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Overview
Women Change the World will be released in conjunction with the California Women's Conference, which offers its attendees inspiration, resources, and connections to take the next steps in their businesses, personal development, or philanthropic endeavors. 2012's conference speakers included Marcia Cross, Donna Karen, Gloria Allred, and many others.
Women Change the World aims not only to show how women can be the heart of success, but also to inspire other women to go out and change the world themselves.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781939529183 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | BenBella Books, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 06/10/2014 |
| Sold by: | Penguin Random House Publisher Services |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 256 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Patterson's business acumen and impressive rolodex has led to her being labeled by the media as an "acceleration executive" that focuses on helping individuals, corporations, and small businesses ignite growth. Patterson began her entrepreneurial journey after serving as a Regional Vice President and National Sales Trainer for the world's largest specialized recruiting firm, Robert Half, where she oversaw nine divisions and was recognized for helping generate record revenue growth. When she launched TouchPointe, LLC in July 2006, she continued her track record of impressive revenue growth—leading the company to achieve seven-figure revenue within just six months of launch. TouchPointe was tapped by internet giants Groupon and Living Social early on in their business cycle to help them increase their market share. Today, TouchPointe helps corporations engage women professionals from both a recruitment angle to attract the right talent, as well as customer acquisition angle to increase their market share with identified sub-segments of the highly complex and sought after demographic.
Beyond her notable business success, Patterson is most passionate about her family. She lives in Ladera Ranch, California with her husband, Eric, and their two beautiful children, Jaclyn and Chase.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
JoAnn Albers is the founder of Albers Consulting, LLC, of Portland, Oregon, which aids nonprofits in fund-raising, communications and marketing, board and leadership development, event planning, and other aspects of running a successful organization. Since 1992, her efforts on behalf of Doernbecher Children's Hospital in Portland have netted $40 million. She helped Oregon Health and Science University, as a member of the OHSU Foundation board, to raise more than $300 million and to establish the nationally renowned OHSU Women's Health Center.
Fund-raising is a great field for women because I think the playing field is very level, whether you are staff or working in development or consulting. Women's opportunities for success are equal to men's.
As for myself, I've never had a problem working with men because men tend to be more direct in the way they communicate and more singular in their focus, and I am that way, too. I do think it is important to recognize the differences between the sexes, though. As a strategist, I take those differences into account when I analyze a situation and plan how I am going to achieve the end result I am looking for. I don't look at gender differences as negative things; I just incorporate them into my strategy for achieving a positive solution.
It's fairly common for me to be invited to tackle relationship issues or personal conflicts in fund-raising — issues involving both male and female donors. I think what I have been able to do as a woman is to see things from a different perspective and to relate to women on an emotional level. I have developed a lot of solid relationships with women, whether they were board members or staff.
I developed skills for working with teams and organizations at an early age. I grew up in a family of ten kids, and I am the third child and oldest daughter. I learned as a child how to be part of a team or a community because that's the only way our family could function properly.
I don't have a college education. I had a full scholarship offered to me based on financial need and academic achievement. However, my parents were from the generation that wondered why a girl would want to go to college unless she wanted to be a teacher or a nurse. I didn't want to be either, so instead of going to college, I married a Catholic boy. Yet I have done well without a degree because what I did have was the drive to be successful. All the people I worked with in the fund-raising firm in which I came up had master's degrees. I was the marketing person, and not having a degree did not stop me from increasing their business 42 percent in three years.
I do think that women can accomplish great things together. I have lent my fund-raising skills to the Orange County Women's Philanthropy Fund, which is part of United Way. That is a powerful group of women. Ten years ago, we established a "circle of giving." A lot of men didn't think women could be successful in doing this, but it is working all around the country in groups called Women in Philanthropy. These groups together have raised close to $1 billion. All the women in these groups support and respect each other and their missions, financially and in the time they give.
One very important way to support other women is to mentor those who are starting out. I think we have an obligation to give back by helping younger women develop the skill sets they need to move into upper management, and I love doing it.
The first thing I'd say to a woman starting out in her professional career is, "Don't be afraid of being successful." After that, find out what you need to do to achieve a balance between work life and home life. That is one of the most difficult challenges in my own life and career, but finding that balance is important to our lives, our companies, our families — even our health. So we need a solid support system based on our family, our friends, and other women we meet professionally.
Jane Applegate is one of America's leading experts on small-business management. She's the author of four books, including 201 Great Ideas for Your Small Business (Bloomberg/Wiley). The Applegate Group Inc. is a multimedia production company specializing in producing sponsored content for small-business owners. Current and past clients include Plum Alley, Microsoft, American Express, Cox Business, and Bloomberg LP. A former syndicated small-business columnist for the Los Angeles Times, Jane is currently producing two films about strong women. She is the cofounder ofFabulousFemaleNetwork.com.
There are many women journalists, but being an investigative reporter — for the Los Angeles Times — was a challenge. I was the first full-time white-collar crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times. It was a dangerous beat, given that I was writing about criminals, but it was very exciting. My breaking-news stories frequently appeared on the front page.
