Network Circle Peer Groups
Fill out a confidential professional profile to be matched in a private peer networking group of 4 - 10 members with common interests. You'll be able to learn, seek advice, discuss topics and share viewpoints.  Typical groups will include the following areas of interest: Corporate Fast Track Entrepreneurial Journey Selling a Business New Career Path Job Loss Transition Self Employment Networking Skills Mentoring Work or Career Change Re-entering the Workforce After Raising Children Promotion Back to College Back to Work Finding Time for Personal Growth Building a Friendship Support System Divorce Relocation Empty Nest Retirement Aging Parents Dating as a Professional Women Work Family Life Balance Work Health Life Balance Work Single Life Balance My Own Forum Group Click here to go to the Network Circle page.
Author: Site Contributor

Network Circle Peer Group
Fill out a confidential professional profile to be matched in a private peer networking group of 4 - 10 members with common interests. You'll be able to learn, seek advice, discuss topics and share viewpoints.  Typical groups will include the following areas of interest: Corporate Fast Track Entrepreneurial Journey Selling a Business New Career Path Job Loss Transition Self Employment Networking Skills Mentoring Work or Career Change Re-entering the Workforce After Raising Children Promotion Back to College Back to Work Finding Time for Personal Growth Building a Friendship Support System Divorce Relocation Empty Nest Retirement Aging Parents Dating as a Professional Women Work Family Life Balance Work Health Life Balance Work Single Life Balance My Own Forum Group
Author: Site Contributor

What Does It Mean to Work Smart quiz?
Have you ever known someone who just seems to "have it all together?" Maybe that someone is you and maybe you could do even better. "Having it all together," is what many perceive as "working smart." But what does it really mean to "work smart?" Is it a mysterious quality that some of us are born with, and the rest without? Or is it a skill set that can be learned and mastered? Most business and relationship experts support that "working smart" is a skill set that enables one to achieve balance in life and be fruitful. Many women have intuitively been using these skills to successfully juggle their many responsibilities. When done effectively, the result is a general contentment and satisfaction both personally and professionally. When reflected on and analyzed, five key traits of "working smart" emerge. They may be remembered best using the acronym BRIEF for: Balanced, Results achieving, Independent minded, Energized and Fit in. 5 Traits of Women Who Work Smarter Balanced:  ...
Author: Jean Lewis

The Myth of Perfect Life Balance
Life Balance seems to be getting a lot of airplay these days as most people find themselves living continually busier lives. Balance is important because without it we find ourselves feeling overwhelmed, stressed out, run down and unable to enjoy our relationships or our lives as fully as we'd like. However, striking perfect balance in a world of perpetual change is nearly a mission impossible. So what is “balance” anyway? The “B” word has become mighty popular over the last decade as our lives have become continually busier. If there isn’t enough pressure on you already, you now have the additional one of striking "perfect balance" like it's something you can capture and keep permanently. Uggh--more to get stressed about!  Well I don't know about you, but most people I know feel like they’re perpetually falling short when it comes to leading perfectly balanced lives. There’s a reason--the nature of perfect balance is that it will always be elusive. Picture the circus performer up on...
Author: Margie Warrell

C-Link Suite Interview: Nina Vaca
Nina Vaca, CEO of Pinnacle Technical Resources, Inc., one of the 27 winners of the w2wlink 2009 Ascendancy Awards for Business Women, two-time winner of Hispanic Business Magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award as well as Ernst & Young’s 2005 Entrepreneur of the Year award for Technology and Communications for the Southwest Region, founded Pinnacle in 1996. Pinnacle is an information technology services provider to the Fortune 500. The company’s client base includes industry leaders from the telecommunications, financial services, health care, technology, consumer products and business process outsourcing sectors. Pinnacle’s services include enterprise data warehousing, custom application development and architecture, system/network integration and installation, and call center technologies. Under Vaca’s leadership, Pinnacle has become the second fastest growing firm in a $20 billion dollar industry, and now includes approximately 1,500 consultants across 38 states. She is a gradua...
Author: Jean Lewis

