5 Humble Admissions from Sonia Sotomayor
Sonia Sotomayor has a lot to brag about. She was the first Hispanic and the third woman ever to be appointed to the United States Supreme court. She overcame a troubled childhood to achieve highest honours at Princeton and Yale. She was appointed to the Federal District Court by age 38 and has become an American Icon in the process. In spite of all of this Sonia Sotomayor has remained true to herself. In her book My Beloved World she reveals the blessings in her life and does not hide the ugly bits either.
There is a lot to be learned from Sonia Sotomayor’s overwhelming ability to stay grounded. The struggle to stay true to herself in spite of all of her success is what prompted her to write My Beloved World. “I wrote this book right after my nomination because I wanted to hold on to the real Sonia,” she explained. The true Sonia definitely shines through in her memoir.
In My Beloved World, Sonia Sotomayor admits five candid truths that show her humility and inspire others around her to show such poise in the face of success.
1 I’m just like you and I still made it
Sotomayor has never considered herself as anything extraordinary. Rather, she sees herself as a normal person who was able to achieve great things. She said that “I think to move people beyond just dreaming and into doing; they have to be able to see that you’re just like them and you still made it.” That may be one of the most inspiring things about Sotomayor, the fact that there was no special moment of extreme luck that took her to where she is now. Her secret to success is hard work and perseverance. She admitted to spending hours at the library as a child devouring anything she could get her hands on. She failed at her first job as a summer associate in a New York firm. Her path to success has included hard work, successes and even failures. While some may find that to be a boring way to climb the ladder to success, it’s actually more inspiring because it’s a path that anyone can take.
Not only does Sotomayor thank hard work for her success, but also everyone around her. She stresses that she is not self-made. Once again Sotomayor’s humility shines through. Sometimes when we get to the top of a mountain we just want to scream “I did it!” but not Sonia; she thanks and acknowledges everyone around her. This not only teaches us all a lesson in appreciation, but also shows us that there is no problem with having help from those around you in order to reach your goals.
2 Sonia Sotomayor candidly shares her troubled home life in My Beloved World
The child of an alcoholic father, who died when Sonia was nine, and the child of a distant, even neglectful, mother, Sotomayor was faced with obstacles from the moment she was born. She grew up in a working class home in the Bronx, where she found solace in the arms of her grandmother. She was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at age eight and after hearing her parents fight about giving her the needle, she learned how to give it to herself. This was one of the driving forces in her life. She believed that because of her diabetes that she would not live as long as most. Her disease gave her a sense of urgency the never faded away, even after her fear of a shorter life proved unfounded.
Sonia Sotomayor is not a woman who grew up in a life of privilege and wealth. Like most of us, she lived a middle class life and had to struggle to overcome her own issues. One of her biggest issues being her relationship with her mother, a struggle that persisted well into her adulthood. She shared that “the mother I grew up with is not the mother I know now.” She explains in My Beloved World that she rarely saw her mother, and when she did, she was angry. It took looking back on her childhood to realize that her mother was just mourning over the loss of her husband and trying to support the family on her own. With time Sonia has been able to understand her mother and learn with her. “In watching my mother grow and develop herself, I grew and developed myself.”3 “Everybody has a little ego.”
What made Sonia Sotomayor want to become a judge? She wanted to become the most important woman in the room, of course! When watching an episode of Perry Mason she remembers seeing Perry turn to the judge after a guilty verdict. “At that moment I realized that the most important person in that room was the judge and I wanted to be that person.” This ego is exactly what took her out of the Bronx and into American History. If Sotomayor’s ego tells us anything it’s that sometimes we have to see ourselves as the most important person in the room. We have to see that we are deserving of greatness in order to even take the first steps to achieve that greatness.
4 Sotomayor admits to feeling the occasional tug of regret over never having children
Successful women are not supposed to apologize for their successes, or so we are told. Most taboo of all would be talking about what we had to give up for our success but sometimes it’s the truth. Sotomayor’s candor about her lack of a family comes as refreshing. She never tries to pretend that success does not come with costs. While she does live a very fulfilling life, Sotomayor tells us truthfully of what she had to do to achieve her goals.
“I knew that I wanted to be an independent woman with my own career and successful in whatever I chose to do. Could I have had that and had children? Many women do. Can you have it all every minute of the day? No.” That’s one of Sotomayor’s best qualities; she’s not afraid to share the reality of it all. She shares her harsh childhood, her excruciating work to get her to where she is and even her regrets. We don’t feel sorry for Sotomayor, we feel overwhelmingly inspired by her.
