Me, Inc. (18 page)

DEBBI FIELDS

founder and spokesperson for Mrs. Fields bakeries

T
his chapter is specifically designed for you, women entrepreneurs.

I won't get into how humiliating and arduous a climb you've had to make in order to gain respect and win control of your own lives in this country, and others. I also understand that your struggle is not over yet. In many African, Asian, and Middle Eastern countries, women are still being treated like property or worse. And we've still got a ways to go in the United States, though the misogyny we experience here is slightly less obvious, and slightly more insidious.

But here in Western society, and particularly in America, women have the opportunity, perhaps more than at any time in history and perhaps more than anywhere else on earth. So there's really no excuse for not becoming an entrepreneur.

If you've got the guts.

For role models, men can look up to many successful male entrepreneurs who started with nothing and created business empires for themselves. The list is long. Bill Gates/Microsoft. Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook. Steve Jobs/Apple. Sir Richard Branson/Virgin. All of these men started with no funds, had no prior experience, and forged ahead nonetheless.

Women should take note that there are role models for them to look up to as well.

The following women play to win in a man's world. Because it
is
a man's world, unfortunately. And men will not soften the rules to suit you, just as they won't soften the rules to suit other men who don't make the grade.

Please note, as well, that none of these women I'm about to name married into their position, or were born with a crown on their heads. They had to fight hard to get where they are. Perhaps harder than their male counterparts. And they deserve the respect and admiration of all of us for being able to overcome any obstacles that society and culture put in front of them.

They won, regardless.

And, you can, too.

German chancellor Angela Merkel oversees Europe's most thriving economy. The German gross domestic product (GDP) is almost $12 trillion. Merkel became chancellor the old-fashioned way. She worked for it. She didn't marry into it. She didn't inherit it. She clawed her way to the top, went toe to toe with men, and won.

Marillyn Hewson is the CEO of Lockheed Martin, the global aerospace, defense, security, and tech company. Hardly a position one would associate with a woman. But there she is atop an entity populated with mostly men.

Ellen Sirleaf Johnson is the head of state of Liberia. She is one of two recent female heads of state in all of Africa. The other was Joyce Banda of Malawi. Both ladies routinely met to improve the lives of women living in Africa.

Ginni Rometty is the CEO of IBM. Computers. IBM is led by a woman—the old stereotype of technology not being “feminine” is crumbling.

Meg Whitman is CEO of Hewlett-Packard. Before that, she ran for governor of California and lost by a small margin. She was also president and CEO of eBay.

Marissa Mayer heads Yahoo. When she came on as CEO, the company was in tatters. Under her leadership, Yahoo has made a complete turnaround.

It bears noting that during the five years that Mayer worked at Google, she did 250 all-nighters. Think about that: 250 nights with no sleep to get the job done.

So why not you? Do you have that kind of dedication to succeeding? Can you do it?

It was clear, even in the beginning, that Marissa Mayer was willing to outwork her coworkers.

Although Mayer is married, when she comes home from work, she doesn't stop working. She will work late into the evening, even though she is with her husband. She doesn't stop working just because she's at home.

And that's the sign of a champion.

Breathe it. Feel it. Dream it. Be it. All the time.

YOU are the engine that makes it all happen.

You are a car battery: you must recharge by turning on and running, every day.

Ladies, first and foremost: you're on your own. No more rules neatly laid out for you to follow. You have to make up YOUR OWN rules.

And quite honestly, that's tougher for women, because you don't
have
to do this for yourself. As a woman, there is a social contract, and a social stereotype, that teaches you from an early age that you always have a security blanket, called a man. You have the option of getting married, having children, and spending all your time caring for the home, while he is working and trying to pay for it all. This persistent stereotype is still here, and though it's not enforced as rigorously as it was in the fifties, it is still prevalent. Some people, sometimes, will wonder why you're “bothering” to work so hard, instead of just settling down.

And you can certainly do that. It's your life.

But if you decide to be a homemaker or a stay-at-home mom, you may as well leave your entrepreneurial aspirations at the door of the home that you didn't get to buy.

The biological clock that keeps tugging at women to have children before their middle years, and the male culture that keeps shoving this message down their throats, is probably the biggest obstacle to them devoting all of their waking moments to their careers. If you're a woman, your early twenties to your forties is the most important time to work at your aspirations. Without any diversions.

So your biggest decision to make is this: do you want to devote all of your energies in your twenties, thirties, and forties to your career goals, or do you want to conform to a biological imperative, a traditional social stereotype, and be a stay-at-home wife and mother? Again—there's nothing wrong with this. At all. But at this point in history, perhaps for the first time, you truly don't have to. The vistas of possibility are becoming wider, and grander, all the time, because of trailblazing women like the ones mentioned above.

Sometimes you do have to make that hard, fork-in-the-road choice. Sometimes there simply isn't enough time to be a mother and wife and also have career aspirations. I certainly recognize that millions of strong women are single mothers. And I recognize that those women raise their own children, as well as going out and working for a living. But a lot of them are just working to pay the bills.

If you want to increase your chances of becoming a successful entrepreneur, if you want to climb the ladder of success, you
cannot
let anyone or anything get in your way. That includes your biological urges, and the social stigmas that enforce them.

Not until you've hit the big time!

You can't pay enough attention to matters at home and at your career at the same time. There just aren't enough hours in the day.

