I was just interviewed by Patricia Rogers of the Austin Business Journal . Ms. Rogers is the List Director for ABJ, writes the Growth Strategies and does some wonderful profiles. She asked me a lot of good questions and I learned something about her. She’s from Houston, we share a love of animals especially horses, and, luckily for Austin, she didn’t follow the advice of her uncle to stay out of journalism (he was a journalist in Houston).
What’s your scariest business moment. Mine? No one would show for a seminar I was giving. Photo from Flickr by Aunt Owwee
One question she didn’t ask was about a scary moment in business. Mine was scary and the most fun. Last March I did a program for SXSW “Networking for Introverts”. Why was I concerned? What if no one showed up? That didn’t happen. As a matter of fact the room was full to overflowing.
I wondered if they would participate. Not good for a speaker when everyone is silent. No worries here either. I found that if you give an introvert an opportunity to talk, they’ll take it. They came up with good comments and questions. It was a blast that I wish I could repeat.
Tomorrow I do this presentation again for Soroptimist International’s South Central Region District meeting. My friend Pat Turner asked me to speak and I could not say no. Pat a long term friend. She’s also one of the women from the Austin Women in Construction club that, under Mayor Carole Keeton Strayhorn (aka Carole McClellen), built the Lady Bird Lake (aka Town Lake) gazebo that I love to see and visit year round. So, I feel I owe it to Pat because of the beauty she and her colleagues brought to the city.
Am I scared? Not exactly. I don’t have to worry about attendees since they will be captive. I do wonder if they will take the lessons extroverts can learn from introverts and use them to their advantage to improve their clubs. Soroptimist clubs do great work on behalf of women and girls. I hope they go back and look at their membership differently. I hope they will embrace the quiet ones. Not to change them but to see the beauty they bring and the potential they have.
What’s your scariest time in business?
Enjoyed the blog. My scariest day at work was my first day at General Dynamics in Fort Worth, Texas. That day was also the first day the factory workers went on strike. I had to drive through people shouting and throwing rocks.
My 2nd most scary day, was my first day observing free ranging Rhesus monkeys. They were known to charge observers and I did not want to get bitten.