Witnessing the Rapid Change of a Species

Recently, while waiting on an airport lounge for my very delayed flight, I read on a psychology/fashion/beauty magazine an article about the way that men think. The article revealed the conclusions of a study conducted in the Netherlands about the effect that women have on the ability of men to think properly. The conclusions of the study were that in the presence of a female, a man will lose a significant part of his ability to reason adequately, even reaching the point of memory loss. The more physically attractive the woman is, the more the man’s brain will struggle to perform effectively.

In business, this means that if a man is having a business discussion with another man his brain will be properly engaged. If the same discussion, however, were to take place with a woman, the ability of the man to carry on with the same discussion will be seriously challenged. The study reveals that the reason for this behavior has to do with the unconscious and primitive constant search by men of mating opportunities. The female presence excites this instinctive behavior on the man.
For us women, things are differently. Only a moment earlier glancing through some other magazines, I came across the double page picture of Tom Ford advertising his latest fragrance. I know without a doubt that if Tom Ford were to be sitting before me, I surely would not be distracted by his incredible beauty, and I surely would be able to completely engage in a discussion with a beautiful and iconic man. In other words, the beauty of a man would not affect my ability to interact with him and certainly would never prevent me from conducting business with him.

So, is a male primitive instinct responsible for the huge imbalance that women are subjected to in the workplace?

Coincidentally enough, the study was carried out in the Netherlands, a Country where I worked and lived and where I recall the majority of the men asking me the eternal question of “why is an attractive woman like you, with such a dark and long hair, working in our office?” It seems to me that the question was not only sexist and completely inadequate but also reflected their total incapacity to converse intelligently with a woman. It explained also why many women in the workplace abandoned their natural womanliness choosing to look and behave like a man in order to be listened and taken into account.

What is the solution to this terrible dilemma?

It occurs to me that there are “evolved” men out there with new developed instincts, capable to recognize that the survival of the species has to do more with collaboration with the female species rather than the consumption of the female species. It also occurs to me that nature is rapidly creating a selection of “female hunters” responsible for empowering the female species, so we emancipate ourselves from the concept that we are the prey. Releasing our mind from this idea will help us understand that men have used their “male mating instinct” excuse in order to ignore our abilities and intelligence. By choosing not to be the prey, we are also able to once and for all shatter a terrible idea that has limited us from the days we lived trapped and isolated in dark caves.

We are witnessing the rapid change o a species. Women gatherers becoming women hunters; women who are reclaiming the power that men claimed entirely too much for themselves. It’s all about balance and equilibrium of the species. If we don’t let it happen, we may disappear all together trying to figure out how the instincts that we thought helped us evolve, led us to our ultimate destruction.

Oh, and about the long and dark hair issue. Perhaps most of those men fear in their nightmares the “hair monster” because I still cannot figure out what does long and dark hair has to do with it. My advice to women would be: instead of cutting your hair let him get therapy and figure out his nightmares.

How High are the Stakes?

