dare to dream

Artist My 'I' Likes: Jane Maxwell

My friend Liz and I discovered the artist Jane Maxwell at an art gallery in Boston a few summers ago.

Some of you are going to love her work as much as I do. Which means that when I'm ready to buy a piece the price will be even higher.

But I just wanted to share.

Of my favorites, the first is 'Walking Girls'.

'Pick your Fruit' reminds me of of a photo I have of my mother who modeled in San Francisco in the early 1960's; I also remember going to orchards to pick apricots with her as a child.

Though I've read Ms. Maxwell's statement, her work has a slightly different meaning for me (as it well may for you). I see a both/and -- the connecting and caring that is symbolized by the fruit labels/the farmer's market -- and the 'I or identity piece of ourselves that I see in the stance of the women -- at least in the images that I like.

Bottom line -- I'm not quite sure why I love her artwork so much.

Isn't it usually that way?

We discover art, we love it, and only later we come to see how the art has named for us something that we somehow couldn't.

What is your response?

Do you like, dislike, love, hate -- or are you indifferent to her work?

What meaning do you make?

Related posts:

Blog I Like: Portabellopixie
Affirming our 'I'dentity
Farmer's market metaphor
Dreaming or deflecting?

dare to dreamgirl: Maria Carr

Say hello to dare to dreamgirl Maria Carr.

There are so many things I could say, but probably best if I introduce you to her briefly, and then let Maria tell you her story in her own words. 

Maria came to the U.S.  as a young girl - she and her family were refugees from Castro's Cuba.   She has been an actress all of her adult life, and long held the dream of having her own television show.

And now she does.

If you click either here or on the banner below, Maria shares with us her feelings just after At Home with Maria had debuted.

In her blog post Dreams and Cliff Jumping, Maria shares that after months of planning and years of preparation, she just wasn't sure she wanted to do this television show anymore.

Finally, you can watch and listen to Maria on air.

Have you had the experience similar to Maria's?  After years of preparation, you were ready to make your dream happen, and then you weren't so sure you wanted it anymore?  Or it didn't turn out as you had expected?

Will you head over to her blog and tell her Atta Girl?

Will kirtsy please take a bow?

Within days of writing about Rick Riordan's Golden Fleece, I heard from Gabrielle, one of sk*rt's founders (aka Design Mom), that sk*rt could be sued for alleged trademark infringement, and would need to spend a lot of money on a legal battle royale, or change their name.

In Gabrielle's words:

Last September, Skirt! Magazine (a free monthly newspaper in the SouthEast) switched their domain name from skirtmag.com to skirt.com. Months and months after we’d already launched. And now that they’re at skirt.com, they feel our twinner domain names are too similar. So they sued us in December. And we won. But they keep the lawsuit threats coming anyway. So, we have decided to change our name and move on. Why fight an enormous corporation with deep pockets and a penchant for sueing tiny companies? And. We don’t believe in skirts fighting. The end.

So this past week, sk*rt changed its name to kirtsy, and the process by which it was done has been remarkably systergistic.

Quoting again from Gabrielle:

[kirtsy is] a name that many many many voted for. A name whose solid domain we own. A name that won all legal obstacle courses with flying colors. A name that contains the letters of our beloved sk*rt and its sk*rty adjectival format. A name that means giving greeting, nods, props and respect to something. A name that we now know as kirtsy.

Having recently met kirtsy's Gabrielle, Laura and Laurie, I wasn't at all surprised by the approach they've taken.

I was nonetheless impressed by their textbook 'fleece gathering', the second of Psyche's four tasks.

As Psyche embarks on her journey to really grow up, her second task requires that she gather fleece, fleece that has the power to heal. And yet to obtain the fleece she must wait until sundown when the rams disperse so as to safely pick strands of fleece off the brambles, else she will be crushed by the head-butting rams.

Psyche’s ability to acquire the golden fleece without being crushed is a metaphor for every woman’s task of gaining power without losing her innate sense of connectedness and compassion.

The kirtsy ladies could could have engaged in head-butting, and in fact were encouraged to, but instead chose to gather the fleece from the brambles, to get things done in a way that gives life to and revitalizes others. 

Which is why I can't help but kirtsy to you -- Gabrielle, Laura and Laurie.

Won't you please take a bow?

If you have a blog, or website, have you properly trademarked the name? If you need me to refer you to someone that can do this for you, e-mail me and I'll give you some names.

Did you notice that notwithstanding their getting the name trademarked, etc, even so there was a lawsuit. One of the hazards of getting in the game perhaps?

What can we learn about how the kirtsy founders went about choosing a new name? Did you notice how in involving the community, they gave us an opportunity to rally, to experience systergy?

What else is there to learn from the kirtsy -- aka Psyche -- way of doing business?

P.S. For more on the importance of -- and how to - on trademarking, see Green and Clean Mom's post on this topic.

Related posts:
Rick Riordan's 'Golden Fleece'
Myth of Psyche
Second thoughts on Psyche's 2nd task
The hazards of 'getting in the game'
Site I like: kirtsy (formerly known as sk*rt)

Lessons learned from Katie Couric

If successful women build portable skills, and if journalistic chops like those of Katie Couric are ostensibly portable, why has her stint at CBS been such a debacle?

And within the context of 'daring to dream', is there a lesson to be learned?

As we try and answer this question, there's a framework known as jobs to be done developed by Professor Clayton M. Christensen that I think can be useful.  Rather than trying to understand the typical viewer's characteristics (age, gender, for example), the 'jobs to be done' framework focuses instead on what job a viewer needs done or what problem she needs solved, and who or what can she hire to do that job.

For example, in Caitlin Flanagan's piece A Woman's Place - Katie Couric's Long Day's Journey into Evening, Flanagan writes that the job that women with small children need done on weekday mornings is "adult conversation".

When they tuned into Katie Couric on The Today Show, they were hiring Ms. Couric to help fill the time during "one of the most psychologically complex and lonely--and most emotionally fulfilling--times of their lives; their tenure as mothers to small children."

However, the very same women (the "typical viewer") who had hired Ms. Couric in the mornings who have nothing but time, time that must be filled, endured, killed -- is the person who is in a race against the clock by early evening...

At nine o’clock in the morning, Katie was the personification of The Today Show in its perfected form: not just a television program, but a cheery marker of time, a blessed imposition of structure and order on the disquieting entropy of life at home with children.  But at 6:30 in the evening, she’s a drag....Just one more person who wants something from you...nagging you to be interested—really, really interested—in Anbar province.

The problem that stay-at-home moms with small children need solved (not enough time, too much conversation) in the evening is diametrically opposed to the problem they need solved (too much time, not enough adult conversation) in the morning.

Katie Couric was the right person to solve the morning problem.

At night she has been all wrong.

We can learn some great lessons from Ms. Couric's career.  For example:

When you or I are thinking about starting a new business (whether an Etsy shop or large corporation) or a new job, what problem will we be helping people solve? What job will they be hiring our product to do?

Does the problem that we want to solve for people play to our strengths? If not, is there a job that needs to be done that does?

What do you do if there's a mismatch between the job you were hired to do and the job you want to do?

In your relationships, what job are your loved ones hiring you to do?  And you them?

P.S.  Thanks to Whitney Clayton for passing along Caitlin Flanagan's piece which, in turn, inspired this post.

Related posts:

Now the News -- Couric Still Isn't One of the Boys

HBR's Star Women Build Portable Skills

Play to your strengths

What is your dream?

Asking and answering the big questions

The Galadriel test

Whether it's because of Hillary Clinton's candidacy, or because I recently saw Wicked, possibly both, I've been thinking a lot about women and power.

