women entrepreneurs in toronto

I was contacted by a woman in Toronto to see if I would be interested in coming to Canada to talk to a group of women.   Ends up that not only do we have really good friends in Toronto that we do not get to see enough but Fred goes up there for a board meeting on occasion.   I scheduled the lunch around the board meeting and made sure our friends were in town.  Nothing goes according to plan, board meeting gets cancelled but I wasn’t going to change my plans so I flew up to Toronto for the day to meet with a crew of women to talk about entrepreneurship.  I also got to have dinner with our friends. 

Our lunch took place at the Verity Club in Toronto.  They should consider opening one of these clubs in NYC.   Verity is basically a working womens club.  There are a bunch of rooms for meetings as well as rooms to stay over night, a gym and a spa center for women only.  Has a great vibe there. 

We had lunch in one of the rooms.  We all sat around the table and told our names, our career histories and why we are fabulous.  I loved the last line.  I am fabulous because…and we need to hear more of that.  I loved what each woman said about what makes them fabulous from being a great connector to just being able to get to another place in her career.  Each of these women were either launching companies or had already launched companies.  They were all entrepreneurs figuring it out as they went along, like most do. 

The conversations flowed easily.  Many questions were asked from how to raise cash, when to launch, how to balance life and kids, how to build a board, who should be an advisor, what do we see coming down the pike, etc.  Being in this intimate setting and feeling comfortable having open honest questions about being an entrepreneur with a family, a mortgage, and more than a few years under your belt is not a unique story but one that is rarely talked about. 

I really felt great after meeting this inspiring group of women.   I wish I had time to do these kind of events more often.