Enter the mentor

A mentor can show you how to ramp up your skill-sets, network effectively and work around or eliminate your weaknesses. They can even open some very important doors to leadership positions.

But how do you find that all-important mentor? Do you stay in your limited circle, hoping your parents, friends or co-workers might “know someone” and put in a good word for you? Or can you yourself have the audacity to reach out to someone you truly respect and admire and ask him or her (in some compelling way) to help you learn, improve and move forward?

In my experience as an entrepreneur, trend-spotter and author of several books (including “Influence: How Women’s Soaring Economic Power will Transform Our World for the Better“), I have had the good fortune to benefit from a number of incredible mentors, who have had great mentors themselves. The main reason they were willing to give me a boost up the ladder of success was simply this: I asked!

Of course, I also did my homework. I learned about their education, their path to success, their past work experience and even the nonprofits to which they contributed their time and/or money. In better understanding their interests, I could make my remarks and questions both respectful and authentic.

Aim high and don’t be intimidated

When searching for a mentor, the first thing you should keep in mind is that no leader is “too important” to be your mentor. Don’t put limits on your list of potential mentors by assuming someone is too busy, too high up or too inaccessible. Like the gorgeous model that no one asks out on a date because they assume she is not interested, often the leaders who are seemingly “too busy” do not get as many requests as you might expect. And they are often the very ones who want the opportunity to give back through helping someone just like you.

Keep in mind that mentoring comes in all sizes, shapes and durations. It doesn’t have to take the form of mentoring we often conjure up in our minds, in which we meet with someone for an hour each week, face-to-face. Maybe it’s a Skype video conference once a month with someone on the other side of the globe. Or perhaps it’s one potent walk-and-talk in the park, tagged onto a business trip or vacation to another city. Mentoring, really, is just learning what you can from someone more experienced and savvy who you admire and respect.

And remember that asking is a gift. I have learned firsthand that the knowledge and acumen that leaders have gained over the years is almost always something they want to share. It helps complete the circle and populate their profession and industry with new blood; it also leaves them feeling like they are making a purposeful contribution to the future of their profession, their company and even the world. In a nutshell, it helps them leave a legacy.

So while it is important to keep an open mind about who could be an excellent mentor, you should also consider these suggestions and tips as you begin your search:

• Be bold, be gracious. After you figure out who you’d like to ask to be your mentor and do your due diligence on that individual, you’ve got to ask them. This can be scary, but you will never get your mentor without asking. Find a way to ask that person that appeals to their ego, intelligence and good will. Help them to know that you understand who they are and how they got to where they are. At the same time, provide them with a feel for who youare in a way that might draw them in and want to consider mentoring you.
• Try different avenues. Emailing someone is relatively easy today, but a handwritten letter may make you stand out more. Once you know a lot about the person, consider the best method of contact — email, a letter or even, if appropriate, a direct message on Twitter or Facebook. Also, if you have something thoughtful you can send as a gift (e.g. a book you believe that person might like, a magazine article, etc.) include it as a gesture of respect.
• If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again. Like many things in life, you have to reach out to many to find the one. If one attempt doesn’t work out, don’t give up. The most successful professionals in the U.S. have or have had a mentor and many of them did exactly what you are attempting to do — so they may well want to “pay it forward.” Don’t let any negative self-talk discourage you and rob you of what could be a rich opportunity to take your career — and your life — to the next level.

Remember what the great Virgil said: “Fortune favors the bold.” What was true in 29 B.C. is just as relevant today.

Good luck!

That (and a tad more) describes Maddy Dychtwald. She’s pretty well known, ridiculously successful and, dang, good looking to boot.

She’s the author of Influence: How Women’s Soaring Economic Power Will Transform Our World for the Better. She’s also the co-founder, along with her husband Ken, of Age Wave. Together they’ve been warning us for a long time now about the dangers of ignoring the demographics of aging and the talents of our senior citizens.

(Ken Dychtwald, by the way, is one of the very best speakers we’ve ever seen. He’s always understood intuitively what Seth Godin warns about in Really Bad PowerPoint – that bullet points slaughter audiences, but the right emotional images help deliver the message).

So, why in the world would someone like Maddy Dychtwald feel it necessary to tweet? She’s got it all, already.

Contribution

Chris Brogan (one of the most knowledgeable social network experts on the planet) will tell you that online social networking is not about selling – but instead about contributing, mentoring and giving back.

