Monday, June 25, 2012

Leaning Too Hard on the Boys

Just a quick thought. I'm here trying to focus (sigh) and get some things done, this morning. But I just read an email in my inbox from Chris Guillebeau.

One of the last lines in the email is, "So... what are you working on?"

My first gut answer was, "I'm working on being more like you, Chris."

Chris is one of my mentors, of late. I have lots of others, mostly collected in the last year or so: Chris Brogan, Joshua Fields Millburn, Ryan Nicodemus, Julien Smith, Tyler Tervooren, Jonathan Fields, Jonathan Mead, Buster Benson, Dave Delaney and Michael Margolis. It's a collection of people who's ideas I like and who give out plenty of free reading material on how to live bigger and better.

I also admire others: Mark Horvath, Shaun King, Amos Mac, Philip Rosedale.

There's my tech and social media mentors, people like Jason Falls, Jeremiah Owyang, Robert Scoble, Brian Solis, Duleepa Wijayawardhana, Darin R. McClure, and Mack Collier.

The list could go on.

Do you spot the problem, yet?

Yeah. I noticed it the other day when I wrote a fictional letter addressed to these people. I started it out, "Hey guys." It's appropriate.

I seem to have a gender problem. Why the heck am I listening ONLY to men?

Ladies? Any thoughts?

So I'm starting a mental list. Where are my female mentors? Gini Dietrich comes to mind, and Liz Strauss. Lois Ardito is wonderful. Amy W. Higgins is pretty friggin awesome. I completely adore Jeri Ellsworth. I have a book by Carol Roth that I haven't even read, yet. I love Jane McGonigal's _Reality is Broken_.

Right. This is a thought to come back to, later!

2 comments:

  1. From reading this, it sounds like you already have lots of mentors of both genders, but only see the men in that role, while for some reason the women you admire and look up to don't come to mind when you ask yourself who your mentors are. Interesting, but maybe (and sadly) not that surprising. Our culture, influenced by the not-so-distant past, still tends to look up more to men as 'leaders' than to women, despite overwhelming evidence that either gender can provide valuable leadership in thoughts, ideas, innovations, and so on. Good for you for taking notice, and moving to recognize the role smart women are playing in your life. Some day, not too long from now, other women will probably have you on THEIR list.

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  2. Jackie, thank you so much for including me in your post. I'm thrilled that you enjoy the content I produce. I really appreciate it.

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