Category Archives: Speaker Articles
Linda Cliatt-Wayman on How to Lead, Be Brave and Get Things Done
Before Linda Cliatt-Wayman was the principal of Strawberry Mansion High School, she was the assistant superintendent overseeing all 52 public high schools in Philadelphia. In other words, to take the helm of Strawberry Mansion High, she demoted herself. What’s more, she took the step down to work at a school that had the most-challenging-to-teach teenagers (three schools were being merged into one), in an impoverished and gang-ridden neighborhood.
Be a Social Media Star—and Stay Fit This Fall
As you would expect of a popular blogger formerly known as MizFit, Carla Birnberg does not do her tweeting lying on the couch. She doesn’t even do it sitting at a desk. “Unless I’m leading a Twitter chat, I’m either walking around my office, in a plank position or in a wall sit, using voice dictation,” says Birnberg, who recently rebranded herself using her real name. “It makes me a … [ more ]
Junk Gypsy Jolie Sikes’ Advice for Entrepreneurial Free Spirits
What do you do when you realize that the corporate life just isn’t your jam? When you’re Jolie Sikes or her big sister Amie, co-founders with their mom of Junk Gypsy, you hit the road, hightailing it out of Houston and Austin, respectively—and keep driving for 15 years. Of course, they weren’t aimlessly roaming Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana. They were scouring flea markets and roadsides for discarded treasures that they … [ more ]
Mindy Kaling on Her First Job, Worst Job and Being the Boss
During a summer of inordinate hot air (from the election cycle as well as the heat outside), Mindy Kaling’s down-to-earthiness is a welcome cool breeze. When asked about being brave, one of the only women to create, produce, write and star in her own network series—and the only one to put her name in the show’s title—is quick to contextualize her courage. “Have I been brave?” Kaling asks. “I’m not … [ more ]
Mantras to Live, Work and Succeed By
Whether you’re taking on a new challenge, rebounding from a disappointment or just powering through your day, repeating a mantra can help. We asked Conference for Women speakers and staff for their favorite sayings. Read them and repeat!
Three Ways Women Hold Themselves Back
Fifteen years ago, Trudy Bourgeois resigned from her vice president job managing a $3 billion business unit—and walked away from a healthy six-figure salary, country club memberships, first class plane tickets to everywhere for her husband and herself and much, much more. “When I told my mom about my decision, she started to cry,” Bourgeois recalls. “She asked if she needed to get the sisters together to pray. I was … [ more ]
When Bad Bosses Happen to Good People
If you’ve never had a bad boss, you must have spent your career…self-employed! Unfortunately, managers who are incompetent or otherwise awful are a fact of working life. Indeed, a whopping 568 of you responded to our call for bad boss stories and the lessons you learned from the experience. Read these cringe-worthy tales—and commiserate.
Have the Best Summer of Your Career
Do less and achieve more. It may sound like a dream rather than a plan for summer, but it’s actually the MO of many highly accomplished people year-round. “Successful people don’t bother with work that isn’t high value or growth oriented,” says Laura Vanderkam, a time-management expert and the author of I Know How She Does It and 168 Hours. “They prioritize, so that what matters most gets done, and … [ more ]
Annabelle Gurwitch on Setbacks, Bouncing Back and the Business Cards She Can’t Hand Out
In Hollywood, true grit isn’t only the name of a John Wayne movie. It’s also a job requirement. So when Annabelle Gurwitch auditioned to play a mother in a commercial and ended up being cast as a crone in the Middle Ages, she took it in stride.