5 Sotomayor doesn’t feel sorry for herself either. She still feels hopeful for love.
Another part of her life that Sotomayor shares with us is her failed marriage. She divorced her high school sweetheart in 1983 but she has not given up hope for finding her next great love. Her mother fell in love again late in life and Sotomayor admits to wondering if that will happen to her, but the man will have to wait. “To have a romance you have to have time. The guy’s gonna have to wait until I’m a little bit freer.”
What may be the most beautiful thing about Sotomayor is that she never limits herself. “I haven’t finished growing yet…I’m young at heart, young in spirit and I’m still adventurous.” This woman, who has never let anything hold her back, isn’t going to start now. Her story is one of candid truthfulness, struggle, success and hope. If we learn anything from her it should be to never give up, no matter what the obstacle so that maybe we too could find that we’ve “gone further than any dream you ever had.”
To win Sonia Sotomayor’s book My Beloved World, along with five other books by inspiring leaders on an Amazon Kindle Paperwhite, visit Women Who Run It’s page on Facebook to enter our Facebook Sweepstakes for Women Who Run It!
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Pairing Wine and Food is a Delicate Balance
Dinner with wine used to be simple! The rule was pair white wine with white meat and match red wine with red meat. But most of us don’t just eat meat and potatoes or drink claret and chablis these days.
With modern fusion cuisine and wines from new regions around the world, the choices – and confusion – are great. One new school of thought is that any wine goes with any dish. However, most of us don’t put ketchup on our ice cream for the same reason we don’t drink a delicate white wine with a hearty meat dish or a powerful red wine with sole – they are mismatched flavors and textures.
When the marriage of food and wine works well, each enhances the other, making the meal greater than if you had consumed them separately. That’s why the following classic matches have survived the changes in food fashion: stilton with port, foie gras with sauternes, boeuf bourguignon with Burgundian pinot noir and goat cheese with sauvignon blanc.
Old Rules for New World Food Pairings
It helps to start with the basic principles of food and wine pairing as they still provide a basis for experimenting with new world cuisine. One of the most important elements to harmonize between wine and food is flavor. For example, a tangy tomato-based pasta sauce requires a wine with comparable acidity. Without this balance between the acidity of the dish and the wine, the partner with lower acidity tastes flabby and dull, while the other, too tart.
To find an acidic wine, you can chose one that is made in the same area as the food. Years of matching the regional cuisine and wine as well as similar soil and climatic conditions make this a safe bet. For example, you could pair a tomato sauce fettuccine with a Tuscan chianti. Or you can select a wine from a cool climate where the grapes don’t ripen to great sweetness, and maintain their tart, tangy edge. Crisp New Zealand sauvignon blancs and French chablis serve these dishes well.
Acidic wines also work well with salty dishes. For example, oysters are both salty and briny with an oily mouth-coating texture that can smother most wines. However, a sparkling wine from California, a Spanish cava or French champagne can both refresh and cleanse your palate when eating fish. Bubblies also work well with spicy foods. Hot spice in Asian, Thai, curry, and chili pepper dishes can numb the palate. Many of these foods also have high acidity from citrus ingredients such as lime juice as well as sweetness. Therefore, you need a wine with an acidic backbone as well as a touch of sweetness such as an off-dry California sparkling wine with lots of fruit.
Classic Pairings for Old Favourites
While off-dry, acidic wines go well with many dishes, the two most difficult wines to pair with food are also the two most popular: chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon. New World chardonnays can be oaky, buttery, flavorful wines that overwhelm many dishes. But you can still enjoy chardonnay with your meal. Pair it with butter and cream sauces to marry similar textures and flavors.
Conversely, cabernet sauvignons can have bitter dark fruit flavours with mouth drying tannins (the same sensation you get from drinking well-brewed tea). Therefore, they find their happiest match in foods with juicy proteins such as a rare steak. The protein softens the tannin making the wine taste smooth and fruity. Steaks done with crushed black peppercorns sensitize your taste-buds, making the wine taste even more fruity and robust. However, the way in which the dish is prepared also has an impact. A well-done steak, for example, may taste too dry with a tannic cabernet.
Proteins are also at work with the marriage of wine and cheese, the cocktail classic. Red wines tend to go better with hard cheeses such as blue cheese as they can accommodate more tannins. However, whites suit soft cheeses such as brie and camembert as the creamier textures require more acidity for balance.
Game Birds and Barbecues
Game birds such quail, pheasant, turkey, duck, squab and guinea hen have earthy flavors that are more robust than chicken. Wild game often goes better with racy red wines that have a gamy quality to them, the classic being Burgundian pinot noir. The flavors of pinot noir — plum, cherry, mushrooms, earth and even barnyard (that’s a positive adjective) – accentuate the same gamey flavors in the food. Other wine options for game birds include Spanish rioja, Oregon pinot noir and lighter-style Rhône Valley wines such as Côte-Rôtie.