If you are a fan of Madonna, you may agree with me that her album “Confessions on a Dance Floor” contains some of the most metaphysical messages that you can find in music. If you are not very familiar with her music on this album, I can advise you to listen to her songs because they are truly motivational. I want to devote this article to one song in particular: How High.
“How high are the stakes?
How much fortune can you make?
Does this get any better?
Should I carry on?
Will it matter when I'm gone?
Will any of this matter?”
1. How high are the stakes in your life?
It is Sunday night. You have a 9 to 5 job in the office that you know is really a 7 to 7. Tomorrow is Monday and you are preparing yourself for a 60 hour job, not counting the commuting time if you live in a big city like London or NYC. You may love your job, or you may not. If the later is true for you, I know that the perspective of Monday approaching is cramping your guts. You wish you’d win the lotto so tomorrow you don’t have to put yourself through that feeling again. Something within you tells you that this job, this part of your life, is making you miserable. You dream of that house with a pool and a huge yard, and you stick to the job because common sense tells you that if you work hard, you will be able to afford it one day. But you know, you really know, that the 7 to 7 job is not going to cut it. The hero in you takes over and asks you point blank: How high are the stakes?
2. How much fortune can you make?
So now the hero in you has taken over. The next question is how much fortune can you make? Fortune can mean whatever is important to you: happiness, cash, time, power, influence… it is your personal meaning of fortune. You have spent many years blaming your job for your lack of fortune. You work so hard that you come home really tired only to turn on your computer to keep up with your unanswered emails, you are not happy. You earn so little money for all the effort that you put into your job that you don’t have enough cash to do all the things that you want to do. You are so busy with your 60 hour job that extends into weekends and holidays that time for you is more valuable than any platinum and diamonds. You have a horrible boss that apparently thinks you are invisible because you really, your power of decision and your real influence in the outcome is very limited. The creative side of your brain is starting to take over, and you start asking yourself: if only I was brave enough to listen to the hero within, how much fortune can I make if I were to choose something better for myself.
3. Does this get any better?
Of course you have a right side of the brain, so it does not matter what the hero within tells you or the left side of the brain advises you, you start thinking if it is really worth it. Will it get any better? Perhaps you leave your job, by choice, only to find yourself without your safety cushion. The salary is gone, the pension money is not growing any longer plus you know that the investment ahead is so big, that it will take time to break even if you manage to break even. It is really scary. You know if you make it, it will be a lot better. You will start living life under your own terms, pretty much your way. You start relating to Sinatra’s song “My Way”. You play it for inspiration. You know, you really know it is going to get better. Fear, however, will tell you only that the odds are against you. Fear will show you only the obstacles, not the possibilities. You look for a simple answer to your question: does this get any better?
4. Should I carry on?
As you debate with yourself about the possibilities, you think about that special person in your life that makes it all worth it; a child, a spouse, a sibling, a parent, a friend. You start asking yourself whether carrying on with this heroic plan is going to be the path to your fortune. You ask yourself whether you should carry on or stay where you are. You have a moment of honesty when your guts are suddenly not cramped any longer. You think about the available time that you will now be able to spend with your child, you think about your spouse who puts up with you every day of your life when you come home grumpy after work, you think about those friends that you haven’t hanged out with for a while, you think about who you care for the most, and as you start considering the possibility of carrying on, your guts are not cramped any longer. You feel good, you are relaxed, you have now felt in your body what it is boiling in your imagination. You like the feeling but it seems you are still scared.
5. Will it matter when I’m gone?
We all die. I believe our soul doesn’t die, but I believe that I don’t want to die without leaving a legacy. You go through the entire process once again, and you wonder if the 7 to 7 job is leaving a legacy. If you love your job, surely something that you do is fulfilling your life’s purpose, and, even if you don’t know it, you are leaving something greater than you for humanity. If you hate it, however, chances are you are not where you are meant to be. You were born with something unique to give, and you don’t want to be gone without having used your special gift. Will it matter when I’m gone?, perhaps it is time to give it a try.
6. Will any of this matter?
It is not even Monday yet, and you are ready to give it a try. The stakes are high, there is a huge fortune to make, it will get much better and because of that you are ready to carry on. You know that when you are gone, what you did will still matter because you will make a difference. So yes, all of this matters. You have nothing to lose and everything to win.
It is Monday morning, you are happy and relaxed. It may be or not a busy week ahead. You, however, feel that this is the life you crafted for yourself. You are adding the colours and the textures that you want for your life. No one else is painting on the canvas of your existence. You are the master and you are the painting. Yes, the stakes were high.

The Magic is in the Process

If you find yourself reading this article, chances are you have been stumbling from one task to the other, with a fixed goal in mind and working hard to reach your objective. For a moment, sit still and breathe slower. Become conscious of what is happening inside you. Suddenly, you become aware of your own presence reading this article. Not your autopilot, but the real you. You may start noticing other experiences, such as hearing the buzz of your computer, or the laughter of a colleague, in the distance, perhaps some children passing in the street, depending on where you are, you will even hear the birds and the sound of the trees moving with the wind. Those are sounds you heard many times before, but now you become aware, you are listening to them.

The awareness of where you are and who are at this very moment, can be very powerful in your life.

You may be thinking that I should be writing this article in the self help or metaphysical section. So why are you reading this when all you were looking was for some business and career advice?

So this is how this article can help you.

Do you have a plan?
Do you have a real concise plan for your life?
Have you actually ever drawn it on a large paper or does it sit in some corner of your mind?
Is your plan a flat line with a series of A to B to C to Z, or a more complex staircase with timings and experiences and a signal at the top of the staircase that indicates your “goal"?
Is your plan something that you bring along with you to career discussions with your supervisor to indicate that you really have a plan, and you are not just simply going with the flaw?

I met some very incredible people with a very concise plan. It feels as if they have perfect control of their careers, they know where they are going, they know what they want, they know what they need to achieve, they make adjustments to their master plan with incredible discipline, and they get there, it seems a lot faster than their fellow without the plan. But when I looked closer to their lives, their lives were pretty miserable in many other ways.

