The Intuitive Businesswoman: Achieve Success Through the Power of Your Personality

Book by George Judy Lyon Todd

The Intuitive Judy George
Here is my Intuitive Profile: I am a Visionary with a strong streak of Adventurer and a dollop of Artisan.

As such, it's no surprise that I like being visible. (Visionaries tend to establish themselves as figureheads.) It was very Visionary of me to go into a business that put me around luxurious goods (Visionaries are fancy) and beautiful surroundings (in the Visionary world, much depends on visuals).

The Adventurer part of my personality is expressed in my tendency to be flamboyant. There are few gestures more Adventurer than hiring a plane to buzz a company's headquarters! My Adventurer streak is also evident when I take big risks in the hope of big payoffs, rather than making steady, sensible progress.

I take great joy in being a mentor, and I credit that attribute to the Artisan part of my makeup. Artisans also tend to be home-centric and family oriented, and this represents a special part of my personality: I am most content when I'm cooking in the kitchen of the house that my husband built for me nearly thirty years ago.

So, what's missing from this picture? Have you noticed that I don't have one drop of Idealist? Believe me, I've noticed. Idealists are ruled by logic. They're the people who lead with their heads and not their hearts. They work everything out on paper, and have an orderliness to most everything they do.

I've learned that Idealists can give me what I lack.

When I first started Domain, I hired creative hotheads like myself. I responded to the passion I saw in others because I was comfortable with it. But if I had looked more closely at the bigger picture, I would have seen an imbalance between my ambition, passion, and creativity, and what I didn't bring to the table: Cool logic and practicality.

I really should have known better. After all, I married an Idealist. Even as a nineteen-year-old bride, I instinctively knew that I needed a stable rudder, a partner who would play tortoise to my hare. My marriage has lasted a long time. Why didn't I notice the success of that partnership and apply it to my business?

Because, back then, I wasn't tuned in to the importance of personality. I was always looking outward, toward the future, money, success, recognition. I forgot to notice what qualities I lacked.

The Intuitive System helped me put together a balanced team and to cover all the bases. It has been a great tool for me and my company, so when I started applying it to fellow businesswomen--many of whom I met through a mentoring program--a "Eureka!" moment happened. I realized that I'd hit upon a set of parameters that could help just about any woman thrive in the career of her dreams--and avoid many bumps on the road to success.

The Intuitive Businesswoman: The Book
We could have written this book for any segment of society. But we decided to focus on working women. Why? Because, with few role models in place, women are inventing their own lives and creating an exciting new chapter in American history.

We have nothing against men. In fact, we love them very much. But women are today's change agents, true pioneers who are shaping the future.

The Intuitive Businesswoman builds a framework within which women can locate themselves in a jungle of working situations. There is a section that deals with employee/employer relations, and another that tells how best to sell to the four archetypes. We look toward the past, observing the career patterns of such historic figures as Josephine Baker (Adventurer), Elizabeth Arden (Visionary), Fannie Farmer (Idealist), and Margaret Sanger (Artisan). We give pointers about big things, like how to raise money to start a business, and little things, like what kind of office space might best suit your personality.

In every chapter you'll find real-life stories of women who have invented themselves. They are the true heroes of this book. Some names you'll recognize, like Ann Moore, president of People, Inc., publishers of People, In Style, and other red-hot publications. And there are names you won't know, like Lisa Somers, who started a home-based company as a way to help heal her postpartum depression. You'll hear from Shelly Lazarus, who heads Ogilvy & Mather, one of the most powerful ad agencies in the world, and Sue Navarretta, an R.N. who drove across the country with her five-year-old daughter and $6,000 to start her life over again.

All of them are women who have listened to themselves and found the strength, courage, and wisdom not only to survive, but to thrive. It is our hope that their inspiring stories, combined with healthy dollops of hardheaded business advice, will help put you on a path to fulfillment in the workplace. In the words of Oprah Winfrey: "It's not about making a living. It's about making a life."

Or, as Katharine Hepburn once said, "If you have to support yourself, you had bloody well better find some way that is going to be interesting."