Not so much about the 'why's' and 'what it looks like' which Psyche's 2nd task addresses...

But rather, what do we as women do, when we have power, as did Glinda the Good, and Leah's sister Rachel?

As we learn from The Lord of the Rings, the Ring itself symbolizing power -- no matter how much we may desire to do good, once we have the power to do good, this power can corrupt us.

For example, do you remember when Frodo, encouraged by Lady Galadriel's goodness and wisdom, offers her the Ring?

She wants to accept it, oh, how she wants it, saying:

"I do not deny that my heart has greatly desired to ask what you offer.
And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely!
In place of a Dark Lord you will set up a Queen.
And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night!
Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning!
Stronger than the foundations of the earth.
All shall love me and despair!

Galadriel then lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore and stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful.

Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.

'I pass the test,' she said."

When we believe we are Rachel, and we all do in some contexts, what do we do with the power that redounds to us? How do we safeguard ourselves from corruption?

For women that are mothers and/or teachers, haven't we had the opportunity to make those in our care worship us? To love us and despair! All mothers and teachers have this power. How do we wield it?

How does the power handed to us change as we move from our 20's to our 30's, 40's to our 50's to our 60's?

Did Glinda the Good's power corrupt her? How?

Following up on Stacey P's comments regarding the double entendre in the lyrics 'For Good', does the power we wield change people for the better, or just 'for good'?

When was your last Galadriel test?

How did you do?

Why I liked Wicked

It's been nearly three years since my friend Vanessa introduced me to the music of Wicked, a prequel to The Wizard of Oz about two young witches, Elphaba and Glinda, who came to be the Wicked Witch of the West, and The Good Witch of the North, respectively.

I finally saw it last month; it was worth the wait.

There is so much I could say, but here are the highlights, including a special YouTube treat:

1) Elphaba = Leah. Though clearly more talented than Glinda, because no one thinks her so, except those that want to use her, Elphaba feels undervalued and isolated. What would have happened if she could have believed, and others had believed, especially her parents and teachers, that she was Rachel? Would she have become The Wicked Witch of the West? Likely not.

Do we as parents, teachers, friends, family ever contribute to those in our care believing they are Leah?

2) Glinda = Rachel. I often talk of remembering we are Rachel, yet Wicked taught me that there are women who happily haven't forgotten. It also prompted the realization that just as Leah has her light side (stretching and striving), there can be a dark side to Rachel (being corrupted by the power and privilege that redounds to Rachel).

When in a situation in which we are beloved, as was Glinda the Good Witch, do we ever pull a Popular? Do we become so enamored with the fairy godmother persona that we inadvertently demean others? Can we guard against this corruption?

3) For Good, which celebrates the friendship of Elphaba and Glinda, could also be a systergy anthem. Listen to the lyrics as Kristen Chenoweth and Idina Menzel, the original stars, rehearse; I'll be curious to hear if you agree.

Who has changed your life for good? Have you seen Wicked? What were your highlights?

Why we are skeptical of Hillary Clinton

When I read Katharine Seelye's NY Times article titled, Women Supportive of Clinton, But Skeptical, I found myself wondering....

Why?

Why do so many want to want to vote for Hillary Clinton, but won't?

Is it a question of competence?

Most would agree she's quite capable. So -- No.

Is it because we don't agree with her politics?

Within a few seconds, I rattled off the names of several women for whom I would vote despite our differing political views. So again -- No.

If it's neither a question of competence, nor of political views, then why are we skeptical?

1) We don't identify with Senator Clinton's hero's journey -- As with Katie Couric, there's an archetypal mismatch, though for an entirely different reason.

While we don't doubt that Senator Clinton can successfully take on Psyche's four overwhelmingly difficult tasks, it feels like she's taking on the adventure for herself, not for us. That she's ready and willing to do some genuine head-butting, rather than to wait and pick up the fleece off the fence once the rams have gone home. In other words, she seems to want power, not for us, but for her. That's not the female hero's journey that resonates with us, so we can't quite get comfortable.

Ok, she's not perfect, but isn't there a double standard here?

Absolutely.

Most of us feel quite comfortable if men are ambitious and even a little bit 'naughty' -- after all, 'boys will be boys' (remember Arnold Schwarzenegger smoking his cigar in the tent near his office), but with women....

2) We want a fairy godmother -- The Princess Diaries, provides a great look at this archetype. The film stars Julie Andrews as Queen Clarisse (for anyone over the age of 40, she is the practically perfect fairy godmother Mary Poppins) preparing her granddaughter Princess Mia, played by Anne Hathaway, to ascend to the throne of the imaginary kingdom Genovia.

Princess Mia is qualified to be a princess because she's "bright, sensitive and caring," says Queen Clarisse. (Imagine Senator Clinton, let alone the male presidential candidates, described as such!) Further reinforcing the fairy godmother archetype, Queen Clarisse sings to Princess Mia:

When they tell your story,
They'll call your heart of gold your crowning glory,
The most glorious part of you

In other words, inscribed in our minds and in our hearts, is the view that a woman who leads us must be smart and capable, and most especially good and kind.

That her hero's journey, no matter how difficult, is ultimately undertaken on our behalf.

And that whether Princess Mia, Mary Poppins, or Psyche -- she'll be our fairy godmother.

If you are comfortable with Hillary Clinton, what are your thoughts on archetypes? Is there one that fits?

There was an interesting article in the Australian papers not too long ago titled When one man's ambition is another woman's evil curse, comparing and contrasting how people respond to ambition in women versus men.

Given how beloved Bill Clinton is, and what I understand to be an uncanny ability to make people feel that it is all about them, could he be the key to her winning?

What are your thoughts on other presidential candidates? Which archetypes are working for or against them?

P.S. Maureen Dowd of the New York Times published an Op-Ed piece (Oct 31 2007) titled Hilary La Francaise, Cherchez la Femme? which certainly underscores the comments (see below) made by Margaret Busse and Elizabeth Harmer-Dionne. Also interesting to read Ms. Dowd's comment, "Maybe the qualities that many find off-putting in Hillary — her opportunism, her triangulation, her ethical corner-cutting, her shifting convictions from pro-war to anti-war, her secrecy, her ruthlessness — are the same ones that make people willing to vote for a woman." May this not be true.

Pop Quiz:

What percentage of dance students throughout the world are girls?

I'm going to guess 9 out of 10, or 90%.

How many of the teachers from L.A.'s inner-city schools that attended the So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD) workshop were women?

I'm estimating 7 out of 10, or 70%.

How many of the SYTYCD choreographers this season were women?

Roughly 4 out of 19, about 20%.

Of the eight choreographers invited to choose their favorite dance, how many were women?

1 in 8, or 12.5%.

Which of the dances did the judges regard as the most profoundly moving?

A dance choreographed by one of the women, Mia Michaels.

Some of you may say, Wake up Whitney, it's a man's world. Women would like to choreograph, to have a say within their professional community, but they just can't break in.

But, but, but... we're not talking about technology, we're talking about dance, a field in which women are trained to dance, to choreograph, to critique.

So I only buy part of this argument.

If we have a gift for and love to do something, and we don't pursue that something, don't we bear some responsibility for our not breaking in, breaking through, for allowing our Leah to remain in the building?

Choosing to be Rachel is not easy, at least not for me. I seem to ask Leah to leave nearly every day.

But when you and I make the choice to move away from Leah toward Rachel, just think of what we can do, what we can create, of the stories we will tell.

Stories like those told by Mia Michaels.

What do you have a gift for, that you love to do, that you aren't pursuing?

