I’ve never been the type you’d think of as a damsel in distress. And being a woman for me means a lot. It means having the inspiration to be hugely successful and the desire to share what I learned with those who inspired me. You are one of them.
Lesson 1: Idea first, practice later. I created a construction company right out of college by standing outside of a shopping center, approaching strange women, giving them business cards that were still wet from just being printed, and telling them I could fix or improve their homes faster, cheaper and better than any other contractor. When they said yes, I’d run around and find someone to do the job (because at the time I didn’t know how). But I watched and I learned, and from that start I grew a multimillion-dollar business.
Lesson 2: Turn a problem into an opportunity. So why did my son’s request that I put up a basketball hoop make me feel like the most incompetent mom on the planet?
The answer, when it hit me, became the philosophy of my new business. The problem wasn’t me. The problem was that the day my ex-husband left our house, he took our tool kit out of the cabinet — like it was his! My realization was literal:
I couldn’t do it if I didn’t have the tools.
I don’t know how I overlooked this essential life lesson. After all, one of my first big jobs was to replace the loading dock doors at an IBM building. Two sets of huge doors and me in my tight blue jeans and T-shirt. I’ll admit to a minute of self-doubt. I knew people were staring at the petite blond woman measuring the loading dock doors (for the guys I had hired to do the work for my company).
Lesson 3: Invent the woman you decide to be. When I grabbed the measuring tape I’d hung at my waist and went to work, I felt a surge of power. I was woman: Hear me roar! Or see me build! Whatever, I’m in charge!
So when I decided to create the Barbara’s Way line of tools for women — tools we could call our own — I envisioned them as accessories. I wanted the screwdriver, tape measure, drill, etc., to be as confidence-boosting as the right color of lipstick, or the perfect outfit, or a flattering haircut. I wanted a woman to be able to pick up a hammer, have it fit her grip perfectly, and be able to handle her project on her own.
Lesson 4: Learn about life … from your hobbies. In construction, as in life, we start at the foundation. It establishes limits, makes things tighter, keeps things level, provides essential support, and makes things safer. Tools are necessary both to create the foundation and to keep things up. A good foundation and the right tools empower and enable us to be self-sufficient.
The right tools keep us from being damsels in distress. They give us control over our environment. They free us to make mistakes, something we will do time and time again. And, more important, tools let us fix our mistakes, as well as someone else’s.
Lesson 5: Learn to do, learn to live. This is extendable to everything in life: Doing is power. Women with their own tools have the ability to choose and the power to organize and repair their own space, their own domain and their own lives. So my philosophy — in home repair and in life — is to start small and gain confidence. Grab a screwdriver and tighten up the hinge on that crooked cabinet door. Notice how just a few turns of the wrist free you from waiting for a carpenter or someone else to improve your situation. That start will lead to another project, and more improvements will follow.
Lesson 6: Nourish the builder in you — of any kind. Women have always been builders. We build communities, shore up relationships, shelter family. There’s no reason to be intimidated by hands-on projects. My message to women is to grab a hammer, a drill, a tape measure — the ones made for you! Put up that basketball hoop, hang a picture, build some shelves. Nurture that feeling of “I did it,” and let it instill further motivation, inspiration and aspiration. Know that you can build — or rebuild — your world just as you envision it.
Barbara Kavovit is a home improvement authority, entrepreneur, TV personality and author. She was the founder and chief executive of one of the United States’ largest female-owned construction management companies, specializing in interior renovations in New York City. Barbara’s Way created a line of women’s home improvement products. For more information on Barbara please visit www.barbarasway.com.
Illustration exclusive for Womanity.com by Andrea Ventura. Andrea Ventura is an awarded illustrator whose work appears in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Time, Rolling Stone, Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal, among others. Andrea is based in New York and Berlin.
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