There is a common theme among many of the inspiring career women I’ve interviewed for Lookilulu.com:

They followed a spark from their childhood to find a rewarding and fulfilling  career.

For example:

Angela Adams loved doodling designs as a child.  Now she’s a famous rug and housewares designer.

Carmen Baez loved commercials as a little girl.  Now she’s President of Diversified Agency Services for Latin America, part of the world’s largest advertising network.

Clare Crespo has always loved playing with her food.  Now she does it for a living.  Clare runs the YummyFun Kooking empire and creates kids cooking videos.

Dayna Steele wanted to be a rock star as a child.  Now she has a best selling business book explaining what she learned as a rock radio DJ about success from the worlds’ greatest rock stars.

Lorie Marrero stayed in from school recess to help children organize their desks.  Now she runs the Clutter Diet network that helps people get organized.

Alison Vercruysse loved to cook with her mother.  She abandoned banking to start a baking company called 18 Rabbits, after her childhood pet rabbits.

All of these women, and many more who are profiled on lookilulu.com, identified  objects and activities that they loved as children.

By following their early passions and interests, they were able to find and create rewarding careers that made them happy.

If you are trying to find a great career path, you might just ask:  What did I love when I was a child?

Your answer might give your valuable insight about the type of career or business that your core self would love.

Recently I read UWEP’s Research and Policy Brief, Women and Higher Education in Utah:  A Glimpse at the Past and Present. (UWEP stands for The Utah Women & Education Project.)

I think the title of the research program — UWEP— is fitting.  I feel like weeping about the fact that Utah has the lowest percentage of women enrolled in postsecondary institutions in the country.

Utah is dead last in higher education for girls.

I was raised in Utah but left over 20 years ago.  In my exile, my hope for girls in Utah was that the culture had gotten better:  more encouragement to have dreams in addition to motherhood; more opportunity for self discovery and expression; and more encouragement to go to college and graduate school.

Last fall, my sister Julie and I talked to guidance counselors at some Utah colleges and high schools and we were dismayed by what we heard — that attitudes haven’t changed much in the last twenty years.  Many girls are still not attending college or seeing career possibilities beyond traditional pink–collar tracks like school teaching, nursing, and cosmetology.

The UWEP analysis supports what we feared.  Education for women in Utah significantly lags the rest of the country.  For African American women, the college enrollment statistics are worse than the national average by almost 23%.  Stunning.

And according to UWEP, when women in Utah attend college they still major in traditionally gender appropriate majors that lead to the lowest paying jobs.  Women still tend to major in education and health rather than business management, science and math.

In a related trend, women in Utah have much higher numbers than the national average for women getting certificates in cosmetology and culinary arts.

Even when young women pursue higher education in Utah, they are still primarily learning about teaching children, caring for sick people, enhancing beauty and cooking.

Many young women in Utah still can’t see what they can do beyond what is defined by a very old, traditional female standard where women are beautiful caretakers and homemakers.

Over twenty years ago when I lived in Provo Utah and attended BYU, I lived with more than a dozen women roommates.  Most of the women were majoring in elementary education.  A few majored in home economics.  Two were attending beauty school.  I was unique because I majored in science.

None of us intended to work.

None of us expected to be financially responsible.

Even in the 1980s, we all believed what Betty Freidan in 1962 called the “Feminine Mystique” — a traditional gender ideology where the man would be the bread winner in the sphere of the world and the woman would be a mother in the sphere of the home.  Any other scenario went against a woman’s natural destiny and God’s eternal plan.  (Read about the same God ordained destiny of women argument articulated by the United States Supreme Court for denying women the right to be lawyers in my post Women Should Be Limited To the Domestic Sphere.)

The women’s liberation movement of the 1970s bypassed Utah.  Indeed, Utah women rallied against the Equal Rights Amendment and helped stop its passage.  When I lived in Utah, most Utah women wholeheartedly supported patriarchy—the rule of the fathers— and sex discrimination — the subordination of women to men.

Women in Utah seem to be burying their heads in the sand and ignoring reality.  The Utah Department of Labor says that women in Utah work an average of 30 years outside of the home — despite their intentions.

Some women seem to be clinging to a very outdated standard rather than envisioning possibilities and identities that go beyond motherhood, traditional roles, and simplistic dualities.