When it comes to barbecued and grilled dishes, go for robust reds, such as shiraz, cabernet sauvignon and barolo. Argentine malbec is the Ultimate Barbecue Wine. With it’s fleshy black fruit, dark spices and smoky notes, malbec muscles in beautifully beside most grilled fare: it’s a sizzling combination.
That Sweet Touch
One of the most challenging flavors to balance is sweetness. Dishes with a touch of sweetness such as glazed pork do well with off-dry wines such as riesling and chenin blanc. However, rich desserts such as chocolate and crème brulée demand a wine that is sweeter than the dessert, or the wine will taste thin, even bitter. Sweet wines such as sauternes, Canadian icewine, late harvest wines and port will work not only for their sweetness but also for their unctuous texture.
Your best source of food and wine matching is your own palate. Experiment with different combinations to discover not only what makes a perfect pairing for you, but also to broaden your range of possibilities. As the author Alexis Lichine observed, “There is no substitute for pulling corks.”
5 Reasons Why Sheryl Sandberg Is The Lightening Rod That Women Need Today
Far too often we see women giving up one part of their lives for success in another part. I’m sure you could easily think of many inspiring women who have given up the chance to start a family because they were busy “focusing on their careers.” I’m sure you could think of even more women, many that you probably know, that have given up their careers to focus on their family. Well we say “no more!” We are alpha females, ladies. If we want to have an inspiring career we most definitely can! If we want to have a family too, that is our right, and we can do both successfully.
Sheryl Sandberg is just the woman to help us realize these goals. The wildly successful alpha lady has focused her career on helping women make it to the top in a male-dominated world of boardrooms and corner offices. She does so with inspiring advice, great determination and makes no apologies for her motivation. Sheryl Sandberg is the lightening rod that women need today and we have five reasons why. Prepare to be electrified.
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Sheryl Sandberg understands the issues and isn’t afraid to speak about them.
What do I mean by issues? Well, let me rattle off a few statistics for you. The business world of today still holds an unfair advantage toward men. In the corporate world, women at the top of the corporate ladder tops out at 16%. Out of the 190 heads of state, only 9 are women, and only 13% of the people in parliament in the world are women. Women are wildly underrepresented in leadership positions in the business world and no one knows this better than Sheryl Sandberg. On the same token, arguably no one has been able to overcome these statistics as impressively as Sheryl Sandberg. Sandberg takes issue with the inequality in the workplace for women to rise to the top and believes that the key to helping women make it to the top of the workplace is to keep them in the workplace. Her book Lean In is a self-described “manifesto” for women in the workplace. Not only does Sandberg address the lack of female faces at the heads of businesses, but she empowers women to do something about it.
Now, writing a book isn’t exactly speaking, but she does that too! Sandberg’s TED Talks speech in the “For All Womankind” conference has been viewed over two million times and features one of the most inspiring speeches of the day. Sandberg speaks with confidence, determination and grace, leaving the listener inspired to go out and change the world at the end of her fifteen- minute declaration for female empowerment.
How does she want us to reach for our dreams? Sit at the table! Sandberg noticed women tending to sit at the edges of the boardrooms while the men firmly placed themselves at the table. The problem, according to Sandberg, is that “women systematically underestimate their own abilities.” Women are more likely to attribute their successes to external causes, while men attribute their successes to themselves. Women are also less likely to negotiate for their salaries. Women don’t believe they deserve to sit at the table, while men know that they do. Sandberg wants you to “believe in yourself, negotiate for yourself, own your own success.” Sit at the table.
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Sandberg is a living example of her teachings.
Of course it’s all fine and good to tell us what to do to be successful, but what about actually doing it? Well, Sandberg has! She is the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook. Before that she was a Vice President at Google and previous to that was the Chief of Staff at the US Treasury Department. She was named one of Fortune’s 50 Most Powerful Women, one of Time’s Most Influential People and the 5th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes. She has two Harvard degrees and a personal worth just shy of a billion, and if that’s not enough she has two children and a supportive husband. She is the personification of her teachings and someone we can look to when we feel that a life of personal and professional fulfillment cannot be done. Sandberg is here to not only tell you, but show you, that it can be done!
Sandberg manages to do all this while still being someone that you want to be friends with. She’s warm, funny and charming. Sandberg points out that success and likeability are negatively correlated for women and positively correlated for men; but she doesn’t let this fact hold her back. Sandberg continues to stay true to herself and forgets the prescription of a cold demeanor for success. Her humour and friendly demeanor only make her more of the total package.
