It’s women’s history month! I celebrated Black History Month with an amazing conference, Envision with Tip Jones. Tip is the CEO of the OwnHers community and directory. The conference had one of the best platforms for interactions and connections. More importantly, the content was such a welcome way to jump into Women’s History Month.

The whole reason for a Women’s History Month or Black History Month is to celebrate the history that has been overlooked or actively erased to promote dominant narratives. The Envision conference had us focus on ourselves as CEOs, and women CEOs.  As a result, we could start out women’s history month by celebrating women who are making history today.

Takeaways

The content was also very thought provoking. My takeaways included the newfound knowledge that:

  1. Humans have between 12,000-60,000 thoughts per day and 80% of those are negative.
  2. 95% of those thoughts are repetitive.
  3. Negative thoughts are thoughts that don’t make you feel good and don’t propel you to action.

I made a note not to overthink things, to adopt a practice of positivity. One thought that really resonated with me was to focus on activities and thoughts that are not goal hindering but goal achieving.

Reasons to Celebrate

Success in that is not immediate. But as I look for reasons and women to celebrate, I’ve found several in the first two weeks of women’s history month.

  • My friend Ibilola Amao from Lonadek pulled together a global group of men and women leaders who are making history  to talk about what they #ChoosetoChallenge .  I was lucky to be included;
  • Monica Kang launched not one but TWO podcasts. She interviewed global leaders to rethink what is normal and included me and Heather, my Co-Mastermind at Diversity Masterminds®;
  • Women owned and other diverse businesses can now master their certifications at their own pace with the new on-demand series Heather and I launched on International Women’s Day;
  • My friend Audra Agen asked me some amazing questions about what lights my soul on fire and she asks these same questions of dynamic women every two weeks!
  • We released Business UNusual podcasts with Drs. Carol Parker Washington and Sarah Skidmore. They are great examples of women business owners to learn from and celebrate;
  • My friend and client, Wendy Shen of FLOMO Nygala is being featured in the FedEx Small Business contest. (You can vote for her to win!);
  • I came across this list of grants for women owned businesses and compiled them into a spreadsheet. I plan to use it to organize sending out grant application deadlines but also wanted to share in case it helps you out;
  • Hera Hub DC made me their official Certification and Diverse Supplier Guru.  If you’re a Hera Hub member, you can ask me all your lingering certification questions. (And if you’re not a member – why not? They have a virtual membership now!)
  • And shout out to Kevin Keane from Directed Action, Inc a WBE firm. He’s an ally for women in the workplace and sent me the McKinsey articles referenced below. The articles outline the challenges COVID-19 has imposed on women as they struggled to manage work, life, and child care. Then he walked the talk when I told him I needed to re-arrange our call due to a childcare situation!

More work To Do

All this and we still have another two weeks left!

Of course, these achievements do not diminish the very real challenges that women in the workplace face, especially Black, Latina/x, and Asian women. Indeed women business owners are facing disproportionate challenges in recovering from setbacks due to covid-19.

The work is not done. The business of women making history, and making women’s history known, will continue.

But for right now, with Spring and vaccinations coming ever closer, I am setting aside the winter of our discontent to practice positivity. In fact, I’m making it a habit.