Why?

Do you really not want to, or is society telling you not to?

Writing about my heros (which you can find at the bottom of this post) was indeed revelatory. Here's why:

1) I was surprised by how much my heros have changed over time -- from Bewitched's Samantha to Peggy Noonan?

2) It was also interesting to observe that my childhood heros were imaginary. A reminder just how much children identify with the imaginary, magical world. I wonder too if I over-agonize about the quantity of television my children consume. I clearly watched television as a child, yet most would consider me a contributing member of society.

Who were your heros as a child? Who are they today? How have they changed?

2) My heros have played a greater role in who I've become than I would have predicted prior to this exercise.

Example A: The fact that I so admired Samantha and Shirley Partridge as a young girl makes it a lot less surprising that I care about mothering well, my many years of "not wanting to have kids yet" notwithstanding.

Given your current vantage point, anything about your childhood heros that surprises you?

Example B: I'm rather astonished that my interest in attending UCLA was piqued because of their cheerleaders; were it not for a providential fluke, I would be a UCLA graduate. Which leads me to wonder what other decisions I've made on the basis of who I admire. Perhaps more importantly, why did I admire them in the first place?

What about you? Any decisions that you've made that now surprise you given how little forethought went in to the decision?

Example C: If I consider a cheerleader a metaphor for a hero of support, I've observed that in some aspects of my life I've internalized this role so thoroughly, it has actually been problematic as I've pursued my career. Sometimes you can be too good at something.

3) On the premise that my childhood heros have helped shape who I've become, I am consequently hopeful that I can become like my current heros, whether Peggy Noonan, Laura Laviada, Galadriel, or India.Arie. That I can, in fact, successfully undergo Psyche's journey, learning to be the ship AND the harbor, the hero of support AND the hero.

Who are your heros today?
What do they tell you about what you are hoping to accomplish?
Who and how you want to be?

****

Below is what I wrote for Matt Langdon's Heros Interviews:

My hero as a young girl was Samantha on Bewitched. She was pert, adorable, and no matter what kind of tangle she found herself in, she could make things better with a wiggle of her nose. I also idolized Shirley Jones, who played the mother in The Partridge Family with whom I became even more enamored when I saw her as the ingénue in the film Oklahoma. As an eight year-old, it was magical to see that the same person could be a mother and ingénue.

In high school, my heros were pretty, popular, feminine cheerleaders. So much so that UCLA became my top college pick because I loved watching their song girls perform whenever they played Stanford in football (my father took us to Stanford football games every fall from the time I was 7-8 years old). Footnote: Stanford was actually my top choice, but I was on the waiting list, whereas I was accepted to UCLA.

My heros today are women who successfully embark on Psyche’s journey: they’ve learned to say no, to exercise choice, to achieve goals without throwing their caring and compassionate selves under the bus. In other words, I see all of these women as living in a both/and world.

These heros include: Peggy Noonan, a Wall Street Journal columnist who made her name as a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, Laura Laviada, the former CEO and major shareholder of Editorial Televisa, Mexico’s largest magazine publisher (and who I had the privilege of interacting with when I covered the stock Televisa (NYSE: TV), Galadriel in Lord of the Rings, and India.Arie, a musician-singer-songwriter who it would appear loves Stevie Wonder’s music even more than I do. Until very recently, I would have also included Sydney Bristow, the fictional lead in the television show Alias.

Matt Langdon over at The Hero Workshop recently interviewed me for his Hero Interviews.

He asked only two questions:

Who was your hero as a child and why?

Who are your heros today and why?

If you can believe it, I hadn't ever asked myself these questions, certainly not in a compare and contrast format.

My answers were surprising (the title is your hint), and thus revelatory, and I can't wait to share with you what I've learned.

In the meantime, who are your heros?

Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on...children than the unlived life of the parent. Carl Jung

Have you considered the possibility that in pursuing our dreams, we open the door to our children pursuing theirs?

The film Evening, based on the book by Susan Minot, makes the case that we do.

On her deathbed, Ann Grant (played by Vanessa Redgrave as seen in the photo to the left), flashes back to her early twenties (younger self - Claire Danes), a time during which Ann believed she could get the guy and achieve her goal. However, as the film progresses, we learn that Ann's life, in Jung's words, was unlived. She not only didn't get the guy, she twice married badly, and her singing career never amounted to much.

Constance (Redgrave's real-life daughter Natasha Richardson, also in the photo above) tries to live her mother's unfulfilled dream of having a happy marriage. Ostensibly she has, though her demeanor suggests otherwise, and she's completely neglected the following of her bliss. Meanwhile, younger sister Nina (Toni Collette) has tried to follow her bliss (well, her mother's bliss). But, four failed careers later, including a stint as a go-go dancer, bliss remains elusive, as do meaningful relationships.

When Ann, the mother, left her life unlived, her daughters unwittingly tried to live it for her, and became the keeper of their mother's dreams, rather than of their own.

I don't think it had to be that way.

When Ann is asked to single out a moment when she was truly happy, she vividly recalls a rehearsal for a singing gig some 30 years ago. As Ann sang, 5 year-old Constance sat on the lap of Ann's accompanist.

Why was she so happy? Because, in that moment, she was attending to her relationships AND to her dream.

Attending to both is certainly harder than attending to one or the other.

But if in doing so, we keep our dreams so that our children can keep theirs, isn't it worth it?

Have you seen Evening? What was your take?

Any idea what the unlived life of your parents is/was? Does it in any way explain your own dream?

Are you attending to your dream? If not, what can you do to start? If you are, Atta Girl!

P.S. Yesterday, I read an interesting analysis of the female characters in the book Birdwing and the film Ratatouille. Take a peek.

The NY Times recently published an article by Bill Carter titled Now the News: Couric Still Isn't One of the Boys, analyzing why Katie Couric's gig on CBS hasn't lived up to expectations.

Using the 'dare to dream' lens, let's analyze this further. Shall we?

1. Archetype mis-match -- When you look at Todd Heisler's above photograph, Ms. Couric looks isolated, almost forlorn. I can't help but think of the Bem Sex-Role Inventory's definition of femininity: Girls are only considered feminine within the context of a relationship and when they are giving something to someone else. The images of Ms. Couric on The Today Show are in sync with our society's view of femininity. The CBS News images are not.

Contrast the above with those Carter describes as "swashbuckling correspondents [e.g. Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather] who became cool doing hard news". This swashbuckler image foots with what we consider masculine: the solitary man (think Johnny Depp in Pirates and Pierce Brosnan as James Bond) slays the dragon, returns a hero, tells the tale.

In other words, our conscious mind may want to support a Ms. Couric, especially if we watched her faithfully on The Today Show, but we don't. Because there's a mismatch between what we instinctively believe and what we see.

2. Ms. Couric isn't playing to her strengths -- This is closely tied to the above, except that Ms. Couric can't change what other people believe, while she can change what she does. Which is to play to her strengths -- her innate talents, competencies, principles, and identity.

I don't know whether she reports hard news well. She probably does or she wouldn't be where she is. But her ability to chase down news is secondary to her girl-next-door persona.

So why would she have opted in to a situation which wasn't her?

Because of what the title intimates -- that to count we need to be one of the boys.

And because our society doesn't really value women's core strengths of connecting and collaborating unless a man displays them, we start to believe we're Leah.

Because we want Leah to permanently leave the building (she likes to slip in unawares), will you consider the following:

1) Think about women in the public eye whom you admire. Do you consider these women to be feminine? Does that mean that they don't have power to get their dreams done? Or do they?

2) How can we work with the the archetypes and ideas that prevail in our society, rather than fighting against them?

