Despite the drolly delivered good news that Punxsutawney Phil predicts an early spring, I entered February still mourning basketball great Kobe Bryant, who died along with his daughter and seven others in a helicopter crash on January 26. I can’t get this tragic loss of life, loss of potential, and loss of a history-making African American athlete off of my mind. I begin my Sum column this week with condolences to the families of all who perished.
Read MoreLast week I wrote about tripping over a pebble while hiking and breaking my wrist. Since then, I’ve been thinking about how it’s never the mountains that trip you up. It’s the pebbles on the path. Things you can’t see coming even though they are right in front of you. Impediments that don’t catch your eye because they’re so small that you are unaware of them, or you’re vaguely aware and pay no attention.
Read MoreIt was a gorgeous Arizona Sunday, not yet two weeks into the new year and the new decade. The 2020s. I love that nice round number. I was lighthearted, with the sense of optimism I get at such a time, when it seems like the slate is clean and the future open to our intentions.
Read MoreMy son gave me a cool gift last year called StoryWorth. I answered a question about my life (almost) every week and it was shared with my children for their comments. The company will turn all this content into a book now. Nice. I’ve had fun looking back at my history. And the exercise reminded me that it’s not so much the facts of what happened but the meaning of those facts — how you interpret them, what you learn from them, and how all that informs one’s choices.
Read MoreThe biggest lesson for women in today’s world that I believe is flush with opportunity despite persistent remnants of implicit bias, stereotype threat, and culturally learned barriers in our own minds is this: no one can break the pattern of silence as assent but us. No one can set our #dontmesswithme boundaries but us. No one is likely to speak out against patterns of gender-based abuse and violence unless we start the conversation.
Read MoreIf you weren’t in this “room where it happened,” you’ll definitely want to be there next year. I’m talking about the World Woman Summit where I had the honor of being the opening keynote last week. But it almost didn’t happen, for me at least.
Read MorePodcasts are so “in” — everyone is on the bandwagon, according to reports. Big business are commercializing what started out as a homespun art. There’s a podcast for every interest and every taste. Women are great consumers of podcasts because we’re great multitaskers, always having multiple tabs metaphorically open in our brains.
Read MoreGreetings from Arizona where I’m up reading (time zone change) with no one else awake to talk to about this horrible article The Next CEO Of Wells Fargo Will Be A Female…Human Shield, subtitled “Giving the worst job in American banking to a woman is the wrong way to make history.” I shake my head.
Read MoreI distinctly remember when the actress Diahann Carroll began starring in the sitcom “Julia” about a nurse who’s also a widowed single mom to an elementary school-aged son living in suburbia. Sounds pretty ordinary, right? But Julia was Black, it was 1968, and the Civil Rights Movement was in full bloom of progress and simultaneously receiving violent pushback.
Read MoreIt wasn’t my intention to meet a princess and have her introduce me for my speech at the WICT (Women in Cable Telecommunications) Leadership Conference. But it happened because I set my intention to appear on large stages this year.
Read MoreSome great tennis was played at the U. S. Open last week. While many people were focused on the generational change among the top players — as Serena Williams was defeated as she tried for a historic 24th win by 19-year-old Bianca Andreescu — I was more fascinated by #SisterCourage behavior among the female players.
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