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No woman is poor who has friends. And few know the richness offriendship as well as Betty Levenbach. Last spring, when Levenbachwas diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma cancer, she says,"I did everything I could to overcome it." But oneprominent fear loomed: She believed she might lose her WestlakeVillage, California, business, Favorite Gifts, an educational toy,book, game and gift business she had been operating since 1991."My business is my passion," Levenbach says. "Myfamily wanted me to take it easy and concentrate on getting better.But I knew if I took a year or two years off, I wouldn't have abusiness."
That was when Connie Bereny, a fellow entrepreneurial woman andLevenbach's close friend, stepped in. Having read of the powerof community spirit in a book called Share the Care(Fireside), Bereny held a meeting of women business owners who wereunited in their determination to save Levenbach's business. Thegroup of 54 women--some friends, some strangers--formed committeesto take care of everything from bookkeeping and banking to salesand transportation. "Some days, I just had the front dooropen, and they would come in and say, `We're going to the bankfor you,' or `We sold this and made the invoice out,'" says Levenbach. When Levenbach worried about traveling tothe nearest cancer research institute, she says the women assuredher, " `We'll make a roster. Don't worry. You tell ushow often you need to go, and we'll take you there.'"
With her cancer currently in remission, Levenbach and her circleof friends continue to reap the positive effects of the experience."I know that everyone benefited, and I'm thrilled aboutthat," she says. "Sometimes life is so tough, and youneed to find things to feel good about." Levenbach offers hertime to others in the community who are battling cancer.
"It's amazing in this day and age to see a communityband together," Levenbach says. "This is not necessarilya community of people of the same faith or who live next door toeach other but a community of women who got together to help. Therewas a groundswell, an outpouring of love. I'm just really veryblessed."
Losing It?
That disturbingly familiarI-don't-remember-where-I-left-the-keys feeling is seeping intowomen's business lives. According to a recent survey of theAmerican Business Women's Association, 43 percent ofrespondents waste 15 minutes daily looking for lost items. Another32 percent waste up to 30 minutes.
Ironically, the main cause of this wasted time is . . . a lackof time. "When things are chaotic, people think, `I have toget organized as soon as things calm down,' " says LisaKanarek, the Dallas author of Everything's Organized(Career Press) who conducted the study of more than 600respondents. "But when things calm down, they forget aboutit."
Kanarek also found that organizational styles run the gamut,from the 14 percent of women who organize their offices daily tothe 26 percent who organize fewer than three times a year.
Double irony: Ultimately, organization comes down to a matter of. . . timing. "I ask people whether they want to take the timeto get organized at the beginning or at the end of a projectbecause they're going to have to do it at some point,"says Kanarek. "If you get organized at the beginning, you havea clearer picture of what you need to get accomplished andwon't get as bogged down with details."
Contact Sources
Everything's Organized, 660 Preston ForestCtr., #120, Dallas, TX 75230, lisaorgani@ aol.com
Favorite Gifts, (800) 528-5333, http://www. favgifts.com