Being a woman in financial journalism was an asset when I was interviewing high-powered male executives who considered me young and naïve. Many top executives at the companies I was covering would share way more details and information than I asked for, leading me to ask better and more probing questions. Michael Milken, formerly with Drexel Burnham Lambert, made headlines as the "junk bond king" and was later convicted of securities fraud. I like to think my reporting helped put him behind bars.
I have really only had one significant experience in my career when being a woman caused me grief. I was working at the San Diego Union in the early 1980s, when I asked for a part-time reporting job after the birth of my twins in 1981. The editor denied the request and the Newspaper Guild (union) refused to back me, so I packed up my possessions and resigned from the paper. A few days later, the editor called and finally offered me a three-day workweek. However, as punishment for being a "troublemaker," I was exiled to a remote bureau about thirty miles from my home, where my beat was to cover the rural areas of San Diego County. I wrote several front-page feature stories about casinos on Indian reservations and the life of a cattle rancher. Working so far from home made it more difficult to balance work and family, despite my part-time schedule.
However, I was determined to succeed, so I worked extra hours on the weekends to hone my writing skills. A few months and a few front-page stories later, I was hired by the Los Angeles Times. So much for being exiled from the newsroom!
At my newspaper and television jobs, I always seemed to work longer hours than the men, despite having young children. I was lucky to be married to Joe Applegate. He was a copy editor with a set late-afternoon-into-evening schedule. His career accommodated my need to work flexible hours. I accepted every assignment, traveled frequently, and never expected my employers to give me special treatment because I was a working mother. When I signed my first book contract in 1991, I quit the Times to start my own communications/video and film production company. Being an entrepreneur provided me with more control over my time and a significant boost in my income. It was a very good career move.
Working so hard led to a fantastic career — including awards for my writing and filmmaking, national speaking tours, four books, and a life that is never boring. I've produced a variety of television programs, events, and promotional videos. Now, I'm producing two feature films — both about strong women. I'm also consulting with a great new company, Plum Alley, that crowd-funds projects for women and sells upscale merchandise on a beautiful e-commerce platform.
I've been successful based on working long hours and my passion for telling stories, which I don't think are gender-specific traits. But I do think there are differences between men and women that matter in the workplace. I think women are better listeners than men. Our ability to multitask is also essential to meeting tight deadlines and juggling several projects at once. I covered breaking news most of my career and thrived on the pressure of meeting daily deadlines.
I've always admired Barbara Walters for being a pioneer in my field, but I never had a female mentor myself. All my mentors — until recently — were men. Now I'm working with several female producers and directors who are collaborating on and supporting my projects. I'm mentoring my daughter, Jeanne, an independent film editor who quit her job at Pixar to pursue her dreams. I've also made it a point to mentor young women who worked for my company as writers and producers. Today, one is a senior producer at CBS News and the other is a successful development producer at a TV production company.
The best advice I can give a young woman starting out? Stand by your word and be accountable for your actions. To be truly successful and happy, never work with anyone who gives you a headache or a stomachache. There are so many wonderful, talented people out there. Choose your collaborators and colleagues wisely.
Janet Bray Attwood is the coauthor of the New York Times best-seller The Passion Test: The Effortless Path to Discovering Your Life Purpose, and the coauthor of From Sad to Glad: 7 Steps to Facing Change with Love and Power. She has appeared as a featured speaker before hundreds of thousands of people around the world, sharing the podium with the Dalai Lama, Sir Richard Branson, T. Harv Eker, Jack Canfield, Lisa Nichols, Stephen Covey, and Brendon Burchard, among others.
Janet has received the President's Volunteer Service Award for her work with the homeless and children in lockdown detention centers. Janet has worked in the corporate world as marketing director for Books Are Fun, the third largest book buyer in the US. Janet is a teacher of Transcendental Meditation and is past president of The World United, an organization in India that promotes healthy and sustainable choices for a better world. She is on the international advisory board for the Centre for Management in Mumbai, which offers business degrees and promotes international business qualifications. She is a Dane, knighted by the order of St. John for her humanitarian work.
I've been asked to comment here about the special traits and talents that women have, but to tell you the truth, I never think of myself as living in a separate world from men. I really look at the world in terms of the unity of us all. I don't mean that women and men aren't different in any way, just that each of us needs to discover who we are and what our passions are, and align our lives with that discovery. In that sense, I am constantly using the knowledge that I share with others to be the best person I can be and to express my feminine power.
There are certainly challenges related to being a woman. I just returned from a trip through China and Japan. I visit a lot of places where it is still very much a man's world, although even in these cultures women are making great inroads. Being on stage, as I so often am, is not an inherently feminine role; commanding a whole audience can be very masculine in terms of energy.
Another challenge is that I can't just rely on my innate feminine skills and be a transformational leader all the time. I also have to employ marketing skills, meaning I had to learn how to switch on parts of my brain that were dormant to keep up in this masculine, competitive world.
And yet, in the work I do, I can be as feminine as I want, presenting myself as a woman with a great message — and I can do that standing next to some of the most powerful men on the planet and feel that I am collaborating with them, not competing. Also, what I do depends on being a person who people are willing to listen to and follow — so my intuition, my feminine ability to tap into that inner knowledge, probably gives me an edge.