3) Have you thought any more about your strengths? Relish them. Leverage them. Figure out how to pursue your dream in a context that values your strengths.

4) And if you can't find a system, club, business, or group of friends that will value your strengths, why not find like-minded people and start your own?

We carry with us the wonders we seek without us. Sir Thomas Browne

Dream, dream, I want to dare, I want to dream, but how?

Good question, and TLC's I've Got Nothing to Wear offers some suggestions...

Figuratively, not literally, so stay with me.

In this six-part summer series, a professional stylist assigns the guest's clothing to one of two categories: salvageable and non-salvageable. The non-salvageables are sent to the "chop shop" where three designers have been assigned to cull, rip, redesign, and resew these items into fresh, fashionable pieces (e.g. an outdated pair of slacks might become an evening gown). In the meantime, the stylist shops with the guest for 4-5 classic items to complement the salvaged clothing. When the stylist creates a "look book" which shows the student how to mix and match the salvaged clothes, the newly-purchased classics, and the revamped pieces, the wardrobe refashion is complete.

I'm not suggesting that each of us begin to personally redesign our clothing, though NikiShell's Wardrobe Refashion, as noted above, can help you do precisely that, but rather to propose that the premise of "I've Got Nothing to Wear" can help us think through what tools may be available to us as we dream.

Salvaged clothing, or clothing that is wearable today -- This is a metaphor for our strengths. Just as the stylist helps identify clothing which works, we may need a see-er of our strengths until we see them. Howard Gardner and Laura Morgan Roberts' work are great resources.

What are your strengths? What about you is magnificent that you don't see, but others do?

Newly-bought classic items -- Think new skills and competencies. Just as the student's wardrobe needs a few new classic pieces, we may need to acquire a new skill to achieve our dream.

What skill can you learn in a matter of days, maybe even hours, that would move you closer to your dream?

Revamped or refashioned clothing -- Consider the importance of repurposing strengths that once "fit and were in style" and no longer are. Just as each of us have clothes that we love, possibly inherited from our grandmother or mother that no longer fit us or who we are, we also have strengths, ones that may have even gotten us through tough times, that no longer serve us.

What skills or competencies no longer fit? If you sent them to the chop-shop for a repurpose, what fabulous new something about your self might you discover?

Lackluster reviews notwithstanding, there are several reasons to like the film Nancy Drew. Four to be precise, if you subscribe to the view that the best way for women to find their voice is to listen to those that have found theirs.

1) Women were involved in the making of Nancy Drew, from the studio executives, to the executive producers, to the writers. This is no small feat, given that only "15% of the directors, writers, producers and editors working in Hollywood are women", according to Sharon Waxman's NY Times article Hollywood's shortage of female power. The storytellers honored by Oscar quiz supports this finding.

© 2007 Warner Bros. Pictures

2. The film features a female protagonist. This too is unusual. According to a study titled Where the Girls Aren't, which analyzed gender roles in 100 G-rated movies, only 25% of the characters in the sample were female, only 28% of the speaking characters were female. I have a hunch that these percentages would trend even lower for PG films.

3. Nancy "achieves the goal" and "gets the guy", something that many women falsely believe is impossible, even though films are generally replete with male heros who "achieve the goal" AND "get the girl". Which is why I came away so sad after seeing The Devil Wears Prada. Anne Hathaway’s character is thrown into the competitive world of fashion, and she prevails, only to have her loved ones tell her she’s sold her soul to the devil.

4) Nancy's an archetype worth emulating; naturally she's "perfect" -- archetypes tend to be. Not only did I arrive home happy to have spent 1 1/2 hours with a smart, driven, kind, and caring girl, my 6 year-old Miranda arrived home empowered. The following morning when she learned something had been misplaced, she asked for a flashlight and declared "Miranda to the rescue!"

Have you seen Nancy Drew?

What did you think?

P.S. For those of you who live in Boston, on July 28, there's a Girls Night Nancy Drew movie. Thanks to Alyson Jenkins for the heads up!

When I first heard India.Arie's 'Beautiful Flower', I was moved, and couldn't help but think you might be too; songs give utterance to truths about ourselves that words alone cannot. Ms. Arie's song became even more meaningful when I learned that she'd written it for the students at Oprah Winfrey's Leadership Academy for Girls.

Take a moment to listen.

What truths do you hear?

Beautiful Flower lyrics

There's about to be a terrific new space for women's voices.

Yes, there are some fabulous women's blogs out there. In fact, more than half of the blogs featured by Typepad during the month of May were blog-hers.

However, when it comes to social media platforms (just think "virtual watercoolers"), for those of you that have visited digg, if you're anything like me, you not only didn't dig digg, you ditched it.

Take a look.

The categories (Technology, Science, World and Business, Sports, Entertainment, and Gaming) are just not my idea of fun watercooler talk, especially when it's 10pm and the kids have just gone to bed.

Now take a look at kirtsy's categories: Around the house: Fashion; Entertainment; Out and About; Mind, Body, Spirit; World Wise: Parenting; Food; Arts, Crafts, Design.

I don't typically like to kirtsy to the issues, but with this site I'll make an exception.

As the founders (all women -- even better from the standpoint of finding our voices) describe it, "sk*rt is the place to find and/or link to anything and everything on the Web that you'd like to share with other women."

That's my kind of watercooler talk!

Is it yours?

Melinda was voted off of American Idol this week.

But that's beside the point.

Do you remember how timid she was at her audition?

If you don't, you can watch it on YouTube.

Then listen to and compare her performance of I'm a Woman after she was voted off.

The transformation is striking, isn't it?

In screwing up her courage and saying "It's my story. I'm going to be the hero," Doolittle's Leah has not only left the building, she ain't comin' back.

Because that's what happens when we dare to dream.

Today I discovered Gretchen Rubin's blog The Happiness Project. I found it to be inspiring, a go-to place on those days when we aren't quite up to dreaming. I was also delighted to find another woman's voice: when we hear women speak who have found their voices, we can more readily find ours.

Below are just a few highlights:

In her Seven tips to make you happier in the next hour, I especially liked the two that involved systergy:

1) Reach out to a friend -- make a phone call, set a lunch date. Three cheers for oxytocin ladies!

2) Do a good deed -- connect two people that you think would enjoy knowing one another, or shoot off an e-mail of gratifying praise.

Another highlight is her entry Feeling underappreciated? that encourages us to stop seeking for external validation, and to validate ourselves. One of the reasons women are starved for validation is because early on we were always asked to give it away. Remember the Sara Rimer article For girls it's be yourself, and be perfect too.

The question now is -- if we weren't pampered and affirmed then, will we find ways to pamper and affirm ourselves now?

When we do, we will open the door to our dreaming.

And discovering more of who we are.

If you do like The Happiness Project, why not send Gretchen an e-mail right now and tell her?

Do you find, as I do, that it really is easier to find your voice when you can read women who have found theirs?

Whenever I happen to catch TLC's What Not to Wear, I find myself fascinated by the dramatic impact of a one-week style makeover (no weight loss, no plastic surgery, just a makeover) on my perception of the guest contributor (as the makeover--ee is referred to), and especially on the guest contributor's perception of herself.

I must confess, however, that as the now-stylish, newly confident guest contributor returns home and I get a glimpse of her interacting with her loved ones, I wonder....

...not at whether her transformation is sustainable (apparently, they typically are), but at how her loved ones, the swans in her pond (those that nominated her) will, over the long-term, respond to this ugly duckling-turned-swan.

Said another way, now that her family and friends have encouraged her to dare to dream, will these same relationships become the source of difficulty on her Road of Trials?

