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Think you'd make a great free agent? Author and entrepreneur Joline Godfrey believes that choice could be right for you.
In her book Our Wildest Dreams: Women Entrepreneurs Making Money, Having Fun, Doing Good, Godfrey writes about all kinds of women who've gone out on their own -- everyone from Anita Roddick of the Body Shop to two female crane operators in the San Francisco harbor. Her basic theme: Women can do whatever they set their minds to, as long as they believe in it and are careful to find the resources and support they need.
Among the facts that support that theme:
- Women are starting businesses at a faster rate than men.
- Women are much more likely to leave an ill-fitting job to go out on their own.
- Women are much less likely than men to have adequate retirement income, and so the need for them to work longer is greater.
- Women are much better than men at listening to customers and employees, and hence, are more likely to make a go of their own ventures.
- Women are much less fettered by tradition than men are, and they are willing to do whatever it takes to get a job done.
Godfrey should know. She was once a social worker who functioned as one of the first intrapreneurs at Polaroid Corp. in Boston, creating teaching/training modules and games that would sell Polaroid film. With the blessings of senior management, this Fortune 500 company turned out to be an incubator for her own ideas. After the success of her first book, Godfrey went on to found Independent Means, which offers workshops and camps for adolescent girls on how to be economically self-sufficient, as well as training programs for adults eager to keep the movement alive. Her next book was appropriately titled No More Frogs to Kiss. What Godfrey is teaching girls -- and all women -- is that they are inherently excellent free-agent material: They just have to keep reminding themselves that women become free agents partly because they have an innate proclivity to be good at it, and partly because, in a sexist, racist, ageist world, it's very often the best way for them to take care of themselves.
If there's somebody you think needs to hear this, print out this article and give it to her, or click on the Send to a Friend link at the bottom of the page. And if the person is you, post this on your refrigerator, where you can see it every day. Also be sure to have a look at . Here's a reminder from George Eliot, a female author who didn't dare to use her real name in her own time: It is never too late to be what you might have been.