Further to yesterdays post, it just so happens that we, the public, can comment on this most important matter…
The Australian Productivity Commission has released a draft report into Childcare and Early Childhood Learning, and has invited the public to comment on it via written submission or by attending public hearings. Find out details here.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GATHER JUST ABOUT EVERY INFLUENTIAL WOMAN TOGETHER TO TALK ABOUT WORKING FAMILY ISSUES? THIS…
“Setting the tone for the Summit, President Barack Obama penned a blog for the Huffington Post in which he wrote, “Family leave, childcare, flexibility and a decent wage aren’t frills. They’re basic needs. They shouldn’t be bonuses–they should be the bottom line.” Read on
Most entrepreneurial mothers have become just so because a job environment could not address their needs/wants over:
How well these are executed (in a business context) is debatable but nonetheless the impetus to give a business a red hot go is usually driven through wanting to address these quality of parenting and lifestyle issues.
Is it about being famous? Or is it about doing good work and becoming famous as a result?
As a senior editor at National Geographic for 37 years, Mary Smith worked with prominent research grantees—including primatologist Dian Fossey, paleoanthropologists Louis and Mary Leakey, and conservationist George Schaller—to produce illustrated articles for the magazine based on their work.
Is it true that Leakey—who started Jane on her life’s work with chimpanzees—tried to get you [Mary] to work for him too?
“Mary, I can make you famous,” he told me. He wanted me to give up my career at the magazine to go study aardvarks.
“Thank you very much,” I said, “but no.”
Given Mary’s role now at National Geographic, she’s become famous in her own right.
Did she need Louis Leakey? NO. She may have though, had she wanted to study Aardvarks.
As Jane Goodall described at her 80th birthday celebrations, regardless of whether the likes of Leakey stepped up, she was going to Africa and she was going to spend time with/study gorillas. If it had not been Leakey, she just would have found another way. It had nothing to do with fame and everything to do with spending time with the creatures she so admired and to get to know them better.
How about your own journey to date? Are you in it for the fame/money or for the greater good?
The answer to these questions are the determining factors in your energy levels and therefore your commitment over time…
I would also personally describe Jane Goodall (and maybe Mary Smith?) as one hell of an entrepreneurial mother!
The way she has not only mothered her own children, but those of her gorillas and instilled the importance of DOing stuff is testament to her. And isn’t the world better off as a result…
Late last week I had a chat with a chap who owned a business and was looking to explore the option of selling it. Having not done a sale before and not knowing anyone around him that had, his first soft approach was to complete the “Sellability Score“.
No surprise, his business rated “average”, as do all businesses who have completed the score up to this point in time. Given he was only exploring however, it gives he and his business partner plenty of time to sort things out and raise that score… but there in lies the problem, they don’t even know if this is a path they want to take yet, because they hadn’t talked about it.
It this particular instance, it did not help that one of the partners was in Melbourne and the other in Brisbane but I’m seeing it more and more again as I play in this “how to sell” space. The partners have not had the hard discussions that need to happen prior.
I say hard because the true answers as to what has to happen next usually do not revolve around the business per se. It usually gets personal around what do you want life to look like and does this business feature.
Much harder to articulate too if
a) you’ve not thought about it before
b) if you’ve not had this more in depth discussion with your business partner before
And just because they’re hard discussions does not mean they should not be had.
It’s a lot easier to put this stuff off.
“We’ll talk about it next time we see each other”.
Ah, no you won’t.
Or at least not get into the depth that is required.
And that can’t be done on a whim either.
You have to have done some personal navel gazing first to be able to even start.
You have to book a date/time/place to do so.
So where I left this conversation was, they have to talk to each other and work out what each wants, articulate that and then plan accordingly. Sometimes a third party facilitating this process can be most beneficial as they ensure you work through the agenda and not get side-tracked. I did of course offer my services as I have been through this particular scenario myself. Whether they take it up remains to be seen.
Selling a business seems hard, but like anything, there is a process to follow.
Bringing up this conversation with your business partner may also be hard, but it is doable and there is a process to follow.
Getting your business-owner head and heart right is also hard, but it is doable and there is a process to follow.
Start the process, you’ll be surprised where it leads you…
Pakistani educator Ziauddin Yousafzai reminds the world of a simple truth that many don’t want to hear: Women and men deserve equal opportunities for education, autonomy, an independent identity. He tells stories from his own life and the life of his daughter, Malala, who was shot by the Taliban in 2012 simply for daring to go to school. “Why is my daughter so strong?” Yousafzai asks. “Because I didn’t clip her wings.”
A lesson for all entrepreneurial mothers too…
Don’t wait to be rescued or discovered by anyone, and for heaven’s sake, don’t wait to be given permission from the principal’s office to take full ownership of your own destiny. You gotta do it yourself.
Step forward out of your own lingering residual sense of smallness, take up every inch of life that is your blessed inheritance, and DO YOUR THING.
Today.
continue reading here…
DO YOUR THING…
3 very powerful words
I had the great fortune of seeing Elizabeth Gilbert last night (in Frankston VIC of all places) and she was fabulous. Thought provoking, genuine, care and sharing, an all-round good human being. Really pleased I made the effort to go (as you know, it’s easier to say No).
Above, for me, was one of her key takeaways and one in which she openly demonstrates by her DO YOUR THING living .
Where are you on the DO YOUR THING scale, between 1 and 10 (10 being so doing it!)?
Anything below 7 needs a rethink, a strategy even…
interested?