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She believes in us and wants us to believe in ourselves too.
Sheryl Sandberg knows that we are 50 percent of the population and therefore deserve to occupy 50 percent of the top jobs, and she thinks we deserve to believe that too. We need to believe that we deserve to sit at the table. As mentioned above, we underestimate ourselves and men overestimate themselves. We need to have that same confidence. We need to know that our sex has nothing to do with why we aren’t sitting at the table, it’s our confidence. Screw being humble! If you rocked that presentation, if you have great insights to share, if you think you’re an important part of the team, you should own it! You did the work, you deserve the credit, the promotion and the positive outcome. Remember, if you’re not going to toot your own horn, there’s a man standing right next to you that most definitely will tell you about his accomplishments and will probably get that promotion because of it.
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Sheryl Sandberg knows that work is not our only worry.
We can climb to the top of any corporate ladder that we want, but without a fulfilling personal life it’s hard to truly feel like a success. If we want to have a successful life we need to have equality at work and at home.
At home we need to make our partners our partners. “If a woman and a man both work full time and have a child, a woman does twice the amount of housework and three times the amount of child work that the man does,” according to Sandberg. When we place these kinds of pressures on ourselves and create an unequal set of responsibilities at home, we as women are most likely to drop ourselves out of work when someone needs to be home more. Sandberg tells us that households with equal earning and equal responsibility have half the divorce rate, and if you’re not sold on that, better sex lives! Talk about a win-win situation.
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Even in the face of adversity, Sandberg comes out unscathed.
Of course, Sandberg’s road hasn’t been completely as charmed as it seems. She has faced a barrage of criticism from everyone including mothers, feminists and the general public for her teachings. Her status as a wealthy woman has found her distanced from women who feel that they do not have the same ability to make tough work choices and negotiate for themselves as Sandberg does. She is also criticized for trying to be too likeable, a problem she addresses herself. Even her Facebook boss, Mark Zuckerberg, addressed this fact in an anecdote from her book in which he sits her down and tells her that her desire to be liked by everybody will hold her back. Sandberg certainly isn’t liked by everybody and she certainly isn’t being held back either. Even the women who criticize her have admitted that her book is one that they’d like their daughters to read. Of course Sandberg will never win in the eyes of critics. In an NPR interview in which she was being criticized for thanking too many people for her success and not owning it, something Sandberg feels all women should do, the women discussing it also point out that they criticized Sarah Palin in the past for owning her success too much. This shows that the business landscape is harder for women. We are either too likeable, too cold, too nice, too mean, too…something! All we can do is make ourselves proud.
The thing we can’t argue with is her message, one of strength, truth and empowerment for women. She is just what women today need. She is strong, determined, vivacious and utterly inspiring. Her book “Lean In” is here to help us to live a life of success in all sectors. To win it, along with five other books by inspiring leaders on an Amazon Kindle visit Women Who Run It’s page on Facebook to enter our Facebook Sweepstakes for Women Who Run It!
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A HUGE BREAST CANCER RISK YOU’VE MAYBE NEVER HEARD OF
Ever stash your cell phone in your bra?
Do you worry about your risk of breast cancer?
Everyday I see women walking around LA with phones tucked into the front of their bras or with noticeable rectangular bulges poking out from under their armpits.There’s even a new bra (by Joey Bra) on the market with a pocket designed large enough for a phone!
But is this easy and convenient way to carry our personal digital assistants a risky idea?
I was surprised at what I found when I took a closer look at the issue. Although studies have examined the connection between brain cancer and holding a cell phone to your head, no one has researched whether tucking one next to breast flesh might increase a woman’s risk of breast cancer. But doctors, and many others, think we should be investigating this possibility.
How can cell phones damage breast health?
The US government’s National Cancer Institute advises: “Cell phones emit radio frequency energy, a form of non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation, which can be absorbed by tissues closest to where the phone is held.”
The Environmental Working Group (EWG.org) has long been advocating for more rigorous safety standards to meet newer cell phone technologies. In their “Guide to Safer Cell Phone Use” they warn consumers to “hold [the] phone away from your body.”
Even the makers of the Blackberry and iPhone caution that their products should not be placed next to the skin. A CNN Health report adds that these recommendations are made because “the further the phone is from the body, the less radiation is absorbed.”
