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For Women Who Want to Reinvent Themselves

June 14, 2012 •

Not every­one is blessed with a tech-savvy father, as I am. In the past half hour he’s talked about his Face­book time­line, shar­ing pho­tos via Drop­box, and using social net­work­ing tech­nolo­gies as a means of help­ing oth­ers. The fact that my dad is over 85 makes his famil­iar­ity with these options even more impres­sive.

But what really struck me is his lov­ing con­cern for my sis­ter and her friends, and how they might go about rein­vent­ing them­selves pro­fes­sion­ally. He is con­cerned not just for my sister’s cir­cle of friends, but because he rec­og­nizes that their chal­lenges are shared by hun­dreds of thou­sands, if not mil­lions, of other Amer­i­can women.

These are women in the prime of their lives: expe­ri­enced, vibrant, ener­getic, full of ideas, with a pas­sion­ate desire to con­tribute to their fam­ily and com­mu­ni­ties — and woe­fully under- or unem­ployed. Where’s the JOBS Act for them?

They exited the work­force in order to spend the past 10 or 15 years rais­ing their fam­i­lies. Nowa­days their kids are increas­ingly inde­pen­dent (except for trans­port and access to cash or credit cards!) This cre­ates the pos­si­bil­ity for these stay-at-home moms to re-enter the work­force, to con­tribute their wis­dom and capa­bil­i­ties in exchange for some form of com­pen­sa­tion.

But there’s a big catch…

These women have time and energy to invest in the next chap­ter of their career, but they fail to con­nect with today’s employ­ers, so they can’t land jobs that stick. Sadly, their tech­ni­cal skills are years out of date… If they’re lucky enough to get a job inter­view, they may find them­selves 10–15 years older than the hir­ing man­agers, who prob­a­bly lack the will­ing­ness or time to invest in retrain­ing Boomer women for today’s require­ments.

Temp­ing is an option, albeit less than ideal, but they’re at a gen­er­a­tional dis­ad­van­tage com­pared to recent col­lege grad­u­ates and the “dig­i­tal natives” who pre­dom­i­nate in many temp agen­cies. They may not under­stand the rules of engage­ment when it comes to temp agen­cies and the con­tracts between agen­cies and their clients.

Seek­ing mean­ing and self-esteem (not to men­tion com­pan­ion­ship, a trim­mer fig­ure, or a daily dose of endor­phins), they flock to yoga, Pilates and Zumba classes…

My sis­ter tells sto­ries of how her friends try to help or advise each other, after class or in cof­fee shops. Dad won­ders if there’s an online com­mu­nity that would enable them to help each other more effec­tively. His take is that there’s lots of talk, but no fol­low-through (for lack of a pro­duc­tive struc­ture to their con­ver­sa­tions?)

When asked, I was­n’t able to name spe­cific online com­mu­ni­ties where women pro­vide con­struc­tive advice and men­tor­ing to those who want to re-enter the work­force after a multi-year absence… I also sus­pect, at least for this gen­er­a­tion of Boomer women, that social bonds and trust are crit­i­cal; few are likely to reach out to strangers for help when it comes to things that touch on self-esteem. For chal­lenges like this their rela­tion­ships would need to have a real-world ground­ing before being extended into a vir­tual com­mu­nity.

Women Helping Women, Like a Book Club

business-model-you-book

But I did have a prac­ti­cal idea that my sis­ter and her friends could do at very lit­tle cost. They could meet together once or twice a month, like a book club, and com­mit to work together on a jour­ney of self-dis­cov­ery with the aid of a book called Busi­ness Model You.

At each meet­ing they would work together or sep­a­rately through a set of career “rein­ven­tion exer­cises,” help­ing each other as sound­ing boards and cheer­lead­ers. Each ses­sion would focus on one aspect of their per­sonal value can­vas, as shown below (thanks to www​.Busi​ness​Mod​e​lYou​.com). Ide­ally, some­one would facil­i­tate each ses­sion.

Business-Model-You-canvas-concept

They could use the rec­om­mended activ­i­ties and check­lists in the best-sell­ing book, Busi­ness Model You, as a per­sonal roadmap.

At the end of the process, they are likely to end up with at least one career con­cepts that they could val­i­date.

Peo­ple who are seri­ous about explor­ing new career vis­tas and are will­ing to be intro­spec­tive should def­i­nitely buy the book.

Ddis­clo­sure: I was a con­tribut­ing co-author, along with hun­dreds of other insight­ful and tal­ented peo­ple around the world.

Do you know any­one who has worked with women in this sit­u­a­tion? I’m not talk­ing about pro­fes­sional life coaches, but women help­ing women to rein­vent them­selves…

About This Blog

Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

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