I spent two days last week at the strategic planning session of the Board for the Center for Women's Business Research(www.cfwbr.org)  It was a very high energy, extremely interactive, and I believe quite productive exercise.  Of course, I'm biased enough to think that the energy flows and things are accomplished whenever you get women entrepreneurs and their supporters together.  One of the more unusual things we did to kick off the retreat was to go around the room and answer two questions - Why we were there and Who are our heroes.  I'll admit that I did a bit of internal eye rolling at the assignment until the first woman started speaking.  The next hour or so was one of the most moving and inspiring times I've had recently.  The vast majority of the two dozen or so women (and one man) around the table spoke about relatives - mostly mothers but also a sprinkling of aunts, grandmothers, and sisters.  There were definitively some teary moments as the speaker of the moment reflected on what these relatives had meant to them.  But being the incurable social scientist, I naturally started to track themes.  Two emerged about the heroines being described and two emerged about the perception of impact.  Almost to a person the heroines had worked very hard to install the importance of education into the children who were important in their lives.  They believed that this was the path to a better life for the children.  Our heroines were also very active inside and outside of the home.  While not all of them were in the paid workforce, they all had extremely full lives following all types of interests.  There was also a strong consensus that it was possible to have rewarding professional and personal lives.  As Flori Roberts, serial entrepreneur and Vice Chair of CWBR's Advisory Council, put it, “having one doesn't mean giving up the other.” 

        The impact on the women in the room was described in two primary ways.  First, each had an extremely strong sense of independence.  Of course, they are entrepreneurs.  Second, they all described themselves as value driven.   Their entrepreneurial activities are important to them but are certainly not limited to financial empowerment through the generation of independent wealth (not that there is anything wrong with that) but absolutely extends to explicitly thinking about their contribution to their communities and society as a whole. 

       Our other heroines included Kathryn Hepburn and Nancy Drew and there were a lot of heads nodding in agreement on both of these suggestions.  But it was our inspiring relatives that really got us going.