Former County Supervisor Karin Strasser Kauffman has strong advice for women who want it all.

Photo by Randy Tunnell: Beyond Mythology: Karin Strasser Kauffman says it''s about making choices.

The first time I talked to Karin Strasser Kauffman, co-author of Beyond Superwoman: 25 Top CEOs Show Us How to Get a Life, she told me, "Don''t try to juggle. Don''t try to balance. Don''t try to be superwoman."

Hmm, I thought. That''s a novel idea. Realistically, I know I can''t Have It All. I know the truth about Martha Stewart, and I know that I can''t juggle career, family, community service, and me time--all in a Gucci suit, fresh lipstick and perfectly manicured nails, no less--and find absolute success and perfect happiness. But a nagging voice keeps asking, why not? Some women can do it. If I am unable to, what does that say about me?

Then I read her book. In a series of in-depth interviews, co-authors Kauffman and Peggy Downes Baskin outline what they describe as a "New Breed" of businesswomen, women who frankly acknowledge the tradeoffs they made in their personal and professional lives. This new breed of female superstars--all top Silicon Valley execs, including Palm Pilot founder Donna Dubinsky, E*Trade President Kathy Levinson, and Stanford Law School Dean Kathleen Sullivan--know their options. Instead of trying to have it all, like the Superwoman model that emerged from the ''70s women''s movement, these women are focusing on what makes them happy.

These women are choosy, and once they make a decision, they don''t look back. They let some things go, and throw all of their passion and energy into the road they decided to follow, knowing they can come back to other interests later on. Downes Baskin and Strasser Kauffman call this pattern of behavior "sequencing." I call it liberating.

I met up with Strasser Kauffman at the Carmel Valley public library. Strasser Kauffman, who lives in Carmel Valley, taught political science and women''s studies for more than 20 years at several institutions including UCLA and Monterey Peninsula College. At MPC, she established a Women Mentoring Women program and an endowment fund for crisis support to women students. In 1984 she was elected to the Monterey County Board of Supervisors, a position she held for nine years before retiring to serve as the founding chair of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Council.

"I was hopeful I could do it all for a period of years and then get out, which is what I did," Strasser Kauffman says, talking about her years as a county supe. "I think the hardest decision I ever made was the decision to leave the job. But that pace of life can only be taken for a number of years, and then [you need to] return to being a private citizen to restore yourself. Friendships had to be put on hold. Personal pleasures had to be put on hold."

Like Strasser Kauffman, Peggy Downes Baskin is married with two children. She says she came to the idea of sequencing later in life.

"I''m one of those who had very high hopes for myself to do it all," she says. "I came of age in the ''50s, the Eisenhower era, when we were told to stay behind the white picket fence and not embarrass our husbands. I didn''t go back to school till I was 40, and I got my PhD when I was 54."

A political scientist and co-author of The New Older Woman, Downes Baskin teaches and serves on four college and university foundation boards, working on women''s issues. As a senior lecturer at UC Santa Cruz, she developed and taught seminars with names like "Women and Power," and "A Question of Balance--Juggling Professional and Personal."

"No matter what I named the course," she says, "in the last two weeks we always end up back at the same question: How can I have it all? The women in the course are here because they want a profession, but they also want a personal life, and they feel challenged by that."

"In our society we put this tremendous pressure on women to juggle everything for everyone and to do it exceedingly well," Strasser Kauffman adds. "That message does a great disservice to women because it sets them up for tremendous guilt trips, if not failure."

But it doesn''t have to be that way.

Both authors say Silicon Valley sets trends for lifestyle, research and work patterns, and that the New Breed''s model of sequencing for women is an indication of things to come.

"The Superwoman model works for a few, but it''s not a realistic model for most women," Strasser Kauffman says. "The Superwomen are admirable--theirs was a very lonely endeavor and they had to do it on their own--but we feel strongly that more women have a chance of making it if they listen to the advice that the New Breed gives, which is to cut through that entire cultural imperative and don''t even try to do the juggling act. Recognize that you cannot have it all, certainly not at the same time. Make a careful decision, maybe an agonizing decision. Focus on one thing for a period of years. Do it well. Recognize that you may be giving something up, but throw yourself into it and enjoy it and glory in it. After a time, revisit that decision and see if you want to make a change."

Karin Strasser Kauffman and Peggy Downes Baskin speak tonight from 7-9pm at the Thunderbird Bookshop in Carmel. 624-1803.