as Rosette dared to defy the laws of ceramics, Joline challenged Inc. to acknowledge the accomplishments of businesswomen.
When I asked Joline where she got the courage to continually try new challenges, she replied, “I'm not sure that I ever felt that it was a matter of courage, so much as it was a matter of survival.
Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another stepping stone to greatness.
—OPRAH WINFREY, TALK SHOW HOST AND ACTRESS
“For the last twenty years, I have watched when I have begun to bounce off walls, and that's real information that things are not great. Rather than put up with a really dysfunctional, unhappy life, I have at least been able to say, ‘Uh-oh, things aren't right here, and I need to find something that will make me sane and more at peace with myself.’ So I've never seen my choices as being so much about taking risks as honoring what will keep me a healthy human being. I suppose that's just listening to one's inner voice in a way that, for me truly, is about survival more than courage. Many times when I have made choices and decisions, I'm scared silly. And yet I'm able to move forward or make changes because the alternative is too painful.”
Artistic risks invoke new dimensions of your self-expression. Harpist and musician Deborah Henson-Conant's premiere onewoman show Altered Ego, a tour through her own life and imagination, is such a stretch. I first learned about Deborah's work from Eli Newberger, well-known pediatrician, child advocate, and tuba player for the Black Eagle Jazz Band. On a rainy night after a fabulous Jazz Boat Cruise with the band, I asked Eli to recommend female musicians for my book. Deborah was one, and jazz singer Rebecca Parris the other. Called “A Wild Woman” by Doc Severinsen, Deborah is internationally known for mixing story and song. But, by the early 1990s, Deborah felt frustrated with the musical constraints of traditional jazz, the physical constraints of the harp, and the whole music business. She sought out mime and theater coach Tony Montanaro in Maine and began intensive study to develop her performance skills and create a new type of performance art.
Her show Altered Ego opened in Boston in June 1998. Dressed in a little girl's black dress and cowboy boots, with colored ribbons braided into her hair, Deborah weaves a night of wonder.
Whether she's singing about watermelons or nightingales or dancing with her harp, she is mesmerizing, funny, and extremely talented. As The Boston Globe commented, “A night with Henson-Conant is some enchanted evening.” Deborah sees this return to theater as an important turning point for her: “I'm doing something really different, which is actually crossing back to my roots in theater. I kept feeling like an impostor and telling myself that someday I would get back to writing musical theater, which was my first love—I wrote my first musical comedy when I was twelve—and I was completely unaware of the fact that I had already made that return. Everyone knew it but me. Even reviewers wrote that what I was doing on the concert stage was some form of music theater. I was the only one who couldn't see it. Then suddenly it hit me. I got into the theater, turned on the lights, and ahhhhhh, I was home.”
You can't copy anybody and end up with anything. If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling.
—BILLIE HOLIDAY, SINGER
Pam Moore, a partner in the international company Synectics, which does innovation consulting, took a series of intuitive U-turns in the course of her career path. She went to college to become a French teacher, noting that she grew up at a time when women had the choices of being a nurse, a teacher, or a secretary. In her sophomore year, she took a course called Voice and Articulation and, as a result, changed her major to speech pathology and received a fellowship for a master's degree. But during her clinical work, she realized that progress with clients was too slow and not interactive enough for her, so she left the program. She said it was hard to disappoint her family, but she trusted her intuition that she had to discover another route.
When you make a mistake, don't look back at it long. Take the reason of the thing into your mind, and then look forward. Mistakes are lessons of wisdom. The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power.
—MARY PICKFORD, ACTRESS
It takes courage to admit we're on the wrong train and risk disapproval or possibly looking foolish. For Pam, this ability to honor her truth was most wise. I can't tell you how many clients I've seen over the years who knew early on that they had chosen the wrong career but denied it.
Years later, with school loans and responsibilities, it is a much harder choice to undo. Like Joline, Pam's self-awareness that she was unhappy led her to a better match.
After leaving school, Pam taught dance at Arthur Murray and moved onto become a management trainee at Hilton Hotels for three years until she left in August 1972. Not knowing what was next, Pam answered a tiny ad in the paper one day that said, “Looking for creative people.” The synchronicity of this story is remarkable—had Pam not opened the paper that one day in her search, her future could have been quite different. That ad was for Synectics, an innovation firm, where she was hired and now is an owner. After twenty-five years, Pam is an avid “Synector” and, like our other risk takers, is passionate about her work. Her face glows with joy as she says, “What inspires me is an incredibly profound belief that I'm not only creative but that I can help others discover their own creativity. We can all do it. The beauty is that we were all given the software. The problem is that over the years of needing to be right, we stopped using that muscle. Reawakening that potential still gives me goosebumps.”
Fascination also affected the evolution of career guru Barbara Sher. Barbara invented a unique system of helping people make their wishes come true called “Success Teams.” She lives by her words: “The good life is when you get up in the morning and can't wait to start all over again.” Barbara radiates that kind of joy herself. Originally a counselor, she is particularly gifted in group dynamics, and it didn't take long before her career was booming.
Intrigued by people's stories, she proved to be a talented problem solver: “I wasn't interested in the medical model or disease of any kind. I just wanted to fix what was wrong so people could fly. I took one of these counseling groups and turned it into an early Success Team. It was by accident, but I saw what we could do when we helped each other achieve our personal goals and I watched people get well. And I was astonished. All we had to do was figure out what somebody wanted and then we'd all make sure they got it, whatever it was. We'd only work on people's feelings when they got anxious about going after their dreams. And I thought that's what this tool is for. You get untwisted so you can go do what you want. I wanted people who could write to write. I wanted people who could sing to sing. I wanted people to be happy and then move on.”
Barbara then took her own advice. She was having so much fun with the accomplishments of her Success Teams that she created her own workshop and set off on her own. She made all of her friends come to her workshop, and they brought the media. After a year, she was discovered. She was written up in the New York Times, and five agents called to get her to write a book about her Success Teams, which became the bestselling Wishcraft.
Her Success Teams function like brainstorming-accountabilitysupport groups. People come together regularly with the intent of meeting their own goals and promoting the goals of the other group members. They are powerful in the way that only groups can be. I first met Barbara back in the early 1980s, when my women's network group invited her to speak on Success Teams at our annual meeting. Barbara is a phenomenal speaker and facilitates a crowd like a pro. She exudes warmth and a passion for individual expression. As a participant, you not only have a great time but are inspired, entertained, and have your hope for humanity restored. As she is very much at peace with her own shortcomings, somehow she always makes you feel better about your own. For years I have recommended her books to clients, have been part of Success Teams myself,