I have also met some other very incredible people with another vision. They still have a plan, they are intelligent and have goals and aspirations. But they don’t have the stairway to their heaven. There is no staircase, because every day, every minute shapes their life. They live pretty much for the moment, they enjoy or dislike what they do each minute of every hour of every day. They are so focused on the very moment before them, which, for some reason, things do end up falling in place as they should. Not necessarily as per plan, but certainly in the way that they were meant to be.

Earlier in the year I learned a very powerful lesson during a meditation session with Dr. Steven Farmer, a powerful shaman who teaches you how to connect with your power animal and obtain guidance and wisdom. My power animal is the unicorn.

The unicorn teaches you that the magic is in the process.

Every time that you look at the end-result, some of that magic goes away. The creative process is most rewarding when you concentrate on the task at hand, when you don’t think about the end-result, when you don’t judge yourself about how what you are doing will look at the end. It is about giving your very best, about working with love and commitment, on that moment. Nothing can fail when done in such a way. You are meant to be successful and the result is meant to be wonderful. I am not saying work without a vision, I am only saying “let the vision become your inspiration, not your goal”

I carried my staircase to success printed on an A3 paper for many years. I had clear ideas and timings and very ambitious plans. I never reached the top of the staircase, but I felt so exhausted in trying, that it felt as if I would have climbed my own plans using only my finger nails to hold me in place.

Since I apply the principle that the magic is in the process, I found myself totally relaxed and happy. My life has since been an explosion of opportunities filled with amazing adventures that I never would have even considered in my large A3 staircase to success. Like the day I walked in the streets of Sitka in Alaska, only to find Saint Michael's church and the same tiny candles that I had found years before in a small church in Moscow near the red square. I never thought I would ever find those candles again. I gave up on my search for them years ago because I had only seen them in that church in Russia. But I found them in Sitka, Alaska. And it was never part of the plan.

The Innocence of Age

I wonder if experience comes with age, or with certain exposure to a certain subject. Let me give you an example: you are 60 years old, and you worked all your life in the same office doing the same job, let's say handling the contracts of your division. People around you will call you very experienced at what you do. Then a new 32 year old employee arrives at your office, and she has worked in at least five different countries handing very different types of contracts in very different types of working environments.

Who is more experienced? You, who had done the same type of contract deals for the last 40 years or her, who has been exposed to a bigger pot of contracts?

In many places, you will be the guru of contracts, since you’ve done your work for 40 years! The 32 year old employee will be work in progress, certainly not someone with your level of “experience” because she is only 32 right?

Well, I think is wrong. To me, she is probably as experienced as you are, because while you sat for the last 40 years doing the same job, she rapidly acquired a very large amount of experienced in a very short period of time, that it took you decades to acquire. So, though my example is quite radical, it is very possible that a younger person is a lot more experienced than an older person doing the same type of job. Now, try to demonstrate that.

I think bosses love the age technique to prevent you from moving forward too fast. In my own experience, every time I felt ready to tackle the next challenge, I was told I was too young. It seems I was always too young. Even when my first grey hair appeared, still I was a toddler to my boss. I was anxious to learn to walk, but he insisted I kept crawling.

I was too young all my life at work… until I resigned from my job. Then, out of the blue, miraculously, I grew up. The first question I was asked was: “how old are you?” and my interviewer made no effort to hide his horror. I was not too young anymore. Now I was suddenly too old to start a new career. Was I mad?, how could I start all over again at my age (despite being only in my early 30s).

So this is the innocence of age. You are too young to move forward, too young to progress, too young to ask for a pay raise, too young to be promoted, too young to handle more responsibility. But dish it all, start again from scratch, and out of the blue, you are too old. People then think you are too old to start again. You go from toddler to be elder in a few seconds. And you probably wonder how it all happened so fast.

So if you are stuck in the “age and experience” dilemma let me share with you the following:

1. You can be 17 going on 70. Our world is so interactive and rich that you can live so many more experiences so much faster than your grandparents ever did. Just sharpen your senses and be willing to experience the “experience”.

2. You are never too young to succeed. If age is holding you back, probably it is a good time to go on your own. Try the entrepreneur route. You will be able to travel at your own pace, nobody to tell you that you are still a toddler, when you know well that you already run in the Olympics!

3. You are never too old to start all over again. You actually never start from scratch, life is such a combination of lessons learnt that when you “start all over again” what you are doing is just choosing a new road with all the learning from the past.

4. If you are 70, don’t think that you know it all. If you are 17, don’t think either that the 70 year old one looking through his glasses right at you, didn’t go what you went through. You don’t have to experience every bump in the road, that 70 year old might be just what you need to experience life in a better way!