Dr. John West, of the Breast Care and Imaging Center in Orange, California, believes he has seen evidence of such a link in his practice. He wonders whether women who regularly carry their phones in their bras are increasing their risk of developing certain cancers. In his YouTube video called “Cell Phone Radiation & Breast Cancer”, he urges the public to demand more rigorous scientific research. Reading through the comments on the video, I was struck by one person’s observation that a number of women walking in a Susan G. Komen fundraiser had cell phones visibly stowed in their sports bras!
Even if you don’t buy Dr. West’s theory, it is worth paying attention to phone manufacturer warnings. Women should keep their cell phones out of direct contact with their breasts. This may be even more important for young women and teen girls whose sensitive breast tissue is still developing. It is this population, and those with a genetic link to breast cancer, whose breast health is put in danger by early exposure to radiation.
Former US Presidential candidate, Rep. Dennis Kucinich is calling for US legislation that would require warning labels on cell phones and that would list radiation levels.
What do you think?
Will you keep your phone out of your bra and away from your breasts?
Women In Supreme Courts
The women who run it in superior courts around the world today are a select few. It has taken these accomplished women years of perseverance to establish their careers and achievements. In the cases of the exemplary women shown in the infographic below they are the minority in a male dominated field. Supreme courts are the highest level of the law and these women on top are right there guiding the legal precedent for their countries and making history! Just Click on the PNG image below or Click here for the Women in Supreme Courts PDF. Share it with your friends!
Special Thanks to Julija Burcar for the design and Christiane Kuehn for the research.
ROMANTIC SCIENCE
Contributed by Cindy Lu and Fiona Fine
Romantic Science? If you are thinking that those two words go together about as well as oil and water, you are about to be proven very, very wrong.
Author, actress and relationship expert Cindy Lu thought so as well, until she decided that listening only to her heart was getting her absolutely nowhere in her love life. When she decided to turn things upside down and combine her heart and her head, that’s when she developed The Four Man Plan and found love. So, get out your pencils and your graph paper, because you are about to learn the science of romance.
The Four Man Plan flies in the face of conventional dating wisdom and thumbs its nose at society’s expectations about how ‘good girls’ should conduct their love lives, which is why we at Women Who Run It! and our sister company HowToPutTheFunBackIntoDating.com love the idea so much and use it ourselves.
Cindy started with the idea that she would divide up her expectations and try to fulfill her love life without it all having to come from one man. Why? Because, as she explains, “I was expanding into a world of men that was just delicious and different and things that I’ve never experienced before. So, I went from just always trying this ‘one food, my favorite food, every food was going to be my last meal’, to realizing that the world was an absolute buffet and variety was the spice of it.”
Sounds kind of yummy? Then sharpen those pencils and let’s get started.
Science 101: The Mantris Graph
Make yourself a graph with four squares. Now divide each of those into four again. This is going to represent your love life. Here’s how it works:
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The ¼ Man. These guys obviously takes up only one of the tiny ¼ squares. These are the guys you are chatting with online, who you meet on dating sites and may not have even met yet.
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The ½ Man. This is the guys who you have met at least once and you have been clear with him that you are seeing other men.
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The Whole Man. This is the guy that you are starting to develop feelings for. Maybe there has been some kissing and holding hands, but you haven’t slept with him yet.
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The 2 1/4 Man. Nobody expects you to live like a nun, but if there is sex, then that guy definitely needs to take up more space on your chart. By ranking him at 2 ¼, it means that by the numbers, you don’t have room for another guy like him in your love life!
[Editor’s Note: To get a great visual – buy the book “The Four Man Plan” by Cindy Lu in our Check It Out section!]
MEN LIKE COMPETITION
Now that your graph is starting to fill up, its important to remember that many guys actually enjoy a little healthy competition for a woman’s affections. Remember that you need to be very up front with the men you are dating and they should know you are “not dating exclusively” as Fiona puts it. Many men like a little time and space, they like to meet a little resistance, before they decide how they feel about you. Don’t forget, throughout history, men until very recently, had to make a bid for a woman and possibly compete for a woman’s hand. The fear of loss for them is greater than the hope for gain, so if a man knows he could lose you to another man, that is a much greater motivator to step up and win your affections.
YOUR DEEPEST INTENTIONS ALWAYS SHOW THROUGH
No matter how much a woman may insist that she wants a casual relationship, men can always tell if they are mentally being fitted for their wedding tux. What The Four Man Plan does is allows us as women to diversify and to not pin all our hopes on one man. We can enjoy the dating process, learn a lot about ourselves and be more prepared for when we are ready to enter a more serious relationship. In addition, a woman who is not looking for every man to be ‘Mr. Right’ is more appealing to a man and he can get to know YOU, and contemplate you as a person and as a match, rather than being scared off by too much too soon.
