Last October, I took an incred­i­ble trip to China to intro­duce Stillheart Institute and my book, The Goddess of Happiness, which was trans­lated into sim­ple Mandarin. Since it was my first time in China, and I was excited to explore, expe­ri­ence, and learn about the com­mon­al­i­ties between our two cul­tures. In addi­tion to my excur­sion to the Great Wall (pic­tured above), I man­aged to squeeze in eight pre­sen­ta­tions in eleven days in four cities includ­ing Beijing and Shanghai. I spoke to diverse audiences—university stu­dents, gov­ern­ment offi­cials, women entre­pre­neurs, cor­po­rate lead­ers and UNICEF.

Women in Leadership

I found the mem­bers of the Women in Leadership (WIL) groups in Beijing and Shanghai to be high-powered busi­ness lead­ers who have organ­i­cally bonded together to net­work, share expe­ri­ences and sup­port one another.

The first thing that struck me was how sim­i­lar the dynamic of the group felt to women’s net­work­ing groups in the U.S.  No mat­ter what the coun­try or cul­ture, women-only events have a very spe­cial vibe—open and sup­port­ive. Women eas­ily share their sto­ries of chal­lenges and suc­cesses in their per­sonal and pro­fes­sional lives. The atmos­phere is pos­i­tive and lively with lots of laughs. There’s a uni­ver­sal spirit shared by women lead­ers, regard­less of where they live or what lan­guage they speak. It’s nur­tur­ing and spirit-driven as women achieve suc­cess through more col­lab­o­ra­tion and less competition.

Through my con­ver­sa­tions with the WIL women, I learned that exec­u­tive women in China face many of the same obsta­cles as their American coun­ter­parts. They grap­ple with work/life bal­ance, career and fam­ily, and that feel­ing of alien­ation and scrutiny that is com­mon when you’re at the top of your game—particularly from their male coun­ter­parts or poten­tial male life part­ners. Male accep­tance of the ultra-successful woman is much more dif­fi­cult in China than in the U.S.

Click here for Part II of this blog, where I dis­cuss inter­est and trends in cor­po­rate well­ness in China. Stay tuned!