The CPR of Office Dynamics: Competition, Purpose, Reward. (October 4, 2009)

The CPR of Office Dynamics: Competition, Purpose, Reward. (October 4, 2009)
By Maria Carolina Cruz

Have you ever taken a personality and career test?. My test results indicate that I am a very non-competitive person, but I am very reward oriented, and though I can succeed at almost any task given to me, it seems I can only engage in tasks that I absolutely love. Most of the people that know me will say that I am very competitive, and they think that I can perform in many tasks regardless of the topic and result. It is nothing farther from the truth. I am absolutely non-competitive and I am definitely motivated by the subject of my efforts and the associated reward.

When I first took my personality test several years ago, the human resources advisor that helped me with the interpretation of my results highlighted that my motivation to act upon reward scored the highest in the scale of my personality traits. Her advice was simple. She said to me: in the workplace, men are not accustomed to deal with women who are reward oriented. Do not bring the subject of reward to your boss, or you will seem pushy. Male bosses are not accustomed to deal with female subordinates who talk about pay raises, bonuses and promotions. So highlight your other attributes but keep this one under control because you will not be understood.

Oh, I get it- I thought- no wonder why men make more money than women in jobs where men and women are equally qualified. Perhaps since we are little girls we are taught exactly what the HR advisor told me. It is not correct for girls to ask for more money or a deserved promotion or a bonus for a great job. No, that is just reserved for men. That is why they get all the big bucks, because they are not afraid to ask for rewards. If a man asks for a reward, his male boss will understand and most likely give it to him, but if a woman asks for the same, very likely not only will she be seen as pushy but also not get the reward she is looking for. It may all, in fact, work against her.

Well, you are who you are. I am a reward oriented woman, and it scores so high in who I am, that it is difficult to hide.
This is an example of CPR office Dynamics.
You are a boss and you have a team of three people.
C: A very competitive man,
P: A very purpose oriented cross gender individual
R: A very reward oriented woman.

Let's assume you are a very old fashioned and Machiavellian boss who thinks that “divide and conquer” is the best way to have your team performing at its peak. You assume in your limited managerial intelligence that if your team members compete one against the other, they will all do their best, trying to outperform the other, and you will end up with a team that is performing so good that you will by transitivity law perform good too.

However, here comes the big problem for you as the boss in my example:

C is not going to love it, because he does not have anybody to compete with since his colleagues are not up to for the competition.
P hates the job at hand because most likely you never thought about his-her strengths, and you have given him-her a job that absolutely does not engage him-her.
R is not very happy because most likely she is working for you day and night with the best of her abilities every day of the year, and you will never promote her, give her a bonus or a pay raise.
Then poor you, you wonder why your team is performing so badly.

This article works under the assumption that you (as the boss in this example) have a limited managerial intelligence. It does not make you a bad or limited person. In fact, you will have much other incredible intelligence, but, unless you recognise that your team is not made of clones and robots but of people with different intelligence and personalities, your success may be compromised or your success will happen at the expense of the frustration of your employees.
If you are not the boss, but the guy in the team, it is important that you are able to recognise and understand your main strengths and those of your colleagues.

If you are C. Many competitive women are called names that truly belong to the female dog animal kingdom. But we would not have Dara Torres and Serena Williams if competitive women were wiped out of the planet. Competitive people have been great change agents in our world by catalysing the process of change.

If you are P. What would be of the world without women with a purpose. Just see what the world would have missed if Zainab Salbi and Baroness Sayeeda Warsi would have not driven her purpose to a mission. Purpose oriented people have been great contributors to social causes.

If you are R. Do not make the mistake of assuming that Reward is only monetary. More responsible and complex tasks, appreciation, praising, a dinner for two, a corporate gift for your child, there are countless ways to reward a person. Reward oriented people can drive companies and businesses to the top very fast and are excellent at rewarding the good work of people around. Only have a look at Diane Von Furnstenberg and Megan Smith and all that you can learn from these women.

Have a look at your best traits and do not be afraid to show your true colors. I used to think that the political game was very hard to follow, but I do think that following the political game is the easy way. The less political you are (meaning the more you try to follow the general trend), the more you will have to challenge yourself. However, we are brave and incredible people right? We are not afraid of challenges.

Why you shouldn’t let your boss take control of your career.

The great Greek philosopher Socrates once asked: in a time of need, would you choose the captain of your ship because of his ability and knowledge or because of his popularity?. In the context of history, Socrates referred to the Spartans who’d been put in power and to whom he was openly critical. In the context of these lines, the captain represents those people in power who have the ability to steer your ship to safe waters or bring you down as fast as the Titanic.