In Maddy Dychtwald’s case she contributes her expertise. She’s intimately involved with issues like the marketing power of women and the implications of demographic shifts. She uses that expertise to link her followers to news, resources, studies and articles on the topics she knows best.

Sure, she tweets about her own books and appearances. (we should be so lucky to have such success and such a schedule!).

But, she also uses her background to lead us to intriguing articles like a Christian Science Monitor article about the popular television show, The Closer; and an NPR story about Sarah McLachlan’s fight to keep her wonderful concert series, Lilith Fair, alive.

And, those are just a couple of examples. Follow her and you’ll see a lot more.

So, what makes Maddy tweet?

Well, it’s certainly not what makes Sammy run.

Nope, those who are already successful, accomplished and knowledgeable are in the best position to give back – and they’re the ones who most need to pick up their keyboard and tweet with us.

Maddy does. Now, we just need to work on her husband Ken.

From Hidden Business Treasures by Michael Benidt and Sheryl Kay http://goldencompass.com/blog/

Dychtwald is the author of three books: her latest is Influence: How Women’s Soaring Economic Power Will Transform Our World for the Better (May 2010). She has also written Cycles: How We Will Live, Work, and Buy (2004), and co-authored an illustrated children’s book entitled Gideon’s Dream: A Tale of New Beginnings (March 2008). As a sought-after public speaker, she has addressed more than 275,000 business leaders worldwide. She has been featured in leading newspapers and magazines nationwide, including Newsweek, Time, Bloomberg/Businessweek, and US News and World Report. Dychtwald lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two children.

Morris: Before discussing a specific book, a few general questions. First, please explain the meaning and significance of the name of your firm, Age Wave.

Dychtwald: For the first time in history, we are seeing a dramatic shift in our population from one dominated by youth to one dominated by mid life and older adults. It’s metaphorically a wave of older adults hitting us, with the impact of a tsunami—transforming every aspect of our society from the marketplace to the workplace to the very way we define old. Not only does our company name describe the trend that our business is focused on, it suggest power and a positive vibe which, when we started the company in 1986, wasn’t usually associated with aging. We wanted to help change the attitude of aging to be more positive.

Morris: Given the number of speeches you have delivered and your interaction with the members of each audience, to what extent (if any) have the questions you’ve been asked and the comments people have shared changed within the last several years?

Dychtwald: When I first started speaking at conferences and association meetings, most of the audience thought age 50 was over-the-hill. It was also news that older adults had money and were willing to spend it. Today that has transformed dramatically. We all know that 50 and even 60 are no longer over the hill. And it’s the aging of the baby boom generation—those born between 1946 – 1964–that is responsible for this change. They are 78 million strong –1/3 of our population—and they have always done things differently than their parents and grandparents. With that in mind, we’re beginning to see how boomers are beginning to reinvent retirement and our perspective of what 50, 60 or even 70 can be like.

Morris: In terms of balancing one’s career with one’s personal life, is it easier, more difficult, or about the same today as it was a few years ago?

Dychtwald: Balance is a continuous struggle, but it used to be considered a “women’s issue”–something that primarily described women trying to figure out how to build a family and a career simultaneously. That has changed. Today, with the growth and importance of two income families, it’s become a “family issue.” We see men as well as women struggle to balance family and career. In many married couples, all roles and responsibilities are open to negotiation and that makes things even more complicated. However, now that balance is recognized as an issue impacting women and men, our workplace policies are more likely to become family-friendly, giving women and men a better shot at successfully balancing family and work rather than having to choose between the two.

Morris: Your discussion of women’s “money profiles” caught my eye. For those who have not as yet read Influence, what are the five types and what is the dominant characteristic if each?

Dychtwald: As we collected data from our study, trying to better understand women and their financial behavior, five profiles of women and money emerged. Overall, our research uncovered the fact that what determines a women’s financial personality is very much how she feels about money, how much she defers to someone else to get the job done, what she wants money to do for her, what she wants to do with her money, and how confidant she is in her relationship with money. While these profiles are merely snapshots at one moment in time, it immediately became clear that three of the five personalities helped women’s economic emancipation while two others did not. In the book, I describe these personalities in detail, but here’s a quick take.