I always function more on a level of feeling and intuition. My approach to getting things done has a softer side to it. As I travel around the world, I really zero in on what people are looking for at a very deep, emotional level. People come to my events to gain deep knowledge. They want to be noticed, to know that they have value, and to truly be touched and to have it be a straight-to-the-heart experience.
In the end, though, being a woman is just a part of who I am, and that is who I have to be. I can't compete with my male friends like Jack Canfield and Les Brown because I can't be who they are. We all just need to allow ourselves to be the best that we can be. Collaboration is the name of the game. We are not in it to compete but to bring out each other's greatness. We are here to give each person a chance to shine.
One my dearest friends is Marci Shimoff, the New York Times bestselling author of eight books who was featured in the hit film The Secret, and I have also recently gotten to know the spiritual teacher and activist Marianne Williamson. These are women who have stepped out of that world of competition, who come from that very centered and feminine place. Yet they reach an audience of both women and men because they are so crystal clear in delivering their message. Their femininity is like a magnet to people. I think of the poet Maya Angelou that way, too.
The point is that women are in the unique position of drawing out the best in people. We all grow the most when we're surrounded by people who create a good and positive influence on us. As a woman, that is how I see the world. I absolutely believe that every moment is a gift. There are no mistakes in the universe, so it isn't up to me to say this was good and that was bad, this was right and that was wrong. I believe seeing connections more clearly allows us to appreciate and value all the experiences of our lives.
There was a moment in my life when I had a true revelation. Before I created the Passion Test process, now the number one tool used globally to discover passion and connect with purpose, I was stuck in a job where I was failing miserably. I was a recruiter of computer engineers in Silicon Valley, and I was just awful at it. I had no passion for it, and I had trouble understanding what my clients wanted because I didn't understand the language of this primarily male, analytical world of disk drive engineers.
I began to realize that I was here to do something great, but I wasn't yet doing it. I remembered my mother telling me, "Janet, you are here for greatness." One night when I was despairing about my failures at work, I went to meditate at the local meditation center — I had been practicing Transcendental Meditation (TM) for years. On the wall I saw a sign advertising a success seminar in San Francisco. I had been praying for a sign, and I told myself this was the one I was looking for. The next morning, I called in sick to work, drove to San Francisco, walked into that seminar, and sat down in the front row. The woman teaching the program was so happy, centered, and crystal clear it was amazing. Everything about her seemed perfect.
She was an incredible role model for me. I could feel that she was aligned from the inside out and I wanted that. Right then, I realized that being a transformational speaker was what I was meant to do.
As I began my journey into the world of transformation, I learned that the secret to being really happy is in giving, in being of service to others. One of the clearest examples was when I first started the Passion Test program. I got an e-mail from a group in Miami that was working with homeless women. They told me they were organizing an event and would be busing in two hundred homeless women. They were going to feed them on china and give them all kinds of presents, and they wanted me to come and share the Passion Test with them. They said they couldn't pay me.
At that time, I was in the Midwest, which meant I'd have to travel a long way at my own expense, but I listened to my heart, and I knew I didn't have a choice but to get on that plane. I went to Miami and spoke to the homeless women. As I stood on the stage interacting with these precious women who had gone through so much, I realized I wasn't the one giving. I was the one receiving. That was the most important talk I had given. In that moment I realized that these women were no different than anyone else on the planet, and in fact, all they'd been through made them more open, more appreciative, and more ready to change than most of my audiences.
That night inspired me to create the Empowered Women's Series, a monthly program designed to inspire, uplift, and motivate women in transition all over the United States. I brought together great people like Lisa Nichols and created a whole CD series that is sent out free to anyone running a homeless shelter or detention center. This wasn't anything I was going to make money on. It just felt like the right thing to do, and I did it. As a woman, I could feel for these women so deeply and I believe that as women we have a responsibility to uplift and support one another.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Women Change the World"
by .
Copyright © 2014 Michelle J. Patterson.
Excerpted by permission of BenBella Books, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Introduction – Michelle Patterson,
JoAnn Albers,
Jane Applegate,
Janet Bray Attwood,
Robyn Benincasa,
Rebecca Blanton,
Kim Castle,
Dame DC Cordova,
Eli Davidson,
Julia Dilts,
Gloria Feldt,
Marion Freijsen,
Maria Gamb,
Betty Heiman,
Diana Hendel,
Nadine Lajoie,
Wendy Lea,
Sharon Lechter,
Marina Lee,
Jenni Luke,
Lisabeth Marziello,
Peggy McColl,
Ursula Mentjes,
Lauren E. Miller,
Clare Munn,
Keri Murphy,
Monique Nadeau,
Janice Neiderhofer,
Sophia A. Nelson, Esq.,
Carolyn Parks,
Dr. Marissa Pei,
Kerri Pomarolli,
Kathy Quintana,
Kimberly S. Reed,
Janet C. Salazar,
Lucy Sanders,
Kristen Sharma,
Janet Switzer,
Rose Tafoya,
JJ Virgin,
Diana von Welanetz Wentworth,
Kate White,
Nelly Yusupova,
Claire Zammit, PhD,