The Inspirational Woman Project believes that every woman is inspirational. It’s our mission to tell their stories.
Lolita Taub is a results-oriented TEDx speaker, Huffington Post contributor, woman in tech, and an MBA candidate with keen ability to provide excellent customer service, design and lead strategic initiatives, negotiate, and build relationships. Passionate about identifying strategic opportunities and closing deals between corporations and startups to progress technology innovation and achieve company goals. Lived in USA and Europe; bilingual in English and Spanish. Lolita has built a career in the technology industry by identifying and providing solutions to develop the businesses of her enterprise clients. She has spent most of her career as a Sales Account Executive for both IBM and Cisco, selling their complete portfolios of hardware, software, and services. Lolita has sold solutions involving Data Analytics, Cloud, Mobile, Social, Security, and the Internet of Things for her customers. In addition to her corporate sales experience, Lolita has also worked as a consultant for IBM serving the public sector and as the VP of Sales for a Silicon Valley diversity & inclusion software startup. Lolita's personal cause is promoting diversity-inclusion in the tech world.
Give me your definition of Woman.
{Taub} A woman is a creature that has unique strengths and gifts. These strengths and gifts complement those of men - physically and mentally.
A woman is a creature that is able to give, sometimes collaboratively and at other times independently.
A woman is a creature in-tune with the world and in tune with herself, in an instinctual way. A woman is able to see multi-dimensional layers. A woman is a unicorn.
What’s your relationship with femininity? How do you access that part of yourself?
{Taub} When I was in high school, the Greco Roman Wrestling team captain said women couldn’t wrestle and my gut told me to prove to him women can wrestle. I joined the all boy’s team and I wrestled for two years. My gut, listening to my instinct, is my direct relationship with femininity.
It only makes sense that I access my femininity through my gut.
Why are you inspirational?
{Taub} I am inspirational because I am a woman of my word - I say I’m going to do something, then I go do it. For example, I want to become a wrestler and I join the team. I want to impact humanity so I ask for sabbatical from corporate and join the Peace Corp to go to Burkina Faso. I want to advocate for women empowerment so I create The F SHOW, merge it with SoGal Ventures, and join UN Women in their Empower Women initiatives. I want to become a tech Fortune 500 C-Suite so I go for my MBA. No matter what, I’m always going to make things happen because I’ve said so.
What does creation mean for you as a woman?
{Taub} Creation means that there is more than one person is involved. To begin, we were created by two beings.
How do you deal with your inner naysayer?
{Taub} I imagine there to be two Lolita’s. There is a very wise Lolita who has everything figured out. She is solid and smart. If she doesn’t have it all figured out, she’s confident to know that she will. She’s a little more conservative. I imagine her dress, hair, and makeup to be in alignment with Jackie Onassis’s style.
Then the other version of Lolita is this Marilyn Manson version. She’s very emo looking and wears black. She’s mean and scary looking. She asks questions like, “Who are you to do that?”
In situations, I actually step back, close my eyes and imagine these two Lolita’s meeting with each other. They sit at a table with chairs where they look at each other. There is an imbalance sometimes. When the Naysayer Lolita has control over the conversation, I imagine the other Lolita asking questions.
Naysayer Lolita: “You’re not good enough to submit to the Huffington Post.”
Wise Lolita: Why? “Why am I not good enough?”
Naysayer Lolita: “You don’t have a communications major.”
Wise Lolita: “Why is that important?”
I go through a breakdown what the inner naysayer is saying in a logical way. I address the emotions as well as logical substance of what is happening. It allows me to see that I was giving too much weight to something that I shouldn’t have.
The scariest part is having this conversation. I have a fear of the conversation not working out to my benefit. But at the same time, it always works out. For me it’s having the vulnerability to hash it out, listen to both sides, and ask myself the right questions. This always gets me through whatever I’m going through and keeps me moving forward.
What’s one thing you want to tell the women who will read this?
{Taub} Wherever you are in life, whatever you feel, whatever you want - it’s perfect. Be ok with it. You don’t need to do more, or learn more, or achieve more. Where you are is perfect - exactly where you are right now.