Story of the Month: July
Define Success in Your Own Terms
Deborah Rosada Shaw, a power house Hispanic woman in her thirties, stood at the podium of the Waldorf-Astoria in front of 1400 high-powered business people. “Today I share with you a sweet moment,” she began. “Mine is a journey that speaks to the power of the human spirit and what can be accomplished when we dare to dream.”
Deborah had come to the Waldorf to receive the 1996 Avon Women of Enterprise Award, in recognition of her remarkable success.To arrive at this sweet moment Deborah had conquered adversities that would have knocked most of us to the ground. Born into poverty in the South Bronx, she grew up next to the church, now a ruined shell, where her minister father preached. “It was a place,” she recalls, “where children lived an unimaginable human existence, where you could get stabbed during a school bathroom break or die in your sleep from stray bullets.” Determined and bright, Deborah won a scholarship to Wellesley College where she ran face first into a wall of prejudice. After a year, unable to bear the humiliation any longer, she dropped out and returned to the miserable home environment she had fled. “The only difference with my being in that environment this time,” she says, “is that now I didn’t have any hope.”
But Deborah didn’t give up. Unfolding her wings, she learned to soar over the walls of prejudice, against both her ethnicity and her gender, and eventually landed atop her own multi-million dollar business, Umbrellas Plus. She dressed like a man; she behaved like a man. She bought a big house in a fancy New Jersey suburb, as far away from dismal South Bronx as she could imagine. Despite her apparent success, however, Deborah sank into a deep depression. Just months before the Avon celebration she could barely crawl out of bed each day. All she could manage to do was listen to motivational tapes. She felt hopeless, lost, a failure.
“I kept asking myself, ‘Is this what it’s all about? Umbrella girl? Is this what success is? I’d become lost in the Never-Never Land of Getting and Spending. I’d become so focused on escaping poverty that I’d lost sight of the defiant, streetwise girl inside who knew what really mattered, and who wasn’t interested in anyone else’s version of success.” That insight restored her wings. Preparing a short speech for the Avon event, Deborah took a hard look at her past, present and future life, hoping to recapture her true values.
“As I began telling my story, the pieces of my life that had been neatly compartmentalized began to meld,” Deborah explains. “With every word I recovered another piece of myself. Although I was speaking to the audience, I was speaking even more to myself, relating what I saw so clearly. I realized that what
had seen as sources of shame in my past, actually became sources of power in the present, and I didn’t know that until I shared it with the audience that day. It completely changed my life. I had become myself again. I reconnected to the feminine Deborah that had been lost for so long.” That day in New York an Iron Butterfly emerged from her chrysalis.
Deborah went on to write and publish her book Dream Big that gave her a platform for sharing her experiences with others. As she toured the country she heard amazing stories from other women. “I also realized that success depended on being part of very powerful networks. I decided I wanted to create a powerful network for Latina women, a national on-line community. I thought, if we can influence the mothers who sit at the kitchen table, we will be more effective at getting to the real issues.” Deborah had found a new mission, to surface the intelligence and the assets of women and share it with others. From the “umbrella girl” to a woman nuclear physicist, a whole kaleidoscope of Hispanic Iron Butterflies could show other girls and women a new universe of possibilities. Deborah has defined success in her own terms.
“I spoke at a conference about successful women,” Deborah recalls. “All these women presenters were playing big in the world. I said, ‘Wait a minute. We are playing too small.’ In the Hispanic community, we have the highest teenage pregnancy rate, the highest high school drop out rate, the highest illiteracy rate, and the fastest growing population in the United States. Are we living lives in a way that we want? Clearly, we are not expressing our values and skills, because if we were, there is no way this could exist. What outrages me is that we are living in a catatonic state, allowing children to go to sleep hungry in our own neighborhoods.”
Wings. All women come into this world with the potential to grow them. Some let prejudice, discrimination, manipulation, or the expectation of others thwart their development. But some, like Deborah Rosada Shaw, draw on an iron inner strength to unfold them and transform themselves. And the world.
Iron Butterflies like Deborah have all suffered injustices and inequities in life. Given that one in three women in the US and in the world experience physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, injustices prove themselves normative for women. The difference with Iron Butterflies is that they refuse to let these unsettling experiences turn them into victims. Instead, they use them to grow, gain new strengths and embark on new flight paths to success. Their wings may consist of gossamer threads, but like the monarch butterfly, these same wings can fly thousands of miles. Although persistent and patient Iron Butterflies learn not to tough it out alone and develop a powerful network of women. Their support not only helps them to be successful but also insures that Iron Butterflies become strong on their journey rather than hard.
Defining success in her own terms led Deborah to apply her skills and resources to contribute to the greater good of her community and to nourish Latina woman. Like her own personal transformation, Deborah’s work helps transform vulnerabilities in her community, such as limited education and resources, into new strengths and new possibilities for everyone. In transforming themselves and the meaning of success, Iron Butterflies also transform the world.