HOW TO FIND THE TIME FOR ALL YOUR MEN
Now that you’re on the plan, you may be wondering how on earth you find time for all those men. Cindy and Fiona maintain that it’s nowhere as difficult as it seems. One whole weekend day, or maybe half a weekend day should be set aside for your favourite. The others should be limited to a coffee or lunch date during the week, and then perhaps phone calls, emails or texts. That should mean you could see everybody within a two week duration, which is a completely reasonable timeframe.
The lesson in this part of the exercise is that if you can’t make time for half a weekend day and a coffee, lunch or dinner date during the week, plus a few phone calls, then you have simply not carved out enough space in your life for a relationship.
LEARN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PICKY VS. DISCRIMINATING
Forget your long list of demands and expectations. If he misspells something in his email or wears corduroy, that can no longer be a deal-breaker and this kind of pickiness can shut you off from a world of possibilities. A man must be honest, loving, and willing.
- Honesty: He gives you data that you can work with. He tells you about himself and is open.
- Loving: He is willing to show affection and be loving with you.
- Willing: He is willing to be more for you; to try your yoga class even though he’s never done it before.
REMEMBER THAT IN EXCHANGE, YOU MUST BE ALL THREE OF THOSE THINGS ALSO.
LET HIM KNOW HE IS STILL IN THE GAME
Men find women mysterious and it is important for them to know that they are pleasing us. Because they know they are competing with other men for your affections, it is important to let them know what they are doing right and that they are still ‘in the game.’ You may still not have made a decision about who is your favourite and you may never make that decision, but it is important for each man to know that they are pleasing you.
THE DISNEY THEORUM
If you care to compare yourself to a Disney Princess, make sure its Snow White and not Cinderella. Snow White had the seven dwarves madly in love with her; they would do anything for her and in the end, she chose the Prince (with no hard feelings). Cinderella, on the other hand, had to fight her step-sisters for the Prince and it resulted in some pretty unattractive behaviour – all for the sake of one man. The lesson to be learned? Many men ‘adoring’ one woman seems to make everybody happier than many women ‘adoring’ one man.
Ready to give it a try?
As Cindy (and Fiona agrees): “I would just want to give all women, whether they follow The Four Man Plan or not, permission to have fun dating and not make it a serious process because it is a wonderful experience and part of our lives.”
THE MENOPAUSE MINEFIELD
With Guest Expert: Dr. Vivien Brown
Should I have a mammogram or not?
What about perimenopause: is HRT the way to go or is it a health risk?
Should I stay completely natural and go the naturopathic route?
And what about vaccines, and anti-depressants and…
OMG – you get the picture. Life is super busy these days and juggling our health with all of our other commitments can be a stretch.
I know my opinions on all of these topics (and they’re not always in line with ‘popular’ opinion), so when I had a chance to sit down with Dr. Vivien Brown to hear what she had to say about keeping healthy into and through menopause, I jumped at the chance. She is not only the Vice President of Medical Affairs at Medisys Health Group Incorporated – a large provider of healthcare services within Canada – but she is also a recipient of the 2012 Family Physician of the Year award for the region of Toronto, Canada. I figured there could be no better person to talk with about some of the most up-to-date medical opinions on women’s health at midlife and beyond.
Use It or Lose It
The first thing I wanted to know (of course) was what Dr. Brown considered to be the very best way for women to stay libidinous and “juicy” as they go through perimenopause and beyond. Dr. Brown’s answer didn’t surprise me – “use it or lose it”. Our libido changes and can decrease as we age if we are not diligent. As women, I always maintain that ’our orgasms start between our ears’ and that becomes even more true as we move through this stage of our lives. The stresses of work and children and life mean that the thought of initiating intimacy can seem daunting or just plain exhausting.
Dr. Brown’s advice is take the plunge, so to speak. Sex is a habit that you don’t want to break and for women, it is a cycle. Once you start having sex regularly, you will want to keep going and will find it easier to get into the experience; but if you stop, it is hard to work up the momentum again. Although it may seem daunting to initiate, most women enjoy the experience once they are in it, so you may have to be completely ‘unromantic’ about it and actually schedule time for intimacy. If you make a point of finding the time, you will likely enjoy it while you are in the experience and it gets simpler to keep the momentum.
Is It Hot In Here?!
Then we moved on to another topic near and dear to my heart – HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy). One of the really surprising things that I learned from Dr. Brown was that a lot of the ‘fear’ of HRT causing cancer and heart problems came from the way the original trials were done more than 10 years ago. The original studies used high doses of hormones on women of an average age of 63 – the majority were smokers and overweight. Not surprisingly, the conclusions of those trials led to linking HRT with heart disease and cancer. How could it not, with a group so predisposed to those problems to begin with!