The most confident of the five personality types is the Alpha Female. Eighteen percent of the women surveyed identified with this profile, and their behavior (when it comes to money) is much like a stereotypical confidant male: a quick decision-maker, risk-tolerant, and less interested in the details than the results.

The Perceptive Planner is not quite as confident as the Alpha Female, but this is the personality that 35 percent of women identified with, making it the largest segment in the study. They are analytical, disciplined and responsible.

The third personality is the Power Partner which is the second most common group in our study with 23 percent of women identifying with this personality. She is collaborative and willing to strike compromises, believing that two heads are better than one. These three personality types are pro-active and empowered when it comes to money.

The last two personalities are not: Supportive Traditionalists and Uncertain Searchers. About a quarter of all women identify with these two personalities. A Supportive Traditionalist demonstrates the de facto way women used to behave with money, deferring decisions around money to a male. She enjoys spending and is not too interested in gaining knowledge around finances. Amazingly, it is the smallest group in our study with only 8 percent of women identifying with this personality.

The least confident personality is the Uncertain Searcher with about 16 percent of women identifying with this personality. This personality is led by her emotions when it comes to making financial decisions. She knows little to nothing about finances and doesn’t know where to turn for information. She knows she’s lost and isn’t sure how to move on.

Read the Robert Morris interview in it’s entirety on the First Friday Book Synopsis blog.

Maddy Dychtwald

The book looks at the different decision making patterns that women exhibit, and the transformational possibilities that this presents for the global community.

Indeed, the share of the world’s capital that is controlled by women is skyrocketing, and their influence as decision makers in the marketplace carries more economic clout than ever before – a fact that is of increasing significance to marketers. Harvard business school professor, Rosabeth Kanter said “the biggest demographic change of our times [is] the emergence of women as an economic force.”

While academics often have their heads in the clouds, thinking in the abstract, marketers tend to be the ones who get paid to produce results. And they know what’s happening on the ground. And what’s happening on the ground is mind boggling – to the tune of trillions of dollars globally. Analysts expect that by 2014, about $15 trillion worth of global consumer spending decisions will be made by women, with women controlling nearly three quarters of all shopping decisions.

Let’s consider that: For every dollar circulating in the marketplace, 70 cents of it is in the hand of a woman, who is considering her own personal needs and values – and that of her family and community – before she spends it. Clearly, the biggest task for marketers is to understand those very needs and values that inform her decision making process, in order to better position their products to compete for her money.

This was the mission of the GMR Marketing to Women Conference, held earlier this week in Dubai. The sellout event convened marketing professionals from around the region, strategizing to get a slice of a $383 billion pie – the amount of regional wealth that will be controlled by women within the next year.  Moreover, a whopping 40 percent of private wealth in Saudi Arabia is controlled by women – of enormous importance to the regional financial services industry, and not overlooked by the banking sector. Women in the “bankable age bracket” represent nearly half of the total female population, according to one banking expert at the conference, who added that these women overwhelmingly prefer Islamic financial instruments.

Perfect timing, as a new Abu Dhabi investment bank sets up shop to target the region’s wealthy women, Reuters reported Monday. Staffed with female senior staff, Al Bashayer Investment Company will offer a full range of investment banking, corporate advisory, and wealth management services.

“Very few services are given to women in the field of investments here. Women will be our focus clients,” chairwoman Fatima Al Jaber told reporters on Monday. “We want to create women’s wealth.”

Good news travels fast, it seems.

See original article on KippReport.com.

“Men are where women were 20 years ago,” Michael Kimmel, a sociology professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and author of Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men told me when I interviewed him for INFLUENCE. Back then, 20 years ago, women were adding career to their repertoire; today, men are adding care — for children, for aging parents, for communities. And while some (okay, many) might call men’s engagement on the home front belated, this overdue participation may, in fact, be setting the stage for the move toward a partnership society.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about some revolutionary “feminization” of men, where they simply swap roles with women, putting on aprons while women wear suits. What’s happening isn’t role reversal: It’s role reinvention. It’s a full-blown paradigm shift, one that gives both men and women more options when it comes to pursuing their careers, providing for their families and expressing their own talents and strengths. In this new social order, both genders are less shackled by a narrow, gender-oriented vision of success. Men in this new world have more social and workplace support for becoming involved fathers, equal partners in their homes and communities, and more complete people.

