold Kushner’s book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People.
This is a very big topic but this is enough for one day.
I’m not sure who said this, but it seems to tie the resiliency concept up in a nice box and bow: ‘pain is inevitable, suffering is optional’.
Do you remember summers as a kid? I mean, the smells, the sounds, the FEEL, the deep in your bones FEEL, of summer when you were about 8? Did I ever have a powerful moment this morning that transported me back almost instantly to Blackwell, Oklahoma where I spent some of my childhood.
I was walking my precious pooch this morning. If you haven’t heard, Texas has been in an unprecedented heat wave and drought. So it was drenchingly hot, and the grass, bushes and trees are as brown and crunchy as if it were end of September rather than end of July. Cooper and I walked through the nearby park which has a city pool just for little kiddos. Coop immediately began slooowwwly stalking a squirrel as we walked past. The pool was closed but suddenly the smell of chlorine and water and heat slammed my nose. Suddenly I could experience in every cell of my body the hot summers of my youth.
That lazy, deliciously monotonous, nothing to do kind of feeling of waking up on an already hot summer morning. The cicadas’ incessant, droning sound already buzzing in the thick summer air. Moving slowly, trying unsuccessfully not to break a sweat. Sitting idly, spinning all kinds of daydreams in the shade while picking at what was left of the grass. Unhurriedly pedaling our bikes all over town, to Western Auto to dream over the bikes in the display, to Ben Franklin to buy some Sixlets, Bit O’ Honeys, or Black Cows.
Watching and annoying the occasional horny toad (alas, disappeared now it would seem). Splashing and screaming wildly in the overly chlorinated, cloudy water at the pool, the smell of cooking Coppertoned bodies wafting through the steaming air. Stopping at Ellis’s Igloo for one of their incredibly sweet, fizzy coke slushes. Reading with red, burning eyes in my steamy, shady room with the windows open and the fan merely rearranging the hot, heavy air. The leaves of the trees whispering faintly in the breeze outside.
Going out after supper to ride bikes a little more before throwing our smelly, sweaty kid bodies down in someone’s yard as the dusk settled in. Breathlessly, watching the fireflies appearing one by one in the dimness, like fairies magically coming to life. Avoiding our mother’s yells for as long as possible before glumly heading home past the street light on the corner. Taking a quick, cool bath before turning back the sheets and reading some more.
Then, deep, untroubled, refreshing sleep.
These past few weeks, I have been wanting to take a day or two off just to put myself back in that summertime. A time before adult pressures, before the endless wants of our consumerist lives, when just riding my gold Western Auto bike with the banana seat made me feel rich. When capturing fireflies in jars to figure out, with little success, the secret of their greeny-gold luminosity, was all-absorbing.
I want to recapture that childlike wonder, the wonder of summer.
I met last week with Sara Canaday, principal consultant for Empowerment Enterprises. Sara is a consultant who helps people reach their full potential by helping them polish their professional image. If there is a woman on earth who looks and acts more professional and polished than Sara, I would like to know who she is! It was enough to make me realize my slacks were too loose and my hair a little flat (it was a rainy day, OK??). Frankly, it was a little intimidating.
And, especially because, even though I like to look professional, I also push back a little with people judging me by my appearance and dress. I dress more on the informal side and it does rub me the wrong way to think that people judge my capabilities by my appearance. But, I’m also absolutely certain that I got a ‘lucky break’ job a few years ago even though I didn’t strictly have the ‘experience’, mostly because I dressed in a very sharp suit that was definitely a cut above the competition.
So there ya go. Let’s say that while I may be grumbling in my head, I recognize the necessity of adapting to the reality of how we humans operate.
And, Sara, being the consummate professional she is, is also quite good at putting people at their ease. We talked about women in midlife and how important it is as we age to make sure we aren’t letting our appearance and demeanor make us look tired, outdated or out of touch. After all, we are competing for jobs with a lot of young whippersnappers and we don’t want anyone to use our favorite shoulder-padded jacket from 1984 or our Saturday Night Fever highly permed hair as an excuse not to hire or promote us.
Sara is a wonderful resource and WomenBloom will be publishing an article on our conversation shortly. But she put me on to such a great little resource that I wanted to share it right away. Ever been confused about what ‘business casual’ means? Or whether pantyhose are absolutely necessary or not? Or wanted to master how to create a number of outfits from just a few basic pieces?
Casual Power is your ticket then. This book was written by Sherry Maysonave, Founder of Empowerment Enterprises, which is a leading communication-image firm of which Sara is part. This book has great illustrations that take the mystery out of mix and match. I was shocked and awed at how many outfits you could pull together from a handful of basic jackets, blouses, accessories, pants and skirts. Really.
The book also covers things like what kind of jewelry best complements your face shape, how to use color effectively, and shows the basics of assembling what she calls wardrobe ‘capsules’.
It also has an interesting little survey you can take to measure how much ‘casual power’ you have. For example, Do your compliments come from people in positions that you aspire to? Or, Are you offered jobs or promotions in the industry or departments you desire to work in? And so on. Hmmm, it did open my eyes to a few things.
So, go forth wardrobe confused no longer, and stay tuned for our upcoming article with Sara.
I’ve had two conversations lately with a couple of experts in the employment industry around the subject of Personal Branding and just how critical it is to do it well these days. I first heard about this concept several few years ago, and even if you’ve heard of it, it’s well worth re-visiting. The hunt for a job these days is a sales and marketing campaign for You Inc. What does that mean?
