When I was a young girl, my mother asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. At that time, women went into the traditional jobs of teaching, nursing, or administration. My mother was in administration and that was the role model I had of the working woman. Most of my friends’ mothers were stay at home moms, which was another traditional “job”. At that time, I never saw myself in the stay-at-home role, or in the teacher role because of words that I believed about myself and my success standing up in front of folks and talking.
Personally, I wanted to be a nurse. I had read all the Cherry Ames books and was fascinated with the life she led. It looked pretty glamorous to a young girl. When I told my mom this, her reaction was to say, not a nurse but a doctor; doctors have more power and control. Based on that, I chose a college, St Olaf College in Northfield, MN, that had a great pre-med program. Well, I lasted less than a year before I knew this was not for me.
While my desire was not to set into my mom’s world of administration as a secretary of any level, I did take my degree in Economics and Sociology (with a minor in math and psychology). I could have found a school that had an administrative major, but St. Olaf fed my soul.
If you have been reading my blogs, you know that after graduation, I went into the military to manage and lead people. I stayed in the human resources/administration discipline, but as an officer. This was just what I wanted.
However, since getting out of the military, it is interesting where life has taken me in my career. When I was discharged, my first jobs were a series of secretarial roles and later, I even started a business where I did administrative/secretarial work for independent business owners and professionals. I did go back to school and became a nurse. However, not in the role you would expect.
The surprise to me in all of this is that I ended up doing just about everything I said I would never do including being a stay at home mom with a home based business. What about teaching you might ask? That is the lesson for next week!
Something else I have learned as a business woman is to ask for what you want. If you loved what you just read, this content is not for free. As a form of payment, I am asking you to comment or share this on Facebook or tweet about it on Twitter.
Linda Patten, MBA, BSN, RN has over 30 years of experience leading women to success in building and achieving their dreams. She turns networking marketing women from product sellers to leaders of highly functioning teams. To learn more about her innovative programs, click on Contact Us.