Case in point: When Myra Strober, a labor economist who teaches at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, started teaching her course on “Work and Family” in the early 2000s, only a handful of men signed up. Today, men represent 40 percent of her class. Why? “More and more men are interested in being good dads,” she says of her students. “They also want to be good husbands and be supportive of their wives.”

This redefinition of fatherhood is happening in millions of families around the country, where fathers are spending far more hours with their children every week than their dads spent with them. It’s happening in small ways, as even the most high-flying, type-A dads drop their kids off at day care and duck out for soccer games. It’s happening in bigger ways, as growing numbers of dads take paternity leaves, telecommute or use flex-time to have a more balanced life. These changes are sweeping through families at every income level through the thousands of daily arrangements men make because they love their wives and their kids and want happy families.

While men in general and fathers in particular are going through a time of change with its attendant ambiguity, the shift in roles is already bringing tremendous benefits to both men and women. The more our communities and employers can acknowledge, recognize, and support these changes, the more concerns like closing the gender wage gap, making sure families can afford great day care, making good education affordable, enacting child-friendly laws and policies, and advancing work-life balance will become family issues, not just women’s issues. As the genders work together to redefine womanhood, manhood and the family, our children will thrive and our economy will grow stronger.

Read the entire article as it originally appeared on the Huffington Post.

I don’t know Al or Tipper Gore personally, and I wish them both the best as they each reinvent their life, but it makes me wonder: is it possible that Al and Tipper Gore may be indicative of a trend that is about to be unleashed? After all, when most of us say, “I Do,” do we expect “til death do us part” to translate into forty, fifty, or sixty years of marriage? Is that what we signed up for? How Does Any Marriage Last a Lifetime?

Frankly, most of us probably don’t think about it like that. If we’re lucky, we fall in love, have a family and never fully grasp the idea that we may live well into our eighties or nineties and potentially be married for as long or longer than most humans lived just a century ago.

Or not. Historically, the early years of marriage are when we’re most likely to divorce, but things are changing. With people living longer, 78 million restless baby boomers beginning to turn 65 next year, and women becoming more and more financially and socially independent, there is already a rise in divorce among older couples. (Boomers have divorced at every stage of life, and probably won’t stop just because they’re getting gray.) And let’s not forget that women outlive men by about five years. This translates into the fact that most women — 90 percent to be precise — will spend at least some of their adult years single. Tipper Gore: welcome to the club!

As I discuss in my new book, INFLUENCE: How Women’s Soaring Economic Power Will Transform Our World for the Better,

Maddy Dychtwald

as women age, their increasing tendency toward singlehood will have a staggering economic and psychological impact on their lives, the lives of their family and on the overall economy. On the plus side, many working women will have more discretionary time and disposable income to enjoy, spend, invest, and, in general, influence their lives, their families, their communities, and the world. On the downside, women will need to make more conscious efforts to manage their lives — in particular their money — wisely for the extra years they are likely to be living, possibly alone.

Here’s a few facts that every woman — young and old — ought to know so they’re not caught by surprise.

Read the entire article as it originally appeared on the Huffington Post.

It started on a hot November day in Nairobi, Kenya. This potentially world-changing movement began when the composed, well tailored Iranian lawyer and former judge Shirin Ebadi took tea with Jody Williams, the brash American activist who peppers her polemics with salty unprintables. It was an unlikely tea party. Yet it led directly to another tea party the very next day, with a third guest, Wangari Maathai of Kenya, who had just joined Ebadi and Williams in a very small, elite club–women winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.

“In the 108 year history of the Nobel Peace Prize, only 12 women have received it,” Williams told me on the phone when I interviewed her for my book, INFLUENCE: How Women’s Soaring Economic Power Will Transform Our World for the Better. Seven of those women are alive today. Williams and Ebadi had received their awards for very different kinds of work: Williams, in 1997, for bringing dozens of NGOs and governments together to oppose the use of landmines in war; Ebadi, in 2003, for campaigning fearlessly (despite death threats, harassment and imprisonment) for the rights of women and children in Iran. Their backgrounds and personal causes were worlds apart. But as they talked over tea about their mutual desire for a more peaceful world, they came up with a novel idea for a shared vision.

