Recently, I attended a Baltimore networking event and met several women starting brand new companies.
One of them was a very outgoing young woman with an online business that sells shoes. In an attempt to network, I asked for her card and said, "I have to check out your site." She very nicely replied, "It's targeted more for woman that are young." In an attempt to keep my composure, I (along with my roadmap of wrinkles…) opted to politely smile and move on.
I posted this experience on my Facebook page. There were a number of comments that made me smile once again. Some were quite harsh.
What my friends on Facebook did not know, was that this young lady was all of twenty-two or twenty-three-- if that. And while I am struggling to wrap my head around all the new and improved “social-media” tools available to new start-ups, this young lady was quite possibly struggling with delivering a clear non-offensive description of her new business model to a room full of older woman.
As I took a moment that evening and revisited some of the things that came out of my mouth in my early twenties, I slowly became mortified. I looked back and wished I had someone to open my eyes or a mentor to handle some of my mishaps.
I am blessed at forty-two that a few seasoned professionals, like Margaret Rome, continue to go out of their way to offer up valuable advice and direction. People like Margaret pay-it-forward. I intend to do the same with my new “young” shoe entrepreneur. I may be old, but with age comes wisdom (I’m working on the wrinkles…)
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