C-Link Suite Interview with Lesley Harris
One of our 27 recipients of the 2009 Ascendancy Awards for Business Women, as president of Travelocity Business, Lesley Harris leads one of the fastest growing travel management companies in North America. From its origin in 2003 serving unmanaged business travelers, Travelocity Business now has more than $800 million in travel spend under management. Prior to Travelocity Business, Harris was vice president of sales and customer care for Travelocity, responsible for leading Travelocity's offline global call center enterprise in support of consumer sales and service. Before that, she was vice president of the small business division for Sabre Travel Network where she transitioned the small business division from direct account management to a service center structure. Prior to her experience in sales, Harris was vice president of North America operations services for Sabre Travel Network. Harris started her career with Sabre in 1995 and held various positions in finance, operations an...
Author: Jean Lewis

Build Your Business Through Smart Networking
Many of us still have a negative perception when we hear the word "networking," and, as I always say, it's a misunderstood word. My theory is that good networking skills build links and alliances with people we meet along our career path. The opposite of networking is not working. You can learn from everyone you meet and also be a resource to them. If you are lucky, down the road something may come back. Here are a few questions that I am  often asked about this "new philosophy" on something that has been around since the beginning of time. Is networking just about finding customers and growing one's business? Networking is all about developing and building relationships first. When this happens with hard work and sincerity, customers will come. It's like a garden. When you meet new people for the first time, it's like planting a seed. When you stay in touch by meeting for coffee or sending a holiday card, it's like watering the seeds. Finally when there is a genuine reason for yo...
Author: Andrea Nierenberg

5-Question Self-Quiz: Cholesterol and Professional Women
Super Basic Heart Health Quiz for Professional Women Professional women are especially in need of having their awareness raised on the importance of caring for their hearts, as heart disease is the number one cause of dealth to women, and professional women balance unique work-life issues and deal with enormous amounts of stress daily.  Brighten your heart by taking a moment and letting yourself do this quick little 5-question care-for-your-heart self-quiz, and and then if it raises your awareness, go ahead and pass it along! Answer the following questions True or False (T or F) as of one year ago. 1. ___I know my blood pressure. 2. ___I know my cholesterol. 3. ___I know my LDL. 4. ___I know my HDL. 5. ___I know my triglycerides. Bonus___I know that drinking more than 2 diet sodas a day is not healthy. Scoring: Give yourself one point for every question that you answered "True." 1 = Not good enough, but glad you knew one of them. As you can see, the very basics of heart heal...
Author: Suzanne Steinbaum

Life Balance for Professional Women
Midway upon the journey of my life I found myself in a dark wood, where the right way was lost. --Dante, the Divine Comedy   Women at midlife have one of the highest levels of stress found in our culture today. This is not surprising, given the multiple roles they carry, the expectations of our culture and the speed of our lifestyle. Midlife women are working in positions of responsibility on a scale never previously reached by women. At the same time, there is a 50 percent chance they are single and another 50 percent chance that they are caring for children or parents (or both) in some capacity. More than four out of 10 adults in the United States between the ages of 45 and 55 – mostly women – are caring for a child as well as for an older adult, usually a parent. Of those caregivers, 64 percent are employed full or part time, according to the National Alliance for Caregiving. What are we talking about when we talk about life balance? I was prompted to write this article when I rea...
Author: Jennifer Wright

Current Women's Destination Spa Events
Perfect Health This five day program focuses on bringing a sense of calm and balance to those who are experiencing emotional, physical, relationship or career-related stress or distress. Held periodically in Carlsbad, CA at The Chopra Center for Well-Being.     Shape Your Life A five day program with seminars on rejuvenation, renewal and community building along with classes on diet, nutrition, self esteem, body image and behavior.  Activities include yoga and outdoor adventures. Held periodically in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada at The Western Resort & Spa.    The Women’s Journey Presented by Leslee Vogal.   A day for women to dive into the journey of themselves and explore information and myths about how to be healthy and whole during the entire menopause period.  Located at the 70-acre Enchantment Resort in Sedona’s Boynton Canyon, the native people have long considered this a sacred place. At an altitude of 4,600 feet, Mii amo is surrounded by the majestic Red Rock/Secret...
Author: Site Contributor

Learn to Ask for What You Need
Requests are powerful. Truly. While no one request is guaranteed to change the course of your career, business, relationships or life, any single request can. Requests have the potential to make a profound difference to the quality of your life and your ability to achieve the success you want. Sure, just because you ask for something doesn’t guarantee that you will get it.  But not asking for it does guarantee you won’t!  Would you really prefer the certainty of having your needs unmet over the possibility of having them met? Surely not?! As someone dedicated to helping people fulfill their full spectrum of needs, I often find myself surprised at how few people actually ask for what they really want and how even fewer ask for it in ways that maximize the chances of getting it.  So I’m curious: Right now, as you read this article, what needs do you have that are going unmet and are causing you to feel resentful, frustrated and unappreciated because, whether you are conscious of it or ...
Author: Margie Warrell

