Inspiration
If you have ever attended a business conference or taken a business class you’ve most likely heard about an elevator pitch. The elevator pitch is a discription of what you do or what your business is in a short amount of time (in case an important influencer in your life gets on an elevator with you and asks you what you do). Not only is it important in a business setting, but to me, it is an important tool to have in your arsenal when people ask you about yourself. I bring this to your attention because I have found that I don’t have an elevator pitch about myself and it is an uncomfortable spot to be in. I want to change it.
For more than 30 years if someone asked me what I did, I would say that I am the married mother of three children, two boys and one girl. I would tell them where we lived and what my children were into. I would tell them about my husband’s occupation. I am not apologizing for it: that was who I was. Then, I went into the restaurant business, but if you asked me who I was, I would rattle off the family stuff first then the business side of me (now I see how telling that was as to my commitment to the restaurant world). I still saw myself in the wife and mother role first.
But when I left my marriage, that all changed. My answer to, “Who are you and what do you do,” became garbled. I didn’t know what to say. I still think of myself as a wife and mother. That is who I am to my core. But, I have been fired from the wife role. And, to say that I am a mother is hardly who I am to the world any longer. So, who am I?
So now what? Well, it is time to come up with a new elevator pitch and it might be time for you to do the same. Because, no matter what your marital status or age, you are something and I want you to know who you are as well. If you can define it for yourself, then maybe you can define it for others. And, that one statement about who you are is very powerful. It not only lets others know about you, but it can give you a sense of confidence to be able to rattle off a strong statement about who you are.
I found myself stumbling through an introduction last week that got me started on this bandwagon: I was on a plane with a friend and the young man next to me asked me what I do. My friend replied, “she’s an author.” I immediately said, “No I am not an author.” I told the young man that I write a blog, which I felt was much more realistic. I was embarrassed but guess what, shame on me for not having an answer ready in my head.
Add to our changing lives, our age. I am 63. Some of my friends are retired. Some are not. I have friends who have worked inside the home all their lives and their roles are now changing as well.
Women 50+, whether single or married, are all at a real crossroads in their lives. I know I am. And, it is as important for you to know your elevator pitch about yourself as it is for others to hear it. Here’s what I want you to do: create your own elevator speech. Start writing down words that you think fit who you are right now, not who you used to be. If that’s hard for you, don’t give up. Keep trying to come up with words or phrases that describe who you are. Don’t worry, it will come to you, maybe not right away, but you will figure it out. Just jot them down for as long as it takes you: a day, a week or a month. Remember, your elevator pitch can be a living description of you: it doesn’t have to stay as is.
I would show you mine if I had one but I don’t, so I am doing the exercise along with you and will publish it when I feel like I have a description of myself and what I do and who I am.
I promise you, when you have your own personal elevator pitch you will be able to, not only tell others who you are, you will better know who you are as well. It sounds like I am joking, I know, but knowing who you are is important. If you love it and love who you are, great. If you aren’t happy with what your description says about you, guess what, you can change it! But, you can’t know what kinds of changes you want to make until you know what it is about your life that makes you unhappy.
So, please please please tell me your elevator pitch about who and what you are. You will be taking a giant step toward being the woman you want to be.
If you are a regular at Starting Over at Sixty, you know that I selected a word for myself for 2018. It was forward, and I really took it to heart. I believe that I got the idea from the book, Design Your Day by Claire Díaz-Ortiz (love that book). I was finally divorced at the beginning of the year so I traveled for several weeks to wash the stink off from all of that, then came home, bought a condo, moved in, spent several months living out of boxes and finally got possession of it (from the painters, plumbers, floor installers, etc.) in November. In the meantime, I have been working with consultants and tech types to figure out what direction the website should lean. More about that later. I had a little minor surgery to repair an old mistake, and here I am. I moved forward!
So, I was trying to think of what word would fit best for me for 2019. What would be a word that would motivate me to keep moving forward, and not actually be the word forward again? Nothing was coming to mind.
Then it happened. I was cleaning up in the kitchen while the kids were home for the holidays and I decided to put on some music. My Spotify was playing something from an evangelist who, I believe, was Eddie James. I couldn’t figure out why this was coming up, but when I looked at the screen the word “Breakthrough” was showing: I guess that’s what Mr. James’ topic was all about. It stopped me in my tracks (not that hard when I am cleaning!). That was the perfect word for 2019, Breakthrough, and here is why.
I’ve been feeling like I’m underwater lately, just trying to crash through the surface on nearly every front. Every project that I am super excited about in my life has been delayed a number of times. I am treading water at every turn and it has been wearing me down. So, while I have made a lot of
Well, not since I found Breakthrough, Sister! 2019 is the year of the breakthrough for me. It is the year to break through the barriers that have been holding me back for months or even years. For example, I have been hovering around a certain weight: I lose some then gain it back, or I go up then lose that. No way that is going to continue. It just isn’t. It is time to break through that certain number permanently. That’s it.
And, you may know that I have been working on two new programs for Starting Over at Sixty and they have been delayed and delayed and delayed. The website has been on hold for an eternity, it seems, and I was seriously considering dropping it altogether. I couldn’t break through and the delays were winning. Not any more! I am moving full speed ahead and in March you will be able to participate in the Sisters and WingWoman programs fully. I am so excited about it and you will hear more about it in the coming weeks.
So, just deciding what the word of the year will be has changed my outlook from dreary to excited again. And you can do the very same thing yourself. Think about how you would like to move through 2019. Do you want to take charge of your life this year? Or, have you been on a tread mill for months and just want to slow down? It’s your life and it can look like what you want, but I promise you that if you select a word to guide you through the year, you will stay focused on that word.