Cut Your To-Do List—and Get More Done
Aah. The gratification of crossing things off your to-do list. It makes it tempting to do a brain-dump onto paper or screen of every single thing you need to do in the foreseeable future. But you should keep your list short. “A long to-do list is actually counterproductive,” says Christine Carter, Ph.D., author of The Sweet Spot: How to Find Your Groove at Work and Home. “It causes a time … [ more ]
The Truth about Confidence
Women just need to believe in themselves more. That’s often the prescription for righting gender inequities in the workplace. But a big part of the confidence gap is not being addressed, says Janet Crawford, CEO of Cascadance, Inc., an organizational change firm that helps companies address issues of under-representation and create cultures of inclusion. “Low confidence is not an individual phenomenon, but is in part, a general consequence of something … [ more ]
You Can Say That Again! Mantras That Make You Stronger
Sound like a broken record player much? You can never repeat yourself too often when chanting personally significant sayings or phrases to summon your courage, grit or hope. We asked speakers at the Conference in California this month to share their favorite mantras. Feel free to adopt them for yourself!
Glamour’s Cindi Leive on Courage, Confidence and What Mirror Selfies Are Good for
To talk to Cindi Leive about careers is to wish Glamour’s editor in chief were your boss—if not your best friend. She’s not just warm, funny and smart. She also telegraphs a big heart, the vibe that she cares and wants to help—women in general and those she personally knows. It’s partly Leive’s candidness that conveys this generous spirit. Case in point: she freely admits that the secret to her … [ more ]
Design the Time of Your Life
By Sheryl Adkins-Green, Chief Marketing Officer, Mary Kay Inc. Friendly warning: This article is not about planning a dream vacation or the ultimate party. If however, you want to create more time to invest in your professional and personal goals, please keep reading. Time is truly priceless. Money can’t buy it, and once it’s spent, you can never get it back. You already know the wide variety of career, family … [ more ]
Career Moves: Ask These Two Questions Before You Leap
Unfortunately, you don’t have to love your job to be good at it. Sara DiVello had gone into public relations thinking she could make a living and write, her true passion. “At first, I got caught up in the cool factor of working at a big company, in the fancy skyscraper—I felt like I was Melanie Griffith in Working Girl! But as I advanced up the ranks, I got lost … [ more ]
What You Need to Know about the New Federal Rules to Close the Pay Gap
Earlier this year, President Obama announced a new executive order requiring companies with more than 100 employees to report their salaries, along with their sex, race, ethnicity and job group, to the federal government. It’s understandable if the news left you underwhelmed or the significance escaped you. “Remember that politicians campaign in poetry, but govern in prose,” says Victoria Pynchon, co-founder of She Negotiates Consulting and Training. “There’s not much … [ more ]
What’s Really Holding Women Back from the C-Suite
Certainly there are many factors contributing to the absence of women at the top of companies—sex discrimination, gender bias, the fact that people promote those who remind them of themselves, to name a few. But to Marshall Goldsmith, who has been coaching executives for 35 years, there is one simple—but not so easy—way to help close the leadership gap. “Fix childcare in this country,” says the author of Triggers: Creating … [ more ]
Business Truisms You Shouldn’t Believe
A lot of what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur is the same today as it was 30 years ago—grit, vision, initiative, willingness to take risks. But how we start and run a business is very different. “We used to do market research, write a business plan, seek money and resources, build the product—and then execute the plan and hope we were right,” says Mark Coopersmith, senior fellow of … [ more ]
Trade Secrets of a Tech-Savvy Entrepreneur
A word to the wise: If you ever take a meeting with Tiffanie Stanard, make sure you’re fully caffeinated. The marketing and branding strategist and CEO of Prestige Concepts in Philadelphia talks fast, thinks faster—and does what most people consider a full morning’s slate (i.e., sends emails to current, past and prospective clients, updates her to-do list, prepares for meetings and exercises) before she has even arrived at her office.
Three Things Every Career Woman Needs to Know
If you ever feel like an imposter at work—or felt like one in school—you stand in good company. “It’s common to feel this way, and women tend to feel the imposter syndrome more intensely than do men,” says Marianne Cooper, a sociologist at Stanford’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research and author of Cut Adrift: Families in Insecure Times.