Carol Soloway's Blog

Women of Achievement 2018

Women Changing and Impacting Society

Join us for a special event to honor our recipient of our Woman of Achievement Award at New York Life Building, 801 N Brand Blvd. 3rd Floor Glendale Ca 91203

 

In a panel discussion, we will also hear from other successful women entrepreneurs on how they have achieved success through financial knowledge.

Tickets are $25, includes wine and cheese reception.

 

May 9th, 2018

5:30 – Registration
6:30 – Panel Discussion
7:00 – Keynote Speaker and Honoree:Dr. Carol Soloway

 

7:20 – Award Presentation
7:30 – Wine and Cheese Reception and networking

RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/women-of-achievement-iaw-2018-tickets-43686049149 

Dr. Carol Soloway-Women of Achievement 2018

 

Author, Chiropractor and Women Leader. Her first career was as an English teacher with a master’s degree in English. She became a chiropractor and established a rewarding practice, she did not stop there and became a Qualified Medical Examiner.

 

Writing has always been passion, she took numerous creative writing. Now, she is enjoying the pinnacle of all of her careers as the author of SEX HAPPENS.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Women of Achievement Past Recipients from left to right:

2014 – Dr. Esther Hess
2015 – Ruth Klein

2016 – Alicia Gargaro-Magana
2017 – Sandra Biskind

The difference between a commitment and a desire, a goal is huge. When we desire something, we go after it. However, if something else comes in the way or it gets difficult, we stop. When we’re committed to something, nothing gets in the way. We will do anything for it. Nothing stops us, not fear of what others say, not challenges, nothing.

After my husband left me, I almost gave up on life. Like so many women, I was devastated and felt unworthy. I also saw so many other women shrivel and literally give up when they were left by men. The women allowed someone else to decide that they weren’t pretty enough, sexy enough, smart enough, enough. I didn’t know how I was going to reach women, but I knew I had to.

But how? Then I thought about stories—they are how we relate, how we learn, and how we remember. As a former English teacher, I knew I could tell a story. That’s how my novel, SEX HAPPENS, was born. As gut-wrenching as EAT PRAY LOVE, and because it’s not an autobiography, as titillating as FIFTY SHADES, it’s about a woman who loses custody of her children and has a custody battle so poisonous it becomes almost murderous. It’s about marriage, motherhood, sex and what we’ll do for each.

Once I made up my mind to help women the only way I knew how, I achieved my dream. It was only because I was committed, was authentic for the first time in my life and shared my secret, and when you read it, you’ll see, I over-delivered on my promise to write a page-turner.

But the best part: Women have been emailing me telling me how the book made them laugh, cry, and it changed their lives. One women emailed from Liverpool, England since her cousin recommended the novel and she said, “it was her story.”

Once we are committed to a cause or idea, amazing things happen—things ever beyond our expectations. Another one said it changed her sex life!! Really.

So, if you’ve ever been disappointed by love, maybe even devastated, the message in SEX HAPPENS can help to empowering you.

If you’ve ever let someone else decide whether you were pretty enough, sexy enough, enough, the story I tell in my novel, SEX HAPPENS, will empower you to take back your power.

When I started my chiropractic practice, I had absolutely no advertising budget so I decided to network. I went to events morning, noon, and night. There were nights when I even slept in the office in order to attend early morning networking. Networking is really just an extension of helping others and we are naturals at nurturing, helping, and giving.

At the networking groups, people were offering their goods and services. Since I couldn’t afford to use the services of other people or buy their products, I connected people. I’d connect a mortgage broker with a realtor, a CPA with a financial planner. Then I’d do one better—I’d invite people to networking groups. Six months ago, I invited a guest to my networking group.  I paid only $65! She then invited me to be a guest on her radio and TV shows!! You don’t even have to pay for your guests. I invited a woman last month and to reciprocate for the introduction, she gave me a $650 vendor booth at her event.

Network your way to success—we’re naturals at it.

Think about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers—They went toe to toe, and she had to do it in heels.  We have to hold ourselves to higher standards.

I remember leaving my chiropractic practice to go to one of my children’s ball games. The patients were irate. Two patients even told the receptionist, “If the doctor isn’t serious about the practice, I’m going elsewhere.”  So, I stayed, missed the games, missed the award ceremonies, missed my children’s lives, but I stayed in the office and over-delivered.

Years later my son joined my practice. The patients referred to him as “the doctor,” and to me as, “the mother.” One day, he left to go to his son’s little league game, and I covered the practice. The patients kept telling me what a great father he was.