Although Utah women fought against sex equality, they have benefited from women’s campaign for equal pay, sexual harassment and sex discrimination laws   Things have gotten somewhat better for women in terms of work and school conditions but Utah women are still far behind other women in the nation in gaining access to the benefits of higher education for themselves and their families.

Young women in Utah still don’t seem to understand that if they got more education and training they could actually work fewer hours and spend more time with their children than the Utah Labor Department’s statistics show they do now.

In the next few weeks, I’ll be writing about the history of women and education and the reasons that I think contribute to the stagnation of women’s higher education in Utah and the lack of women’s empowerment worldwide.  It’s a complex but fascinating subject that has dramatic implications for the lives of women and children.

To read the UWEP Research Policy briefs go to http://uvu.edu/wep/

I recently went to a conference, Equity Matters:  The Route to NASDAQ, sponsored by  organizations that help women entrepreneurs, including Activate, Springboard and Path Forward.

The conference was filled with amazing women who have started technology companies and thrived.  These women are now giving back to a new group of women entrepreneurs.

I was excited to find out more about ACTiVATE, a program that is nurturing women who want to start technology companies.  ACTiVATE is a year long training program for experienced businesswomen who want to start technology companies.

The ACTiVATE program has three elements:  ”:1) entrepreneurship and business instructon; 2) mentoring and skills development; 3) networking with regional resources.”

The ACTiVATE program provides an extensive support network for the enrolled women to increase the odds that they can be successful.  If needed, the program actually helps women find suitable technology to develop and license through major universities.  The program also helps women connect with other organizations like Springboard Enterprises, which helps women get VC funding.

This is an amazing resource! And it is really cheap.  I was surprised that the cost in enrolling in the year long program was only $2000 and scholarships are available.  The benefit from this program could be the difference between success and failure.  The classes are also designed to work with a working woman’s schedule.  The classes are at night and on Saturday mornings.

There are several program in the country and I was thrilled that Texas State University has an ACTiVATE program.

If you a woman who wants to start a technology company, I highly recommend that you check out ACTiVATE.  When you are an entrepreneur you need all of the help you can get.

For more information about Texas State’s program, contact:

ACTiVATE

TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY-SAN MARCOS

512.245.6038

ACTIVATE@txstate.edu

www.txstate.edu/activate

At least, that was the opinion of several Supreme Court Justices when Myra Bradwell sought the equal protection of the 14th Amendment and the right to become a lawyer in Illinois in 1872. (Bradwell v. State of Illinois, 83 U.S. 130 (1872)).

This is one of my favorite Supreme Court opinions — not only because I was raised in Utah where I was taught as a young girl that a woman’s divine and only calling was to be a mother and stay in the home but also because I eventually left Utah and practiced law in Illinois.  I always love it when men claim to know God’s will as a justification for discriminating against women.

Did the United States Supreme Court really hear God?  Justice Bradley wrote in his concurring opinion denying Ms. Bradwell the right to be an attorney:

“The paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fulfil the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator.”

Basically, the United States Supreme Court believed that anatomy was destiny for women and used God’s law as legal support.  Besides the court had to deny women the right to pursue all occupations because married women were legally incompetent to make contracts, timid and unfit, and didn’t have the special skill and confidence to be a lawyer.

Justice Bradley explained the rationale for denying women the right to engage in any and every profession, occupation or employment:

“[T]he civil law, as well as nature herself, has always recognized a wide difference in the respective spheres and destinies of man and woman. Man is, or should be, woman’s protector and defender. The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life. The constitution of the family organization, which is founded in the divine ordinance, as well as in the nature of things, indicates the domestic sphere as that which properly belongs to the domain and functions of womanhood. The harmony, not to say identity, of interest and views which belong, or should belong, to the family institution is repugnant to the idea of a woman adopting a distinct and independent career from that of her husband. So firmly fixed was this sentiment in the founders of the common law that it became a maxim of that system of jurisprudence that a woman had no legal existence separate from her husband, who was regarded as her head and representative in the social state; and, notwithstanding some recent modifications of this civil status, many of the special rules of law flowing from and dependent upon this cardinal principle still exist in full force in most States. One of these is, that a married woman is incapable, without her husband’s consent, of making contracts which shall be binding on her or him. This very incapacity was one circumstance which the Supreme Court of Illinois deemed important in rendering a married woman incompetent fully to perform the duties and trusts that belong to the office of an attorney and counsellor.