Branding is how you differentiate your product or service from everyone else’s. Personal branding is the same. Think of Oprah for example. What do you think of when you think of her? Inspirational, successful, the high road of media, philanthropic? You immediately have a very strong image of what she stands for because she has a very distinctive personal brand.
For us midlifers, knowing your own brand is more important today than it ever has been. The rules have changed and the days of simply showing up, doing your job, and assuming you’ll always have that job if you want it are rapidly disappearing. We are competing for jobs with younger folks and people across the globe. Companies are under a lot of competitive pressure and are laying off. Often, older workers are the first casualties. Many of us want, or need, to work far beyond the traditional retirement age.
In this climate, being passive about your job and looking to your employer to guide you is not nearly enough according to those ‘in the know’. Those who fare best are those who are proactive and think of themselves as their own business even if they are someone else’s employee. It’s about You, Inc.
These folks understand what their core competencies are. They know the trends in their industry and they are aware of the factors driving the changes in it that could affect their ‘business’. They are looking ahead to see what adjustments they need to make to adapt. They think beyond a job description to understand the role they can best play in an organization.
Here are some helpful questions for getting a handle on your personal brand.
What are the things I do better than anyone else? What makes me stand out when compared with others? What parts of my work history have I enjoyed the most? What products or services do I ‘sell’ currently? What are the changes in my company/my industry that could affect me/my job? What new ‘products and services’ do I need to add to my repertoire to adapt to those changes? What is the next level of skill sets I need to develop to deliver those ‘products and services’?
Have some fun with this! Imagine you’re You Inc.’s VP of Marketing and, like Oprah, that you want us all to have an instant understanding about you when we think of you. What would it be??
When I first started thinking about doing Womenbloom, I just thought, oh how fun, I can do some writing, snoop around for all kinds of useful information and resources, and meet some cool women. I really didn’t think about going swimming in the deep end of the social media pool. I was thinking, like, splashing in those little plastic pools you see in people’s backyards.
Social media is a term that speaks to the tools that facilitate the growing interactivity of the web, like this blog for example. You know, we used to just look at brochures masquerading as websites. They were mostly static content that you read but there was no question of adding your opinion or view to the mix. Now we have blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, cell phones with pretty darned good photo and video sharing capabilities, Twittering and Plurking (back to this in a minute for those of you who don’t have a clue about this), Angie’s list and a million other things. Commenting, reviewing, creating and discussing on the web are becoming second nature.
I went to SXSW Interactive this spring, the second day of which the top of my head blew off because it was way too much information on and too many 20 somethings attached to their technology. But, I eventually recovered and, being a glutton for punishment, finally decided to venture out to one of the Austin Social Media Club’s monthly meetings. Being without my own teenager, I thought maybe some of the youngsters in there would be handy for this 50 year old woman to know. As it so happened I was on their mailing list so I attended a workshop the following morning on using some of the above tools. HELLOA!
I am likely stating the obvious here when I say our world is rapidly changing, Gentle Readers. The people who hang at SXSW and at the Social Media Club are on the bleeding edge of the newest technologies. They are harbingers of what will eventually trickle down to the rest of us.
There is no reason you would know this about me but I’m a human systems (fancy term for how groups of people, small and large, behave, evolve and change) nerd. Really love it. Now I’ve spent a bit of time in their presence the human systems person in me realizes, I mean it’s TRULY dawning on me, that these tools have the potential to profoundly shift the power in our society. Politicians, corporations, and generally those who have held the reins of power, been able to operate in secrecy, and/or ‘manage the message’ have the potential to lose their Secret Invisibility Cloaks.
There are now tools where people in a crowd can exchange their opinions with many others in the same crowd about (and potentially disrupt) a speaker or event as it’s happening, in real time. I’ve seen it in action, disrupting carefully planned out presentations and events.
My new social media friends were telling me about a certain Congressman who has embraced this brave new world and now Twitters (a micro-blogging tool that allows people to tell anyone who cares what they are doing moment to moment) with his constituents from the floor of the House of Representatives. It would likely be no surprise to you that there is discussion among our honorable elected officials to ban this kind of thing from the hallowed halls. A little too close for comfort I suppose.
Think about that. So, if our duly elected officials are trying to pass a dubious bill, those comfortable with these technologies alert their many could flood their Congresspeeps’ offices immediately to tell them they had better not, rather than reading about it in the paper a week or two later (if we’re lucky), after the horse has bolted out the barn. They don’t have to accept the ‘official line’ if there are people in the landscape who are disseminating information as things happen.
These tools mean people can self-organize and mobilize VERY QUICKLY. And, these folks now have a strong expectation of being able to put their two cents’ worth in, not just listen to a talking head. These natives get restless when they don’t get to do that.
There is a lot of power in that. For good and for bad, I suppose. Maybe this is obvious to you, but seeing it all in action among a group of very savvy folks suddenly woke me up to realize what’s possible.
Oh, and for inquiring minds who want to know, Plurking is like Twitter on steroids.
As I approached my 50th year, my mid life crisis began. It was a good thing, it lit a fire. I have lots of good years left but no time to waste! I made some dramatic changes that included creating WomenBloom, a website and online community for women in mid-life. My goal with this blog is to create a kind of bazaar for ideas, items, people, conversations, and resources that we can use to make the most of middle age!