Statistics tell us that if you decide to have offspring, it's best to have
one
. Just one. At least when you're in your twenties. Because one may be manageable in terms of time, cost, love, and effort. To use a corny analogy, if you're a “plate spinner”—you know, those people who keep multiple plates spinning on top of a stick—it's best to have only one plate to spin, instead of ten. If you have more than one plate spinning at the same time, you will constantly be running back and forth trying to keep every plate spinning. It is inevitable that no matter how hard you work, the longer you spin, the greater are the chances of dropping them all.

What I am about to say is politically incorrect, and may hurt the feelings of people of faith or offend your racial or cultural considerations. Too bad. Here goes.

Don't have a big family—especially if you can't afford to have one.

Statistics also tell us that lower-income Hispanic, Italian, white, and African-American families tend to have kids at an early age, sometimes with a parent in their teens. This is lunacy, and it must stop.

For your children's sake.

And for yours.

If you must have children at a young age, have one. Maybe two. That's it.

Sorry, the rich are different. They can have as many kids as they like,
because they're rich.
They can afford the extra cost of feeding, clothing, educating, and nurturing multiple people. A child is like anything else—you have to determine if you can afford to have one. If you can't, then don't have one.

There's more.

According to a U.S. Department of Agriculture study, raising just one child through its eighteenth year will cost you anywhere from $241,080 to $500,000. That's after-tax money, which means that, depending on your tax bracket, you can add between 30 and 50 percent to that figure, meaning that, at the highest tax rate, you will have to earn anywhere from $500,000 to $1,000,000 to raise one child until the age of eighteen!

Now, multiply that by the number of children people have, and you have a financial model that simply cannot bear a quality of life your child needs.

Again. STOP HAVING SO MANY CHILDREN.

NOW.

Generally speaking, women often have two choices in life, as a matter of sheer economic pragmatism: devote all of your time to your career, or have a family and children. There are scores of books debating whether it is feasible to do both, but personally, whether it is or not, I don't think it's worth the risk, most of the time. Better to play to win, and have a family after you've already accomplished something.

Men don't have that option and don't have that choice. They
have
to go to work. They can't give birth and traditionally (as part of a social stigma that enforces a stereotype) don't have the inclination to stay at home and raise the kids. This is changing all the time. Soon this may be irrelevant. However, I'm talking about the here and now—and these old fifties models still seem to apply to millions of people.

That goes all the way back to
Australopithecus africanus
, one of our early ancestors, who lived on the plains of Africa a few million years ago. He hunted and gathered. The female wasn't as strong or as fast, and generally had to depend on the kill that he brought back. Things have certainly changed since then. But these traditional roles still seem to carry weight in our cultural memory. The bigger the piece of meat he brings back, the more attractive he is to the females (please address your hate mail to my post office box).

So, yes, you can choose to be a housewife, and forsake your career aspirations. But if you do, YOU will be the last in line. Your children will come before you. Your husband is also more important. When everyone else is happy,
then
you get to be happy.

Wanna be the most important one?

Then you have to make some real choices in your life.

You often can't have it both ways (more on that later).

Pick one: CAREER or FAMILY.

It can't be fifty-fifty.

It all comes back to YOU.

Men who thrive in the workplace, they live it. They breathe it. They eat it. In sports, in military combat, in the workforce, there are men who compete and thrive. They
want
to win.

Every day.

And, there are women who do these things. There are women who
want
to win.

I hope you are one of them.

There are some huge hurdles that you'll need to overcome. Culture, misogyny—hell, guys like me. Old-world guys who enforce misogynistic stereotypes almost unconsciously. You'll need to beat us at our own game. But, mostly, you need to overcome YOURSELF.

There are statistics in business journals, in medical journals, in social scientific journals that tell us that the biggest challenge to becoming a successful lady entrepreneur is the lady herself, YOU.

And of course, men still won't accept you as the powerful woman you will become. Men still have preconceived notions about you. Men still look at you physically, and if you're very attractive, they find it hard to look past all that.

Too bad.

I didn't invent any of this.

Fight it.

Or ignore it.

But make it work for you.

So let's take a look at what the
facts
are about women in the workforce.

And let's then take a look at why none of that should matter to you on your way to the top.

First, some bad news. Studies tell us that many women are dropping out of the workforce by the end of their twenties.

Coincidentally, these years tend to be important ones for family and child-bearing. And because you're reading this book, this will not stop you, right?

Now, some good news: at entry-level positions in corporations, women account for about half of the jobs.

Bad news: over time, men are twice as likely as women to advance up the corporate ladder. Why is this? Is it a result of a zero-sum situation: “Do I want to have someone else raise my children while I put my full focus on my career?” Is that a result of nature or nurture? Who cares? It simply is. And that means that you'll have to work harder than he will.

More bad news: we are told only 3 percent of technology companies are started by women. That means that 97 percent of technology companies are started by men.

Research also tells us that 98 percent of all companies owned by women never make more than $1 million a year.

Why? If you're a social activist trying to effect positive change in the world, this question bears weight. If you're an entrepreneur, it doesn't matter why—this is simply the monster you have to defeat, regardless of the reason it was born.

Also, consider this:

Men are the predominant readership of news and financial journals like
Bloomberg Businessweek
and the
Economist
. Female readership of these publications is only 27 percent.

Men also are the predominant readers of sports publications, which I contend reinforce issues of competition and teamwork.

Women account for about 75 percent of the viewing audience of TV shows like
Ellen
and
The View
. I contend that none of these female-skewed shows help women to advance in business.