Throughout my entire life, I always broke the mold. Not only as an adolescent, but I mean always. Always until I got my first job. It happened to be a giant corporation, with lots of manicured northern European men who seemed to all like to wear the same Hugo Boss black suit. I thought to myself that it was time to tone down, no more breaking the mold, time to fit in my very well paid job in my very prestigious company. I studied too hard and invested too many thousands of dollars in my education in the best universities in the world to throw it all away with my “out of the box” behaviour. I made a conscious decision to fit in.

Months passed and I was so hooked with my Company’s name and size and my big bucks in the bank that I started losing sight of what I really wanted to accomplish in my career. I thought I had a great job and a great future, so I would do my job, work hard, and good things would happen in time.

After a year, sitting down with my boss to discuss my yearly performance, I recalled asking what was the secret to success. I will write down his exact words, which were not only borderline illegal, but if you are a woman, I am sure you have heard them at least once. He told me: “If you want to succeed, and I know you are married, you have to do what your male colleagues without girlfriends do: work, work and work. Forget about your husband and just work”.

I looked into his eyes, and the sweet girl trying to fit in was incapable of uttering a word. However, he must have read in my eyes, how much I despised him. He must have noticed because his end of year review read: Maria is a very hard-headed woman. Of course from there on, I was the hard-headed woman. I wanted something for myself. That is why to him, I was hard-headed. If I had been a man, I would have been called “a man on a quest” but as a woman, the best word he came up with was “hard-headed”.

You could ask that same boss if he would like his daughter to do his job one day. He would tell you that never in a million years. So you can wonder right away that if he would not want his daughter to do his job one day, why would he be prepared to coach you and nurture you and help you grow if he would not want his own child to ever go through what you are going through?

Many times we let our superiors at work make very important decisions about our life. It is not only our career, it is our life. There is nothing wrong with allowing people more experienced than us to guide us, but the question that we can ask ourselves is: are those people who are guiding our career, the most capable and truly skilled people to guide us?. Were they promoted because they were the best people for the job, or just simply the most politically savvy and popular?. Can we trust them with our life?. I bet in many instances our answer will be negative.
Your life is your ship. You are the owner of the ship, and you have the power to choose where you want your ship to sail. You can spend years of your life allowing a poor skilled captain sailing your wonderful ship through swamps and dead seas, or you can take command and be the captain or choose one captain who is truly capable of leading your ship to waters that will teach you how to sail, that will keep your ship doing what it was built to do: to sail, not to float with the flow.

All you need is courage. Don’t let promises of a bright future tempt you. Most of the time, you are the promise. Be the Captain. Don’t be afraid to do what you were born to do.

You need a mentor, not your mentor's tick in the box

“Do you have a mentor?” How many times have you been asked this question? Chances are, if you work in a big 500 fortune corporation, you’ve heard this question more than once. It is also very possible, that your answer to that question was something on the lines of “No, I don’t have a mentor. How can I get a mentor? Who can be my mentor?” And then it is very possible that the answer to your question was “let me get back to you with some ideas” and then you will never hear again from the person that asked you the big mentorship question on the first place.

I was asked the mentor question many times in my career. As a female petroleum engineer, I was always looking for other females who had followed my career path and succeeded. I can genuinely say, I never met one of them. Yes there were a few brilliant women out there, but they were pretty unreachable members of the board or frankly speaking, women too busy to lend a mentoring hand to a younger version of themselves.

So you work in a giant corporation where your colleagues are mostly men, your boss is a man, and his boss is a man, and the boss of his boss is a man, and so on and so on and so on. You see no women on your path. You wonder how you are ever going to make it through that maze of testosterone. You want to ask that woman on the board how she did it and when you finally manage to ask her the one million dollar question, you tell yourself you could have read that answer in the self help section of Cosmopolitan.

Then you do the reasonable thing. You cannot create a female mentor out of thin air, so you do what you have to do: you look for a good mentor in the male world. And there are plenty of good ones. (This article works under the assumption that you work in a huge corporation where you are a woman, and you know that before you, other women are reaching not the glass but the reinforced concrete ceiling).

I will share with you the strategy that I followed. I needed a mentor. My career was not going anywhere. I worked hard to make it. I was smart, I was ambitious, I wanted to succeed. However I was not very political. It was a game that I found hard to play. And I knew how much men around me loved that game and how good they were at it. So I wanted to find someone to help me develop the skills to learn to play that game. So I mustered my courage and sent a note to a very powerful and bright man of my company, in a very high position and with the best credentials. I’ve seen him before in action, I found him ruthless and the perfect alpha male in a men’s world. I thought I had it made, I could learn anything I needed to learn from him.

