As the calendar turns to a new year, the phrase “new year, new you” inevitably surfaces in advertising campaigns, social media posts, and sales on clothing and cosmetics.
I’ll admit it: I have a negative reaction to that message.
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How often do you click on an article because the title promises you’re going to learn something new or fix a problem you’ve been struggling with — and it turns out to do neither?
In this moment when many are seeking answers as to why for the second time in less than a decade, a highly qualified female leader didn’t break through what Hillary Clinton dubbed the “highest and hardest glass ceiling,” you might be among the many asking “Why?”
The next question typically is: “When will the country be ready for a female president?”
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Love politics? Hate it? Whatever your POV is, in today’s chaotic political landscape, people are yearning for effective leaders.
I began this 3-part series last week with a look at the difference between Power Over and Power TO leadership styles. I called it “Hammering Power” to reflect the metaphor I use to explain that power is merely energy. Like a hammer, you can break something apart or build with it.
In sum, Power is what you do with it. What you make of it.
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“As women, we are often the architects of our dreams,” said Hyacinth Tucker, founder and owner of Laundry Basket Delivery at the recent Take The Lead Power Up Conference on Women’s Equality Day in Washington, D.C. “So let’s share our stories, struggles and triumphs knowing together we are stronger.”
The winner of the Visionary Award exemplifying the Know Your History Power Tool, Tucker told the Together We Lead conference participants, ”We carry the weight of our aspirations. This is a testament to the power of perseverance, even when the world may not yet see it.”
Gloria Feldt, co-founder and president of Take The Lead echoed the sentiment, reminding the participants, “You are the CEO of your own life.”
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Issue 273 — September 16, 2024
“When the only tool you have is a hammer, you are likely to treat everything you see as a nail.”
The hammer is a metaphor I use to deconstruct and reconstruct the meaning of power, so that women will embrace their hammer of power with confidence, authenticity, and joy (yes, there’s that word “joy,” and I’ve been saying it in this phrase for years).
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Issue 271 — September 2, 2024
Who’s still glowing from the energy of Take The Lead’s Power Up Concert and Conference? I am for sure!
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Issue 264 — July 1, 2024
Note: Today, Gloria is passing the mic (or the mouse) to Felicia Davis, Take The Lead Leadership Ambassador extraordinaire, and founder of the Black Women’s Collective.
Felicia had the great idea of honoring Take The Lead’s reason for being at our August 25/26 Power Up Conference and Concert — that’s YOU. You are the women and some men who have participated in 50 Women Can Change the World cohorts, taken a 9 Leadership Power tools course or workshop, served as a Leadership Ambassador, or otherwise benefitted from our transformational programs. Here’s Felicia…
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The new film, Shirley, with Regina King as U.S. Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm in her 1972 run for the presidency as the Democratic Party nomination, is a vibrant reminder of the value of male allies and mentorship for younger women.
In the months leading up to the 2024 presidential election, these are key lessons women can take to heart in every field and into practice at every step of the ladder from college to early career to mid-career and even the highest office in the country.
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Issue 252 — February 11, 2024
Last weekend, I went to see the movie I think should win Academy Awards in every category: Ava DuVernay’s rendition of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.
After writing last week about the discovery of the 3.2 million year old hominid fossil Lucy in Hadar, Ethiopia 50 years ago by paleoanthropologist and founder of the Institute of Human Origins Donald Johanson, I wanted to explore further the question of why we humans are the way we are.
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Issue 213— December 5, 2022
You really must watch this video to get your hackles up at the hapless reporter who asked New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern if she was meeting Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin because they are “similar in age.”
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Issue 191 — February 21, 2022
If you were eagerly awaiting the “Sex and the City” reboot, “And Just Like That,” perhaps you were one of many who concluded that you can’t go home again and expect it to be a satisfying visit.
I loved the iconic television series back in the day. Yet I can see that trying to update it while maintaining the elements that made it so much fun in its first go-round was an impossible task. Because its current iteration takes place in a culture chastened by a pandemic and awakened to deep seated racial injustice that makes the whiteness of the original four female friends, especially in one of the world’s most diverse cities, seem so out of place.
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Issue 178 — September 20, 2021
On a spectacular Arizona day in late January, 2020, a day when you can be lulled into thinking all’s right with the world, I was hiking with a friend. Then boom! I tripped on an unseen pebble, put my hand out to catch myself and knew immediately from the snap and the pain that I had broken my wrist. The first broken bone I’d ever had.
It’s never the mountains that trip you up. It’s the pebbles on the path.
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