Women can ”have it all” if they are willing to take risks and start their own companies, says a businesswoman who has been her own boss for a decade.
”The easiest way to combine career and family is to own your own business and that involves risk,” says Jeannette R. Scollard, author of the recently published ”Risk To Win: A Woman`s Guide to Success” (Macmillan, $17.95).
Women tend to exaggerate the negative aspects of risk, says Scollard, 42, owner of a real estate business and a communications firm.
”Yet most women feel more comfortable than men taking risks in their personal lives,” observes Scollard, who is divorced and ”on the verge” of remarrying. ”What bigger risks can there be than starting a relationship, getting married or having children?”
Scollard, a ”born risk-taker and entrepreneur,” was named the first woman vice president of Cheseborough-Pond`s in 1978. She is a member of the Committee of 200, a national network of women business leaders founded in Chicago. Since 1979, she has launched 12 businesses, including a fishing company and restaurant in the Caribbean and a restaurant in Florida.
Scollard believes that a woman who wants to reach for the heights must eventually strike out on her own.
”Women have no choice because the `glass ceiling` exists,” says Scollard, a frequent guest lecturer at Harvard, Northwestern and the University of Pennsylvania business schools. ”If you want to have real power in big business you have to take your corporate experience and become your own boss.”
More Top Picks Best Outdoor Saunas
Women might be less hesitant about risks if they stopped taking failures so personally, Scollard says.
”All successful people survived failure,” she says. ”Just remember that comebacks are admired more than people who make success look easy.”