Surrounded by Awesome Women

Unlocking a New Model of Women's Success in Business and Entrepreneurship for the Next Decade

Sheila Long

• Publisher: New Degree Press
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781637302637
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Entrepreneurship
• Index: Business

Through the overarching lens of an incubator model, Surrounded by Awesome Women: Unlocking a New Model of Women's Success in Business and Entrepreneurship for the Next Decade celebrates awesome women who successfully navigate professional barriers and surpass milestones by starting and growing businesses. Author Sheila Long developed a roadmap for startups after five years of research working with women entrepreneurs. The findings are within these pages, in hopes that more women will start, lead and grow their own companies.

This book aims to inspire women to work on creating structural change when navigating professional barriers. Long challenges readers to face fears, accept realities, build brands, and scale businesses.

You will love this book if you are a woman looking to change your life or address gender equality. Learn a fresh perspective about how to build the ideal business structure and courageously allow it to thrive.

Part One

Breaking Through

Chapter One

Brusque Endings Create New Professional Realities

One Fateful Day

“Oh! My fingers hurt!” I set down the phone into its cradle and gently soothed my swollen knuckles. I had picked it up ready to dial a friend to share my elation of a major professional win, but my fingers hurt too much to dial the phone number. Instead, I stared at my desk where I was a manager in a Fortune 100 communication company and contemplated the situation. I guessed I could’ve dialed with the tip of a pen, but was it worth it? My fingers were pretty important and needed some attention.

I noticed my fingers had been hard to move lately, and, while focusing on doing my job, I had been ignoring them as I didn’t want my health to deter me. Also, my ankles had been swollen for a while. Every day I noticed it was worse. That day I could not wear shoes and resorted to boots because of the excessive swelling.

How had this uncontrollable situation happened? I was challenged at work, moving up in the company, had a fun social life, and was engaged to be married. Under pressure as each required balance, I realized support was lacking. Notably, my work environment was fraught with incredible uncertainty with constant layoffs. Also, the department I managed delivered a high-stress, demanding service. When I became their leader, I noticed my staff had poor boundaries related to work-life balance and definitely lacked support and fulfillment. I witnessed how those working in the department were experiencing what researchers Fernando Bartolomé and Paul A. Lee Evans, who investigated and interviewed more than two thousand managers and their wives, coined as negative emotional spillover. In a nutshell, it is when someone brings the negativity from the office home with them and it impacts not only their personal life, but those near and dear to them.11

Because of the anxiety and uncertainty going on at the company, I did what I believe every manager should in times of crisis and massive layoffs; I took over and shielded my staff from whatever company politics I could.12 Simultaneously, I implemented process changes that transformed the delivery of our service from a high to a low-stress environment.

Women’s Fight for Equality

Looking at my situation, even though it lacked balance and support, I realized how far women have come over the past five decades. Growing up in the 1970s, women transformed the world for me. They stood up for their rights, demanded change, withstood unfair treatment, and became tough fighters for the next generation of women. They made inroads garnering more respect professionally as the rules were modified at small and large companies. These women were, are, and will continue to be my heroes.13

When women entered businesses, big and small, in the 1970s and 1980s, companies needed to adapt to meet their needs. Now, a half a century later, some still have not adapted. Nowhere is this clearer than with the pay gap. The pay gap showcases the inequities in pay as women earn far less than their male counterparts, at eight-two cents to a man’s dollar in earnings.14 Some noteworthy fields where the pay gap is glaringly evident are those of female personal financial advisors, where women earn 59 percent less than men, female administrative service managers, where women earn 62 percent less than men, female emergency medical technicians and paramedics, where women earn 66 percent less than men, and sales, where women earn 67 percent less than men.15 Employees impacted by the pay gap in firms and industries that do not address it suffer.16 Because of compensation discrimination, outdated companies operate in a world where only certain workers flourish professionally, emotionally, and financially.

The Doctor Weighs In

The stress had caught up with me, and as I attempted to make this phone call, I realized my health was now suffering. I gently picked up the phone and dialed my doctor, who told me a visit to a rheumatologist was in order. I set up an appointment for the next day with a doctor who had an opening. The next morning, my newfound doctor took two minutes to examine me.

“Hi. My name is Dr. Lert. Do not try to pronounce my full name. Just call me Dr. Lert. Show me your hands. Now your feet. Look at your ankles! Try and move them. Now the shoulders. Lift your arms. Oh, you cannot lift them more? Okay. Try harder. Wow, you really cannot bend your elbow. Why you wait so long to come see me?”

I dreaded his reply. “Can you fix this? I was hoping it would go away.”

“Maybe, I can fix this. You are now one of my patients.” He informed me I had rheumatoid arthritis and that he knew a lot about that. “You are lucky you know me. I think I can fix this. We have to wait and see. You just need to take this medication. Now, very important to go get it now. Then, you come back in one week, then in three weeks, then in five weeks and you should be back to normal. We hope. We wait and we see.”

I was beside myself with relief as the medication would miraculously reverse the signs of arthritis that had formed. If all went well, my joint movement would return. I listened as he added, “Now just one thing. No babies. That would be very bad. So, no babies.”

Shocked by what I was hearing, I stopped dead in my tracks. I wondered to myself, how could this be happening? I was thirty years old and knew the clock was ticking. With every year passing and a child not being conceived, the risks of having a healthy baby with birth defects increased. I asked him to repeat himself, hoping it was a language barrier. “Excuse me?”

Dr. Lert repeated, “Babies are very bad. You need to fix your joints now. No babies. We wait and we see.”

As I heard this diagnosis and the subsequent restriction, my mind was reeling with the injustice of it all. Because I constantly sought equilibrium of calm amidst the chaos at work, I had become physically ill with a disease that would always be with me and now I had been told may not be able to bear children.

“When will this go away? I cannot have a baby? Ever?”

Shaking his head, Dr. Lert repeated, “You come in one week, then in three weeks, then in five weeks. You are very lucky you know me. We wait and we see.”

I reflected on how this diagnosis would not impact the career of a man: he would be able to take medication and continue working while moving up t...

Table of contents

• FRONTMATTER
• Introduction
• Part 1. Breaking Through
• Part 2. Breaking Away
• Part 3. Breaking the Mold
• Part 4. Tips and Tools