It's a chilly night in New York City as Cake House founder (and my sister) Marie Handschiegel ducks into the Alice Tully Hall at New York's Lincoln Center. From the dark wash jeans and ruffled top she's wearing, topped with a lavender cardigan, you'd barely be able to tell that she had just arrived to the city from Chicago a short two hours before. As she takes a seat five rows from the stage among a small crowd of roughly 1,000 guests attending a special acoustic performance with band Bon Jovi, hosted by AMEX, the singer crosses the stage and gets comfortable. Throughout the night he oscillates between playing songs and sharing stories about the history of the band. More than once he references seeing opportunity and grabbing it. Handschiegel can relate. Just four days before, she had gotten the email invitation to attend the event. Within a few hours after, she had already purchased airfare to fly to the city.
"I knew it'd be a great opportunity and create a great memory I'd always remember doing," she said later. "When I found a flight for $129 round trip, that was it."
If there's one thing today's new modern women entrepreneurs know to do is seize the moment. They don't hesitate to take it.
From work to play, business to personal, friends and family, Power Girls aren't afraid to see an opportunity and take the leap. For NPG co-creator Meghan Cleary it was the chance to launch the footwear line she had always dreamt to have and that had been a big part of her business plans. When Kathryn Finney of BudgetFashionista.com had the opportunity to attend an event honoring President Obama, she was on a plane in an instant. It's the inherent understanding of the value and rarity of certain opportunities. When MIT's Futures of Entertainment 4 event said it'd like me to be on a panel, I didn't think twice about it. As you read this, I'll be on my way to Boston.
Power Girls have a keen eye for opportunity, and they're not afraid to leap from there.
It's a trait I've seen among many of the female founders I've met and know. For former executive turned musical theater talent and entrepreneur Melanie Bray, it was to attend an audition that seemed to randomly fall across her path - leading her to star as the female lead in two off-broadway plays. As she criss-crossed the country touring with a group of actors, they were often swarmed by fans after performances, took interviews with media and radio outlets and saw solid reviews. Had she never taken that offbeat, out of no where audition on that chilly fall day in Los Angeles, imagine what she would have missed.