Cultural anthropologist Angeles Arrien, author of The Four-Fold Way, teaches there are four bones to which we must pay attention if we are to remain fully present in our lives. As in life, so it is in speaking! Use these four bones of professional speaking to ensure your presentation is masterful.
Continue reading... →The busiest election season of the year is coming up… how will you vote?
Yes, I know that the political mid-term elections are already behind us. However, that’s just one type of election: a political one. Every day, you vote many more times with your dollars. You may choose to support large corporations that focus on maximizing shareholder profits; small, independent businesses that are active in their local communities; or any number of other businesses in between. But with each purchase, you are casting a vote in support of that company’s practices.
Continue reading... →When you start asking moms to promote products that other moms and organizations find troubling and maybe even toxic, you can expect a backlash of conversation. That’s what happened when Johnson and Johnson launched a contest called Big Bubblin Stars, in which the winning video of kids having fun in a bubble bath garners $10,000 in prize money. You didn’t have to buy the J&J products and yet, wouldn’t you? It’s $10,000 after all, and it seems fun and safe enough. But is it? The troubling part for many moms was that the contest promoted the use of products that contained dubious chemistry, shown over time to build up in the little bodies soaking in it. The launch of Bubblin Stars also coincided with a report from the Safe Cosmetics Organization titled No More Toxic Tub. In the bubble bath case, the moms were specifically questioning the use of products containing 1,4-dioxane and formaldehyde, included in some J&J products. What’s the big deal? Well, according to areport on a site focused on reducing breast cancer, it’s not just in J&J products. As stated in the report: Laboratory tests released today revealed the presence of 1,4-Dioxane in products such as Hello Kitty Bubble Bath, Huggies Baby Wash, Johnson’s Baby Wash, Scooby-Doo Bubble Bath […]
Continue reading... →While I was in New Orleans for the Green Matters Conference, I met the most extraordinary woman. Simone Bruni, better known in the Crescent City as the “Demo Diva,” took her personal tragedy from Hurricane Katrina and turned it into a woman-owned and run demolition business, complete with hot pink front loader and giant dumpster. I have written and spoken extensively on the lack of women in green. There are many reasons for it, I suppose. Green, particularly Green Building, is really a version of construction, and women represent only 3-6% of the building trades as a whole. But the lesson from the Demo Diva is that there is nothing really stopping women from becoming involved, even in the male dominated fields like demolition and construction! On the softer side, there is certainly no reason that women cannot be green building lawyers, sustainable investment advisors or involved in the marketing and selling of green products. Given that the economy is in a fragile recovery, green and sustainable businesses are leading the areas of growth. There are many programs specifically designed to help women acquire these skills. (A listing is available here.) Green Business Women is a nice site with resources for women looking to turn […]
Continue reading... →Sister Courage Wears the Shirt of Action • What makes you angry enough to take action? • What makes you inspired enough to take action? “I love your T-shirt,” chuckled Jenny, my twentysomething personal trainer, as she stretched my aching legs. “I never saw that before.” I hadn’t noticed which of my many message T-shirts I had thrown on when I rolled out of bed before sunrise. Most of the folks who populate New York’s Columbus Circle Equinox gym sport workout clothes that bear designer labels, but seldom do I see any that pack a message punch. I figure my chest is valuable real estate — why not use it to communicate my convictions? I looked down and saw that I’d grabbed one of my favorites: Well-Behaved Women Rarely Make History. Historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s wry observation became one of the guiding principles of the women’s movement during the 1970s, and living it seems as natural to me now as balance ball crunches do to my lithe trainer. Perhaps because of their delicious candor laced with felicity of expression, these words have become a slogan for boundary-breaking women everywhere. But just because it’s proudly emblazoned on mugs and bumper stickers […]
Continue reading... →The balance of the masculine and the feminine is my mantra on Women Of Green. With the recent (or not-so-recent) oil spill, we see the extreme need for this more than ever. My heart burst open every day watching our waters be turned into a toxic soup of sorrow. With that, I share the blog post below by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox. It shines a light on an important view on the BP story that has not been covered in the current news.
— Carolyn
One year ago, BP’s most senior woman left the company. Vivienne Cox was the head of the company’s renewable energy business. A lifelong proponent and pusher of sustainability issues, she was one of the many women to leave the company after the current CEO Tony Hayward took over from Lord Brown, something 20-first.com reported on at the time. Watching the current debacle and the culture that created it, one wonders had she and the other women stayed, would BP be in its current mess?
Continue reading... →I am the President of The Greening of Detroit, a 20-year old organization devoted to greening the City of Detroit through planting projects, environmental and outdoor education, advocacy and by building community capacity. We have our roots in planting things that make our city greener, but we have expanded our programming over the years to include education and job training, advocacy and capacity building for our community partners.
When they meet me, many people ask what motivated me to become a leader in Detroit’s green movement. I have to say that, when I started this career, I wasn’t really thinking about saving the world. In fact, it was a much more basic instinct.
Continue reading... →For our special Earth Day show today, I couldn’t resist having on Rebecca Harrell Tickell. She’s written a book called “Hot, Rich & Green: The Secret Formula women are Using to Get Rich and Save the Planet.” The whole book highlights women in green business. The lessons in it come directly from actual successes and failures of women who have lived the formulas. Rebecca’s energy is contagious. And wait to you hear what she says about women and money. If you have any issues in the arena, watch them fly out the window.
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