However, I went to meet him, several times, and he was too busy, that the little time I had to talk to him every couple of months, were never enough to even scratch the surface of my biggest issues. Yes I had a mentor, I really did. I still resigned from my company months later out of frustration and desperation over not being able to move forward.

Time passed and I have moved on. Emotionally detached of the situation, I can clearly analyze it now, and I come to realize that a real mentor must possess a series of qualities:

1. A real mentor has time for you. He/she was a person just like you and understands that you are seeking him/her for advice and this is not a five minute job.

2. A real mentor has trust and believes in you. Some mentors can see you as a way to fulfill their political aspirations. Trust me, mentoring is in their agenda. Mentoring somebody is one of the conditions of wannabe leaders so you may end up being mentored by someone who is ticking a box in his/her career progression. A real mentor believes in who you are, he/she can see you as a rough diamond and is willing to trust in your ability to flourish and shine.

3. A real mentor is a master. You want to be mentored by someone who is very knowledgeable about your business. Someone who has gone through many different experiences so he/she can help you see a holistic view of your business. Ideally, your mentor has mastered a subject in an area in which you aspire to steer your career.

4. A real mentor is a teacher. Your mentor must be able to teach you in pretty much the same way that your school teachers did. Someone who will not fear that you are there to take their job and someone who will guide you, open your eyes to what is available, awaken your senses to new opportunities, stimulate you to research the unknown, congratulate you in your victories, reprimand you when you are slacking off, help you go back in track when you are drifting away.

5. A real mentor is honest. He/she will speak to you with the truth. It may not be the universal truth, it does not mean that what he/she says must be true for you, but you want someone who is really honest with you, someone who can provide any type of feedback in an honest manner. Forget about constructive polite feedback; leave that to your boss and colleagues. Your mentor should be able to speak to you candidly. Only you and your guts will tell you how honest he/she is being with you.

After years of battling the mentoring question, I have come to realize that I had a couple of great mentors that I did not recognize as such until recently. They gathered all the qualities that I have mentioned above, but I was so wrapped up with the idea of a mega important and super powerful and high profile man in the business, that I lost sight of the equally important people, though not so powerful and recognized that I could have looked for as mentors. I owe so much of the woman that I have become to those “low profile” men and women who accompanied me throughout the years.

It may be that you are looking for a mentor. It may be that someone has asked you to become their mentor. What really matters is that mentoring can change a life for good. It is a powerful opportunity to demonstrate your humanity and through your actions, change a life and a change the world.

Dedicated to my mentor and great friend Tames Visser, who is now mentoring many from heaven.

What you can accomplish when your mentor is Rembrandt Van Rijn.

One of the most extraordinary paintings in the world is the Aristotle with a Bust of Homer, a masterpiece of Dutch painter Rembrandt Van Rijn. I´ve met people who have crossed two continents and a vast ocean to arrive in New York City to see this incredible work of art exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

One of the reasons that makes this work of art so remarkable is the story behind the painting: a wealthy Sicilian, devotee of Rembrandt, commissioned the piece with the only provision that Rembrandt would paint for him a philosopher. It was a time of financial hardship for Rembrandt and his Sicilian supporter paid for the painting eight times more than what he could have paid an Italian artist for the same type of painting.

Rembrandt chose the great philosopher Aristotle as the subject of his painting. Aristotle rests his hand on a bust of the great poet Homer and is seen in the painting wearing a chain with a medallion bearing the image of Alexander, a disciple of Aristotle. Three great men painted by a great master. The twist to the story is that Rembrandt paints an imaginary Aristotle, a subject that is painted directly from his imagination, bearing no resemblance to the classical figure. The result is a painting that has survived history, a true masterpiece.

But here comes the point of this story. Years earlier, Rembrandt began a phase of self discovery that resulted in a profound metamorphosis. He deliberately left the circle of the reigning taste and becoming indifferent towards what was in fashion, he rejected the idea of pleasing everybody else. Rembrandt followed his own vision not caring if he would be liked or not. He was unpopular with many but his unique talent and the love for his work immortalized him.
Few people know that Rembrandt never left the Netherlands, his homeland. Such a universal figure lived his entire life in a tiny nation not even travelling to Paris or Rome as almost every artist did. Christopher White in his biography of Rembrandt beautifully writes in the last lines of the book that though the work of Rembrandt was created in one time and one place, it is universal and eternal.

