Consider the auto industry. I grew up in a prosperous Detroit back when General Motors was the greatest corporation in the world. It was with great pain that I watched the inner-city burn and the population flee following the race riots in the late 60’s. The central city has never recovered because its fate has been so linked to the troubled American auto industry.

I had an opportunity recently to get some unique observations from the competition on why the Detroit auto industry was doomed to flame out so spectacularly and destroy the local economy.

Carlos Ghosn, the Chairman and CEO of Renault Nissan Alliance spoke at the French Institute on how his successful career has been shaped by his global outlook.  Ghosn was born in Brazil, of French and Lebanese heritage. His education was in France and his early career was forged at Michelin, a French company.  In the late 90’s he was able to step in and turn around a troubled Nissan Corporation.  Ghosn explained that because he had a nomadic upbringing and was not rooted in one place, he was also not stuck in the mind-frame of one culture. He felt he was able to successfully lead a Japanese company because they also had no preconceived biases against him. Yet as an outsider, he could more readily see their mistakes.

So why, he was asked, did the Japanese eventually overtake the Americans in their trademark industry?  Simple, he replied – the Japanese studied the American competition closely, but the American automakers did not study their Japanese competitors or even seem to realize they should be worried about their strategies until it was too late.  Constantly analyze and learn from your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses, Ghosn warned.

As I watch the American automobile industry rebuild, I hope this is one mistake they have learned and are not destined to repeat.

More recently, our country was still reeling from the September 11 attacks when Steve Jobs unveiled the iPod in October 2001. It became one of the decade’s biggest success stories. In fact, the success of Apple’s handheld devices just this week resulted in its anointment as the new leader in technology, overtaking Microsoft as the world’s most valuable technology company. What if Apple had not taken that tremendous marketing risk in uncertain times?  It’s easy to forget that before the introduction of the ipod, Apple was believed to be on the path to extinction.

These success stories are important to remember as today’s business owners face difficult choices on whether to push forward or wait.  The American economy is turning around, but new turmoil in Europe is clouding the future, making it hard to guess the pace of the recovery as we go through global adjustments. The massive oil spill in the Gulf is just the latest environmental disaster that will impact our future economically. Still, one thing is clear – we will eventually turn around and there will be many winners and losers.  If you have a great idea or a new product, now may just be the right time to let go of your fears and help shape a brighter future!

Sandra also revealed that she has pursued her artistic passion without an agent, business manager or even an assistant while happily married to a college sweetheart and now raising four children on a Connecticut farm.  As she explained, she just never doubted from the beginning that her cards would sell.

While Boynton has always been successful, Shay Kelley had to lose her marketing job and then her home before she discovered the level of belief that has led to a unique quest she has dubbed Project 50/50. (http://bit.ly/bQRbUF) As Kelley told CNN, she went off into the woods and started yelling at God for leaving her in despair. “I was like, just tell me what my purpose is, tell me why I’m here and if you’ll just tell me, I’ll work harder than for anything I have ever worked for anything else in my entire life.”

According to CNN,  Kelley had her answer within weeks: Travel to all 50 states in 50 weeks. Collect canned goods for charities along the way and take a ton of pictures, ie Project 50/50.

She waited tables and lived with friends to collect the money for an old Ford pickup truck and hit the road with a camera and her dog ZuZu.  She started a facebook page to chronicle her travels and her discovery that the homeless she’s met along the way are often astoundingly generous. As she puts it, through her photos, she captures people down on their luck, but not ready to give up. She says it has made her own uncertain future easier to deal with.

Both stories are vastly different profiles of women passionately pursuing a dream with total belief in the certainty of the outcome.  In terms of business, many young graduates in particular forget about the relationship between belief and success.  Passion makes your work stand out and get noticed and belief gets you through the hard times.  For anyone struggling in this bumpy economy, it is an important link to remember!

I was mesmerized.  Of course, I know girls have been playing soccer for a long time now. But watching these particular girls suddenly took me back to my pony-tailed childhood when there was very little encouragement for a girl in team sports.  I grew up with two brothers and until the age of 12, I played baseball and street hockey with my older brother Bill and his friends, and chased around with them on our bikes. In grade school, the girls were taught basketball, not a sport where I excelled, but at least a lot of running was involved. However I’ll never forget the summer when my mother took me aside and said I was too old to play with my brother. I needed to be a young lady.  I tried playing tennis with my girlfriend, but it never became a passion for me the way team games had been.  And the next year I started an honors high school where phys ed was a low priority.

I sat there wondering if my teenage years would have been a lot less painful if girls had played soccer in my Detroit hometown.  As a teenager I felt very isolated, but I realize now that the lack of team sports to channel my natural teenage anxieties and fears helped fuel a major depression by junior year.  My life continued to be a see saw of minor health crises throughout college. I always bounced back, but I didn’t get my exuberant childhood health back until I joined a food coop in my late 20s, discovering biking, running and organic foods. So many of the successful women I’ve known have kept up their dedication to sports and fitness; often that commitment comes from an exposure to team sports when they were young. Men have more readily recognized that link between physical fitness and business success.