Definition: The Road of Trials, which comes after the hero has accepted the Call to Adventure (her friends nominating her, and her agreeing to the What Not to Wear makeover), is always a succession of experiences, which if we survive, amplifies our consciousness, allowing us to find new strength and power.

Do her supporters intentionally become detractors?

In most cases, I would say not.

But, the fact is, that every one of our relationships has a unique dynamic to it -- a symbiosis, or an equilibrium. When we dare to dream, and to act on our dreams, we upset that equilibirum. Just think back to how Andie's friends reacted to her in The Devil Wears Prada. (This is not to say, that former ugly ducklings never become preening Miss Swans, but for today, let's assume this is not the case.)

When our loved ones start to complain about how we've changed, do we discard them like trash out the car window as we race down our dare-to-dream highway?

I certainly hope not.

But because difficulties are -- well -- difficult, here are some thoughts on what we might do:

1. Pause for a moment (could be a very long moment), and be grateful to our friends and family who have encouraged us, who gave us a grand send-off as we began to dream.

2. Consider the possibility that, after so many weeks, months, even years, of a loved one being our hero of support, it is now time to return the favor.

3. Persevere. If we knew it was right then, and we still know it's right, we continue to do. We just know that it's hard. And then we observe: how we feel, how we respond, and what we are learning. As we face difficulties, we ready ourselves to achieve our dream.

Because we will.

If you are currently daring to dream, has it already happened that someone who was initially a supporter has now become a detractor? Does he/she even realize it?

Is it possible that you are exacerbating the situation when your loved one may simply need to be reassured?

What can you do to express gratitude, and possibly become a hero of support as your loved one now dares to dream?

For those of you who didn't see Sara Rimer's "For Girls, It’s Be Yourself, and Be Perfect, Too", one of The New York Times most e-mailed and blogged about articles this week, here's the link.

Link: For Girls, It’s Be Yourself, and Be Perfect, Too - New York Times.

There are so many quotable quotes in this article. I'll highlight four:

1. To anyone who knows 17-year-old Esther Mobley, one of the best students (Esther is a standout in AP Latin, honors philosophy/literature, an actress, and president of her church youth group) at one of the best public high schools (Newton North High School just outside of Boston) in the country, it is absurd to think she doesn't measure up. But Esther herself is quick to set the record straight -- 'First of all, I'm a terrible athlete...'

WJ commentary:
Do you remember Anna Fels' article "Do women lack ambition?" Quoting Fels, "Women refuse to claim a central, purposeful place in their stories, eagerly shifting the credit elsewhere and shunning recognition." Esther's comment that she's a terrible athlete seems to be her way of sending the message that she really is feminine (e.g. by giving recognition away to anyone but herself) when society would say that her achievements and ambition suggest otherwise.

2. While it is now cool to be smart, it is not enough to be smart. You still have to be pretty, thin, and hot...effortlessly hot.

WJ Commentary:
The need to be hot seems to me like overcompensation. As if girls will be forgiven for being smart and capable if they are uber-feminine. In the case of Esther and her friends, they seem to be equating sexy with feminine.

3. I would rather be considered too assertive and less conventionally feminine than be totally passive and a bystander in my life....[Someone I] admire [is] Cristina (Sandra Oh) on Grey's Anatomy who stands up for herself and is gorgeous and wears cute lingerie.

WJ Commentary:
Can you imagine a man saying, "I'd rather be considered too kind and less conventionally masculine" and in the same breath tell you he really likes Arnold Schwarzenegger's tenderness in the film "True Lies?" I can't either.

4. In Esther's application to Smith, her father wrote a letter, explaining that when Esther was a baby, they had gone to his wife's 10th college reunion. He described the alumni parade as an 'angelic procession of women in white, decade by decade, at every stage in the course of human life...I still remember holding Esther as I watched those saints go marching by..and thinking I want Esther to be in that number'.

WJ Commentary:
To what extent are we as parents the keeper of our children's dreams? Do we want our children to measure up to some mistaken standard (perhaps a standard our parents/society set for us which we are now perpetuating)? And in so doing, are we inadvertently raising our daughters to believe that they are Leah rather than the Rachel they knew they were as young girls?

Enough of my pontificating, do you agree or disagree with my commentary? Why? Why not?

Any thoughts on how this article would have been different had the storyteller been a man rather than a woman? Would it have been written?

What have you watched or read or listened to lately, vis-a-vis women's hopes and dreams, that gave you pause?

When you have capably completed a task, and were inevitably congratulated, did you try to deflect attention away from you by saying "It was nothing," or maybe pointing out something that you aren't good at?

Any thoughts on how we can change the standards by which we measure our children, and perhaps more importantly, ourselves?

Finally, what can we do to dream our own dreams, and teach our children to dream theirs?

My favorite thing is to go where I've never been. Diane Arbus

Every once in awhile I come home from an event, so thrilled by my discoveries of new people and ideas that I ask myself -- what if I hadn't gone? What IF I had only imagined and never explored?

This happened to me last week.

As I was driving home from New York, I kept thinking -- what if I hadn't gone to the BlogHer Business 07 conference?

It was there that I discovered Nelly Yusupova who can build a website that I need built, and teach how technology can be harnessed to help me, and in turn you, dare to dream. I also discovered Carmen Van Kerckhove, a 30 year-old Belgian-Chinese woman, whose blog has been a vehicle for finding her voice.

Then there was Elise Bauer, one of the WSJ's twenty hidden influencers of the web. Elise is doing precisely what Psyche's journey encourages us to do: embarking on a hero's journey because of and for relationships. Elise's technological expertise has allowed her to share recipes with millions of readers each month, which recipes can bring people together, whether families or communities, through the sharing of a meal.

And finally, had I not gone to New York, Elisa Camahort, one of BlogHer's co-founders, couldn't have shared with me the Pew Internet & American Life Project's finding that roughly 50% of all bloggers are blog-hers. Women may be under-represented in the press, film, and television, but we are not under-represented in the wide, wide world of blogs.

Which of course makes sense.

Because of the ease of blogging (have computer, can publish -- no rules to play by or political waters to navigate), many who would never have dreamed of being published in the world of old media, are now pointing, clicking and publishing here in the blogosphere.

As we blog, we are writing about who we are, what we care about, and we are finding our voices.

And telling our stories.

And we're the hero.

Have you had an experience recently during which the discovery of new people or ideas was so thrilling that you found yourself wondering, what if I hadn't shown up?

If you know that you want to write, but writing and publishing a book is too daunting for the moment, why not write-by-installment via a blog?

After taking the trivia quiz on the number of

Rachel, Leah and "So You Think You Can Dance"

Pop Quiz:

What percentage of dance students throughout the world are girls?

I'm going to guess 9 out of 10, or 90%.

How many of the teachers from L.A.'s inner-city schools that attended the So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD) workshop were women?

I'm estimating 7 out of 10, or 70%.

How many of the SYTYCD choreographers this season were women?

Roughly 4 out of 19, about 20%.

Of the eight choreographers invited to choose their favorite dance, how many were women?

1 in 8, or 12.5%.

Which of the dances did the judges regard as the most profoundly moving?

A dance choreographed by one of the women, Mia Michaels.

Some of you may say, Wake up Whitney, it's a man's world. Women would like to choreograph, to have a say within their professional community, but they just can't break in.

But, but, but... we're not talking about technology, we're talking about dance, a field in which women are trained to dance, to choreograph, to critique.

So I only buy part of this argument.

If we have a gift for and love to do something, and we don't pursue that something, don't we bear some responsibility for our not breaking in, breaking through, for allowing our Leah to remain in the building?

