Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.
A smart woman Few people would buy a plane ticket from Hawaii to Europe on a day's notice, fly over without a travel plan, wondering only upon landing, "What do I do now?" Yet, that's exactly the way many scramble and lurch through life.
needs a plan
A daylong seminar on women's
issues emphasizes taking
control of lifeBy Nadine Kam
Features editor
Star-Bulletin"What happens is we get put on a path and we keep marching. We don't have to think," said Kalei Inn, of Kalei Inn, Ph.D. and Associates -- Redefining Success for Women. "We get to pick up brass rings along the way, and that keeps us going. But we don't realize that life goes way beyond the brass rings you can collect."
The "life plan" prescribed by society generally encompasses finishing high school, getting a job, getting married, having children, settling into a career and enjoying the happily ever after at about age 35 or 40. But what about the rest of your life?
"Everybody needs to be aware of what they're doing and where they're going, otherwise they're lost," said Caron Broederdorf, one of Hawaii's leading real estate professionals.
HerStory
Women's conference: 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 2
PRESENTATIONS
Inn and Broederdorf will be among the speakers at the HerStory conference taking place 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday at the Ko'olau Golf Club. The event is sponsored by the Junior League of Honolulu to reach out to women, said Junior League president Helen MacNeil.
"The idea was to spend a day with each other to examine issues important to us," MacNeil said. "A lot of women take so much time caring about others that they don't make time for themselves. This is a way to take a day off and focus on different aspects of their own lives."
Conference topics address finances, family, community involvement, the home environment, health and coping with technology. Balance is a major theme. Inn's talk will be about "Redefining Success for Women." Broederdorf will talk about "Creating a Life Plan."
Both have life experiences that led them to reassess and redirect their paths and they choose not to include words like "setback" in their vocabularies, referring to life's trials with the more positive "challenges."
Broederdorf had been in the real estate business for six years and built a reputation as a "top producer, top salesperson -- you name it -- I had all these sales awards." Then came Hawaii's recession, when the real estate market tanked, which coincided with her "change in marital status."
That's when she started attending seminars on the mainland and in Australia and learned to create a life plan. "What happened as a result was I tripled my bottom line, I reduced the hours I work by one-half. Basically, I have a life now.
"Before, my plan was to be the top producer in real estate and that happened at the expense of my personal life," said Broederdorf, who claims the distinction of being the No. 1 RE/MAX Hawaii agent. "My new plan covers all facets of my life, and that includes giving back to the community."
Having a strategy is especially necessary in light of technological developments and business downsizing. Inn, a personal and professional coach, said, "A lot of people are being caught short. They think they're going one way and find they're going another."
Inn, who earned a doctorate degree in philosophy from Stanford, said that like many people, she had a traditional view of education and career, but that path "was not giving me the rewards and satisfaction I wanted."
Luckily, in retrospect, she said, "My career was disrupted. It would have been so easy to keep going," she said, as people do, climbing back onto the familiar path. "They're reactive, going through the motions without making a choice. Their whole solution is to get by, get through, get over it.
"Until we stop and ask, 'What's in it for me? What do I want out of life? What have I done that I can be proud of?' we can never live the life we want."
She said many people toil at what they consider meaningless jobs, imagining being able to do the things they really want after retiring, after "getting past this," but she said, "The thing that's passing is your life."
Women have it especially hard because of the guilt factor attached to choices they make.
"If you're one thing, people ask, 'Why aren't you the other?' " Inn said. "If you're not married, well, why aren't you married? If you are married, then why aren't you working?"
She said women often respond to criticism about their choice by demonizing the others in defense. The stay-at-home mom is leery of professional women or worse, the woman who has family and a career. The professional woman looks at the stay-at-home mom as a threat to womens' independence. But Inn said there should be no need for a woman to justify herself to others.
"This is a pivotal time in history when we have old expectations and a new reality. We haven't worked it out," she said. "I would love to see where women are two generations from now."
Borrowing the words of writer Ellen Goodman, she describes life as a patchwork quilt. "It looks like one whole piece, but in the back you see many pieces."
She said many believe they must make their mark doing one great thing, like winning the Nobel Prize, when it could be the sum of many pieces that define one's success. "That's why we need to get together to embrace different models of success. We all have legitimate models."
Broederdorf's philosophy includes the notion that no one needs to sacrifice time or family to succeed in this world. She wants to leave women attending the conference with an awareness of the importance of having a life plan, a process for getting started, and a follow-through process.
Although it seems it should be a no-brainer for people to set priorities for things important to them, Broederdorf said she would not have achieved her success without the mentoring she's received.
She's now conscious of her life plan every day. "I have a daily affirmation and ritual. It's really sick but it works."
Click for online
calendars and events.