Do you know what the most sought-after business skill is in the 21st century?

It’s story telling. Companies are paying huge fees for story tellers. Stories are how we learn, how we relate, how we learn, how we remember, AND how we buy.

And who better to tell a story?

You tell a man, “Nice shoes,” and he’ll mutter something like “um.”

You tell a woman the same, and she’ll tell you why she bought it, where she bought it,  what outfits it goes with, etc. I even had a woman tell me her shoes matched her first bicycle –We can weave stories about everything.

I knew nothing about my finances. I got married at 19. By 20, I was teaching English and going to grad school. Then one baby after another. I left the finances to my husband. I had nothing in my name—except a $10,000 student loan. That was all mine.

We need to know about finances, but often leave it to the men in our lives.

And do you know why women get 70 cents on the dollar?

Because we don’t ask for what we deserve. We ask for what we think the other person will give us. But when it comes to asking for our children—nothing stops us. We’ll corner our relatives and co-workers trying to get them to buy those subscriptions to magazines no one wants, terrible chocolates, etc. But we don’t ask for what we’re worth for ourselves.

A few weeks ago I went to a school in Compton, California to talk to the children about careers. I described what was required to become a chiropractor and how rewarding a career it was. Afterwards, I happened to speak to one little girl, “If you work really, really hard at school, you can be anything?”

She smiled and agreed.

Then I asked her what she wanted to BE when she grows up.

“A princess,” she said.

I knew she didn’t get it so I asked, “What do you want to DO with your life?”

She looked at me with big brown eyes, put her hands on her hips and shook her head, certain I didn’t understand how life worked.

She explained, “To be a princess, you HAVE to marry a prince.”

It made perfect sense when you think about the stories we were told and are still telling our daughters:

Cinderella had to cook and clean for her ugly sisters—until Prince Charming arrives with the glass slipper. Snow White had to cook and clean for Dopey, Grumpy, Sleepy. Believe me, I dated them all—until the prince arrives.

We have to convince our daughters—by example that is—that we women have the ability to be and do anything and don’t need to wait for a prince to rescue us. Remember, think about the glass ceiling and not the glass slipper, and life will be filled with accomplishments and triumphs.

Who wants to be successful?  But have you ever thought about what true success would be for you?  What is it? Would it be selling more homes? Alarms? Building a million-dollar company? Having a great family?  What would success look like for you?

When I was growing up, whenever I did something wrong, my mother would say, “Who do you think you are? Do you think the world is waiting for you?”  No, I’d answer. But actually, I kinda thought it was.   All I wanted was to get married, have children, and live happily-ever-after. That was success for me.  Well, I did get married and I felt like a success. It was easy—Actually, all I had to do was be a fabulous cook, have the patience of mother Teresa with my children and Oh, be a sex goddess at night. Easy!

Well, it didn’t work out and I, like 40% of you reading this blog, got a divorce.   I wasn’t going to let failure define who I was. It wasn’t going to happen. I decided I was going to be a success—another way.  I was going to build another dream—a success. A business.

I sold the family house—It netted $50,000—that was all I had in the world. That was it. All I had to start and operate a business –a chiropractic practice. I knew a third of businesses fail in the first year—That simply was not an option. Failure was not an option.

I didn’t allow failure to define me. After three years, my chiropractic practice was grossing half a million a year.

But here’s the paradox: I felt uncomfortable with success. I didn’t know why, but I wasn’t used to it. So, what did I do? I found a financial advisor who managed to lose most of it.

It was then that I decided I was tired of working so hard for something, wanting it with all my being and then losing it.

There had to be a better way.

I started to study success. I read everything, went to seminars.

Of all the things I learned, one sentence struck a chord—

That was:  Success is a habit; it’s what we allow ourselves.

So I’m thinking a habit. So what makes a habit?

Repetition—doing the same thing over and over again so that it becomes ingrained. 90% of what we do is habit.  90% You can make success your habit.

Let me give you an example of people who are famous who identified clearly what success was to them and didn’t allow failure to define them.

There was a man who wrote a thesis about a business model which he created—a company that would compete with the US Postal Service. He was ridiculed and got a C-. Many of you probably know, he’s Ken Smith the founder of Fed EX. The first day he opened, he had 7 orders and 5 were to himself. But he had 2!

He was a success.

There was a school boy whose teacher sent him home with a note for his mother. His mother read the note to her son, explaining that his teacher said he was too smart for the class and should be home schooled. When his mother died, he found that note. “Your son is dumb. We cannot teach him.”  That was Thomas Edison.