. . .

The humane movements of modern society, which have for their object the multiplication of avenues for woman’s advancement, and of occupations adapted to her condition and sex, have my heartiest concurrence. But I am not prepared to say that it is one of her fundamental rights and privileges to be admitted into every office and position, including those which require highly special qualifications and demanding special responsibilities. In the nature of things it is not every citizen of every age, sex, and condition that is qualified for every calling and position. It is the prerogative of the legislator to prescribe regulations founded on nature, reason, and experience for the due admission of qualified persons to professions and callings demanding special skill and confidence. This fairly belongs to the police power of the State; and, in my opinion, in view of the peculiar characteristics, destiny, and mission of woman, it is within the province of the legislature to ordain what offices, positions, and callings shall be filled and discharged by men, and shall receive the benefit of those energies and responsibilities, and that decision and firmness which are presumed to predominate in the sterner sex.” (emphasis added).”

I’m curious.  Does anyone still think it is repugnant for a woman to have a separate and distinct career from her husband?  Does anyone still think that women should be relegated to the domestic sphere?

Do any girls unconsciously think this?  Really, why does Utah have the lowest college graduation rate for women in the country?

Clearly the divine calling/separate spheres rationale for discrimination against women didn’t originate in Utah but it seems like it’s still alive and well there.

Did the Supreme Court originally get it right?

Making decisions about what college to attend, what major to pick, what career to pursue, and what job to take can be hard and scary.  These types of decisions are pivitol and can radically alter the trajectory of your life.

But making important career and life decisions doesn’t have to be daunting or overwhelming.

You already have the critical tool you need to make your best decisions:  Your Body Compass.

Dr. Martha Beck in her best selling book, Finding Your Own North Star:  claiming the life you were meant to live, explains how your body constantly sends you messages that can guide you to your best path and shut you down when you take a “wrong” turn.   Your body will be energized when you are doing what is best for you in the best environment.  In contrast, you are likely to be “sick, sick, sick” and lethargic when you are doing what is wrong for you in a the wrong type of environment. She calls these messages your “Body Compass.”

I know it may seem strange, but when making critical decisions about your career and your life, you should ask your body what you should do and be in tune with what it’s subtly telling you.

Brain science backs this up.  The vast majority of your brain processes information and sees the big picture in a non-linear, non-verbal way.  It sends messages to your body  that bypass your left brain’s little language center.  By listening to and following these big brain messages, you are far more likely to be happy in your life and find a rewarding and enriching career.  (Dealing with fear based on false beliefs generated by your language center is a different topic and I’ll discuss how to tell the difference in later posts.)

Researcher and author Marcus Buckingham agrees with following your body’s messages when making career decisions.  In his latest book, Find Your Strongest LIfe:  What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently, Marcus explains that the happiest women don’t necessarily just follow their passions when choosing a career — they follow their energy.  They focus on doing what makes them feel “strong.”  They listen to their bodies.

And Martha and Marcus agree, what energizes you will be unique to you.  Only you can tell whether your Body Compass is saying “Yes” or screaming “No.”  Only you can tell whether a person, place, environment, subject, career or job makes you feel “strong” or “weak and hollow.

Here is more information and an exercise from Martha Beck about identifying the key “Yes” and “No” messages from your Body Compass.

According to Dr. Beck in her most recent book Steering By Starlight, your body compass sends two main types of messages.  First, your body can send a negative signal that she calls “Shackles On.”  This feeling is telling you “No. No. No!!!”  Your “Shackles On” message tries to warn you away from things that aren’t right for you.  “Shackles On” feels like prison.  When you feel like this you are headed in the wrong direction—away from your best destiny.

Second, your body can send you a positive signal that means “Yes. Yes. Oh, please Yes!!!”  This message tells you what’s right for you.  Dr. Beck says it always feels like freedom.  You may still be scared but you will feel a sense of liberation too.

