Girls, here’s the deal that no one ever told you, well no one ever told me anyway - if you need to kick some butt in this world, you need the right shoes.

Some years ago I was doing some consulting work for a small family trucking business.  Boy that was tough!  It was a predominantly male environment and as you can imagine, my more female style of doing business didn’t really fit in.  Boy was I a fish out of water!  But I am feisty, fiery and oh did I mention hard headed?  So I persisted.

One day I was running a meeting for the major players in the business which consisted of about eight men and one or two women.  We were having a meeting, which I was supposedly leading, when all of a sudden a shouting match erupted between the CEO and his head saleman.  Like two big bull walruses, the stood up and started tusking each other with their words.  They were shouting and screaming and I thought, “Oh my god, what am I supposed to do about this?”  I have never encountered this before in my work.

One thing you should know is that before this fight had broken out, I had taken off my shoes under the table.  I am 4 ft, 11 inches small and so in order to look more like an adult than a child in a chair, I usually take off my shoes and sit with my feet curled up.  Most of the time no one knows about this.  It is my personal secret to success.  But this day being shoeless was not to my advantage. 

When the fight broke out I was furious.  I thought to myself, “How dare these two idiots interrupt my meeting!”   Who do they think they are?  The boss?  One of them was in fact the owner of the company, but oh well.  I was pissed.

Before my logical brain could give me advice, I jumped up and screamed at the top of my lungs, “Shuuuutt Up!”

There was dead silence in the room and everyone turned to look at me.  The CEO and salesman stopped fighting for a moment, then the meeting went on.  But less than five minutes later, the fighting broke out again.  Now I was beyond fury, I was in the kick you know what zone.  I jumped up out of my seat (without my shoes) and ran towards the two fighting bull walruses. Without thinking, I stood right in front of Mr. CEO and faced Mr. Salesman and shouted (again at the top of my lungs, “If you don’t stop fighting right now, I’m leaving.”  And I meant it!

What I hadn’t considered because of my fury was that I would be walking out without my shoes!  Thank god they stopped fighting because I was able to go back to my seat and continue the meeting.  Later someone in the group that had noticed that I was shoeless said to me, “Were you really going to leave without your shoes?”  And I said yes.  But boy would my feet have been cold!

So here’s the learning girls.  If you’re out there working in the world and many of you are, and times get tough and you really need to cut the crap and kick some you know what, you really need to have the right shoes.

Later several of the men sidled up to me on their own and said, “Boy you’re really tough.”  For a tiny feisty woman, I guess I proved my metal but next time, I break up a fight, I’d prefer to have my shoes on and I’m pretty sure I’d do best with a nice spike heel, just in case.