I really didn’t realize I was a feminist.

I think I was a little angry when I was growing up.
I grew up when there were a lot of things that girls weren’t supposed to do.

My elementary school didn’t allow girls to wear pants.
That sure cut down on a lot of fun at recess.

There weren’t many sports teams for girls.
I had never even touched a soccer ball before I started playing college soccer  since my high school didn’t fund a women’s soccer team.
The books we read pointed out the three careers for women… secretary, nurse and teacher.

I wanted to sell steel when I grew up.
Because that’s when men do.

There wasn’t anyone telingl me that I wasn’t good enough or tough enough to work in the steel industry.
(I grew up in Pittsburgh, which had a huge steel industry presence.)
No one said I couldn’t sell steel.

It was all subtext.
No one told me that I couldn’t, because no one ever asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.

Why ask a girl what she is going to be when you know there are only three likely options?

No one ever talked about being a feminist.
Or making things equal for women.

Not in my circles.
All those Ruth Bader Ginsburg wins were reported in the newspaper.

I thought they were reporting about
wrongs that were finally being made right.
I thought adults were waking up and seeing the glaring errors.

Women were treated by law differently than men.

Then the law gaps started to close.

VMI was forced by the Supreme Court to change the rule that excluded women from enrolling.

Equal pay legislation of 2009 paved the way for legal prosecution for unequal pay.

These were all gifts that I took for granted, because they happened when I thought all adults were like minded except for a few outliers. It was a time when I thought the collective minds of the people wanted to make things fair.
I know better now. 

I know Ruth stuck her neck out and took a stand.
Change is hard for everyone who has an advantage.
And that has made me step up and say my piece.
Because I believe we can make a difference.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a leader.
And helping women become equal with men in their money lives is why I do what I do.
I can look to her example, with grace and poise, at speaking about gender equality.

Women, if you have a credit card in your own name, if you have your own credit history, if you have leased property or bought property in your own name, if you have consented to your own medical procedure, or if you played a sport in school, you can thank Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
I have done all six of those things.
And not thought a thing about it.

Because RBG was who she was.
And I had the gift of thinking that’s just how things are.

OF COURSE I would be able to do these things as a woman.

Because I am just as good as a man.
It is time for women to step up and handle their investing.
Earn as much as men.
Talk about their money without shame.
Think about money and power.
It is time for women to have the same confidence with money that men have.
I do not have the skills to so beautifully articulate oral arguments or write dissents.

But I do have the skills to help women own their own power, use their money to get what they want, and have confidence with money.

We all do what we can do.

I don’t sell steel.
​​​​​​​But if I wanted to I would.

Let me close with a Maya Angelou poem that struck me as a salute to RBG this week…

WHEN GREAT TREES FALL

When great trees fall,

rocks on distant hills shudder,

lions hunker down

in tall grasses,

and even elephants

lumber after safety.

When great trees fall

in forests,

small things recoil into silence,

their senses

eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,

the air around us becomes

light, rare, sterile.

We breathe, briefly.

Our eyes, briefly,

see with

a hurtful clarity.

Our memory,

suddenly sharpened,

examines,

gnaws on kind words

unsaid,

promised walks

never taken.

Great souls die and

our reality,

bound to

them, takes leave of us.

Our souls,

dependent upon their

nurture,

now shrink,

wizened.

Our minds, formed

and informed by their

radiance,

fall away.

We are not so much maddened

as reduced to the unutterable ignorance

of dark, coldcaves.

And when great souls die,

after a period peace blooms,

slowly and always

irregularly. Spaces fill

with a kind of

soothing electric vibration.

Our senses, restored, never

to be the same, whisper to us.

They existed. They existed.

We can be. Be and be

better. For they existed.

I want to feel like I am KILLING IT whenever I manage my money… I want to think I am a ninja at making my money work for me.

I want to feel like I can go out and make money in a very clean way, delivering tons and tons of value to the other party.

I want my clients to feel like they are getting an enormous gift to get to pay me to work with them.

I want to feel like I can go into a store and buy anything I want.

I want a life so full that I don’t even want to buy anything. But I do buy the basics because I take care of myself and the people I love. 

I want buying things to be matter of fact rather than driven by overwhelming desire.

I want to feel like I am the money magnet.

I want to feel like I understand money.

I want to feel like all my bills will always be taken care of and I have a huge buffer for safety.

I want to feel like I can’t remember what it was like to be worried about money.

I want to feel generous.

We all want to feel good about money.

But it’s a different thing to actually decide exactly what you want and then believe it.

Articulate it and own it.

A general feeling of wanting doesn’t get you anywhere.

It doesn’t propel you.

When you narrow your desire down as far as it can go, then you can create it.

Be specific. 

Tell yourself the truth about what you want to feel.

I never used to know that creating feelings on purpose was possible.

But it’s made ALL the difference.

I can have what I want.
You can too.

I have been a really good money coach for myself during the pandemic. 

I have been really chill about seeing the stock market go down. 

I have been Zen as I pay the bills and watch our safety buffer dwindle as the months go by.  

No worries… I play the long game… I’ve got killer money confidence… we’re all good.

Then I sent my daughter to her annual doctor visit for the first time on her own.
It went well. I asked her about it and it all sounded good.
I was a breezy, hands-off Mom-about-town.

Then she stopped in the doorway and said, “Oh, and Quenton said to say hi.”

That’s so nice. I love Quentin, the man who draws blood for testing. He always makes me laugh so hard.

Wait… What?!? You had tests?

“Call Quentin and ask what tests you had!!!!!! You already had $3,000 of tests done! Insurance won’t pay twice! Why are you still standing here? We could be out big money. Call the other doctor. Write it all down!!!!”

I am not proud that my daughter had her hands on her face like the Caulkin kid did in Home Alone. That’s never a good sign. She was obviously distressed.

And here I thought I was so handling it all.

I hate that I upset my daughter.
But I love that I uncovered another painful money belief.

Because once the excavation is done, I can hold that belief up to the light and decide if it’s worth holding on to that fear.

I have been burned in the past numerous times by insurance companies. So I know where this fear comes from.

But the fear is not mandatory.

There is a difference between knowing why I am such a hot mess (and continuing to have these kind of melt downs), and learning from my failures and become wiser and calmer.

I want to tame the freak out.

I am working towards learning and changing with each freaky, embarrassing, bad mothering thing I do.

And just by noticing that I am overreacting to possible insurance problems… taking the watcher’s view… helps me do better next time.

How do you eat an elephant?: One bite at a time.

How you change the freak out?: One thought at a time.