When I stand in front of the painting of Aristotle with a bust of Homer, I stand before a group of mentors. Aristotle, Homer and Alexander, are three great men that have the ability to teach you anything from human psychology to poetry and politics. Then Rembrandt, the great Master who is completely alive in his work. If you listen to him carefully you will walk away knowing that you are capable of achieving anything in your life.

Some people will tell you that they cannot succeed because they have never left the small town where they were born. Others will tell you that they cannot succeed because they are very different and not well understood. Others will tell you that they don’t have the money to be able to dedicate to what they love the most. While others will tell you that they are too old, too lonely, too undignified to transcend life and live forever.

When you have a mentor like Rembrandt Van Rijn you learn that all it takes is to follow the vision of your heart. Your heart knows exactly what you need; it is filled with the power to transcend any boundaries, any fashions and any limitations. This is the secret of immortality.

I trade you my $999 Louboutins for your $9.99 glitter slippers! -Desperate measures from desperate women.

Last week, partying at the mega cool Pacha night club in NYC, I came to realize that sometimes, under desperate conditions, we, women of the world, are willing to fail our innermost values.Wearing a pair of 14cms Bianca heels by Louboutin, I was going more for the powerful statement of the mega heels rather than a good night out dancing all night long. My girlfriends are accustomed to hear me saying the ever classical expression “my feet are killing me!”However, at Pacha´s that night, after hours of dancing on the most stylish shoes on earth, I did something that most women would find hard to believe. Unable to move, with feet totally paralyzed by the twinge of wearing such massive heels, I met a girl in the club, and I traded my $999 Louboutin heels for her $9.99 George gold glitter slippers.

My feet rose from the dead, I looked like Cinderella, but at least I was able to keep dancing and having a good time. My female counterpart left the club almost immediately, wearing my magnificent shoes and “Dashing Away with the Smoothing Iron” just in case I would change my mind.Not only did I not change my mind, I felt happy, relieved from the pain. Until next day, when I actually regretted it.Running next day in Central Park, coming to terms with the departure of my most iconic pair of shoes, it dawned on me that sometimes, desperate women will go for desperate measures. And I realized that trading my shoes, was just another example of what we are willing to trade, not without regret, when something is killing us.

Have you ever met a beautiful and bright woman who has traded her most handsome husband and beautiful father for a bald, fat and very daft man?. I ask you if you have seen a “woman” who has done this before, because we have all seen far too many examples of handsome and intelligent men trading their beautiful and loving wives for cheap looking women wearing far too much cheap perfume. I do not want to give you the idea that I am comparing men to shoes, though a beautiful pair of Louboutins is worth the comparison. But the motivation to trade a pair of well earned Louboutins for a cheap pair bought at Walmart, is perhaps not very different to the motivation to trade the love and trust of someone, for the momentary pleasure of feeling better about yourself.

We have seen it so many times before, it is almost cliché. The heiress who trades her diamond Harry Winston chronograph in the middle of the night for some casual escapade, the successful entrepreneur who is mugged on the street and is willing to wear the whiffy jacket of a beggar who at the time seemed an angel, the beauty queen who has it all and is willing to leave it all just to feel that she´s alive again. It seems almost as a Stanley Kubrick film but the fact and the matter is that is happens every day, everywhere around the world.

Peter Cetera in his song “Body Language” summarizes it: “moment by moment, day after day, trying your best to forget. It’s all behind you, it’s part of the past, you’ve got no time for regrets. Time to start over with somebody new, you’ve got nothing more to lose. Out for the evening, dressed for the kill, leaving your troubles behind.Dangerous places, dangerous times, leave with the first one you find. Live for the moment, who cares if it’s right, who needs tomorrow, you’ve got tonight”.

When I told my husband about the pair of shoes that he had given me for my birthday and how I traded them in a night club, he only wanted to know why I chose them in the first place if I knew that high heels kill my feet all the time. When I told my husband years ago that I traded his love and trust on me for a fake of a man, he wanted to know why I paid attention to that man in the first place when men like that kill women all the time.

I could argue that desperate men and women are willing to take desperate measures. As we run to catch the subway, it seems we have no time for regrets. We learn to live for the moment, and we don’t think about tomorrow. But when tomorrow comes, and the pair of Louboutins is gone, you are only thankful that the man you love is holding your hand and still with you.

