I am trying to arrange a Book Club in my town. I would love to create a community of women who can help each other, and unlock all the myths of our society and culture.
Then lately, I have been recommending a lot of books to different people and it is being fun! I am feeling it is a capability I want to build and I want to keep it up. Some influencers I love used to say that their first mentors were their books and their favorite authors. You know, I always felt impersonal saying that, but now I do also! Reading gives a lot of knowledge and builds in confidence!
Ah!! Also next week I am kicking off a Book Club in my company. It will be a Book Club for the group Women in Technology! As we are a big company, the invite was sent out to circa 300 women… but I am expecting to show up between 10 and 20 women.
Wow, suddenly looks like I am the queen of Book Clubs, and honestly, I didn’t participate much in Book Clubs before, as in my country there weren’t much of these type of events. I do participate online, but I miss the part of personal communication.
I am forgetting to say this is not natural to me… it doesn’t come up as if it was something that I do all the time, and here it goes, very informal…let’s do a book club. I had to think it was ok, I searched online for all the book clubs I could be participating, and be involved, and online I am in 2 book clubs.
But then regarding my goal of building a community of women that resonate with me, and find women that are mindset alike, I need to be intentional in my actions and be open to the triggers that it may pop up on the way.
I explain… I was being intentional when I looked up for a Book Club for women in the Meetup app, to build a community of women who have the passion to thrive and the courage to talk about their dreams…so in my mind, we should share some of the same influencers and books, and a Book Club would be ideal. Then if I want to grow my impact it will be easier to keep up with the schedule if it is near me, so in my town.
Looking up in Meetup, there was a trigger… a trigger why not me being the organizer!
Look what shows up online:
I know this happens all the time! But this time I was available to pay attention and to take action!
So I am doing it… I am finalizing the location, as there are no much places in my area open after 7 pm, and I want to be at that time, to have the women available after work and children ready. So I thought in my local library, it is not allowed, then in the community center, they have already a Book Club in the afternoons, so they cant, there are no cafes open in my town, so I found out the Library of my County is near me and they have availability! Now finishing up details…
I am in this journey already for 2 months… and I have this feeling it will be only me showing up… need to be prepared! Looks like so much work for nothing!…
In my company, I am talking about it since December, and proposing it to different people, and tried to get some partners to don’t feel alone and it didn’t go ahead until I decided to propose it by myself and make a full presentation very formal and be specific.
What I mean by this, is that it is not easy to make it happen!
I feel like giving up! YES.
I feel like I am wasting my time! YES.
I feel like I am a bad mom as I am trading their time for this time with people I don’t know! YES!
NO!NO!NO!
Perhaps it will not work out! But I refuse to give up!
So I am thinking, even before I had kicked this off, I am already learning 2 things to move on with a new idea:
1- Be on alert to the triggers – keep the curiosity and open mind!
2- Mitigate the blockers – be patient and resilient! Rome was not built in one day!
This is not a big drama!
This is one of the small projects I am thinking and I wanted to put in place. This time I am taking action.
In my company, I feel more comfortable and it is an easy place to start.
But the outside world, where I don’t know the people, I am doing it too!
Thank you
AnnaJo
