I asked my eight year old for the name of the diagram that has two overlapping circles. She was hanging on some climbing structure in flip-flops and a bathing suit. I should have been alarmed. Instead I was trying to think of an interesting angle to use to tell you about this week’s book while my two children enjoyed a few moments of their own.
She quickly chirped “Venn diagram” while still scaling the loosely joined swinging steps. My read this week was really a Venn-test. Continue reading…
Last night I happened to catch the tail end of “Invictus,” a 2009 movie starring Matt Damon as Francois Pienaar, a real-life member of South Africa’s rugby team who’s summoned by Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) to rally support in the country and unite the racial divide. At one point Mandela is speaking about inspiration with Matt Damon’s character and says (and I’m paraphrasing), “how do you get people to be better than they think they can be?” In the movie Mandela was seeking to inspire folks to simply forgive after decades of horrid, tortuous behavior that divided South Africa. Decades earlier a first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, penned “It’s Up To The Women,” daring to inspire the ladies of our country at a particularly horrid time for our nation; the Great Depression. Both leaders relied on inspiration to get folks to accomplish more than they thought possible. My summary is the same for transition; we simply need a bit of inspiration. Continue reading…
It’s funny how obscure comments stick in your mind ready to be instantly recalled with a connection – however remote that connection maybe. I remember standing in my pediatrician’s office when my daughter, who is turning eight next week, was about ten weeks old. I was talking with my newest friend, the nurse practitioner, who had seen us regularly over the past two months. We were talking about my upcoming return to work which by the way I was looking forward to. She made a pithy comment that jumped into my mind this week as I read, Back on the Career Track: A Guide for Stay-at-home Moms Who Want to Return to Work, by Carol Fishman Cohen and Vivian Steir Rabin. Bernie Lane, the nurse practitioner said, “a happy mother is a happy baby.” Truth be told I got more out of my conversation with Bernie than from my read of “Back on the Career Track.”
From my perspective Fishman Cohen and Steir Rabin attempted to achieve two objectives in this book: Continue reading…
Have you ever had an obscure fact stick with you for a long time? Here is one that has followed me… In my late twenties I read Golda Meir’s autobiography, My Life. Golda Meir, the Prime Minister of Israel from 1969-1974, was a school teacher until the age of 43 (or thereabouts). There it is. Isn’t that incredible? At the time she was only the 3rd woman on the planet to serve as a Prime Minister. Her mid-life transition has always stuck with me. Now, I am even more fascinated by it after reading Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes, by William Bridges. Continue reading…
Novofemina.com is a blog about professional and personal transition issues in women’s lives. Novofemina is derived from Latin words meaning “women’s renewal.” It’s constructed from two latin words; novo and femina. Novo’s latin definition is “to make new; to renew; to change; to re-invent.” Femina is the latin word for “woman.” Continue reading…