How Interconnected Us Will Make a Difference: My "Vision"
Apparently, tennis legend Billie Jean King, fashion icon Tory Burch, and I have something in common. Actually, a few things: we are ambitious, progressive, and they wanted/I want a platform where our ideals and views would be/are taken seriously.
As a startup, Interconnected Us is, of course, a “platform” of my own invention. Like writing, dancing, or creating gorgeous designer clothes, launching a business is a deeply personal, creative act. At least that is how this experience has been for me. I want, I need in this life, to advance certain ideals and views that are very dear to my heart and that I view as critical to “healing the world,” one woman at a time.
As a woman lawyer who has worked most of her career in the business world, I am provocative, verbal, and sometimes not taken seriously. I’m smiling at the word “sometimes,” but also, it’s enraging, to be honest. I totally understood and related when I heard rock star Alanis Morrisette, in an interview I heard years ago, confidently owning that she harbored anger. As it has been said, “If you aren’t angry, you aren’t paying attention.”
Building on that concept of anger and a thirst for social justice, I would also submit one of my favorite quotes from Nelson Mandela, addressing how anger impacts us on a personal, emotional level: “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.” Does this mean that we should just ignore that which makes us angry? No. Hell, no. We must address it, but in a way that does not destroy us.
As a Jewish woman lawyer with both a heart for social justice, as noted above, and in my adulthood, newer Buddhist “wings,” there are a lot of specific lessons and ideas that I plan to uplift.
So, how do I want Interconnected Us to make a difference? I want to empower my peers, starting with women lawyers, as they are so very well poised to become changemakers themselves. I’m aware that not every woman lawyer who reads my writing, or chooses to become a member of the Interconnected Us community, will want to be an activist. That’s OK. The reality is that every one of them will encounter small and large acts of injustice that make us angry. In a thousand ways, I want to help women to recover when something stings, and then encourage them to get back up and keep doing good work. I want to help them identify and play to their strengths, whether that means fighting injustice on a societal level, and/or making informed, strategic choices as a mother, as a partner, and of course, as a woman lawyer. Our degree enables us to speak with influence as trained advocates, whether that be at our workplaces, or in our communities. I also want women lawyers to regard each of our personal “shortcomings” as part of our uniqueness, and to be kind to ourselves. We need to be each other’s best friend - and to be our own best friend. I want to create a space where we can address each of our personal challenges with both humility and grace - defined as an openness to personal growth.
Interconnected Us will achieve this in a multitude of ways, as we build a new community out of the ether, step by step. Most critically, the backbone of our community is, and will always be, providing peer roundtables for women lawyers. Why? We are tigresses out there in the world, but we too need a space to address private matters. In addition, as we grow, the community will offer masterclasses, CLE’s, coaching-like “office hours,” playful virtual happy hours, networking, affinity groups, retreats, and much, much more.
I close with two quotes that have impacted me and will shape this business-in-formation:
“Five years from now, you're the same person except for the people you've met and the books you've read.” - the late John Wooden
“In a deeply interconnected world, there is no 'other'.” - Anand Gandhi
Interconnected Us is currently open for new members; women lawyers are warmly invited to sign up to meet your inner circle, where you’ll enter a confidential community to address your most discreet challenges, and to grow and network in our wider community of women lawyers.
Thank you again for asking, Tory Burch Foundation. We stand with you in encouraging women to #EmbraceAmbition. Namaste. Shalom.
xo R
