When Will You Finally Start Taking Yourself Seriously?

For women, self-respect doesn’t always come naturally

Walking around the Spanish Point Gardens in Sarasota last week, I learned a little about the woman who first designed and created it, Mrs. Bertha Palmer. In 1910, she purchased the land and then set about preserving the elevated shell mounds dotting the property that had been created by the Native Americans 1000s of years before.

At this time, most people were selling off these important archaeological sites, called middens, for road building material. Mrs. Palmer had the vision to preserve the shell middens, and when they were finally studied in the 1950s they contained some of the oldest known Native American pottery ever discovered.

A quote from Mrs. Palmer about her efforts to create the Gardens, one of the most important landmarks in the area, appears several times throughout the property:

I have found my one talent, if I have any, at Sarasota Bay. It is to watch beautiful things grow and see flowers blossom as I plant them.

Would a man ever make this kind of self-deprecating statement? Mrs. Palmer shares that her “one talent” if she has any is essentially the passive act of watching things grow. No mention of her idea to buck the racist ideology of the time, which dismissed the sacredness and importance of Native American archeology, and save the middens. No reference to her designing the gardens, or sharing it with future generations. No recognition of the significance of her generosity, forethought, and intuition to protect and honor the ancient creations of another culture.

Perhaps we can attribute her humility to the era, but this sounds uncomfortably similar to many of the things I hear my female coaching clients tell me. All day I hear women downplay, undermine, and undersell themselves. They claim they are not experts in their field, though they have been working in it for decades. They insist that they shouldn’t be paid more because they haven’t gotten all the training, certifications, degrees that justify a pay raise. They say it’s hard to sell their services because they’re not sure if they can provide value for their clients.

Mrs. Palmer could never have conceived of the worth of her legacy either. And yet, generations later, her Gardens live on in majesty. What gardens are you cultivating right now that you can’t see the value of?

Katherine Jamieson, MFA is a Business and Writing Coach for women leaders. She works with women around country to clarify their message, develop a marketing strategy, and create authentic content. Katherine holds an MFA from the University of Iowa, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow, and her writing has been published in The New York Times, Ms., Orion, and anthologized many times in The Best Travel Writing and The Best Women’s Travel Writing. Learn more about her work here: www.katherinejamieson.com