Like most women I have always felt I should have been a little shorter, a lot slimmer, straight hair, blue eyes, polished nails and on an on. Our outer self is very time consuming. The time spent making choices each day in how we look is extraordinary.

“Secrets”, we all have them, about how we did something or how we made something work or how we keep ourselves strong.

We are never too old, too fat, too thin, too busy, too young, too anything, to extend a hand to another woman.

When a woman is not “polite” is it reasonable to call her a “bitch”? In my experience when you hear about women who are outspoken, assertive, aggressive, driven etc. they are often referred to as “that bitch” or she’s such a “bitch”.

One of the pitfalls of discovering self esteem or self worth or self respect at a very young age is not understanding that it is not a license to be rude, disrespectful, obnoxious, arrogant or precocious etc.The fact that you have decided at 5 years old that you are not going to allow yourself to be belittled or made to feel stupid can be a fine line to walk.

I think I was about 27 when I walked into a conference room and there was a woman at the table with gray hair and droopy eyes  ... I thought to myself, who is this person in a room filled with young technology people like myself? I had been in this business a “long” time and I had never seen anyone older than 30!

Self Esteem is a passion of mine. I have met many young women in my career that I could see had huge potential but for some reason they did not have goof self esteem or self-respect.

It’s hard for young people to take older women seriously if they look like their grandmothers or aunts or mothers. Depending on the family dynamic the grandmothers did not work outside the home or they were always in the background or some other stereotype.