Choosing to be Rachel is not easy, at least not for me. I seem to ask Leah to leave nearly every day.

But when you and I make the choice to move away from Leah toward Rachel, just think of what we can do, what we can create, of the stories we will tell.

Stories like those told by Mia Michaels.

What do you have a gift for, that you love to do, that you aren't pursuing?

Why?

Do you really not want to, or is society telling you not to?

What I've learned by identifying my heros

Writing about my heros (which you can find at the bottom of this post) was indeed revelatory. Here's why:

1) I was surprised by how much my heros have changed over time -- from Bewitched's Samantha to Peggy Noonan?

2) It was also interesting to observe that my childhood heros were imaginary. A reminder just how much children identify with the imaginary, magical world. I wonder too if I over-agonize about the quantity of television my children consume. I clearly watched television as a child, yet most would consider me a contributing member of society.

Who were your heros as a child? Who are they today? How have they changed?

2) My heros have played a greater role in who I've become than I would have predicted prior to this exercise.

Example A: The fact that I so admired Samantha and Shirley Partridge as a young girl makes it a lot less surprising that I care about mothering well, my many years of "not wanting to have kids yet" notwithstanding.

Given your current vantage point, anything about your childhood heros that surprises you?

Example B: I'm rather astonished that my interest in attending UCLA was piqued because of their cheerleaders; were it not for a providential fluke, I would be a UCLA graduate. Which leads me to wonder what other decisions I've made on the basis of who I admire. Perhaps more importantly, why did I admire them in the first place?

What about you? Any decisions that you've made that now surprise you given how little forethought went in to the decision?

Example C: If I consider a cheerleader a metaphor for a hero of support, I've observed that in some aspects of my life I've internalized this role so thoroughly, it has actually been problematic as I've pursued my career. Sometimes you can be too good at something.

3) On the premise that my childhood heros have helped shape who I've become, I am consequently hopeful that I can become like my current heros, whether Peggy Noonan, Laura Laviada, Galadriel, or India.Arie. That I can, in fact, successfully undergo Psyche's journey, learning to be the ship AND the harbor, the hero of support AND the hero.

Who are your heros today?
What do they tell you about what you are hoping to accomplish?
Who and how you want to be?

****

Below is what I wrote for Matt Langdon's Heros Interviews:

My hero as a young girl was Samantha on Bewitched. She was pert, adorable, and no matter what kind of tangle she found herself in, she could make things better with a wiggle of her nose. I also idolized Shirley Jones, who played the mother in The Partridge Family with whom I became even more enamored when I saw her as the ingénue in the film Oklahoma. As an eight year-old, it was magical to see that the same person could be a mother and ingénue.

In high school, my heros were pretty, popular, feminine cheerleaders. So much so that UCLA became my top college pick because I loved watching their song girls perform whenever they played Stanford in football (my father took us to Stanford football games every fall from the time I was 7-8 years old). Footnote: Stanford was actually my top choice, but I was on the waiting list, whereas I was accepted to UCLA.

My heros today are women who successfully embark on Psyche’s journey: they’ve learned to say no, to exercise choice, to achieve goals without throwing their caring and compassionate selves under the bus. In other words, I see all of these women as living in a both/and world.

These heros include: Peggy Noonan, a Wall Street Journal columnist who made her name as a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, Laura Laviada, the former CEO and major shareholder of Editorial Televisa, Mexico’s largest magazine publisher (and who I had the privilege of interacting with when I covered the stock Televisa (NYSE: TV), Galadriel in Lord of the Rings, and India.Arie, a musician-singer-songwriter who it would appear loves Stevie Wonder’s music even more than I do. Until very recently, I would have also included Sydney Bristow, the fictional lead in the television show Alias.

What do Bewitched, Alias and The Lord of the Rings have in common?

Matt Langdon over at The Hero Workshop recently interviewed me for his Hero Interviews.

He asked only two questions:

Who was your hero as a child and why?

Who are your heros today and why?

If you can believe it, I hadn't ever asked myself these questions, certainly not in a compare and contrast format.

My answers were surprising (the title is your hint), and thus revelatory, and I can't wait to share with you what I've learned.

In the meantime, who are your heros?

Susan Minot's Evening

Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on...children than the unlived life of the parent. Carl Jung

Have you considered the possibility that in pursuing our dreams, we open the door to our children pursuing theirs?

The film Evening, based on the book by Susan Minot, makes the case that we do.

On her deathbed, Ann Grant (played by Vanessa Redgrave as seen in the photo to the left), flashes back to her early twenties (younger self - Claire Danes), a time during which Ann believed she could get the guy and achieve her goal. However, as the film progresses, we learn that Ann's life, in Jung's words, was unlived. She not only didn't get the guy, she twice married badly, and her singing career never amounted to much.

Constance (Redgrave's real-life daughter Natasha Richardson, also in the photo above) tries to live her mother's unfulfilled dream of having a happy marriage. Ostensibly she has, though her demeanor suggests otherwise, and she's completely neglected the following of her bliss. Meanwhile, younger sister Nina (Toni Collette) has tried to follow her bliss (well, her mother's bliss). But, four failed careers later, including a stint as a go-go dancer, bliss remains elusive, as do meaningful relationships.

When Ann, the mother, left her life unlived, her daughters unwittingly tried to live it for her, and became the keeper of their mother's dreams, rather than of their own.

I don't think it had to be that way.

When Ann is asked to single out a moment when she was truly happy, she vividly recalls a rehearsal for a singing gig some 30 years ago. As Ann sang, 5 year-old Constance sat on the lap of Ann's accompanist.

Why was she so happy? Because, in that moment, she was attending to her relationships AND to her dream.

Attending to both is certainly harder than attending to one or the other.

But if in doing so, we keep our dreams so that our children can keep theirs, isn't it worth it?

Have you seen Evening? What was your take?

Any idea what the unlived life of your parents is/was? Does it in any way explain your own dream?

Are you attending to your dream? If not, what can you do to start? If you are, Atta Girl!

P.S. Yesterday, I read an interesting analysis of the female characters in the book Birdwing and the film Ratatouille. Take a peek.

NY Times -- Now the News: Couric Still Isn't One of the Boys

The NY Times recently published an article by Bill Carter titled Now the News: Couric Still Isn't One of the Boys, analyzing why Katie Couric's gig on CBS hasn't lived up to expectations.

Using the 'dare to dream' lens, let's analyze this further. Shall we?

1. Archetype mis-match -- When you look at Todd Heisler's above photograph, Ms. Couric looks isolated, almost forlorn. I can't help but think of the Bem Sex-Role Inventory's definition of femininity: Girls are only considered feminine within the context of a relationship and when they are giving something to someone else. The images of Ms. Couric on The Today Show are in sync with our society's view of femininity. The CBS News images are not.

Contrast the above with those Carter describes as "swashbuckling correspondents [e.g. Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather] who became cool doing hard news". This swashbuckler image foots with what we consider masculine: the solitary man (think Johnny Depp in Pirates and Pierce Brosnan as James Bond) slays the dragon, returns a hero, tells the tale.

In other words, our conscious mind may want to support a Ms. Couric, especially if we watched her faithfully on The Today Show, but we don't. Because there's a mismatch between what we instinctively believe and what we see.

2. Ms. Couric isn't playing to her strengths -- This is closely tied to the above, except that Ms. Couric can't change what other people believe, while she can change what she does. Which is to play to her strengths -- her innate talents, competencies, principles, and identity.

I don't know whether she reports hard news well. She probably does or she wouldn't be where she is. But her ability to chase down news is secondary to her girl-next-door persona.

