August 12, 2007

If you are female, if you consider yourself a minority in your workplace or business field, either through your cultural heritage, religious heritage, or sexual orientation, and you are an entrepreneur, business owner, solopreneur, and/or expert in your current field, please let me share your story with others!

(examples: African-American, Asian, Latina, Hispanic, Native American, Arab, mixed-race, hapa, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, part of the LGBTQ community, or somehow you are a minority in your circle of competitors and colleagues)

Greetings, my name is Monica Flores and I am a Filipina-American business owner based in Hawai’i. I am collecting your stories for a book on women of color and entrepreneurship, with anecdotal evidence, quantitative data, and personal stories, to be published in late 2008.

Other women will benefit from hearing your story of your business, not just the easy parts or the times when you experienced great success, but the difficult challenges and the tests to your spirit that you encounter while building your company and rising in your field. It is important to me to focus on these unique challenges and publish specific stories from real women. We have a chance to encourage other women to take charge of the future and build on our knowledge.

So, I ask you to please share with me and our readers:

What is one defining obstacle that you encountered in your work? How did you overcome it?

An obstacle is something that impedes progress or achievement: this might be the “glass ceiling,” the choice you made between starting your own company or staying at your job, a family crisis, an impediment with your business process that you overcame, the growth phase of your company, dealing with employees, dealing with partners, outright discrimination… anything that you consider a real obstacle and that you overcame (or are in the process of overcoming), our readers would like to hear about.

You may use e-mail, fax, or our online submission form.

Please note if you would like to keep your information anonymous. Your story will be published with a pseudonym, or anonymously, if you so indicate. We reserve the right to publish brief, anonymous excerpts from your stories through ASuccessfulWoman.com or other channels in preparation for the book’s launch.

I appreciate your generosity in sharing your knowledge with others.

Sincerely,
Monica Flores
Link to this page: http://www.asuccessfulwoman.com/stories

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS TO HELP ORGANIZE YOUR THINKING:

1) Where did you get started in your business?

2) What values do you try to live by in your business?

3) Name one of your biggest challenges, how you faced it, and what you learned from that situation.

4) When was your most successful moment to date?

5) What is the message you’d like to share with other aspiring women of color in business?

By sending Monica Flores this information, you authorize its publication either:

1) Anonymously (No name or business name used)
(A Latina business owner, based in the northeast…)

2) Use a Pseudonym
(Anna*, not her real name, of a waste management company in Virginia…)

3) You may use my full name and business contact information
(Beatriz Gutierrez, of Waste Disposal Inc. in Richmond, VA says…)

CONTACT INFO: Send me your 3-paragraph bio (or whatever you feel comfortable sharing) and your type of industry, as well as your link to your business or contact information.

If you’d like to remain totally anonymous, please use our online contact form

Your submission gives us your permission to publish your responses.

Thank you!