Category: resolute-women
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Sarah, Plain and Tall
I bought a copy of Patricia MacLachlan’s book Sara, Plain and Tall for the third-grade student I “mentor” once a week at an elementary school near my home. I bought it because I remembered when my daughter read it, and the title has always intrigued me. So, I read the book, for ages six to…
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The amazing Helen Keller
We were reading a book about a girl who is deaf when I asked Elizabeth if she knew the story of Helen Keller. Elizabeth, the elementary student I mentor every week, had never heard of Helen Keller. As I struggled to explain the story of this woman who was deaf and blind, I realized anew…
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Shirley Chisholm had guts
I’ve always admired Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman ever elected to Congress. In 1972, Chisholm ran for president of the United States, the first African American and only the second woman to seek the nomination of a major political party. When I discovered “forever” stamps with a picture of this smart, courageous woman, I…
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Are you a supersurvivor?
A leukemia sufferer who won an Olympic gold medal. A blind man who rowed across the Atlantic. A woman who survived genocide in Rwanda. These are some of the the supersurvivors whose stories are discussed in David Feldman and Lee Daniel Kravetz’s book Supersurvivors—The Surprising Link Between Suffering and Success. What do these people have…
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Fear is okay
Alison Levine, author of On the Edge: The Art of High-Impact Leadership, was on the south summit of Mount Everest. She was so high that she had to take five to 10 breaths before each step when she realized that she and her team were in extreme danger. Levine’s oxygen tank had malfunctioned, and a…
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Self helpless
“Self helpless. You’re always one perfect advice book away from a much better you.” That’s the great headline and subhead for Kristin van Ogtrop’s essay in the July 21, 2014, issue of Time magazine. The editor of Real Simple magazine, van Ogrop confirms a message that Fayteen and I agree with completely. “Everyone wants to…
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The self-assertive, independent woman
“What kind of revolution, I wonder, do we need to make men dream of self-assertive, independent women as the epitome of beauty?” asks Fratema Mernissi in her book Scheherazade Goes West—Different Cultures, Different Harems. A professor of sociology at the University of Mohammed V in Rabat, Morocco, Mernissi remembers trips to visit her grandmother, who…
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Gaining confidence
What’s the “magic formula” for gaining confidence? “For once, we found surprising clarity and consensus,” write Katty Kay and Claire Shipman in their book The Confidence Code. “Confidence…requires hard work, substantial risk, determined persistence and sometimes bitter failure. Building it demands regular exposure to all of these things. “You don’t get to experience how far…
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The pursuit of perfection
What’s the most crippling thing we do to undermine our confidence? Trying to be perfect, answer Katty Kay and Claire Shipman in their book The Confidence Code. “If perfectionism is your standard, of course you will never be fully confident because the bar is always impossibly high, and you will inevitably and routinely feel inadequate.…
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When in doubt, act
Katty Kay and Claire Shipman stress that the most important lesson to remember from their book The Confidence Code is this: “When in doubt, act.” “Nothing builds confidence like taking action, especially when the action involves risk and failure,” the two authors explain. “Risk keeps you on life’s edge. It keeps you growing, improving and…