Auntie Helen

I want to tell you about Helen Wilkoszewski. She was my aunt and she died last month. She was 92.

Everyone called her Auntie Helen. All my friends did, for sure. In fact, I doubt they even knew her last name. But they did know her clever wit and her no-nonsense advice.

Auntie Helen had a way of throwing you a zinger when you weren’t expecting it. Like the time she told me she was happy that she married my uncle and that she didn’t marry her old boyfriend Chester.

“I heard he was horny,” she said.

Auntie Helen liked to cook, garden, and give people a hard time. But she walked the walk. Her house was immaculate, her makeup was always in place, and we won’t even get started on her rose garden. Beautiful.

For the record, she was the youngest child of Polish immigrants. She was bilingual in both the spoken and written word. She worked in a Detroit factory during WWII building planes. And she was my Godmother. She didn’t have any kids or grandkids of her own, but she was my grandmother (the only one I ever knew, at least.)

I’m going to try to write more about her after some time has passed. It still hurts right now. But I have some great stories to share. Like how she would call my good friend from college “the little Jewish boy” – even after I reminded her that he’s almost 40, the father of three, and COO of his own company.

“Yes. That little Jewish boy always was a good Joe,” was her response.

To my friends who knew her, if you have any memories of her, please feel free to share them.

Rock stars and super agents

I often tell my buddies that I want to be a rock star in lifelong learning (the field I work in.) I recently saw that my online Gen X buddy Jason Seiden apparently wants to be a super agent (and the video below is what my 9-year-old daughter would call the most awesome of awesomeness). What do you want to be?

We need to stop looking and women's success like it's 1985

Two articles that recently discussed women in business this week made me want to puke. The first one is from the Wall Street Journal and asked the question “What’s holding back women entrepreneurs?” It says that although women are starting their own businesses at much higher rates than men – the women-owned businesses are not as big as the men-owned businesses. Problem #1 (and yes, they called it a problem)? Men tend to start businesses to be the “boss” and women start businesses to be personally challenged and balance work and family.

The second article in Time Magazine touts the accomplishments of three Wall Street leaders who are women who were underestimated by men.

What I find most appalling about both these articles is that they set the standard of success/accomplishment/whatever on how the women compare to the men. It’s so 1980s Working Girl that I have the urge to put on my acid wash jacket.

Let’s be honest here – if more women were willing to do what the top dog male executives and CEOs did to get to their position, then more women would be top dog executives and CEOs. A lot of women make choices that impact their income/status – me included. I worked part time for 5 years when my girls were younger. I don’t regret a minute of it – it was MY choice. I wasn’t being held back by The Man.

I would like to see an article about the strides that men have made in parenting. Today’s dads spend significantly more time with their children than their own dads spent with them - and they wish they could spend even more time with them. Does it impact their careers? Of course it does. My husband and a lot of his friends took paternity leave after their children were born – and they paid the price at work. The old boys don’t like it when you do that.

The issue here is not a gender issue – it’s a generational issue. “Being challenged” and “balancing work and family” are legitimate reasons to start a business. I’ve argued for a while that Gen Xers don’t define success the same way the Boomers do. If “bigger” is the only measurement of success – this myth that women are somehow not equal will persist.

If you want to achieve bigness, there’s a way to go – and both men and women can do it. If you want to achieve something else, there’s another way to go – and again it’s an option for both men and women. We don’t all have to be the same, but we do all have the same opportunity.

Of pushing 40 and turning my back on mean girls

A few weeks ago I had lunch with an old friend of mine. We don’t see each other as much as I like. Kids, jobs, and husbands seem to keep us both so busy. But when I do see her, we always have the most interesting conversations.

We talked about how as we’re both around the hub of 40, our approach to friendship is different. When I was younger, I let me friends choose me. But now, I choose my friends.

When I was younger, I had great friends – but I also had a few who did not treat me right. It was hard to get out of the friendships. Now, I have all great friends.

This evolution occurred in both my friend and I. It happened to each of us separate from the other, so I’ve been wondering if it’s a common experience. Have any of you gone through this?

