Chasing What's Inside of Myself

" Women often discover their business talent after kids are raised" is the piece by Carol Hymowitz in today's Wall St. Journal.

Here are some highlights.

"Being a leader requires dedication and a single-minded focus, which women often aren't able to have until later in life," says Laura ---Liswood, a senior adviser to Goldman Sachs and the general secretary of the Council of Women World Leaders.
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In addition, it often takes women longer to believe in themselves enough to seek jobs in which they wield power. "By their 40s and 50s, after observing a few male bosses, women finally begin to say to themselves, 'These guys aren't any smarter than I am."
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A lot of middle-age women have found their own solution: launching their own businesses. There are 10.6 million women-owned businesses in the U.S., employing 19.1 million people, and two out of three of the new businesses being launched are women-owned. "A lot of these women have worked for big corporations, but at 40 or so when a lot are still stuck in middle management they start thinking, 'I can have more influence and a bigger piece of the pie doing it on my own,' " says Marsha Firestone, founder of the Women Presidents' Organization. The average age of the group's members is 49.

But by far the best quote is from Bonni Lonsbury, founder of Touch Today, a  Denver-based marketing firm.

She focused on raising two sons in her 20s and early 30s. She worked, too, but her husband's sales career required the family to move five times in 14 years. When she applied for a joint law and M.B.A. program, she says, she worried "I wasn't bright enough to get in." But she was among the top in her class and quickly landed a clerkship.
Ms. Lonnsburry decided not to pursue a law career. "I did it to have something to say at cocktail parties," she says. Then, in her late 30s, she suffered a string of losses: Both her parents died, her marriage dissolved and, for a time, her sons went to live with their father.
"I had no money, no job, no family," she says. "But I started confronting everything about myself, and I decided I can't feel afraid anymore, I'm going to feel joy, I'm going to feel prosperous and I'm not wasting another minute."
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What she enjoys most is creating useful products for customers. "When I was young, I felt I had to be perfect in every way," she says. "But I'm no longer chasing after what others might want of me. I'm chasing what's inside of myself."

"Chasing what's inside of myself" is what middle-aged women do to find new meaning and purpose in their lives.  Companies who want to go after the richest market in America - middle-aged women - must pay attention to what women want.