Using this framework turns your life decisions into a game of “hot potato.”  For each decision, use your body compass for navigation and move toward the heat.  To find your best major and career path, you need to do what gives you a “Shackles Off” feeling.  From this perspective, your course of study and career path will become clearer.  It may still be difficult and scary but you will experience a sense of buoyancy not restriction.  You will feel energized and strong even if you are still afraid.

To learn your “Shackles On” message, do this exercise from Martha Beck:

Sit in a comfortable chair and relax.  Now imagine a negative life event:  you failed a test; your boyfriend unexpectedly broke up with you; or you had a fight with your mother.

Imagine the scenario vividly.  Where were you?  Recall the sights, sounds and smells of the scene.

While holding the memory in your mind, focus on your body.  What are you feeling?  First focus on your feet and then slowly move your attention up to the top of your head. Scan your body for any negative feelings.  Are you feeling any tightness or constriction?  Are you nauseated?  Does your head hurt?

The negative feeling is the “Shackles On” message from your body compass.  Remember this feeling.  It is a warning sign from your body about what is wrong for you.  It is your body compass telling you, “No! Stop! Don’t do it!”

People experience different feelings.  My shackles on message is a nauseated feeling deep in the pit of my stomach.  Other people may experience a crushing chest sensation or constriction of the throat.

Identify your “Shackles On” feeling and notice when it appears.  Whenever possible, avoid people, places, subjects, tasks, jobs and careers that trigger it.

To determine your “Shackles Off” message from your body compass, repeat this exercise holding a very positive scene in your mind.

Picture a very happy life event.  Remember when:  you got an A in a tough class; won the blue ribbon; or fell in love.  Recall the memory in all of its sensory detail.  See, hear, and smell the scene.  Hear the praise from your mother, the cheer from the crowd, or the sweet nothings in your ear.

Again, scan your body with your attention and notice the specific feelings in your body.  What are you feeling?  What part of your body is experiencing the most sensation.  Focus on that body part.  Where do you feel energized, happy or joyful?

This is the “Shackles Off” message from your body.  Remember it.  It always feels like freedom.  For me, it feels like balloons floating out of the top of my head.

When choosing anything in your life, from a major to a spouse, go toward what generates a “Shackles Off” feeling.

By following your Body Compass, you will more likely make decisions that will lead to a rewarding career and create a happy life.

Thwarted.

That’s the word that best describes how I felt growing up as a girl on a farm in rural Utah.

My feelings of frustration began when I was about eight — an age when I didn’t have the knowledge to understand what I was experiencing or the vocabulary to describe it.  I just put my experiences under the broad banner that life was unfair for girls.

I was very athletic, competitive, and smart.  I felt stunted by the restrictions based on my gender — restrictions that had nothing to do with ability or merit.

I grew up before women lawyers developed theories of sex equality and sexual harassment, shifted the law, and radically altered sports, education and the work world for girls and women.

Because I was a girl:

I wasn’t allowed to wear a real uniform and play little league baseball in the town’s elaborate ballpark; I wasn’t allowed to play soccer or football; I wasn’t allowed to be a boy scout, earn merit badges, or go to far away scout camps and Disneyland; I wasn’t allowed to have a BB gun or motorcycle; I wasn’t allowed to pass the sacrament at church or get the priesthood; I wasn’t allowed to drive the forklift at the cherry factory; I wasn’t allowed to work at the town library; I wasn’t allowed to take wood and metal shop class; teachers tried to track me out of math and science; I was required to take home economics and learn how to cook.

In rural Utah, there wasn’t even an attempt to provide equal programs for girls.

Because I was a girl:

I wasn’t supposed to have a unique identity, be an individual who had exciting adventures in the world, fully develop my talents in all areas or have a professional career.

Because I was a girl:

I was supposed to be a stay-at-home mother and support and obey the Brethren who would preside over and protect me.

I was supposed to learn how to sew, knit, can fruit and take care of babies.  My personal interests and particular talents didn’t matter.  I was female and therefore I was supposed to do female things.

When I was in high school, I was humiliated by sexual harassment at school and my factory job by men in positions of power.  But I didn’t even have a name to call what I was experiencing.  I just knew that it felt horrible and wrong.

Although each slight and act of sex discrimination may seem minor, the weight of it crushed my spirit and self esteem.  Because I was a girl, I felt like a second class citizen.