In newer studies, Dr. Brown explained, the test subjects have been conducted with overall younger (50-55), healthier and more active women, which has led to much more positive results under the right circumstances. They were given low doses of hormones, topically and orally, and compared against groups given no hormones. Many women responded remarkably well and the group that was on oestrogen alone even showed a lessened risk of breast cancer.
I know that for myself, HRT has been something I have been avoiding. My body does not do well with chemicals and my doctor and I work together (with my naturopath) to figure out what is best for me – something that Dr. Brown fully supports. She jokes that women’s health should be a “team sport” and that doctors now are open to women having the ultimate decision concerning their health when the decisions are well thought out and well researched .
The ‘Booby’ Trap
Mammograms: another potential minefield of women’s health and one where there has been a lot of controversy over the last couple of years. Dr. Brown recommends following the current Canadian guidelines which mean no mammograms for women under the age of 50 unless there is a lump detected, or if there is a close first degree relative who has had breast cancer (daughter, sister, mother). After 50 mammograms are done every 1-2 years depending on the doctor’s recommendation and the density of the woman’s breast tissue.
Having grown up with needing a lot of xrays (including mammograms), I don’t personally want more radiation going into my body if I can help it. It can be tempting to request a ‘baseline’ mammogram in your ‘40s but you need to remember that there are a fair number of false positives in this testing and based on that, the discomfort and the radiation, are they worth it? I know it isn’t for me. In fact, for some people I take it to an ‘extreme’ and avoid the new airport security scanning and choose to get a hand scan. I know of way too many frequent flyers (including the airline personnel) that have some serious and pervasive health issues and they are starting to do the same thing.
Oh, My Aching Back!
Here is where I learned something new about peri/menopause. You know those aches and pains in your joints? Those are (potentially) symptoms of your decreasing oestrogen levels. I think sometimes we forget that there are more symptoms to peri/menopause than hot flashes!
Many women have a lack of energy, depression, insomnia and vaginal dryness. But, the #1 complaint that Dr. Brown gets is achiness and pain in the joints (and here I just thought it was my old fibromyalgia health issues flaring up). Oestrogen acts as a lubricant in your joints and when your levels decrease, as in perimenopause, you can get stiffer and more uncomfortable. So, Dr, Brown suggest mentioning it to your doctor and don’t just write it off as the perils of ageing.
The Eye of the Needle
Somehow I didn’t think at the age of 50+ I would still be talking vaccinations with my doctor but the ‘new’ HPV vaccine had changed all that. I wanted to ask Dr. Brown what the common medical opinion was for who should be getting the shot.
There has been so much controversy over whether we should be vaccinating our daughters, that we don’t even think of ourselves – yet Dr. Brown says that the HPV vaccine has been approved for women up to 45 years of age, and should be a ‘consideration’ for those of us who are single, (or newly single) and who are regularly sexually active. The point she makes is that, for the first time, we now have a vaccine which can actively reduce the risk of cancer: cervical cancer by 70%, oral cancers by 35%, as well as penile and anal cancer. Add to that a vaccine for Hepatitis B, which reduces the risk of liver cancer as well, and maybe you can give yourself extra peace of mind while you are out there in the world (my interpretation of the possible good ‘side effects’).
Deep Cleansing Breaths
If you look at the statistics, 80% of women in perimenopause will have symptoms and 20-30% of those women will feel disabled by them. Just like with pregnancies, every woman goes through it differently and will need different solutions. While I have become over the years not shy about sharing my personal health symptoms with the world, I am usually part of the 80% that can get on with things despite what my body is doing (why did nobody ever tell me that hot flashes are followed by bone-deep chills?!!). Dr. Brown agrees that a big reason for that is because although stress is my achilles heel, I generally live a healthy life, I eat well, I exercise, I do things that help my mental health and I keep blissing out in the bedroom.
Whether you choose to follow more closely the naturopathic route like I did or follow the traditional medicine route, being in touch with your body and speaking to a professional about your symptoms is the most important thing you can ever do. Your menopause may not be just like anybody else’s but there is never a reason to endure it alone!?
