dare to dream

Throw down your pom-poms

The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world. Susan B. Anthony

Last week I spoke to a group of teenaged women (ages 13-17) as part of a “go-for-your life-goals” pep rally. As I prepared to pep the girls, I couldn’t help but recall my early days on Wall Street.

I had just started working as a sales assistant at Smith Barney’s 6th Avenue office on the 21st floor, in Manhattan. Near my desk there was what we called a bullpen, where a bunch of newly recruited stockbrokers (who were mostly men) sat and were trying to open a certain number of accounts per week via cold calling and sell a certain dollar amount in stocks.

In this locker room for twenty-something guys, testosterone ran high, and there was intense pressure to meet their quotas. These guys, faced with a lot of hellos followed by the dial tone, inevitably went for the hard-sell. One expression I liked was: “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist….to know that buying this stock makes sense.” Another expression they’d use on waffling male prospects was, “Throw down your pom poms and get in the game.”

At the time, I took offense at this turn of phrase. I had been a cheerleader in high school. I had aspired to be a cheerleader. I loved being a cheerleader. It was an important part of my identity in high school. And here they were saying cheerleading didn’t matter.

But the older I get, the more I find myself wanting to say to my daughter and to all women, “Throw down your pom poms and get in the game.”

Let me share what I mean.

Some months ago, I read an article in the Harvard Business Review by Anna Fels, a psychiatrist at Cornell University, titled, “Do Women Lack Ambition?” After interviewing dozens of successful women, Dr. Fels observed that when these “women told their own story, they refused to claim a central, purposeful place.”

Were Fels to interview you, how would you tell your story? Are you using language that would suggest you are the supporting actress in your own life? For example, when someone offers words of appreciation about a dinner you have prepared, or a class you’ve taught, or an event you have organized and executed, brilliantly. Do you gracefully say, “thank you.” Or do you say, “You are so sweet. It was nothing really.”

As Fels tried to understand why women refuse to be the heroes of their own stories, she encountered the Bem Sex-Role Inventory which indicated that our society considers a woman to be feminine only within the context of a relationship and if she is giving something to someone, such as recognition. It is no wonder then that a “feminine” woman finds it difficult to get in the game, to demand support to pursue her goals, and feels selfish when she doesn’t subordinate her needs to others.

In high school there was a boy I liked a lot, actually my first true love. I was smart. He was smart. But we were both very relieved to see at the end of the first semester of our sophomore year that he had higher grades than I did.

My freshman year in college there was a young man who I was friendly with. He was not my boyfriend, but nonetheless, I remember feeling relieved when I received a 96 on a test, and he received a 98. Somehow I sensed that if I did better than him, it would upset the equilibrium of our relationship.

More recently, one of my friends who is in her mid-20’s and who just started attending Harvard Business School told me about her study group which consists of four men and two women. All are expected to contribute, and are graded on the quality of their participation in the group. The other woman in the group, who was initially quite involved, began to withdraw after the first two weeks because the men had begun to ostracize her.

Again quoting Fels, “A key type of discrimination that women face is the expectation that feminine women will forfeit opportunities for recognition…When women do speak as much as men in a work situation or compete for high-visibility positions, their femininity is assailed.”

By the way, when I was 8, I had no trouble at all going to competing with Scott McAdams on multiplication drills. He and I were continually vying for the title of fastest and smartest – Oh, I took great pride in beating him.

The point of my musings is not to say that relatedness and nurturing and cheering others on aren’t important. I absolutely 100% believe these qualities are innate in women – and if we set them aside, we will have lost an irreplaceable piece of ourselves. But contrary to what others may suggest, “getting in the game” is also a part of who we are. When we recognize this, we give ourselves permission to dream, to move ourselves to the center of our life story, and to encourage the girls and women around us to do the same.

One of my readers recently shared with me the story of two women who have gotten in the game. Eden Jarrin and Heidi Baker are confident in their ability to create a better living space and want other women Do-it-yourselfers (DIYers) to feel equally confident. Thank you for sharing the link to their website www.bejane.com. Eden and Heidi -- Atta girls!

Get in your Game.

Rachel vs. Leah: Reclaiming our power to dream

“Life began for me when I ceased to admire and began to remember.” Willa Cather

Several years ago I read Orson Scott Card’s book Rachel and Leah. In Card’s retelling of the story of these two sisters, I began to wonder what it would have been like to be Rachel, the favored one. But as I continued reading, I found myself wondering more often what it would be like to be Leah? In the story, Rachel, the younger and more beautiful sister vies for and wins the heart of Jacob. Because ancient custom required the elder sister marry first, Jacob pays the price of marrying Leah (who also loves Jacob) in order to marry Rachel.

The more I thought about this story, the more I realized that Rachel and Leah are archetypes for women today. Do we as women believe we are Rachel, the favored one, the one who gets to dream and see those dreams come true, or do we more often believe we are Leah, the sister who must settle for whatever is handed to her by circumstance or chance. Unfortunately, I think most of us see ourselves as Leah, and this attitude of acquiescence I have dubbed “the Leah complex.”

Even more interesting to me was the notion that, as young girls, most of us would have aligned ourselves with Rachel – we absolutely believed in our dreams and our power to achieve them - but, over time, we come to believe that we are Leah.

Perhaps we stopped believing in our power to dream because our parents sent us the message that we were just shy of the perfection they were seeking for us. Maybe we dated or even married someone who needed us to support his dreams instead of our own. Or maybe we began to believe the pervasive message of the media – whose job is to get us to buy stuff – that if we just bought one more thing, whether a doll, a new pair of shoes or breasts, then we would could go after what we wanted.