The Nobel Women’s Initiative started as a simple tea party but has become so much more. (You can join them on Facebook.) The group’s mission is to promote, spotlight, and grow the work of women’s rights advocates and organizations worldwide that address the root causes of violence. “We are in search of democracy that transforms not just our lives, but all society–and we will not be silenced until it is achieved in every part of the world.” Now this is the kind of tea party movement that we can all get behind.

Read this article as it originally appeared on the Huffington Post.

The fact is, the auto industry is primarily owned and operated by men, and they have a hard time marketing to women. When asked, 74 percent of women say they feel misunderstood by car marketers. And since the numbers show that 95 percent of the U.S.’s 20,000 auto dealers who belong to the National Automobile Dealers Association are male, there’s a clear cut problem communicating the needs and wants of one segment to the other.

The soon-to-be-published “Influence: How Women’s Soaring Economic Power Will Transform Our World for the Better” by Maddy Dychtwald with Christine Larson, talks about the problems that women face when purchasing a car and what dealerships can do to cultivate this influential market.

This information comes at an opportune time, especially with the state of the auto industry, and should be required reading in any dealership. In an interview with Jody DeVere, president and CEO of AskPatty.com, she advises that car salespeople need to create an environment where women don’t equate buying a car or getting it serviced with going to the dentist.

“Men and women communicate differently and can misunderstand cues and singles,” says DeVere. “Men need to learn how to listen, and why. It makes women trust you and creates a relationship.”

Just a few important notes to jot down: women are more concerned with fuel economy than color or stereo options, and are more likely to shop around at various dealerships to get the best deal. Along with the best possible price, they also want features that make life easier, as they are often the ones chauffeuring children to activities and events. On top of that, more powerful 4-cylinder engines in SUV-like vehicles have been among the popular picks this year.

Original post on AutoGuide.com by Amy Tokic.

When will the world listen to Boomer women’s financial instincts?

Stephen Reily - VN Founder

Dychtwald retold a story she shares in the book, about a meeting she and her husband had with their financial planner a few years back. Maddy said that she thought the best thing they could do then was to pay down their home mortgage. Her financial advisor actually laughed in her face. Maddy stood her ground, emphasizing to her husband that it was important for them to feel secure, and he agreed with her. Not long ago her financial advisor called Maddy to say he owed her an apology. This reminds me of two things we know about Vibrant Women. They have fundamentally sound financial judgment (as I’ve written before) and they aren’t getting the respect they deserve from the financial industry, even when their advisors have known them for years. Maddy Dychtwald’s book shows why women’s financial influence should get more respect.

Why aren’t we training Vibrant Women to run for office?

I shared with Dychtwald my own confusion about our culture, which denigrates older women in general but does seem the respect them in high office. She agreed that we should pair this with the fact that Vibrant Women make great politicians. Dychtwald pointed out that there are lots of training programs promoting younger women to run for office. Yet younger women don’t generally want to step up to the plate at this stage of life. Older women do. An empty nester is seasoned by life and work and raising a family, and has the time now to use her life experiences (and the resulting confidence) to create a better world. I hope that Dychtwald keeps talking about this, and encourages a few Vibrant Women to run for office.

Encouraging signs that Vibrant Women can be themselves

I asked Dychtwald what was exciting her most about women these days, and she pointed to the fact that women in power are getting more comfortable with leading from their “authentic feminine self.” In her book she writes about Indra Nooyi, who as CEO of Pepsico talks deliberately about achieving “performance with purpose,” not a goal that many male CEOs would publicly announce. When a woman is comfortable in her own skin, Dychtwald notes, her voice doesn’t sound like anyone else’s.

I know that Dychtwald is right when she describes the benefits that come from letting women – including Vibrant Women – influence more major decisions. Let’s hope that she can persuade some more men, too.

Read the entire post and comment on VibrantNation.com.

As the mother of a terrific 23 year-old young woman, who I sometimes spot reading about celebrity culture, I was disturbed by Leslie Bennetts’ comments. Since then, I’ve spent a lot of time talking to young women (including my daughter) and have come to the conclusion that you can strive to be a woman of influence and still be interested in fashion and celebrity culture; the two worlds are not necessarily mutually exclusive. In fact, let’s have some fun examining celebrity women to see examples of just how influence can work.

First, what do I mean by influence? I mean using your education, money, earning power and status to take charge of your life and make your mark on the world. Women are definitely on their way! Last year, 73% of all high school valedictorians were young women. Today, for every 100 men graduating from college, there are 133 women graduating. Young women are graduating from law school, medical school and MBA programs in almost equal numbers to men, giving young women the tools to succeed in our knowledge economy. And it’s translated directly into earning power. As of this year, women now control more money than men.

