Before reading this post, for context, please treat yourself to Chilean-American novelist Isabel Allende’s smart, funny, and moving TED talk “Tales of Passion”.
As a seasoned and successful storyteller, all of Isabel’s passion and talent is on display in the words and stories she shares during this TED session. She reserves her highest praise for the brave women she encounters on a daily basis—women who’re poor, exploited, and disenfranchised in an ugly world. She is emboldened by their ability to manage, through the power of passion and determination, to spread beauty, love, and joy—to manifest miracles. She reserves her most biting criticisms for those who choose not to see women as peers, partners, and equals, but rather as objects to be used and discarded. Still, despite the somber undertones of her speech, Isabel is on that TED stage to spread a message of hope and encouragement to women everywhere. And, by sharing several stories,starring real-world women overcoming unbelievable odds, she does.
Isabel is also there to issue a rallying cry to both genders. The time for change is, and always has been now, and it’s by living with integrity and passion, that the world can evolve into a place where opportunity and prosperity is available to anyone, anywhere. Now, this is a message I believe we can all get behind and champion. It’s one that, like my personal mantra of “Lift while you climb”, can help women around the world break through barriers in both their personal and professional lives.
The message of this TED talk is particularly important to me as a leader of men and women who has dedicated her career to mentoring, building, growing, and empowering companies, colleagues, executives, and aspiring entrepreneurs. I love what I do, and wish everyone could be as lucky as I feel I am—I get to meet and work with some of the most caring, enthusiastic, and passionate people our society has to offer. But, despite the best efforts of great people like Isabel Allende, I’m painfully aware that in 2017 women around the world are often still treated as second-class citizens, as inferior, less important, less intelligent, and less capable versions of men.
It is my hope that the message and stories shared by Isabel in this speech reach an even wider audience, and further inspire and empower the women of today’s world to get up, get out, make a difference and take care of each other.
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