Ten Years of BWC: My Story

10 Years of BWC Linda's Story


Have ever had an “ah ha” moment? The kind of moment when you know, deep inside of you, for absolute positive sure that this is what you need to do, think, feel, act on? It happened to me when I first created Business Women Connect.

I was sitting at my desk at my residential real estate appraisal office, L. Rendleman and Associates, by the way I specifically named my company that because this was a male-dominated business and I didn’t want to be in the least handicapped because I was a woman working in a man’s field. Fortunately, lots have changed since then.

But it was that day at my desk when it hit me. I was just learning about the Internet. Back in 2001, the Internet was something that connected to our global world, but little thought or initiative had been taken to connect to our own local communities.

One of the most passionate things I had ever done in my life was to create a local woman’s magazine. It was before magazines for women were local. It was before you could read about a woman and actually reach out to her in your own community. In fact, when we started this local city magazine focusing on women, there was only one other one we knew of in the country.

We were two young mothers with a dream of bringing women together to share resources, mentor one another and connect in friendship and personal growth. We were room mothers for our little first grade daughters. Connie was a broadcast journalist and I had my degree in speaking and writing with a master’s degree in counseling. Two perfect matches stay at home moms who had the courage, craziness to believe they could do anything. We learned about publishing, learned about selling advertising, learned about magazine layout. We were picked up by the local media, were invited on local talk shows, even had a weekly radio show. We took out second mortgages on our homes to front the money for our magazine and found some small investors through our families and some supportive local businesses! Thank you Marsh Supermarkets for believing in us and taking a risk with us.

But two young mothers with just a little bit of business experience and even less money eventually tapped out all of their resources. We little by little lost the ownership to people who knew it was a great opportunity and had the dollars to make it larger than what we could. I left our dream first. The pressure of contributing to our family financially and as a mom of two small children, I was forced to become practical. And my partner Connie? She hung on longer than I did. About another year, eventually selling what was left of her portion of the magazine.

I have all the old original copies. That was back in the 1980’s. I looked so young then. Hmm…

So on that day in my real estate appraisal office, after almost 20 years of knowing in my gut that I had given up, that I had allowed defeat, that I had “lost” my true passion and sold out, believing I couldn’t make it happen…that I got the cold chills all over my body when I realized that I could, again, go after my dream. My dream of connecting and supporting women through my writing and my speaking, my first love, through the internet. And Indy Women Connect, later named Business Women Connect, came to be!

It was then that I learned to never, never, never give up on what you truly want in life. I had a second chance and I was going for it! Connie had moved away years earlier and we lost touch. I learned she died of brain cancer. She would have loved to work with me in this legacy. I am sorry she couldn’t be here with me. I honor her for her inspiration and love.

Coming up next: I’ll share about starting a website when no one understood what to do with it and a major piece of news that made me more determined than ever.