So why would she have opted in to a situation which wasn't her?

Because of what the title intimates -- that to count we need to be one of the boys.

And because our society doesn't really value women's core strengths of connecting and collaborating unless a man displays them, we start to believe we're Leah.

Because we want Leah to permanently leave the building (she likes to slip in unawares), will you consider the following:

1) Think about women in the public eye whom you admire. Do you consider these women to be feminine? Does that mean that they don't have power to get their dreams done? Or do they?

2) How can we work with the the archetypes and ideas that prevail in our society, rather than fighting against them?

3) Have you thought any more about your strengths? Relish them. Leverage them. Figure out how to pursue your dream in a context that values your strengths.

4) And if you can't find a system, club, business, or group of friends that will value your strengths, why not find like-minded people and start your own?

What we can learn from TLC's "I've Got Nothing to Wear"

We carry with us the wonders we seek without us. Sir Thomas Browne

Dream, dream, I want to dare, I want to dream, but how?

Good question, and TLC's I've Got Nothing to Wear offers some suggestions...

Figuratively, not literally, so stay with me.

In this six-part summer series, a professional stylist assigns the guest's clothing to one of two categories: salvageable and non-salvageable. The non-salvageables are sent to the "chop shop" where three designers have been assigned to cull, rip, redesign, and resew these items into fresh, fashionable pieces (e.g. an outdated pair of slacks might become an evening gown). In the meantime, the stylist shops with the guest for 4-5 classic items to complement the salvaged clothing. When the stylist creates a "look book" which shows the student how to mix and match the salvaged clothes, the newly-purchased classics, and the revamped pieces, the wardrobe refashion is complete.

I'm not suggesting that each of us begin to personally redesign our clothing, though NikiShell's Wardrobe Refashion, as noted above, can help you do precisely that, but rather to propose that the premise of "I've Got Nothing to Wear" can help us think through what tools may be available to us as we dream.

Salvaged clothing, or clothing that is wearable today -- This is a metaphor for our strengths. Just as the stylist helps identify clothing which works, we may need a see-er of our strengths until we see them. Howard Gardner and Laura Morgan Roberts' work are great resources.

What are your strengths? What about you is magnificent that you don't see, but others do?

Newly-bought classic items -- Think new skills and competencies. Just as the student's wardrobe needs a few new classic pieces, we may need to acquire a new skill to achieve our dream.

What skill can you learn in a matter of days, maybe even hours, that would move you closer to your dream?

Revamped or refashioned clothing -- Consider the importance of repurposing strengths that once "fit and were in style" and no longer are. Just as each of us have clothes that we love, possibly inherited from our grandmother or mother that no longer fit us or who we are, we also have strengths, ones that may have even gotten us through tough times, that no longer serve us.

What skills or competencies no longer fit? If you sent them to the chop-shop for a repurpose, what fabulous new something about your self might you discover?

Drawing on Nancy Drew to find our voice

Lackluster reviews notwithstanding, there are several reasons to like the film Nancy Drew. Four to be precise, if you subscribe to the view that the best way for women to find their voice is to listen to those that have found theirs.

1) Women were involved in the making of Nancy Drew, from the studio executives, to the executive producers, to the writers. This is no small feat, given that only "15% of the directors, writers, producers and editors working in Hollywood are women", according to Sharon Waxman's NY Times article Hollywood's shortage of female power. The storytellers honored by Oscar quiz supports this finding.

© 2007 Warner Bros. Pictures

2. The film features a female protagonist. This too is unusual. According to a study titled Where the Girls Aren't, which analyzed gender roles in 100 G-rated movies, only 25% of the characters in the sample were female, only 28% of the speaking characters were female. I have a hunch that these percentages would trend even lower for PG films.

3. Nancy "achieves the goal" and "gets the guy", something that many women falsely believe is impossible, even though films are generally replete with male heros who "achieve the goal" AND "get the girl". Which is why I came away so sad after seeing The Devil Wears Prada. Anne Hathaway’s character is thrown into the competitive world of fashion, and she prevails, only to have her loved ones tell her she’s sold her soul to the devil.

4) Nancy's an archetype worth emulating; naturally she's "perfect" -- archetypes tend to be. Not only did I arrive home happy to have spent 1 1/2 hours with a smart, driven, kind, and caring girl, my 6 year-old Miranda arrived home empowered. The following morning when she learned something had been misplaced, she asked for a flashlight and declared "Miranda to the rescue!"

Have you seen Nancy Drew?

What did you think?

P.S. For those of you who live in Boston, on July 28, there's a Girls Night Nancy Drew movie. Thanks to Alyson Jenkins for the heads up!

A song to dream by: Beautiful Flower

When I first heard India.Arie's 'Beautiful Flower', I was moved, and couldn't help but think you might be too; songs give utterance to truths about ourselves that words alone cannot. Ms. Arie's song became even more meaningful when I learned that she'd written it for the students at Oprah Winfrey's Leadership Academy for Girls.

Take a moment to listen.

What truths do you hear?

Beautiful Flower lyrics

Site I Like: kirtsy (formerly known as sk*rt)

There's about to be a terrific new space for women's voices.

Yes, there are some fabulous women's blogs out there. In fact, more than half of the blogs featured by Typepad during the month of May were blog-hers.

However, when it comes to social media platforms (just think "virtual watercoolers"), for those of you that have visited digg, if you're anything like me, you not only didn't dig digg, you ditched it.

Take a look.

The categories (Technology, Science, World and Business, Sports, Entertainment, and Gaming) are just not my idea of fun watercooler talk, especially when it's 10pm and the kids have just gone to bed.

Now take a look at kirtsy's categories: Around the house: Fashion; Entertainment; Out and About; Mind, Body, Spirit; World Wise: Parenting; Food; Arts, Crafts, Design.

I don't typically like to kirtsy to the issues, but with this site I'll make an exception.

As the founders (all women -- even better from the standpoint of finding our voices) describe it, "sk*rt is the place to find and/or link to anything and everything on the Web that you'd like to share with other women."

That's my kind of watercooler talk!

Is it yours?

Doolittle's Leah leaves the building

Melinda was voted off of American Idol this week.

But that's beside the point.

Do you remember how timid she was at her audition?

If you don't, you can watch it on YouTube.

Then listen to and compare her performance of I'm a Woman after she was voted off.

The transformation is striking, isn't it?

In screwing up her courage and saying "It's my story. I'm going to be the hero," Doolittle's Leah has not only left the building, she ain't comin' back.

Because that's what happens when we dare to dream.

Blog I Like: The Happiness Project

Today I discovered Gretchen Rubin's blog The Happiness Project. I found it to be inspiring, a go-to place on those days when we aren't quite up to dreaming. I was also delighted to find another woman's voice: when we hear women speak who have found their voices, we can more readily find ours.

Below are just a few highlights:

In her Seven tips to make you happier in the next hour, I especially liked the two that involved systergy:

1) Reach out to a friend -- make a phone call, set a lunch date. Three cheers for oxytocin ladies!

2) Do a good deed -- connect two people that you think would enjoy knowing one another, or shoot off an e-mail of gratifying praise.

Another highlight is her entry Feeling underappreciated? that encourages us to stop seeking for external validation, and to validate ourselves. One of the reasons women are starved for validation is because early on we were always asked to give it away. Remember the Sara Rimer article For girls it's be yourself, and be perfect too.

The question now is -- if we weren't pampered and affirmed then, will we find ways to pamper and affirm ourselves now?

When we do, we will open the door to our dreaming.

And discovering more of who we are.

