I have to confess that as a little girl I regularly complained to my MOM - "Life is not fair!"

Generally, this rant was based on the fact that my 2 years younger sister always got exactly what I got when I got it. THAT MEANS SHE GOT IT 2 YEARS EARLIER - in case you aren't getting my point!

Of course, my mother's response was always the same, "That's why it is fair. You and your sister are treated equally." Clearly, I never was going to get my point across with that logic.

Now that I am a grown woman (and a woman in business), I still find myself, from time to time, ranting about what I see as a lack of fairness in the world -in business and in life. Today, it is my husband who must remind me that fairness, like equality, may be in the eye of the beholder. You see, like my mother, my husband has a very calm perspective on the world and knows that life has cycles, ups and downs, ebbs and flows, and only by getting to the end can we judge its balance. (And, I'm in  o rush to get to the end!)

So, what does this all have to do with women entrepreneurs you ask? Everything.

First, when we separate ourselves from our business we have a better perspective of whether what we see as injustice is directed at us personally or at our business. For example, I have a client who recently met with me to discuss her partner's lack of participation in the business even though they are equal partners (50/50). Her words to me, her business coach, "It's not fair that she puts in less hours than me and still receives the same salary and net profits as me."

"Hmm," I said to take a moment and carefully find my words. "Isn't she doing exactly what we (you, your partner, and me) tirelessly drafted in the business plan as to her roles and responsiblities? Why is what she is doing all of a sudden a concern to you?"

Her answer, "But she doesn't have to sit in the office, dealing with customers complaints, employee problems and all the negative stuff. It isn't fair."

How does fair equate in this situation? The partner actually is doing exactly what she is suppose to be doing in her role in sales and marketing and bringing in a lot of new business. The fairness question here, as it was when I was a child, is a question of perspective. The perspective of my client dealing with the after holiday stress of employee and customer irritability and distraction can only see fairness from her point of view. When encouraged to look at the same situation as equality of roles and responsibilities, she was able to see the equity of the partnership. Her partner had been where she is now last fall when sales and marketing was off track. It took all she had, and all I had, to keep her motivated to see the Client Funnel. (The Client Funnel is a concept where a lead comes in and is nurtured through the process to become a prospect and then potential client and then customer. Without enough leads in the funnel, sales and marketing will eventually dry up.)

Women entrepreneurs are often told that they aren't treated equally with men entrepreneurs. Is this fair? What is equally among entrepreneurs about anyway? Financing opportunity, venture opportunity, customer acquisition, influential networks?

Asked about equally for men and women and I have to bite my lip before I scream, why would women want to be equal with men when we are so obviously better?

After all, each one of us has been given one opportunity to have one life for better or worse. Instinctively women understand that the choices they make will impact themselves as well as the world. I believe the ability to give birth, even if one does not decide to take it, provides women with a perspective men will never acquire or understand.

I just realized that perhaps it is men that should be crying about the unfairness and inequality in their life. Women, women entrepreneurs and women in business just need to look at life and work with a new perspective.