A sixty-five-year-old man took his social security check, a fried chicken recipe, put on a white suit –a summer Santa suit, and tried to sell his recipe. Actually, he wanted to give away his recipe for a percentage of the sales. He got 1009, yes 1009 rejections. I’m speaking of course about Colonel Sanders. For him, failure wasn’t an option.

All these men had one thing in common. They were committed. They didn’t just have a goal—they persisted in the face of failure.

I know. I was committed to writing a novel. I spent 10 years, every spare moment, but I never gave up.  The book, you’ll like the title, Sex Happens, and it’s not a How to Book. It’s a novel.

My husband and I bought an RV and went across the country promoting it.

Some days, I wished I had some fried chicken to sell instead because it would have been easier. But failure wasn’t an option.

Because of that, Sex Happens became a number one Amazon best seller and a LA agent picked it up and is working to sell it as a movie. By the way—it’s a better gift than champagne, chocolates or roses!

So allow yourself to visualize your success. Turn your back on failure and be committed. And you’ll make more than you’ve ever made, have whatever you want, and most importantly, be more than you could ever imagine.

And remember, the world is waiting for you.

Once we’ve been divorced, the devastation has many faces. It may come in the form of addiction—alcohol, drugs, sex, or other destructive behaviors. I chose work as my drug of choice. Sounds positive, but it was just as deleterious as any other drug. Sure, it had sound monetary advantages, and the physical destruction was only limited to long hours and lack of exercise, but emotionally, the effects were the same.

As a chiropractor, I’m familiar with the physical effects of divorce. I see patients who present with stiff necks, back spasms, and headaches. The consequences of stress on our bodies are incredible; studies have shown that cancer often manifests as a result of stress. I know firsthand. I’ve had melanoma twice and there is no doubt that it was the result of stress. Actually, it presented itself right after I married again to the most wonderful man, and I’m thankful and certain it only came when I finally had the support to handle it. If he hadn’t been in my life, I’m sure I would have let it beat me.

This reminds me of the instructions on the airplane: put your air mask on first. Yes, after a divorce, in order to move on, you have to take care of your most valuable resource—yourself. This includes exercising, eating right, finding joy, and most importantly, avoiding addiction as a numbing agent. Life is too precious to punish yourself for something that isn’t all your fault.

If you bear half of the responsibility, why take all of the blame?

The house was quiet, too quiet. I walked from empty room to empty room. My life as a mother had just ended. My children had just packed up their clothes, toys and awards— the end of their life in my home.

Their dad had convinced them to move to his house—a lovely house with a swimming pool, a view of and membership in a prestigious golf course, and even a cute puppy; the promise of a better life was theirs.

There was no provision in our divorce for such an improbability. I had signed the divorce papers which my former husband, their father, gave me. Promising a very generous amount of child custody each month, the agreement seemed fair. I didn’t have any funds of my own to find an attorney to review and possibly rebut the agreement; therefore, I signed.

It was at the moment, the very moment when the door slammed and I realized all my hopes and dreams eluded me. I faced the lowest point of my life. Stripped of my life as a wife and mother, I thought there was no reason to live. I plopped down on the white chair in the family room and cried.

Somehow, somewhere, I found strength. I decided I had something no one else on the planet had. I had three children, and no matter whether I was with them 24/7 or not, I was their mother. I decided every moment I had with the children was going to be valuable, powerful, and important. I also decided I could make something of my life, be an example to them of a survivor.

Two months shy of completing my chiropractic degree, despite the fact that I had no work prospect, I decided I was going to make it. Les Brown, the motivational speaker, promises, if you’re truly hungry, you will succeed because you have greatness in you. I decided to open a chiropractic practice, serve patients exquisitely, and make enough money to be an example to my children.

Although 30% of businesses fail in the first year, I was determined to succeed.  I tried to borrow money to start my practice—try getting a loan as a female with a heavily mortgaged home, a Datsun Maxima, and a $10,000 student loan—not a promising prospect.

But I believed in myself was all I had! I sold the family home which netted $50,000, barely enough for a deposit for rent and equipment and three months of operating expenses. Within six grueling months, sleeping in the office to be able to go to networking meetings morning, noon, and night, the practice was on solid ground.

My practice soared. Sometimes, we have to change our dreams. But it is in the commitment to the dream that makes us a success and makes life worth living.

Yes, my relationship with my now adult children has flourished because I embraced another dream and didn’t allow myself to be a victim.