Piloting Your Life: In-Flight Entertainment (Girl on Fire) (June 18, 2019)
Welcome Back My Fierce Passengers:
Over the weekend I wrapped up my edits on the final draft of Piloting Your Life (the book). I celebrated with some champagne and YouTube videos of the highlights from the Women’s World Cup. I am so inspired by not only the U.S. Women’s National Team but the players from the other teams as well.
There is quite a disparity in funding for the teams from different countries and despite the caliber of players and sheer grit and determination, funding and support matters. And don’t get me started about the disparity between what the U.S. Men’s Team gets paid versus the U.S. Women’s Team. I heard that the women get 38 cents for every dollar their male counterparts receive which is unacceptable given the unparalleled success of the women’s team.
This disparity got me thinking of value which I discuss in the book. I was talking about this with Amy Gross, founder of VineSleuth based in Houston, while she was in town. I’d been asked to speak at an event in SF at the end of the month and agreed to do so assuming I was the only speaker for the 60 minute event.
After a conversation with the organizer I found out there would be two of us talking about two different topics which made me uncomfortable…there wasn’t going to be enough time to do justice to one topic let alone two, and I thought we were doing a disservice to the audience. Then I got the agenda and it had turned into a three person panel with yet another person moderating. The panel discussion was only 45 minutes.
I politely declined at this point.
Not only did I think we were shortchanging the audience, I also realized that I would be traveling to/from SF during commute hours and my travel time was going to be 10 times longer than my air time. It felt terrible to decline after I had agreed, but I had to get over that feeling. First, the format had changed and second, I realized my time is valuable and the benefits of participating did not outweigh the cost of my time (and parking).
Far too often we women not only don’t appreciate our value, but we aren’t strategic when we choose how we spend our valuable time and energy. Sometimes we feel honored to have been asked and don’t take time to think about what WE will get from the opportunity. We need to be less quick about being agreeable and helping others and be more deliberate in asking the question: what’s in it for me?
Terri
P.S We are still on hiatus with the podcast but feel free to click below to listen to past episodes. More to come in September! TM
Piloting Your Life (the podcast)
Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. It’s a beautiful day to fly, and we are cleared for takeoff.
Song: Girl on Fire
