This past weekend I attended the TEDx Women San Jose. I heard men and women tell about their vision to inspire and to gather support for what they are creating. Coincidentally the topic this month of my online meditations for business owners and professionals was “Don’t Do It Alone”. This is more than a good idea. We cannot actually fully manifest our vision of success on our own. That is not how it works in this world.
Susan Fonseca is from Honduras. Her father died while waiting for a liver transfer. This experience made her determined to change our thinking about most everything and what is possible. Her motto is No More Waiting! She is traveling the world looking for women who are willing to take chances, put forth new ideas, not wait for existing structures to give them permission. She wants to connect with women who are game changers. Her company is Women@TheFrontier.
Traci Des Jardins, a small women with a big vision. She comes from an immigrant family in the Central Valley, pursued her passion for cooking and is now the owner and chef of the world-famous, Jardinieri Restaurant in San Francisco. Traci is a leader in workplace fairness, paying living wages, providing health care, supporting sustainability, healthy food and other leading business practices. She is one of the few women recognized as a master French chef though she says there are many accomplished women in this male dominated field of French cooking.
Dana Vollmer, Olympic gold medalist 2004 and 2012 in swimming, told of her passion for swimming, determination to win gold and the devastating diagnosis at the age of 14 that seemed to end it all. Dan, diagnosed with a heart condition that causes arrhythmia, had to make a choice but it was not hers alone to make. If she decided to continue to compete and take the risk she would need someone at her side at all practices, workouts, competitions, etc., someone who was trained and with a defibrillator in hand. For her to succeed someone had to commit their life to Dana’s vision. While Dana was the speaker and the gold medalist, that person who committed her life to be there was her mother. Dana is not done nor is her mom because she is training to compete in 2016.
Finally, iO Tillett Wright is a women we watched via live stream from the TEDx Women Washington D.C. iO is a photographer and in my mind a humanitarian. Her work and her project with the Human Rights Commission challenges our ideas about who we are as a people. She photographed men and women who defined themselves as other than straight (sexually). This project blurs the lines between gay and straight to such an extent that it causes one to reconsider these terms and even why they exist. Why place ourselves in boxes that don’t quite fit? I will post her talk once it comes up on YouTube. In the meantime here is one video you can view.
These women and others have a strong vision of what they want to create and just as important know they cannot do it alone.
What is your vision? Make it stronger. Share it with others.
Best wishes on your success, Kay
By the way, I wrote about many of the men I met that day in my blog Intuition in Business. Check it out.