No wonder. She's a woman. (READ THE WHOLE POST before you downvote)
I keep seeing this over and over again in my life. Nearly all the women I know, from family to friends, are self driven, independent (even with a family they have a strong sense of self), stable, educated or self-educated, and self disciplined. Earning degrees, starting businesses, or properly investing the family funds. The men I know.... well... we're the worst kind of failures. Not the good Silicon Valley "I failed but I learned" kind of failure. The bad kind of failure where you keep doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. Out of all the men in my the family, my mother is the only one that played her cards right. Financially, career wise, everything. Same with my aunt. Same with my other aunt. Same with my childhood female friends. WTF.
I think I've developed such a bias favoring women that I specifically want a female co-founder. At least I know there's a much less chance of testosterone induced ego trips, driving the company into the ground from unnecessary overly risky decisions. I've noticed that these women's decision making is VERY different from the men's.
From what I've seen. Women change their success strategy much more often, whereas the men keep the same one despite years of failure. Women adjust to change much quicker than the men I know. When women mess up, they say to your face "I'm sorry, it's my fault". In fact they blame themselves a lot more when things go wrong, whereas the men place blame on others and don't apologize at all. Men don't see it as "I screwing up", they see it as "things didn't go my way". Women gather information first, then make a decision. The Men skip the information gathering step. They rush in and just call the shots. It's quicker but more risky and eventually leads to a lot of failures. When business doesn't work, women blame themselves and try to change themselves (get a degree, educate, find new partner, find what they did wrong) but when business doesn't work for men, they try to change the business itself, refusing to admit that it might just be their fault. And lastly, the men I know seem to think they are correct by default and tread ahead into the darkness, whereas the women think they are incorrect by default and carefully tread through decisions.
I think I'm sexist. But I can't help it. You call it sexism and generalizing but I call it 'pattern recognition'. Literally all the women in my extended family and friends have good jobs and the guys (me included) have nothing or terrible jobs. I feel as if I'm destined for a life of failure. I know I shouldn't feel that way but I can't help it. It feels inescapable. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense and becomes evident. Sorry if I dragged any men into the same depressive pit that I'm stuck in.
There are lots of guys doing huge things very successfully. Bezos just located an Apollo rocket on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. James Cameron has gone from being one of the most successful film directors to being one of the most successful deep divers of all time. These are bold things that were successful. Being a risk taker causes a higher variance in ones endeavors, which implies some spectacular failures, but that also implies occasional spectacular successes.
Don't count yourself out just because of your gender. Tracy is awesome because she's Tracy, not because she's a woman. Actually, just don't count yourself out period, that's silly. You can always improve at things.
I should have emphasized more on the fact that this is what I'm seeing with the men and women that -> I <- know and have met. Those successful men you mentioned obviously have behaviors that I (or anyone in my family) don't have. It's just that in my life I'm seeing more of those behaviors in women than in men. Leading me to feel this way. I shouldn't, I know. It's illogical and I deserve the downvotes for such a loaded, wide, generalizing, polarizing statement, but I can't help but feel this way.
Ah ok, gotcha. I personally know a bunch of very successful guys and gals both, so maybe you just need to meet a wider variety of people. I've mostly lived in urban areas (Boston, NYC, Silicon Valley), though, so that probably skews my own sample pretty badly.
Yes you're right it's partly an excuse (40%) but also a way (60%) for me to try and find the reasons for why I and others in my family have failed so I can change myself and stop making the same mistakes. I have a problem with your advice. I already had and still have high expectations for myself, my family does too. That's not working. The problem with my dreams, ideas, and goals is that they are coming from me. I am the flawed one and I need to change.
Fair enough, here's another piece of advice: Surround yourself with people who are better than you, especially the types of people you'd like to become more like. Conversely, avoid people who are averse to the change you're experiencing and drag you down from becoming the person you want to be.
You spoke of male friends who are failures—those are the people you want to avoid. Start hanging out a lot more with your successful female friends, find mentors who will help guide you to improvement, get a job where you feel like the stupidest person in the room.
This goes back to setting high expectations for yourself. You're not the only variable.
I keep seeing this over and over again in my life. Nearly all the women I know, from family to friends, are self driven, independent (even with a family they have a strong sense of self), stable, educated or self-educated, and self disciplined. Earning degrees, starting businesses, or properly investing the family funds. The men I know.... well... we're the worst kind of failures. Not the good Silicon Valley "I failed but I learned" kind of failure. The bad kind of failure where you keep doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. Out of all the men in my the family, my mother is the only one that played her cards right. Financially, career wise, everything. Same with my aunt. Same with my other aunt. Same with my childhood female friends. WTF.
I think I've developed such a bias favoring women that I specifically want a female co-founder. At least I know there's a much less chance of testosterone induced ego trips, driving the company into the ground from unnecessary overly risky decisions. I've noticed that these women's decision making is VERY different from the men's.
From what I've seen. Women change their success strategy much more often, whereas the men keep the same one despite years of failure. Women adjust to change much quicker than the men I know. When women mess up, they say to your face "I'm sorry, it's my fault". In fact they blame themselves a lot more when things go wrong, whereas the men place blame on others and don't apologize at all. Men don't see it as "I screwing up", they see it as "things didn't go my way". Women gather information first, then make a decision. The Men skip the information gathering step. They rush in and just call the shots. It's quicker but more risky and eventually leads to a lot of failures. When business doesn't work, women blame themselves and try to change themselves (get a degree, educate, find new partner, find what they did wrong) but when business doesn't work for men, they try to change the business itself, refusing to admit that it might just be their fault. And lastly, the men I know seem to think they are correct by default and tread ahead into the darkness, whereas the women think they are incorrect by default and carefully tread through decisions.
I think I'm sexist. But I can't help it. You call it sexism and generalizing but I call it 'pattern recognition'. Literally all the women in my extended family and friends have good jobs and the guys (me included) have nothing or terrible jobs. I feel as if I'm destined for a life of failure. I know I shouldn't feel that way but I can't help it. It feels inescapable. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense and becomes evident. Sorry if I dragged any men into the same depressive pit that I'm stuck in.