The Six Hats of Strategic Leadership
As a woman who runs her own business and a media/publishing company, I spend a LOT of time reading about what I believe you, our audience, would find helpful to make you to the most successful ‘you’. Leadership, and ensuring we are the best leaders we can possibly be, is a big topic for the “women who run it” tribe. We all strive to be not just a “good” leader, but a good strategic leader. A great article in the HBR about strategic leadership really caught my attention and I wanted to share with you what I learned and how I will be applying it to myself and my business. Broken down, there are 6 main components to being an effective strategic leader and I now plan on asking myself every day if I have covered all of these bases. In a nutshell, a strategic leader must: Anticipate….Challenge….Interpret….Decide…Align…Learn* It sounds simple enough but the reality is that every one us as a leader has our strengths and weaknesses. The trick is to examine all six components and make sure that you are improving on those areas where you need the most help. Anticipation is an area that takes quite a lot of persistence and research. For example, I know that I need to keep up with what is happening in my own industry as well as those industries adjacent to mine. I need to find out what direction my competitors are heading in, and beat them to it. As an Editor-In-Chief I can’t be mired only in my own magazine (ie. my “baby”). I need to see what others are covering, where the trends are, and try to anticipate where the trends are going. I need to attend industry conferences and seminars and I need to ASK QUESTIONS – LOTS OF QUESTIONS – both of my team and our readers/audience. I need to know what they like and what they don’t; which subjects seem to be a turnoff and which garner great reactions. From this, I can anticipate what is going to continue to make us successful in the future and therefore allow us to serve our audience at an even higher level. Anticipating is all about keeping your “ear to the ground.” Challenging, on the other hand, is not letting myself get too comfortable with the status quo. It may be working for now (hopefully!), but I know that I have to be open for ways to improve and move forward. The best way to do that can be to open myself up to challenges from my staff, my peers, and my readers. I need to welcome critiques from my staff and as such I have given them a “safe zone” to speak their minds. I also have to find great mentors I trust who are outside of my organization, who are not as intimately involved and who will give me unbiased advice. In turn, I continue to learn to be open-minded and patient with constructive criticism. “Feedback is my friend” is one of the mottos I live by. The ability to Interpret is directly related to the ability to Challenge. If I ask questions, I am going to get answers and ideas. If I have been doing it right, and seeking a wide range of input, I should be getting back divergent answers which I can then submit to intensive scrutiny. If I find a problem, I, as a strategic leader, should want at least 3 possible detailed and well-researched interpretations of why the problem exists. Then I have several angles I can work with in order to solve the problem. Decision-making is probably the most important skill of any leader and yet it can be so easy to get yourself into a situation where you are forced to make decisions without all the facts, on the fly, or under-informed. If I am functioning as a strategic leader, this should never be the case. If I have been anticipating, challenging, and interpreting, I should always have multiple scenarios and options when it comes time for a big decision and I should have a team whose opinions I can rely on to give me all of the possible scenarios and outcomes. I should also have the strength of my convictions that when I make a decision, it will be the right one. Alignment can be the trickiest skill to master because it involves dealing with conflict and nipping it in the bud. It means communicating with my staff and my shareholders, keeping them informed, and addressing disagreement or dissent before it has any time to fester. What I never want to hear as a leader is for a key team member to say “Nobody told me,” or “Nobody asked me.” I need to be vigilant to keep those in the loop who should be in the loop, all the time. This is what keeps shareholders and staff (and clients!) happy and feeling valuable and heard. The last point is probably the most important, and that is to cultivate an environment of Learning. I should always be inquiring and studying my successes and failures in order to learn from them and I want my staff to know that they are encouraged to always be learning as well. I want to reward staff who are thinking of new ideas and taking their own time to learn more about competitors and the industry. I know that I need to “create a culture in which inquiry is valued and mistakes are viewed as learning opportunities”* Do you think you’ve identified your weak spots as well as your strong suits? I know I have… life is never boring! * Strategic Leadership: The Essential Skills (article title from Harvard Business Review Jan/Feb 2013)Discover the Innate “Success Secrets” of ADHD Entrepreneurs
Did you know that adults with ADHD are 300% more likely to be entrepreneurs? With the current economy, more and more people are deciding to create their own success by venturing into entrepreneurial business. Although its popularity has recently increased, the term ‘entrepreneur’ was initially defined in the late 1600s by an Irish-French economist, Richard Cantillon. According to Cantillon, an entrepreneur refers to an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative. Risk and initiative….hmmm….sounds ADHD-like to me! I think it is fair to say that ADHD and entrepreneurs have many brain-style qualities in common. Some of the more famous entrepreneurs that have been diagnosed with ADHD include:- Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Airlines.
- Ingvar Kamprad, Swedish founder and chairman of IKEA stores, states he adapted the inner workings of his business to compensate for his ADHD and dyslexia.
- David Neeleman founder and CEO of Jet Blue Airways.
- Charles Schwab the founder, chairperson, and CEO of the Charles Schwab Corporation, the largest brokerage firm in the U.S.