Xers will never grow up to be Boomers

Ever notice how Boomers seem to think everyone over 40 is a Boomer? It makes sense, because "age" is a big issue for Boomers. They'll never grow old.

If you are a Boomer reading this, before you get annoyed, we Xers have our own issue. It's being cool. We don't mind being old, as long as we stay cool. In fact, the Wall Street Journal recently ran an article that discussed why parents all the sudden are cool. I thought to myself when I read it, "Duh, parents are 'cool' today for the same reason that parents in the 80's were 'young' - it's our generation's issue."

But back to my original observation. The reason I started thinking about it was I read this blog post that sited a New York Times study on supporters of the Tea Party. The blog post said "people over 40," but the original article actually said tea party supporters tend to be over 45. It may not seem like a big difference, but it is when you consider the oldest Gen Xers are 45.

Tammy Erickson, herself a Boomer, wrote a great article on Gen X leadership for the Harvard Business Review. In it, she writes that each generation reacts to the excess of the previous generation - and that Boomers' excess is ideology. Therefore it makes sense that Xers would not support the Tea Party with the same force as Boomers.

I think this is an example of the quiet leadership style that Jeff Gordinier describes in this video. I think we'll continue to hear that Millennials are leading on the path to change in the 21st Century, when it's actually the Gen Xers who are doing so. Even Penelope Trunk, blogger extraordinaire and lover of Millennials, says so.

I'd love to hear what you think. Are Gen Xers taking a new path - or just following the Boomers and waiting for the Millennials to show us where to go?

The truth about taking a dare.

I was visiting Jason Seiden's website recently, and he had written something that has become one of my favorite new sayings: Dare To Fail Spectacularly.

I think that line stuck with me so much, because I don't believe you can truly be successful right now by working for the establishment. I don't think it'll be like this forever. But right now it is.

William A. Draves and Julie Coates write in their ground-breaking book Nine Shift that what's happening now parallels what happened 100 years ago. Back then we were transitioning from the Agrarian Age into the Industrial Age - and now we are transitioning from the Industrial Age into the Information Age. And in the years 2008-2012 is when the turning point happens.

Therefore, if the establishment is in a transition, it's dysfunctional.

I've seen this up close and personal lately. My husband Jeff Kart - a nationally recognized environmental journalist - has had to make a choice recently. He had a "day job" at a newspaper (quite retro, I know) and he is writing for national news outlets like the Discovery networks' Planet Green and Treehugger sites (you can see his work here). But the demand for his work got so great that he had to choose where he wanted to work. So he chose Discovery networks.

It's a little scary to give up the "day job," because even though we're Gen Xers, we still grew up with a bit of the "company man" philosophy. But it's so clear that the future of news is not in paper, but online. However, most newspaper editors seem to forget that they're in the news business and not the paper business.

So Seiden's philosophy really hit home for me. I personally took the dare a few years ago - and now my life partner is on the same path. And I've never been happier.

What do you think? Have you ever taken the dare? What did it mean for you?

What WILL employment look like in the 21st Century?

I've been thinking a lot lately about what our employment will look like in the 21st Century. I am one of the fortunate few who not only have a job (with insurance) that I love - but I also am part of a staff of people that get along and respect each other at all levels of the organization. But my career hasn't always been this way.

I know so many people who have to work for really bad bosses. And I think that's the problem. People don't leave bad jobs, they leave bad bosses. Which makes me think - wouldn't it be better for a lot of people to just become independent consultants?

Even though I do have a full-time job, I telecommute. I really do work on my own terms - when I want, where I want, listening to the Rachael Ray Show, if I want. If I still worked at my old job, my bosses would probably be annoyed that I spend my first couple hours of the day working in my pajamas (they frowned upon it when you didn't get dressed for work.)

I guess I just wonder how long people are going to put up with the corporate life. Or maybe I'm completely wrong. It wouldn't be the first time that my thoughts on a issue weren't mainstream.

What do you think? If you could be your own boss - would you? And if you would, but aren't, why?