I quietly seethed about sex discrimination but felt voiceless and powerless.

Looking back I can see that I felt sex discrimination acutely because my specific personality and interests were directly at odds with the female standard.

In Utah where very, very, very old gender standards were the gospel, legal equality for women was a threat.  When I was in high school, Utah’s mother church successfully campaigned to thwart the Equal Rights Amendment to the constitution.

The ERA’s supposedly scary text simply says:  “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

As a state, Utah was against legal equality for women.  The women’s rights movement bypassed Utah.

As a girl, I couldn’t see how I could get beyond my environment.

I didn’t know that I could get over the mountains and go to college somewhere that supported women’s independence and the full range of possible accomplishments.

I compounded the restrictive gender messages of my youth by following my boyfriend and attending the mother church’s university.  There I was surrounded by people who wholeheartedly embraced the old gender ideology that says that anatomy is destiny and a woman must be a mother and stay in the home.  Careers were not considered appropriate for mothers.  Most of my twenty odd college roommates majored in elementary education and never intended to work.

I quietly seethed but I tried to fit in.  I quietly seethed but I tried to do “the right thing.”

I was going to follow “God’s true plan” and support my husband.  I would work until I had children.  I was going to be a suburban mom with a van.  I was going to do what I was supposed to do.

I never intended to work.  I assumed my husband would fully support my future family.  I assumed I would never have to worry about money or be financially responsible.

My assumptions greatly limited what I did in college.  I picked a major that would allow me to work part-time if necessary and support my husband’s career.  My degree supported my back-up-plan.  I’d only need it in case of my husband’s death.  Divorce wasn’t even a consideration.  I believed we were going to be married for eternity.

I didn’t think it mattered whether potential jobs aligned with my major were a good fit for me, had decent pay or offered chances for advancement.  It didn’t matter that related jobs were boring and completely unsuited to my core self.  I didn’t allow myself to take myself into consideration.  I listened to what other people told me I should do.

I really wanted to go to medical school.  Instead, I did what I thought was the “right thing” to do.  I got married the day after I graduated from college and supported my husband while he finished school.

My crisis came several years later when I couldn’t have children, my husband wouldn’t adopt, and I was in a dead end job that I hated.

If you’re a woman who can’t have children in a culture that believes that a woman’s divine calling and only role is to be a stay-at-home-mother, who are you?

I had an identify crisis.  I felt stuck and worthless.

I finally had to stop and examine my life and beliefs.  I had to decide who I wanted to be.

I had to create my own identity.

I read hundreds of books about women, gender, motherhood, psychology and philosophy.

One of my major epiphanies came when I read scientific philosopher Thomas Kuhh’s book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.  Kuhn explains that “paradigms” are rigid boxes of thoughts that limit how we see and experience the world.

These “thought boxes” are made of cultural meanings, assumptions, rules, values and standards and are shared with groups in our communities.  We think through our thought boxes and create our worlds.  Thought boxes are made of words and define truth in language.  Thought boxes are full of thoughts and rules that limit our vision, interpretations and actions.

I realized that I had built many intersecting thought boxes.  I had a female thought box, a religious thought box, a family thought box and work thought box.  I had created my thought boxes from my immersion in my communities and  I incorporated them in my mind without question.

In my crisis, I started to identify and scrutinize my thought boxes.  I started to look at my assumptions, rules, standards and values.  I started to examine language and understand its role in creating my reality.  I got cognitively unstuck.  I cracked my thought boxes.

I had a personal revolution that allowed me to see how my unexamined beliefs were limiting me.  I started becoming mindful and monitored my thoughts.

I started to think critically about my thoughts.

I asked myself whether each limiting belief was true — for me.

I examined the evidence allegedly supporting the belief.  I looked for the roots of the thought.  I challenged my thinking. I challenged the so called universal “Truths” of my thought boxes.

I gained the power to examine my thoughts and choose which ones I wanted to believe and which ones I wanted to discard.

I realized that my beliefs about women’s roles, money, the world and my place in it were limiting me.  My beliefs were keeping my stuck and unhappy.

I realized that I had the power to define my own truth.  I had the power to define success.

I had the right to ask myself what I really wanted in life.

