One of my Lady clients told me once that she used to put on the table a paper written on it “Am In To WIN” every time she was attending a business meeting.
“Am In To WIN”. Am here To STAY. Am Here To SUCCEED …
She is from an Arab country. She is a brilliant leader and she’s conducting her business very well into success and prosperity. When negotiating deals, however, she still needs to feel herself supported and in a comfortable position by such a reminder.
I understand that. Ladies represent a very important working force around the entire world. When it comes to higher professional positions and highly ranked business environment, however, the number of Ladies in very senior positions shrinks dramatically.
Sometimes, even the most imminent business Lady might feel the need to prove herself through other symbolic support that has nothing to do whether with the business itself, or with her expertise or qualifications, just to remind her male partners that she won’t be as easy in negotiation as they might believe.
Overall, the issue is of not being considered seriously, not being recognized as a real peer and not being easily accepted within male business spheres without having to struggle for her status as a business Lady, as an investment advisor, as an inspiring leader … We see this in several attitudes, verbal and non-verbal ones of men and even sometimes of women themselves!
Ladies, Your lives are not shaped by Your conditions and/or by the recognition the others bestow upon You. Your lives are shaped by Your decisions. And the most important decision is where to direct Your focus. If your mind is not directed, it will always look for what’s wrong, and You will be subject to heavy stress.
I would have rather liked it better if my client had focused rather on her inner strength and awareness of her self-confidence, special added value to her business, creativity, adaptiveness with no external support, no extra “noise” to establish her authority on her male colleagues.
Lady investment advisors know how to manage this very well. Mainly when it happens that their clients are businessmen, coming equally from modern or less-developed regions equally, who are used to deal only with male advisors.
Then, You need to be expert not only in wealth management, asset allocation, timing the market or not, explaining the rationale behind suggested investments, … You need to be better than Freud, Lacan, Lewin, Wing, Dolto combined with a flavor of a certain superiority of knowledge within the communication exercise to convince them that You are as good as Your male colleague, if not better!!!
While You are providing them with the best ever tailored-made private banking services they have ever received from any other advisor before, You need to manage first their vulnerable inner-person and reassure them by establishing the best of a human relationship and the best of a professional trust based on a deep mutual respect, engaged understanding of their needs and lifestyle requirements and full dedication to their interests.
All what You need is to be aware of Your capabilities to manage the heavy burden of thousands of years of discrimination against You. It will take a long time before You can pretend to receive an equal treatment with be it male advisors, male partners, male superiors, male family members … a long time ahead before changing distorted and sometimes unconscious unequal beliefs.