If you do like The Happiness Project, why not send Gretchen an e-mail right now and tell her?

Do you find, as I do, that it really is easier to find your voice when you can read women who have found theirs?

TLC's "What Not to Wear": A Hero's Journey

Whenever I happen to catch TLC's What Not to Wear, I find myself fascinated by the dramatic impact of a one-week style makeover (no weight loss, no plastic surgery, just a makeover) on my perception of the guest contributor (as the makeover--ee is referred to), and especially on the guest contributor's perception of herself.

I must confess, however, that as the now-stylish, newly confident guest contributor returns home and I get a glimpse of her interacting with her loved ones, I wonder....

...not at whether her transformation is sustainable (apparently, they typically are), but at how her loved ones, the swans in her pond (those that nominated her) will, over the long-term, respond to this ugly duckling-turned-swan.

Said another way, now that her family and friends have encouraged her to dare to dream, will these same relationships become the source of difficulty on her Road of Trials?

Definition: The Road of Trials, which comes after the hero has accepted the Call to Adventure (her friends nominating her, and her agreeing to the What Not to Wear makeover), is always a succession of experiences, which if we survive, amplifies our consciousness, allowing us to find new strength and power.

Do her supporters intentionally become detractors?

In most cases, I would say not.

But, the fact is, that every one of our relationships has a unique dynamic to it -- a symbiosis, or an equilibrium. When we dare to dream, and to act on our dreams, we upset that equilibirum. Just think back to how Andie's friends reacted to her in The Devil Wears Prada. (This is not to say, that former ugly ducklings never become preening Miss Swans, but for today, let's assume this is not the case.)

When our loved ones start to complain about how we've changed, do we discard them like trash out the car window as we race down our dare-to-dream highway?

I certainly hope not.

But because difficulties are -- well -- difficult, here are some thoughts on what we might do:

1. Pause for a moment (could be a very long moment), and be grateful to our friends and family who have encouraged us, who gave us a grand send-off as we began to dream.

2. Consider the possibility that, after so many weeks, months, even years, of a loved one being our hero of support, it is now time to return the favor.

3. Persevere. If we knew it was right then, and we still know it's right, we continue to do. We just know that it's hard. And then we observe: how we feel, how we respond, and what we are learning. As we face difficulties, we ready ourselves to achieve our dream.

Because we will.

If you are currently daring to dream, has it already happened that someone who was initially a supporter has now become a detractor? Does he/she even realize it?

Is it possible that you are exacerbating the situation when your loved one may simply need to be reassured?

What can you do to express gratitude, and possibly become a hero of support as your loved one now dares to dream?

NY Times article: For Girls, It's Be Yourself...

For those of you who didn't see Sara Rimer's "For Girls, It’s Be Yourself, and Be Perfect, Too", one of The New York Times most e-mailed and blogged about articles this week, here's the link.

Link: For Girls, It’s Be Yourself, and Be Perfect, Too - New York Times.

There are so many quotable quotes in this article. I'll highlight four:

1. To anyone who knows 17-year-old Esther Mobley, one of the best students (Esther is a standout in AP Latin, honors philosophy/literature, an actress, and president of her church youth group) at one of the best public high schools (Newton North High School just outside of Boston) in the country, it is absurd to think she doesn't measure up. But Esther herself is quick to set the record straight -- 'First of all, I'm a terrible athlete...'

WJ commentary:
Do you remember Anna Fels' article "Do women lack ambition?" Quoting Fels, "Women refuse to claim a central, purposeful place in their stories, eagerly shifting the credit elsewhere and shunning recognition." Esther's comment that she's a terrible athlete seems to be her way of sending the message that she really is feminine (e.g. by giving recognition away to anyone but herself) when society would say that her achievements and ambition suggest otherwise.

2. While it is now cool to be smart, it is not enough to be smart. You still have to be pretty, thin, and hot...effortlessly hot.

WJ Commentary:
The need to be hot seems to me like overcompensation. As if girls will be forgiven for being smart and capable if they are uber-feminine. In the case of Esther and her friends, they seem to be equating sexy with feminine.

3. I would rather be considered too assertive and less conventionally feminine than be totally passive and a bystander in my life....[Someone I] admire [is] Cristina (Sandra Oh) on Grey's Anatomy who stands up for herself and is gorgeous and wears cute lingerie.

WJ Commentary:
Can you imagine a man saying, "I'd rather be considered too kind and less conventionally masculine" and in the same breath tell you he really likes Arnold Schwarzenegger's tenderness in the film "True Lies?" I can't either.

4. In Esther's application to Smith, her father wrote a letter, explaining that when Esther was a baby, they had gone to his wife's 10th college reunion. He described the alumni parade as an 'angelic procession of women in white, decade by decade, at every stage in the course of human life...I still remember holding Esther as I watched those saints go marching by..and thinking I want Esther to be in that number'.

WJ Commentary:
To what extent are we as parents the keeper of our children's dreams? Do we want our children to measure up to some mistaken standard (perhaps a standard our parents/society set for us which we are now perpetuating)? And in so doing, are we inadvertently raising our daughters to believe that they are Leah rather than the Rachel they knew they were as young girls?

Enough of my pontificating, do you agree or disagree with my commentary? Why? Why not?

Any thoughts on how this article would have been different had the storyteller been a man rather than a woman? Would it have been written?

What have you watched or read or listened to lately, vis-a-vis women's hopes and dreams, that gave you pause?

When you have capably completed a task, and were inevitably congratulated, did you try to deflect attention away from you by saying "It was nothing," or maybe pointing out something that you aren't good at?

Any thoughts on how we can change the standards by which we measure our children, and perhaps more importantly, ourselves?

Finally, what can we do to dream our own dreams, and teach our children to dream theirs?

What IF?

My favorite thing is to go where I've never been. Diane Arbus

Every once in awhile I come home from an event, so thrilled by my discoveries of new people and ideas that I ask myself -- what if I hadn't gone? What IF I had only imagined and never explored?

This happened to me last week.

As I was driving home from New York, I kept thinking -- what if I hadn't gone to the BlogHer Business 07 conference?

It was there that I discovered Nelly Yusupova who can build a website that I need built, and teach how technology can be harnessed to help me, and in turn you, dare to dream. I also discovered Carmen Van Kerckhove, a 30 year-old Belgian-Chinese woman, whose blog has been a vehicle for finding her voice.

Then there was Elise Bauer, one of the WSJ's twenty hidden influencers of the web. Elise is doing precisely what Psyche's journey encourages us to do: embarking on a hero's journey because of and for relationships. Elise's technological expertise has allowed her to share recipes with millions of readers each month, which recipes can bring people together, whether families or communities, through the sharing of a meal.

And finally, had I not gone to New York, Elisa Camahort, one of BlogHer's co-founders, couldn't have shared with me the Pew Internet & American Life Project's finding that roughly 50% of all bloggers are blog-hers. Women may be under-represented in the press, film, and television, but we are not under-represented in the wide, wide world of blogs.

Which of course makes sense.

Because of the ease of blogging (have computer, can publish -- no rules to play by or political waters to navigate), many who would never have dreamed of being published in the world of old media, are now pointing, clicking and publishing here in the blogosphere.

As we blog, we are writing about who we are, what we care about, and we are finding our voices.

And telling our stories.

And we're the hero.

Have you had an experience recently during which the discovery of new people or ideas was so thrilling that you found yourself wondering, what if I hadn't shown up?

If you know that you want to write, but writing and publishing a book is too daunting for the moment, why not write-by-installment via a blog?

A little princess on a hero's journey

After taking the trivia quiz on the number of