I attended Deutschebank’s Women on Wall Street conference on Monday and Citibank’s Women & Co. breakfast this morning. Here are my favorite takeaways from each event.

1. From Steven Berlin Johnson, the WOWS keynote speaker:

a.  Most inspiration doesn’t come from a Eureka moment but through a “slow burn”.  It’s more of an incubation process than a gut instinct.  The man who invented the worldwide web didn’t set out to invent a world-changing media.  He had an idea that he tinkered with over years.  He’d set it down and then keep returning to it.

b.  People who are unusually innovative have friends from a variety of professions.  Being around an interesting group of people makes you think more creatively, and with Twitter, anyone can have this sort of network.  Interestingly, I just checked Johnson’s Twitter page and see that although he has over a million followers, he himself only follows 94.  He must actually like to be able to read the tweets, like I do.

2. Linda Descano, President of Women & Co., told about how she wanted to major in geology in college.  The department head looked at her and said, “You’re fat and you’re Italian.  You’re just going to get married, cook and have babies.  Why should I let you into my department?”  She let herself cry and then got a 4.0 GPA that she used to convince the department head to admit her.  Years later at an alumni event, the same department head told her, “You’re still fat.”  She smiled and told him, “You haven’t changed either.”

3.  After the jump, two pieces of advice that WOWS panelist Alexandra Lebenthal never listens to.

a. Don’t sweat the small stuff; and
b. It’s not personal. It’s business.

What do you think? She even admits that sweating the small stuff could drive a person crazy. I’d certainly hate to work for someone with this approach, but I’d love to have them working for me.

So I went to a Citibank Women & Co. breakfast today.  Fortunately, my sewing contractor made two extras of each shirt that I ordered, so I didn’t feel guilty opening up another brand new 14L to get dressed this morning. 

(Nothing after the jump.)

I’m terrible at being able to tell.  I just assume everything is natural.  Last night as Mr. Campbell and I walked to the subway in Times Square, I saw a gorgeous, tall woman with large breasts spilling out of her tank top.  She and her friend were talking to two male police officers who I’m sure were enjoying the view, and I was admiring another potential customer for my shirts.  Then Mr. Campbell said, “Not real.”

Huh?

He explained:  It isn’t just the physical aspects of the breasts.  It’s their owner’s attitude.  Most women who grow up with large breasts are concerned with covering them.  Women who acquire large breasts are more interested in showing them off.

That’s an overbroad generalization because I’ve definitely seen natural breasts prominently displayed.  I’m thinking of Marianne Van Ness, a senior in my ultra conservative high school dorm when I was a sophomore.  Everything she wore was an invitation to admire her beautiful, large natural breasts.  But two of my own experiences this past week supported Mr. Campbell’s theory.

The first was at my veterinarian’s office on Saturday while I waited to pick up a prescription for Lily the cat.  The girl ahead of me seemed to be visiting co-workers on her day off.  She was tall and extremely well-endowed in a form-fitting knit top with a V-neck that showed an inch or two of cleavage.  Her posture was impeccable.  The woman behind the desk mentioned two or three times that she didn’t like the girl’s top and was glad that she was going home to change.  On my way home, it dawned on me:  the woman behind the desk must be the girl’s mother!  Who else would say something like that?  Before it dawned on me, however, I caught up with the girl as she left and gave her my business card.  “I write a blog for women with figures like ours,” I said, “and I think your top is great.”  The girl blushed, said thank you and rushed away.  Her breasts were definitely natural.

My second experience came yesterday as I examined the shortlist of models I created from Model Mayhem. Bobbi Billard‘s 36-27-36 dimensions would be perfect in one of my 4S shirts.  Okay, so she was in Playboy’s June/July 2010 issue of Voluptuous Vixens, but I’m sure that one of my shirts could make her look like a serious businesswoman for a photoshoot.  As I did a little more digging to figure out how to contact her, I came across her blog post about her breasts.  Guess what?  They’re augmented! 

As Mr. Campbell would say: “Of course.”  There’s definitely something to his theory.  The girl with large natural breasts blushed when I complimented her.  The girl with large augmented breasts became a Playboy Voluptuous Vixen.
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By the way, Bobbi Billard’s post has shed a whole new light on perfectionism for me:

But it hasn’t been an easy path for me leading up to this point… I have had 4 prior surgeries on my breasts and have experienced nothing but problems the whole way through. From having my first doctor cut my pocket too low, to having ripples from hell, to having capsular contracture over and over again, to having two different sized and shaped nipples in two completely different spots… You name it, it’s gone wrong with my boob jobs. [. . .] I have spent over $40,000 in breast augmentations/corrective procedures. And to spend all that money on something that you are insecure about in the first place AND properly do your research/due diligence with thinking you are selecting the right surgeons and STILL be right back where you started from ONLY worse off, is a completely depressing and devastating situation. Not to mention, reading comments from keyboard warrior aholes on MySpace pointing out the fact that one of my boobs sat higher or was bigger than the other (Yes moron, I had capsular contracture and was well aware of the fact, thank you very much!)or having the director on the Diet Dr. Pepper commercial point out that he could see the point (another problem due to capsular contracture) in which my implant was protruding triangularly thru my red Baywatch bathing suit and asking wardrobe if “something could be done about that” wasn’t very much fun either. You see they picked ME out of thousands and thousands of beautiful, thin, gorgeous, perfect models and I was the one that was selected and paid a huge amount of money to appear in their commercial. And guess what… I wasn’t PERFECT! Not that I ever claimed to be, but I really wanted to give them what it was that they were looking for and felt beyond guilty that I was anything short of PERFECTION because they certainly were paying me all that money to be and there were a whole lot of other girls that they could have chosen instead of me.