We all need little tricks to keep us on the path that we want to follow. Try a word for the year and see if it helps you. Let me know what you select in the comments. Happy January!
Read MoreAging isn’t for wimps, is it? And, there are times when it seems that as a single woman I am falling apart without a support system. It’s easy to have a pity party, isn’t it? But, if you need a pick-me-up just look around you to feel pride. Look at the people who you have helped, the people you have raised, the people you have lifted up in your world and I don’t care who you are, you will swell up and send that pity party packing.
I was at an event this week to honor my uncle. When we were assembled to take a family photo, I thought, “Who would have ever imagined the paths that our lives would take and the families that we built around us? Who would have thought all of this would be possible nearly forty years ago when our lives looked pretty bleak?”
My uncle and I both lost our parents in our twenties (my mother was his sister). He lost his wife to cancer in his early forties, just one month after cancer took my mother. I can remember being at my aunt’s funeral and feeling like the sky was falling. We were a couple of sad sacks, and we were the last ones standing in our little family. Mark was left with a six-year-old daughter to raise. We had both had a lot to deal with in each of our short lives.
My uncle remarried and has lived happily ever after. And, while my marriage wasn’t a happily ever after situation, I have three wonderful adult children who are proof that I did something good.
Now, here we were at a photo-op, my uncle and his wife, his daughter, their grandchildren, and me with one of my sons. This was our family that he and I could never have imagined all those years ago. This is the family that we both wish our mothers could have known. For me, it was a moment. I felt so much pride, even though nothing was about me that day. I just kept thinking about where we came from and where we are now.
So, again, I say that aging isn’t for wimps, and sometimes it feels like the Titanic. But once in a while, you get a glimpse of what your life has been all about and I can’t imagine even one of you not being able to look back at your lives and think about what you have accomplished and the people you have helped or nurtured along the way. And, again I say, just look around you to feel pride.
Read MoreI went to a very inspirational meeting last week in New York where I was blown away by the accomplished speakers, all women in my age group. The audience was all women around my age as well. One of the speakers was an ageism expert and her talk was forceful and aggressive and highly motivating. However, quite a bit of her time was spent speaking about why women color their hair and have plastic surgery to look younger: her point was that we were buying into the youth culture ourselves, or at least that’s what I took away from her speech. She had a note of heightened anger in her voice and I thought to myself, “No more shaming! Take a look around the room.”
The sold-out crowd was full of the most beautiful women I had ever seen, and by beautiful, I mean it in the most inclusive sense of the word. They were black and white, tall and short, fat and thin, American and women from other countries. There were women wearing conservative suits and women in Birkenstocks. I saw women with every style and color of hair you can imagine. Every style of glasses, handbag, hat, and scarf was represented. Hair was curly and straight and blonde, black, gray, and red. I loved every minute of my people watching, so much so that I just found a seat and sat down without introducing myself to anyone or joining in any conversations. It was fascinating to me.
And as I thought about whether or not I was buying into the youth culture, as my speaker made me feel a little ashamed, I thought to myself, “Isn’t doing what I want to do, looking the way I want to look, about as independent and mature thinking as it gets? Shouldn’t I be allowed to do whatever I want to do with my body and hair? Is that not the point? I color my hair because I like the color of my hair. I like my boobs closer to my chin than my knees and that’s why I had them lifted, more than once. If that makes me happy and gave me more confidence, then what is the issue? Being able to do exactly what we want with our own bodies is what our freedom is all about, right?
Shaming women who want to color their hair or have plastic surgery is no better than holding negative opinions about women who do not. Ageism isn’t about the color of hair: ageism is about discrimination based on age. What I was seeing in that room was the power and vitality of women over 50. I was “studying” a room full of smart, diverse, intelligent women from all walks of life who are more than their looks, but who have earned the right to look just the way they want. So stop the shaming. Embrace the differences that make us all unique, even if they come in a bottle!
Honestly, in my opinion, it is such a waste of time to talk about a woman’s looks when there is so much more to each and every one of us.
Read MoreI am not very political. I try to be informed, but I can’t say I’m even that all the time. I have strong opinions about many subjects, but until a couple of years ago, I vacillated on many issues that face our world. I am no longer that woman. You may have similar feelings. But I do know this for sure: unless we women tell our stories to those young women around us, we will have missed an opportunity. We can only help to make the world a better place for our daughters and grand-daughters if we let them know what it was like to be a woman in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and beyond. And, the only way to do that is to talk, to tell them about our lives. You must pass down your wisdom to the women around you.
We have all had them: we all have had experiences in which we were treated unfairly. We all have had experiences in which we were not paid as much as the men we were working with side by side. Many of us know how it feels to have a man make an unwanted advance toward us and not have anyone to report it to. Sadly, these are universal experiences for many of us women and if we keep all of that to ourselves when we leave this world, then shame on us. Shame on us for not letting young women know what it was like then so they can change it now. Shame on us for not telling our stories so other women can find the passion to right those wrongs. Shame on us for keeping them in the dark and not allowing our stories to help effect change.
The young women in your life undoubtedly love and respect you. So why would you not let them into your life as a young woman many years ago and let them know that it was not always that great and not that fair and that you are maybe seeing some of the same monsters rearing their ugly heads today?
OK, that’s all of my “I Am Woman Hear Me Roar” rant. Pass down your stories!
How would you like to see things change for the women in your lives? Do you think that can happen?
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