A birdy-girl trying to make it in a male-bird world

A few weeks ago, while on holiday at my parent's home, we bought a little pink-yellow female canary. My mother and father already had five male canaries wandering around in the big patio. There are huge bamboo trees and plenty of space to fly and feel as closer to nature as possible. The little girly-bird arrived and she was named Paris. The vet told us that her pinkish colour was the result of a very low protein intake. However, it was her colour that allowed us to set her apart from her male counterparts.
On her first day at home, Paris behaved as expected: quiet shy, sitting in a corner eating cake, seeds and fruit and not leaving the cage as the others. The next day, she ventured outside. We all wanted to see the reaction of the five male birds who on the previous days to Paris's arrival, were singing loudly every day. However, they ignored her but something changed: they stopped singing.
The third day, Paris became more adventurous, flying high among the trees and already developing an attitude of: I´m free!
The following weeks were a spectacle. Paris would fly over and over and over from one side of the patio to the other. Endlessly, happy, singing (although the fact that the vet told us that girly-birds don’t sing). As the boy-birds had stopped singing, we were even happier to have Paris with us, even if her songs were a little quieter than the boys´.
As she jumped and flew and sang and stole the cake from the other birds, we looked at the male canaries watching, in the distance. Even the youngest ones, seemed old and tired by her side. It made me think about my own experience working as a trainee many years ago in a place full of older men. I was so energetic, enthusiastic, so filled with energy, that would make the men around look like true skeletons waiting for a departure to other dimensions.
Then something gradually started to happen. Paris became shier. At the beginning, the change was unnoticeable, but day by day, she stopped jumping and flying and singing. She became like all the other birds. And then it dawned on me: are we women, minority women in a male´s world, victims of the same protocol that nature exhibits? We are after all members of the animal kingdom, and the female reaction of a female bird, wouldn´t be any different than the instinctive reaction of a female human.
So I wondered, did Paris out of the blue realized that her singing, and her flying and her energy were not making any difference in that place. All the male birds seemed united in their silence, somehow disapproving of the outburst of energy of the new bird in the block. I remembered as a younger woman going through the very same situation. Facing the condemning faces of grey coloured men disapproving of the endless energy of the new girl in the block. As I grow older and wiser, I ask myself if my behavior reminded those men of what it felt to be young, to be free, not being afraid to show emotions and colour in your life.
And then I figured something out. I decided to pay more attention to Paris than the rest of the birds. I bought her pink toys, a pink beauty mirror (perhaps cliché but I just thought that pink will remind her that she was not the only girl in the house). I talked to her when she was sad, and I reprimanded the boys for isolating Paris so much. And then something changed. Paris began flying again, eating more again, becoming more daring every day. She looked less afraid and somehow I think she demonstrated that she could be the alpha female in a world of males. And then suddenly too, the boy birds started to follow her way and move around and fly more and be just simply more adventurous.
And then I reached a conclusion. I never had anybody to do for me what I did for Paris. A powerful hand that would show support and care. It was my inner strength facing a world of men, most of them old fashioned, boxed in their mentality of “we love women in the kitchen”. Then I realized the sad, grey figures of so many older women, successful in their jobs, and quite ghostly in the street. Looking sad, almost insane, as if their female strength would have been sucked by a vampire. Women who chose, perhaps forced by the circumstances, to abandon that wittyness, that fantastic spirit of what makes us women.
I think Paris, the girly bird, may have actually been luckier than many women in the world trying to make it in a world of men. Who is there to lend a hand to all those strong and vibrant women? Who is there to remind them that they can actually, with a little support, change their whole environment for good?. What do you think? Are you the free bird flying and singing happy through life, or are your wings cut by the invisible imbalance of simply being alone in a place where you know you can make a difference, but you actually are not allowed to?
Tell me who you are and how we can change this.
Maria Carolina Cruz
www.planetalice.net
www.mariacarolinacruz.com

The adventures of Camila in the Oil World

One morning, Camila goes to the beach with her father and sees something shining in the distance. She asks her dad what that is, and he tells her that it is an offshore platform, but it is a place only for men to work.
Camila, intrigued and challenged, decides she is capable to work there too.
This is the fascinating story of a girl who is intelligent, beautiful and fearless. Camila conquers a world that few girls saw before and leaves a legacy to every person that wants to achieve the greatest dream.

If you are a girl who has chosen to grow in traditionally male roles, you will find Camila´s story very inspiring.

I would like to hear from you. How has it been for you, how do you manage your female attributes in a men´s world. Have you given up your most female traits in order to succeed or has it been easy for you to transition in a new world for women.

In my first published book The Adventures of Camila in the oil world, Camila is portrayed by a beautiful bear and her life resembles very much of my own life.

I would love to hear your comments about my book, it will soon become available in amazon.com but in the meantime you can purchase it in my website www.planetalice.net
If you cannot afford it yet, please wait for the amazon release and have a pick at the book in www.blurb.com look for the book in the children´s section.

I look forward to your comments,

Maria Carolina Cruz