I had the right to listen to my own intuition and follow my own compass.

I went to law school and studied women’s history.  I learned how my foremothers campaigned unceasingly for equality and radically changed women’s lives for the better.

I discovered that the sermons I had heard in my youth about women’s divine roles, duties and separate domestic sphere had been used for centuries to stop women from attending school, voting, owning property, having custody of their children and defining their own identities.  What I was told was God’s unique plan for women that had been revealed to Mormon prophets was the same old rhetoric that has been used by men with their own agendas to limit women’s power and activity in the larger sphere of the world for thousands of years.

I learned from the leading legal scholar on sex equality, Professor Catharine MacKinnon.  Her work enlightened me about equality arguments and how some people argue that subordination of women is equality  because women are different.  When I heard this argument while I was growing up in Utah I thought it  was idiotic but Professor MacKinnon explained how it was based on Aristotle’s logic.  Good old Aristotle who thought women were inferior to men, less than human and should be limited to the home where they should be subordinate and controlled by their superior husbands.

Professor MacKinnon is a pioneer who has eloquently explained that sex equality isn’t about sameness and difference.  Sex equality is about subordination and domination.  Power and powerlessness.  Women shouldn’t have to be the same as men to get what men get simply because they are men.

I stopped giving away my personal power and started defining my own beliefs.  I changed the trajectory of my life and the life of my daughter.

I don’t feel thwarted anymore.  I feel empowered and positive that women can change the world.

Julie graduates from college with baby Kaeli

I was a child bride.

I got married at 19—only two years out of high school.  When I got engaged, I’d attended one year of college at Utah State University.  After my engagement, I dropped out of college.  I didn’t see the importance of college and I hadn’t decided on a major.

My sister, Jill, was horrified.

After dropping out, I worked full-time as a secretary for an international electronics organization, saved money for my wedding, and enjoyed having a little money.

Before long, however, I realized that I was capable of doing what my bosses were doing.  I knew that I needed to go back to school.  I wanted to keep my job but needed to reduce my hours to allow me to go to school.  I was very scared to approach my boss, the Vice President of Marketing, about my plan.  Fortunately, he was very supportive and helped me figure out how I could attend school and keep my position.

When I started back to school, I commuted 100 miles a day (50 miles each way) from school to work and back again.  Utah State University is nestled in the mountains of Cache Valley.  Every day I twice traveled a narrow, steep canyon that is very treacherous in the snowy, Utah winter.  My small, run-down car had poor tires and lacked four-wheel drive.  There were many winter days when I’d try to come through the canyon but would have to turn around and go back.

My days were long and full.  When I wasn’t working, I was either commuting or going to school.  When I had breaks in school, I worked full-time.  This allowed me to keep my insurance.  I was also fortunate to receive company assistance with tuition.

My husband was also going to school and working and there were many times we stressed about how we would fund the next semester of college tuition.

To my great surprise, during my senior year of college, I became pregnant.  It wasn’t planned.  I worried that pregnancy would interfere with school.  But I was very determined to finish my degree.  Even though I hated it, I went to school pregnant.  I was embarrassed to give my senior presentation when I was eight months pregnant.  My daughter was born on April 30 and I took my last final on May 26.  The good thing about the timing of my daughter’s birth was that I was able to get in more study time for finals during maternity leave.  I graduated with a degree in Business Marketing and I was driven to establish my career.  My parents were not college graduates.  I am the third of five children and was the second person in my family to graduate from college.

I was promoted after graduation.  I began to learn the ropes of manufacturing.  My new job required me to travel—something I’d never done.  My first plane ride was a business trip to California.  During my time at that company I was promoted several times and traveled the world, which was very exciting to me.

When I was pregnant with my second child, I went on a business trip when I was 8 ½ months pregnant.  I had to get a doctor’s note to travel that close to delivery.  The truth is that I definitely could have declined the trip without impact to my career, however, I was driven to ensure I was not perceived as a female with limitations.

Five years after the birth of my daughter, I had a son.  I traveled extensively while they were young.  Fortunately, I had a very supportive husband, and a mother-in-law and mother nearby, who took care of my children while I worked and traveled.  I sent postcards from around the world to my daughter’s elementary school classes.  I wanted the kids in the small, Utah town where I lived to know that travel was possible—something that seemed impossible to me as a child on a farm.