As I grew up this belief began to play out in all aspects of my life. And, in retrospect I am surprised that it did as I reflect on something a family friend, Mr. Leetham, whom I greatly admired said to me when I was about eight -- “Whitney, you are going to be a heartbreaker when you get older.” I relished these words: and I believed him.

But you know what? I wasn’t a heartbreaker.

All through high school there was a boy that I liked – an unrequited love. You could fairly accurately predict whom this boy would like next, because in the months prior, his soon-to-be girlfriend would have become one of my best friends. Oh yes, and in an especially cruel turn of fate, in 9th grade, his best friend liked me. While it is no longer relevant whether this boy did or did not like me it does matter that I didn’t believe he ever would or even could. The other side of this Leah coin is that when a wonderful young boy did like me, one who took me on my first date, I couldn’t like him back. Because as Leah, I couldn’t believe that I had the power to make my dreams come true.

When I was eight, I was Rachel, but by 8th grade, I was Leah. My eight-year-old self believed absolutely that all my dreams, romantic and otherwise, would come true; eighth-grade Whitney no longer believed this.

Reclaiming the role of Rachel began when my husband and I got to New York. As I began to work, what my mother taught me - that women are capable - started to kick in. I saw some women, but mostly men working on Wall Street and thought I can do that! I want to do that! And, why make x dollars per hour when 10x that amount is possible? My husband (who happily could see more of Rachel in me than I could see in myself at that point) said – Agreed. You can have that. And, I eventually did.

My true comprehension that we are all Rachel came several years ago when I was asked in a women’s group about the women that had influenced my life. My thoughts first turned to Mrs. Leetham, our neighbor (and husband of the aforementioned Mr. Leetham), who had invited me into a youth choir and taught me to lead music.

But as I pondered the question, I began to feel a surge of gratitude toward my then-3-year-old daughter, Miranda. I realized that in observing her, I could understand not only what it was like to be a woman, but to be Rachel. Miranda revels in being a girl. There is a lovely pure femininity about her. She has a generosity of spirit. She is compassionate. AND she knows she is capable. She exudes confidence. Most little girls know they are Rachel, but then we forget. By watching young girls, we can re-learn this truth.

Will it be easy reclaiming the role of Rachel? Nope. But as Margaret Thatcher, the former prime minister of Great Britain said, “If you want something done, ask a woman.”

Better yet -- ask Rachel.

Come to market

In October 2006, Muhammad Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank, was awarded the Nobel Peace prize for his pioneering the use of tiny, seemingly insignificant loans – dubbed “microcredit” – to lift people, mostly women, out of poverty. The Nobel Peace Prize Committee wrote in its citation: “Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty. Microcredit is one such means.”

Over the past year as I considered how to implement Dare to Dream, creating a framework in which systergy could flourish, I was also involved on the Advisory Board of a microfinance institution in Latin America. I was able to experience and examine how micro-finance could help women build better lives for themselves and their families, changing their circumstances in ways only made possible through these small loans.

As I brainstormed with one of my mentor friends on this topic, it occurred to me that the micro-finance model would be well-suited to our needs in connection with Dare to Dream. As a general rule, micro-credit works like this: impoverished women, usually in developing countries, who rely on traditional skills and entrepreneurial instincts, obtain loans of less than US$200 to buy cows or chickens, or a sewing machine, or a cell phone, whatever the need, to start, establish, sustain, or expand very small, self-supporting, often home-based businesses. A key to the micro-finance model is the recycling of loan dollars. As each loan is repaid—usually within six months to a year—the money is recycled as another loan.

Perfect, I thought.

Dare to dream (trusting our instincts enough to put in writing something we really want to do)

+

Systergy (an organization of women, who by daring and dreaming together, will make synergistic contributions to their own lives and the world)

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Intellectual Immigration Fund (women borrow and repay loans of intellectual capital in the form of mentoring, allowing them to immigrate from one level of knowledge to another)

I began to test out my ideas around an Intellectual Immigration Fund earlier this year with a group of about 60 women. Before we met as a group, about half of these women wrote down something that they wanted to accomplish, and delivered these dreams to me. One wanted to learn photography; another wanted to become a wedding planner. By having this information in advance of our get-together, I was able to introduce each woman to someone who could help her achieve her dream. The one who wanted to learn photography was able to meet and spend time with a professional photographer. That professional photographer, who was engaged to be married, was later on the receiving end of systergy, as a woman who dreamed of becoming a wedding planner volunteered to help her with her wedding.

Systergy is the catalyst for Dare to Dream…we take out small loans from another individual in the form of advice, expertise, encouragement (intellectual capital, rather than financial). We then recycle our intellectual capital back in, by coaching another woman in areas where we have expertise. As we borrow, we are mentored. As we repay, we mentor someone else. And it is through the connections we establish, and the subsequent mentoring, we are able to create something greater than we could alone create.

When I shared the idea of systergy with one of my mentor friends, she described the image of an open-air market, a farmer’s market, where fresh fruits and vegetables and homemade goods are bought and sold. There is bounty, there is exchange, there is a personal touch that is nurturing. As I reflected on my friend’s thoughts, I looked up at my living room wall where my cherished pieces of artwork hang, works of art that I have collected largely during my travels to Latin America. To my astonishment and utter delight, more than a few of these tapestries, works of embroidery, and paintings include images of community, of women at market.

Come to market. Dare to Dream.