Self-Quiz: On Grieving a Husband at Work
Divorce or death of a husband is a sizeable distraction in every facet of life. How does the professional woman manage the loss of such a loved one at work? Learn about this grief from the following quiz. Choose one answer that best describes your belief by putting an X beside the answer you agree with. Learn how to be a better friend and support, or manage your loss better yourself. 1. Jennifer and her husband divorced after one year. Five months later, Jennifer has gone out on three casual dates. ___A. She was only married a year. Find love—life is short. ___B. Jennifer should concentrate on her female friendships. ___C. Jennifer should work on learning about herself, men and relationships by spending time with men and women. 2. After six years of a difficult marriage, Renee and her husband divorce. She is devastated. ___ A. You tell her to move on with her life and offer to fix her up. ___ B. Encourage Renee to get professional help. ___ C. Buy a bottle of wine and start a w...
Author: LeslieBeth Wish

Protect Your Personal Life
The tense and demanding workplace environment depicted in The Devil Wears Prada may hit a little too close to home. If an annoying boss or colleague is ruining your work day by adding to your stress or intruding into your personal time, you’re not alone. According to an online job source CareerBuilder.com survey, more than half of workers say they work under a great deal of stress, with nearly 77 percent reporting they feel burnout on the job. Difficult co-workers, unrealistic workloads and overbearing bosses are only some of the top workplace stressors mentioned. A stressful workplace can also wreck havoc with a professional woman's personal life as many always agree to stay late, attend co-workers’ weddings, baby showers, and weekend parties and Friday night after-work get-togethers. As I point out in The Book of NO: 250 Ways to Say It—and Mean It and Stop People-Pleasing Forever, it’s important to distinguish between who at the office is a friend and who is no more than a 5-9 offic...
Author: Susan Newman

2 Steps to Effectively Communicating Your Analysis
How to view it -- Step 1: The key words here are "my" and "analysis." Let’s start with the word "my." Focusing on "I" or "me" is not the lead value for professional women. For women, supporting the group or the team is big. In the last twenty years corporate America has talked a lot about teams and team building. But the fact is that men tend to focus on individuality. Team sports have "stars". Everyone knows Tiger Woods or the Gold medal winner. But no one knows the #20 ranked golfer in the world or who won the bronze medal in anything. Men tend to do individual tasks in teams. It is the exceptional team where people truly think in terms of we rather than I. A man’s sense of self-esteem comes from doing. He thinks, "I am valuable based on what I do." That is how they tend to think about others in the work world. How to do it: So If you want your ideas to be valued, you need to claim ownership to your work. You must get comfortable saying the words "I" and "my," "I crunched the numbe...
Author: Robert Schwarz

Lessons from Childhood
Childhood—good or bad —has taught us that one of the cornerstones of happy families is sharing and collaborating. Even if your home life wasn’t wonderful, it’s likely you knew, from the idealized television families or the happy families of your friends, the benefits of working together. And remember your kindergarten teacher reminding everyone to share crayons or help put away the toys? In many of today’s competitive work environments, it’s easy for us to lose sight of the value of collaborating, sharing information and helping others. Use this tip sheet to enrich your projects, your networking and your value in your profession. Remembering the positive lessons of childhood to bring about your best self for networking and business communication is a powerful technique, especially in the areas of sharing and collaborating.   Tip Sheet 1. Create an informal team. Does your work assignment seem overwhelming? Are you struggling to gain recognition to position yourself in the office? ...
Author: LeslieBeth Wish

Take Your Career to the Next Level
Discover your higher career potential by harnessing the power of peer networking on the web with w2wlink's Network Circles.  They are effortless to join, and match you specifically to private groups of reasonable size for professional women who share similar interests with you.  The Network Circle concept was created by CEO Lisbeth McNabb (formerly CFO of match.com), who knows the Internet and knows about matching. Have you ever wondered ‘How does she do it?’ about the professional women who seem to 'have it all' – great leadership and presentation skills, strong networking connections, a balanced work and family life and the ability to deal with seemingly any challenge that comes their way.  How can other professional women everywhere tap into, learn and be mentored by these women who have the business world figured out?  Networking. . . with w2wlink.com's online networking circles that match professional women with like interests into private groups of up to ten, it has never been...
Author: Site Contributor