In order to use our influence to affect change, it can be helpful to understand our own attitudes toward and behaviors with money–and, sometimes, to change them. New research, which I describe in INFLUENCE, found that most women fall into one of five money “profiles,” –a collection of attitudes and behaviors that describes their feelings and values about money as well as their confidence in using their money to affect change.

Read the following profiles and try to figure out which one best matches you–or the women in your life.

1. Alpha Female: 18 percent of women
The most confident of our financial profiles, the Alpha, tends to act more like society expects a confident man to act with money. From the celebrity talent pool, think Oprah, Madonna or Angelina Jolie. She’s the most optimistic, risk-tolerant and self-reliant of the personalities. She’s a quick decision maker and is able to learn from her mistakes. She’s great at delegating and uses outside help whenever possible to boost her decision-making. On the down side, she can be so gung-ho that she makes decisions before she has all the facts. Most important, the Alpha feels financially and psychologically independent. She’s in charge.

2. Perceptive Planner: 35 percent of women
The Perceptive Planner is highly analytical, responsible, disciplined and usually optimistic. Think Sandra Bullock or Diane Sawyer. She thinks in the long term, and thoughtfully researches purchases, investments and financial commitments. Unlike the Alpha, she’s motivated primarily by the desire for security and stability, and she’s not inclined to move forward without having all the facts. She likes to mull things over carefully .

3. Power Partner: 23 percent of women
The Power partner is collaborative, willing to compromise, and believes two heads are better than one. Think Jada Pinkett Smith, Jennifer Lopez or Gwyneth Paltrow. Pragmatic and responsible, the Power Partner is very concerned that her partner’s needs are met as well as her own. By the way, not all power partnerships are between spouses or romantic partners. Sometimes they’re siblings, business partners, close friends, or even parents and adult children.

4. Supportive Traditionalist: 9 percent of women
These women hope that someone else will take care of everything money-related for them. They’re highly emotional, not analytical, about financial matters. Think Jessica Simpson or Britney Spears. Even though neither of these celebrities is currently married, they cede their financial control to others. This type of woman enjoys spending, but isn’t that interested in gaining knowledge when it comes to saving and investing. She avoids discussions about money. She’s likely to find herself in deep trouble in the absence of a responsible partner. In our research, we met many women who started out as supportive traditionalists — waiting for Prince Charming to take care of things — and for a variety of reasons, changed.

5. The Uncertain Searcher: 16 percent of women
The least confident women fall into this profile: think Lindsay Lohan. She’s fearful, confused and sometimes becomes paralyzed when it’s time to make financial choices. She’s an impulsive shopper who succumbs to instant gratification and holds few ideas about how to think about money in the long term. She knows she’s ignorant about finances, but doesn’t know where to turn or whom to trust. She’s sometime too embarrassed by her lack of knowledge to ask for help.

Girls to Women
The top three profiles are the most confident of the financial personalities. They understand the power of money and are willing to seek help making good decisions. I would argue that in this modern age, all three of these groups are well positioned to make their economic influence felt in the world. However, the last two profiles, which represent a quarter of all women, are not. If you fall into one of these groups, it’s critical that you take steps to gain better knowledge and control of your money and make it start working for you–and the world.

It’s good news that most women today fall into the more confident groups. But it’s troubling that many still don’t. Also troubling is the fact that younger women are almost twice as likely as mature women to call themselves supportive traditionalists, even if they aren’t married. They are more likely than older women to think money might make them less attractive and to say they’d see their partner as “more of a man” if he took control of the finances.

Maybe these girls are still dependent on “helicopter” parents or these are just youthful fantasies about a rosy future–fantasies that more seasoned women had long since let go. But one thing is clear: in this age of self-empowerment, any woman who remains an Uncertain Searcher or Supportive Traditionalist faces clear and urgent dangers to her long-term independence and perhaps her economic survival.

The good news is that these personalities aren’t fixed within us. Many women have been able to educate themselves into a more confident role. And, yes, maybe we can strive to be more like Oprah, Diane Sawyer or Gwyneth Paltrow rather than Lindsay Lohan.

This article originally appeared on the Huffington Post.