Do you have someone whose advice you could rely upon? Someone who, when they whisper...you listen. Unfortunately, role models/mentors are hard to come by, especially for women and I'm a tiny bit old for Miley Cyrus, although I do agree with her on that vampire issue. So, I read...and, I listen to women who have shown a reasonable amount of wisdom in their writings or dealings concerning life. I am frequently learning from other women who have shared their challenges and overcome large obstacles with dignity, integrity, and grace. Let me share a bit of the expert advice I have gotten from some inspiring women I've never met...listen up...I'm whispering.
I had, like most people, an ongoing obsession for many years with
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929-1994). She was thrust into our lives as our glamorous First Lady at the tender age of 31. She taught us dignity in grief as we all shared the loss of her husband in 1963. In 1968 she shocked the world as she married a Greek shipping tycoon who was 25 years her senior! We thought she had lost her mind and we had lost our courageous heroine. Not so. Onassis returned and repurposed (widowed again and a whole lot wealthier) to her beloved New York, settling in as a successful working girl/super mom to two top notch kids. I admire her most for her philosophy on child rearing..."If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do well matters very much." She died way too soon in 1994 at 65 of lymphatic cancer, but she will forever remain in my mind as the intelligent, cultured, elegant, First Lady/Mom of Camelot. 
Another lady I love to listen to is
Joy Behar from
The View. I don't think she has a whisper mode, though. I do like how she seems to tell it like it is and always with a dash of humor! In a recent magazine interview, Behar states that humor is a great way of getting your ideas across to other people in our everyday life of "ridiculous behavior." I agree, because as the middle child of three girls, each three years apart, I was always using humor to juggle the "ridiculous behavior" among me and my sisters. Funny, they never appreciated the humor I dished out. I think they called it
mental anguish, but,
thank God the statute of limitations has run out for any civil lawsuits. Anyway, humor has remained a constant throughout my life, and now it is just one of the ways I communicate with others. Another humorist, I simply adored, was
Erma Bombeck (1927-1996) who said,
"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me.'"
Lastly, another woman I especially admire, heed to, and bought the tshirt from is
Martha Stewart. Martha has pure business savvy in areas such as publishing, broadcasting, and merchandising. I have been listening to this mentor for many years, and long before the entire world knew who she was, I bought her first book,
Entertaining, when she was justa' caterer from Connecticut. Check out my love for Martha on the
October 21, 2009 post of
My Life In the Natural State. MS has taught me that you can certainly prevail thru adversity by continuing to be the very best at what you love to do, and being an obsessive compulsive neurotic in the domestic diva category is a "good thing."
These are only a few of my favorite mentors...none are perfect. I respect and admire what all of these women have contributed to society. I don't put them on a pedestal, because that means I might be selling myself short. Wouldn't want to do that. Therefore, I have to believe that I can have all the wisdom, humor, and business savvy that these ladies have because I am continuously seeking knowledge...however, I do recall what
Vince Lombardi had to say
..."The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will." Guess it wouldn't hurt to throw a little 'will and action' into that steaming pot of knowledge I've been working on all these years.