Social Network Website For Professional Women Launches
w2wlink.com, the premier website community for professional women has launched and is dedicated to providing expert content and a free private online networking environment for women at different stages of their lives and careers.  Using the site, women everywhere can log on any time that fits their busy schedules and changing needs.  The website makes it simple to find resources, seek advice from peers, discuss topics of common interest and offer personal viewpoints using the SmartComments tool. The site is designed around four core subject areas that include Work Smart, Inner Self, Connections and Wellness.  Each information area features articles and videos from nationally recognized writers, expert business and life coaches, top academics and experienced executive women who want to share their expertise and help women develop their professional and personal lives in an online community environment.  An additional unique feature of the site is the proprietary Network Circle tool. ...
Author: Site Contributor

Professional Women: Starting a New Assistant
As a professional woman, presenting objective, clear information about your new assistant's job both helps your assistant start, and builds the impression that you can be relied on as a solid boss with strong and sensible guidelines. How your assistant perceives you is reflected in even the subleties how they communicate to others about you, and as a professional woman, building your reputation as a diligent and appropriately detached professional is ever important. Creating and executing a good start plan is critical to starting off right, and avoiding bumpy beginnings. Since your assistant interacts with you on a daily basis, makes certain your professional life is organized and takes care of work that allows you to be even more productive, the start plan has to enable your assistant to feel confident helping you. You’ll want to have the most constructive relationship possible with this person. Getting off to a rough start can set a precedent that may not ever resolve itself. Three ...
Author: Dave Willmer

Damned or Doomed - The Double-Bind Dilemma for Women
Gender stereotyping, one of the key barriers to women’s advancement in corporate leadership, leaves women with limited, conflicting and often unfavorable options no matter how they choose to lead, according to a recent study. "The Double-Bind Dilemma for Women in Leadership: Damned if You Do, Doomed if You Don’t" was  released  by Catalyst, a nonprofit organization working to advance opportunities for women and business. This report, the third in Catalyst’s in-depth series examining the pervasive and damaging effects of gender stereotyping in the workplace, focuses on the consequences of gender bias and three specific “double-bind dilemmas” frequently experienced by women business leaders. The study also suggests organizational solutions to counter the persistent effects of gender stereotyping. Catalyst findings strongly suggest that gender stereotypes lead organizations to routinely underestimate and underutilize women’s leadership talent. The 2006 Catalyst Census shows that, even th...
Author: Site Contributor

11 Tips for Being Productive While Working Out of a Suitcase
Not everyone has the natural ability to live out of a suitcase or do business from a laptop bag. However, with a little practice, you can learn how to make the most of your travel time. It’s amazing what you can get done when you put some miles between yourself and the usual distractions of everyday life. So how do you make the most of your time away? Here are some tips that work for me. I hope a few of them will help you become as efficient when you’re away from the office as you are when you’re there. 1. Pack efficiently It all starts with being organized and thinking ahead. Did you ever stay up half the night packing and spend an entire trip frustrated, exhausted, and wondering what it is you forgot? Don’t let it happen again. It’s pretty rare that a trip will pop up at the last minute, but they do have a way of sneaking up on you. Instead of getting packed the day before, start thinking about your trip the week before. Find an out of the way spot to leave an open suitcase and dr...
Author: Laura Stack

How to Stop Over-thinking Your Life and Start Living It
I had only enough money to last two more weeks. And the lease on the tiny furnished apartment I had rented for a month was about to expire. So, basically, I had one week to find an apartment and a job. I was 23 years old, jobless, and about to be homeless in New York City. And as odd as it sounds, I wasn’t worried. I mean, how hard could it be? A week should be plenty of time, I thought. I was young and naive and from Ohio, where people pretty much say what they mean, do what they say, and assume that the shortest distance between two points really is a straight line. We also tend to believe that, on the whole, things work out the way they’re supposed to. A few days before my lease was up, I told all three of my friends, who were smart native New Yorkers, that my time for job searching and apartment finding was almost over. They were horrified. “Gail, it takes weeks, sometimes months, to find an apartment here. You’ll probably get a job, but talk about cutting it close! Are you crazy?...
Author: Gail Blanke