So what is your value?

Why are women owned businesses for the most part smaller and why are professional women paid less than their male counterparts?

There are many answers to this question.  In part it is because women are different from men in what is important to us and what we value.   Then there are the nagging issues related to self-worth and how women view themselves and what is possible.  Sorting through just these two factors takes real self-awareness to know what is true for each of us.

What are the concepts or pictures that we each hold about what is possible for us?  These thoughts can be self-limiting.   These are different from the concepts we hold about operating from what we value and what is important to us.  For some women size and money are not the values that drive them but they may also hold self-limiting beliefs.

So does it matter that women create smaller companies when the companies they create are high value businesses that offer excellence, meet a need, provide a culture of growth, support their staff and make a difference.  Recent statistics point to the fact that values is not the whole story.  The average revenues of the majority of women owned businesses are still only 27% of the average of majority of men-owned businesses.  In 2010, research from Catalyst, a nonprofit group that focuses on expanding opportunities for women in business, found that female MBAs were being paid, on average, $4,600 less in their first job than men, a disparity that grows to $30,000 by mid-career.

Women have different values that are reflected in the work that we do and the businesses that we create but that is not the whole story.  As women we also hold common concepts about our value and the energy that goes with that.   These concepts, energies, pictures and programming get in our way.  They limit our ability to have more.   Unintentionally we are supporting an energy that allows our value to be seen as less even if things have gotten better ever so slowly.

If you meditate on this for yourself you will find that you hold these concepts about yourself  and other women within you as well.  It has been programmed into us. In addition to our collective agreement about our value each woman has her own life experience, programming and energy about her value.  Changing our individual and collective agreements that see women at a lower value takes great courage and the determination to do so.

As a coach and consultant I see this with my clients all the time.  I work with business owners and professional focused on success and observe these limiting concepts play out.  Business owners (men and women) offer women less pay than their counter parts.  When I point this out most shrug their shoulders as if to say, if she does not care then I’m not going to offer her more.  So where does the change begin.  I am working with a young professional woman who is looking for a job.   She has been offered the same management position in a new company at 25% less pay and less than other male managers in the company. She is in fear of not being able to find a job and is struggling whether she should take it after discussing at length her value and need for higher pay.  Her decision will take great courage.  She can feel the collective agreement in the air that women can be paid less.  It is palatable.

So how do we create change?  It begins within by each and every women becoming aware of what is going on within her personally and professionally.  What concepts, thoughts, energies, emotions do we operate from consciously or unconsciously?  When we are unaware of our own thinking then we unconsciously perpetuate the lower value of women in the workplace and in business.

The change begins with us.  Are you being paid at your value?  What does this awareness re-stimulate for you? What thoughts, emotions, concepts, etc. come to your awareness and how do they affect your ability to make a change?  If you are a business owner, what is your value for yourself, your company and the women you hire?   What thoughts, energies, emotions, concepts, memories, etc. do you become aware of as you ask this question of yourself?

Mediation is a good place to start as a way of becoming aware of what is controlling our space.  While in meditation begin to imagine a new way of being that reflects a new level of value.  When you can imagine this in meditation then you are ready to have it manifest in your world and take actions towards this.

In addition to making changes in your own space make a point of talking to others about the value of women in work and business.  The more we can re-stimulate the stuck concepts the more the energy will change.  Be part of the change you desire.  It begins within each of us.

Please add your comments, perspective and story.  Talking about this is part of creating change.

Best wishes on your success,  Kay