You cant get respect until you know what you want to be respected for.

You cant get respect until you know what you want to be respected for. I was talking to this woman whos in her late 20s about how you have to know what you want to be respected for in order to feel respected. People cant respect you if you dont respect you. I cant tell you her name. Lets call her Imogene because its one of the most popular names of 2014 and I  want this blog to feel fresh even though Im writing about a topic that I have not been able to shut up about for five years. My investors respect me.  But Im pretty sure they respect  me for my track record and not for what Im doing now, which is running a startup in slow motion. But whatever. Its my fourth startup. Theyre all the same. You waste money on things that dont work. Over and over again. The problem is believing in yourself  through all that. And Ive done that. Speaking of my startup, this  would be a great time to announce a new course, because you are listening, but instead Im going to go on a tirade. So I was talking to Imogene  and she told me that Im having so much trouble with my current life because I want to be respected for work, but I feel compelled to give my kids a great childhood to make up for my own shitty childhood, so I am focused on my  kids instead of my work and its not fulfilling. I was defensive, and then incredulous, and then I thought Fuck her. You can fail at a lot and still earn respect. And its  really bad I am writing this because Imogene  will  recognize herself as the object of my wrath. But  sometimes you have to shoot the messenger  we cant be our best selves all the time. So in that spirit, Im just going to tell you.  It was Melissa. Melissa said this to me, and I was really shocked. Because Melissa is usually right about everything. But she pissed me off so much that I realized that I think Im doing great, and I cant actually believe that she cant see that  Im doing great. Heres where Im not doing great: I wish I were writing more. I wish I were doing webinars more. I wish I still have a twentysomething butt. I take anti-anxiety medicine that maybe I would not need if I were not a mom. But probably I would need to take it because when I was the standout startup girl everyone lusted for, I was also throwing up in-between team-bonding meetings. So probably I need anti-anxiety medicine for whatever I do. Look at what you do well. Now. Thats what  earns you respect, whether you like it or not. What Im saying is that I love this blog so much and thank you so so so much for reading and also thank you for making this blog have such great comments that even my brother who is  a total big shotand I cant believe I hide his name here because his whole office reads my blogeven he says I have some of the smartest comments of any blog. When I question if Im successful, I think about this blog. And how Ive been able to earn enough money to not starve. (Even though sometimes I have to use the farm account if I have bad cash flow.) (And even though right now my husband wants to kill me.) But even though he wants to kill me, I have a solid marriage (which is not really a marriage because he wont marry me because I have too many tax problems) but even those are not huge problems to me because I can compartmentalize. Which, by the way, is an innate skill of all good CEOs. It just happens that its not usually a skill of women. And Im a rockstar at compartmentalization. (You have to be, to throw up during work and still look like a leader.) Its okay to stop caring about some stuff. So I am happy that Im homeschooling my kids. And some days I want to kill myself because most of the people I used to network with I would rather die than talk to me now. Because  I have nothing to say. Because I dont care what theyre doing. I just want to be a good mom and have intelligent conversation. And in the end, I want respect for this blog and respect for being a good mom. Maybe youre thinking its easy to be a good mom. Maybe it is. I wouldnt know, because I have a mom who did  not get respect for her parenting. Well, at least from her kids. The rest of the world, the world that does not read my blog,  thinks shes a great parent because all her kids have big jobs. If you count my job as big. My mom calls me a journalist because shes from the generation that thinks that job is impressive. You can only get respect for something you work hard at. What I call myself is someone doing a good job of keeping my life interesting while I raise my kids. And Im meeting my goals. Like, I can pay my taxes. My investors are rich and famous and you would know them but I promised  a thousand times that I would not name them on the blog. Ill tell you, though, that Ive learned a lot from them. Especially about my taxes. Still, I will not get your respect from handling my taxes properly because I dont care enough. I wont even be able to get married for learning to do my taxes right; my (not) husband still thinks Im a maniac with my money. I had forty years of therapy so I can be a good mom. But  still, we all go to a family therapist because Im so scared of being my parents, so scared of messing things up. I respect myself because Im doing something really hard for me. On anti-anxiety medicine. Because all this makes me nervous, but thats why I have you along for the ride. Thank you. Writing this post was not hard for me. It took me only five years. Five years of trying to figure out who I am if I am not a top-flight serial entrepreneur. But who I am is fine. I want to be respected for doing work I like and being the kind of mom I want to be. And for keeping a friend like Melissa, whos willing to tell me stuff that makes me want to scream.