Fifty Six More Days

Have you registered to vote?

I am always amazed when I meet a woman—young or old—who tells me she doesn’t vote in local or national elections. I know it is easy to be disenfranchised these days. But it is really important that you register to vote and then follow it up by actually casting a vote.

According to the U.S. Census, women are 51 percent of the population, and with this majority voice we can influence the direction of critical policies important to us — like childcare, choice, personal safety and economic security, and a healthy environment.

Women are not effectively exercising their hard-earned constitutional right. Twenty-two million registered unmarried women did not vote in the last election. And more than 50 million eligible women — married and unmarried — are not even registered to vote.

Too busy to register to vote? The WVWV Voter Registration Application gives you a fast and easy way to register to vote online.

Why are so many women are leaving it up to men to decide how to run this country? Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts.

Barbara Lanz-Mateo
Publisher

The Very Definition of Irony

Am I the only one who sees the irony in that the Republican convention kicked off the day Hurricane Gustav hit New Orleans?

Barbara Lanz-Mateo
Publisher, Coastal Woman

The Nature of Business

A community post from Maria Carbonell Elliott

Life should be easier with technology advances but with so many choices, I try not to feel so overwhelmed. Should I buy a faster computer, a bigger monitor, the latest iphone or get a BlueAnt SuperTooth3 so I can drive hands free with style? Should I open my store to gloabl sales, manufacture abroad? Where should I seek virtual assistance? How many social networks should I join? The choices are endless.

When things get hazy from too many choices, look to nature to simplify. When a caterpillar is ready to become a butterfly, it does so in its own time. You can’t rush a tree setting its roots firmly on the ground; hurry a flower to reveal its bloom or a tomato to be a juicy red. When we allow ourselves to navigate change rather than molding to the latest trend, expectations, or moneymaking opportunity, we create and grow from a more sustaining place where we define success on our own terms.

My top 7 for looking to nature to launch your business:

1)    That idea stirring in your head might not be the right time for it to blossom into a business. Consider dropping more seeds or cultivate the idea a bit more before it’s ready to bloom.

2)   Business just like the ocean moves in perfect rhythm. If you’re willing to bend and enjoy the swells, you can actually catch a nice wave every now and then.

3)    Don’t rush through your days. Accomplish a couple key tasks that will get you moving toward your goal rather than a lot that didn’t get you far. You won’t catch a dog multi-tasking. She is present and focused on all she does.

4)    Have fun! While you’re launching why not enjoy the process. If you launch all stressed out, that’s what you’re going to attract. Be a fun magnet. Sunshine and sand are fun magnets!

5)    Replace a sit down meeting with a walk on the beach. It’s a creative solution to getting unstuck and get ideas flowing in a natural setting.

6)    Stay radiant while launching – release toxins through regular exercise and nourish yourself with new experiences. A flower garden needs water and sunshine to be healthy and attractive.

7)    Imagine yourself where you want to be. It still works for the acorn and caterpillar. An idea first starts with imagination.

Maria Carbonell Elliott
Incubator Leader
Ladies Who Launch – Santa Barbara
www.LWLSB.com
melliott@ladieswholaunch.com

My Permission, Please

This is a community post from Lisa Braithwaite, a public speaking coach. Her contact info is at the end of this post…

Here’s some simple networking etiquette that isn’t about how you behave at the event, but how you behave after the event. Don’t add me to your mailing list without my permission.

Just because we had a nice conversation and I gave you my business card, that does not mean I want to start receiving your newsletter. It is technically not against the CAN-SPAM Act to send an unsolicited message to someone, as long as you have an unsubscribe option available to them and you honor it within ten business days. Unfortunately, I think most of the people who add me to their mailing list have never heard of CAN-SPAM.

But honoring CAN-SPAM doesn’t protect you from someone reporting you as a spammer anyway. And my experience with some e-mail users is that they’ve got hot trigger fingers for that “report as spam” button. I’ve had people who willingly signed up for my newsletter later click the “spam” button instead of the unsubscribe link.

Besides making yourself look like a spammer, it’s just not considerate or professional to add people to your mailing list without permission. It’s all “me, me, me” and not “you, you, you.”

If you’d like to add me to your mailing list, ask. If you don’t ask at the event, ask me later in an e-mail.  But adding me without my permission creates the perception that you don’t care about building a relationship as much as you care about making a buck or building a huge list.

And that doesn’t encourage me to do business with you in the future.

Lisa Braithwaite, M.A.
Public Speaking and Presentation Skills Coach
coachlisab.com * coachlisab.blogspot.com
lisa@coachlisab.com | alternate: lbraith@gte.net | 805.207.7647

It Takes Balls

Surely you’ve read about them. Purity Balls, where fathers and daughters dress up like they’re going to

Purity Ball

prom together. They dance. They chat. And then the dads recite their covenant before God to be their daughters’ authority and protection in the area of purity [read: virginity].

According to Wikipedia: “A Purity Ball (also known as a “Father Daughter Purity Ball” or “Purity Wedding”) is a is a formal event attended by fathers and their daughters. These events promote virginity until marriage for teenaged girls, and are often closely associated with U.S. Christian churches, particularly evangelical Christian churches.”

The story I read in the July 17 issue of Time described the attendees of one “purity wedding” thusly: “The girls generally range in age from college down to the tiny 4-year-old dressed all in purple who has climbed up into her father’s arms to be carried.”

I promise Daddy...

Am I the only one who thinks this is just disgusting? I can’t type my horrified thoughts as fast as I have them: You mean if she has sex before marriage she is impure? A 4-year-old at a ball promising to stay

pure for daddy? How about a 9-year-old girl? What the heck do they know about sex? And why in the world would you sexualize a little girl anyway? Does this make his little daughter his property until he decides who is right to take her virginity?

I don’t have any issues with parents teaching their values to their children. But does anyone else find the idea of daddy and daughter engaged in a “purity wedding” just a tad sickening?

Finally, where are the boys in all this? Sowing their wild oats?