Erna Solberg, Norway’s Prime Minister – Big and bold in all the right ways.

Do you know about BE’s host, Ashely Milne-Tyte? Well ya should. A friend turned me on to her blog, and I’m finding her intelligent, non-cliche and very insightful. Earlier this week she wrote about the Prime Minister of Norway, Erna Solberg. Until reading Ashley’s blog, I had no idea who Erna Solberg was

(yes, I actually just admitted to being politically and governmentally inferior.) Well jump back! The leader of Norway is a woman! She’s super cool and very impressive, so I thought I would do a little fact finding of my own, on the infamous “Iron Erna,” and I have to say, I am very happy I did.

I’m a visual gal, so lets start here. Erna is NOT a size 6, which as we know is often political suicide. She presents herself as bold and unique, rather than shrinking away neutrally. Since we know, seldom to ‘real’ people get elected, I’m wondering to myself: “how did she do it!”

“I’m a big fan of getting people to lower their shoulders,” Erna says. “In short, you cannot do everything, so concentrate on the things that are most important to you and leave the rest.”

I love this idea of “not doing everything.” As a fellow female leader (granted, being a creative director is clearly no Prime Minister,) I appreciate the notion of achieving perfection, as a pretty silly goal. In fact, I find that people who try, are sometimes in instead, achieving mediocrity. If you’re going after flawlessness, you’re probably afraid to fail and therefore likely not thinking for yourself.

Clearly, thinking differently is part of Erna’s distinction, as often demonstrated on a global scale. She recently joined the likes of Obama and Jay Z for the the third annual Global Citizen Festival. It is an initiative of the Global Poverty Project, whose mission is to end extreme poverty by 2030, (which to me, is possibly unattainable, yet totally amazing to go after.) Instead of selling tickets, organizers required attendees to participate in charitable actions, which included sharing selfies, watching videos, and doing volunteer work. Its no surprise that in the star studded New York Central Park, Erna Solberg pledged $250 million to supporting vaccines and immunizations across the world.

So while I don’t pretend to be well versed in her policies, I have to say that from what I have uncovered so far, I like Erna’s style! And thank you to Ashely Milne-Tyte for bringing her to me, as I too like to follow women who are doing unusual things – because as we know, women are usually challenging the status quo, because we rarely ARE the status quo.