When I was 29, I was promoted to the position of Director.  I was the youngest Director in the company’s history.  I was also the only female Director in our division.  It was a male oriented, engineering organization.  During my lunch hour, I would often run out to buy diapers.  My older, male colleagues would just go to lunch.  They weren’t responsible for diapers or babies and I was definitely at a different place in my life than they were.

After working for other smaller organizations as a Vice President, including a technology start-up company, I decided to go to MBA school.  I was 35.  I’d always wanted an MBA and I knew that if I didn’t get it done, I’d never do it.  At the time, I was Vice President of Marketing at MarketStar, a busy, time-consuming job that required me to travel.

I must love to commute, because once again I commuted 130 miles (65 miles each way) to night school, often returning home at midnight.  Yes, it was also a good way to lose 20 pounds.  Again, my husband was extremely supportive and became more of a single working parent, which allowed me to accomplish my goal.  My husband is a saint. We’ve been married 25 years this year (2010).

I’ve loved having a career in business, but it took time for me to find what I loved within the broad scope of business.  I love customer service and process improvement.  My strength is execution.  I’m now Vice President of Information Services for MarketStar.  I oversee a department of approximately 100 people comprised of Information Technology and Market Analysis personnel.

I’m an example of someone who has gone to school with a family and successfully built a career.  And yes, I have a high energy level, which is a requirement if you work full-time, go to school and have a family.

By building Lookilulu.com, I’m excited to help young women figure out their career interests early and to help them understand the thousands of incredible, fun career options that are available.

Guest post by Julie Simmons, Jill’s sister and co-founder of lookilulu.com.

There are many wonderful people who have helped create the reality of the Lookilulu website.  It started with the vision that my sister Julie Simmons and I had  to help girls see what was possible to do in the world.  We grew up on a farm in a small town in Utah, literally in the shadow of Willard Peak. (The lookilulu.com header has a beautiful photo of Willard Peak by David Sidwell, which David graciously sent to us and allowed us to use.)

Julie and I felt that we couldn’t see what was possible for our lives.

• We couldn’t see that we could travel beyond the mountains and live outside of Utah.
• We couldn’t see that we needed to be financially responsible for ourselves.
• We couldn’t see the critical value of education. (Indeed, three of the four Hubbard girls dropped out of college.  Julie and Kimberly eventually graduated and Laurie educated herself in computer programming.)
• We couldn’t see how we could develop our talents and pursue our interests.
• We couldn’t see that women could have professional careers and be mothers.
• We couldn’t see how we could live lives we really loved that engaged our intellects and challenged our abilities.
• It took us many years to see what was really possible and have faith and confidence in ourselves.
• We married young.  During her senior year of college, Julie had a baby.  Ironically, our husbands were our biggest cheerleaders and supported our interests and careers.

Because of our struggles, we wanted to help young women see the myriad of possibilities that exist in the world today.  We wanted girls to have more information than we had when we were young.  We saw the possibility of the Internet to help girls see.

We decided to profile women who inspire us and share the information on a website.  We decided to ask women about what they do and how they got to do what they do.

And then we asked for help and many, many  outstanding people responded.

Ceaser Larry and his great team at Divergent Logic built the website and made it work.  We are very grateful for Ceaser’s knowledge, vision, and support in creating a website that we all can be proud of.

Kelly Taylor made the site beautiful and functional.  Chelsea Saunders created initial concepts.  Jen Fife persuaded us to scrap the original logo design and created an inspired lookilulu logo that features a compass reflected in the eye.  Amy Wilde was our photographer extraordinaire and made our promotional materials great.  Kaeli Simmons was our beautiful model.  Tiffany Anderson  created great class materials, graphics, brochures and covers that have captured the essence of the lookilulu vibe.  Martha Beck and her tribe helped us see what we could do with technology and the value of podcasts and blogs.

Many, many amazing women cared enough to help inspire girls and share their knowledge, insights and wisdom.

Thank You !!

Everyone who has helped make the Lookilulu website a reality cares about young women and helping them see what is possible in their lives.  The site is an amazing resource.

We look forward to growing the site and sharing more wisdom from women who are doing amazing things in the world.