As I left the bench and the soccer playing girls, I felt so happy for them. Go, girls!

In California, (first LA, then San Francisco) most friends held traditional New Year’s Eve events where we stayed up until midnight, sharing appetizers and champagne. My late husband Tim and I joined them – it was great fun, after all — but then got up early to host our Hoppin John event on New Year’s Day (or the first weekend day afterwards). This afternoon event was a celebration of good, healthy southern food (black-eyed peas and rice with greens), friendship and sharing our hopes for the coming year. We encouraged friends to bring their kids and their guitars.  Tim was from Alabama and he loved to share his southern traditions and play southern blues on the piano.  By the time we left the west coast, our event had become rather legendary and had spawned other regionally themed events among our friends.

Amazingly, lots of our best client leads came from the friends who shared the good cheer of Hoppin John or tasted some of the southern Green Top bar-b-que we had flown in as a summer treat.  I continue Hoppin John celebrations in my Brooklyn neighborhood primarily as a way to introduce my friends from the Flatbush Food Coop board to friends in my coop building and it still works magic.

Networking authentically actually doesn’t have to involve food or entertaining, if that is not your passion – but it should involve sharing your genuine passions with everyone you meet, whether it’s your family, sports, music, or anything else that connects you to others.  And if you start the conversation by finding out what they are passionate about, you are really on the right track to a friendship.

Hoppin John, anyone?

For great networking, check out these groups (listed alphabetically):

Kate Gaffin’s Connecting to Greatness, www.connectingtogreatness.com.

National Association of Women Business Owners, New York City, www.nawbonyc.org

TeamWomen, New York Chapter, www.teamwomennyc.com

As we begin 2010, it’s a good time for entrepreneurs to look at their brand and make sure they are true to their promises – or consider whether it is time to reassess their “message”and rebrand going forward?

It is so important to have a good team involved with designing and marketing your brand – and in this difficult, global economy, even working professionals need to “brand” themselves successfully for the new reality of serial jobs.

I’m proud to be part of a Entrepreneur’s Roundtable on February 24 in Manhattan on Branding Your Business for Entrepeneurs and Solopreneurs being offered by the New York  Chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners (Details are at www.nawbonyc.org).  I hope it will encourage everyone  to reflect on the importance of their brand!

The song is a gospel spiritual attributed to Harry Dixon Loes that became a rallying cry for the civil rights movement and later evolved into a popular children’s song. Following such a difficult year, it seems the perfect Anthem for 2010, shining the light of hope and optimism against the dark forces of fear in the world.

What does this  spiritual have to do with PR?  For me,  it inspires a resolution to shine my light as a positive force in the world through my talents and by helping others.  I also encourage everyone to use PR techniques such as social media, writing or speaking to add your light and truth.

In researching the song, I further learned that one of the most famous recordings was by the internationally renowned African-American bass-baritone concert singer, actor, professional athlete and lawyer Paul Robeson, a truly legendary figure.

At the height of his fame, Robeson decided to become a primarily political artist, speaking out against fascism and racism in the US and abroad as the United States government and many Western European powers failed after World War II to end racial segregation and guarantee civil rights for people of color.  As a result, Robeson became a prime target of the Red Scare during the late 1940s through to the late 1950s.

The history of the song makes its words ring especially strong, “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine…”  As the world faces tremendous economic and ecological challenges and the reality that we must work together as a global community, what better anthem for those determined to fight for peace and prosperity for all?  Let your light shine!

Networking has always been an important career skill for professionals, but never has it been so vital for survival.  And I’m beginning to realize how lucky I was to go through two bad economies in California before this economic tsunami hit.

Why?  I learned in California that consulting and entrepreneurism was a great option in a bad economy.  My late husband, a seasoned journalist, convinced me to form a marketing partnership when the LA economy crashed in the early 90s, since both our careers had been impacted. We each brought in clients and Tim became part of a team of journalists consulting for a new search engine called Excite, inventing content on the world wide web.  Several months into the assignment, the team was told that the company required full-time commitments and relocation to Sausalito, north of San Francisco.  Tim didn’t hesitate, although only one other journalist shared his total belief in the future of search engines.

It was the beginning of a wild ride in the dot-com boom and bust through a series of start-ups for both of us. And when it crashed, we teamed up again as consultants to successfully ride out the recession. All along the way, I developed great support, referrals and friendships in three organizations  – Women in Communications, NAWBO (National Association of Women Business Owners) and Women in Business – all with chapters in LA and SF.

As the economy continues to flounder this time around, I often think of those California years, missing my husband terribly who died in October, 2003, but remembering the lessons. In fact, I recently teamed up again with a former marketing partner from SF, Babette McDougal of Sausalito Associates.  The networking seems natural at this point, just as the excitement of learning social networking reminds me of those early days in Silicon Valley. My colleagues in TeamWomen-NYC,  NAWBO-NYC and other networking organizations provide wonderful inspiration for me, along with my fellow Board members and friends in the Flatbush Food Coop.  A scary time? Yes.  But hang on and you too can learn to enjoy the bumpy ride!