25 THINGS, FACTS, HABITS OR GOALS – about me

Yeah.  I’ve been “tagged!”  By my buddy, Michelle.  I can’t turn her down.  The task is to reveal 25 things people don’t know about you and then “tag” others to do the same.  That’s how you get even!

Feels like I am on that old TV show, This Is Your Life.  But here goes.

(If you are curious about the picture, go to item eight.)

1.      I was born at home in Brooklyn, New York.  My mother was too shy to go to a hospital.  She didn’t want anyone “looking at her.”   Brother and two sisters followed soon after.  She was eighteen when I was born so we all grew up together.

2.      When I was twelve, we moved upstate.  Upstate is now a suburb of New York City since highways were built.  I think that is why I feel comfortable either in a city or a small town.

3.      I won an essay contest in the seventh grade that was sponsored by the VFW.  Got a silver medal.  It was the first I thought that I could write.  It was a big surprise.

4.      My main preoccupation, as teenager, was cheerleading at Nyack High School.  It guaranteed your popularity.

5. I went to Marywood College in Scranton, PA.   It was like the book, Do Patent Leather Shoes Really Shine Up? You had to pass muster with the nuns before you went out on a date.  No cleavage.  And bring a newspaper in case you have to sit on a boy’s lap.

6. Then I married the football star of an opposing high school.  It was made in heaven.  A cheerleader and a football star.  It seemed a good idea at the time.  It wasn’t.

7.      As a single mother of three boys, I got a real estate license.  It was a time when things were booming.  I worked with a builder and sold many houses, which are still standing.

8.      There was a county benefit of the Broadway musical, South Pacific. The lead, Nellie Forbush, had not been cast.  My mother said, “Go try out. Mary Martin is not a singer either.”  I got the part.  The picture above is me singing “Honeybun.”  It was the most fun I ever had!

9.      Three years later, I went on a cruise and met a handsome stockbroker from Chicago.  We married and I moved my family and I am still living here.  We had a baby – making four.

10.  My new husband had just had his house featured in House Beautiful.  White carpet.  It didn’t stay white for long with four little hellions running around.  It was changed to beige. Dark beige.

11.  I went to work for a travel agency and after a few years, opened my own.  Those were the good old days when there were freebies all around.  We traveled the world.  It would be easier to list the countries I haven’t been than the ones I have.  I still do some travel work for old customers if they are taking a complicated trip, although I sold the agency when the Internet took over travel.

12.  My husband, who was much older, died after a long illness.  The boys grew up and I was left with a huge house and the dog.  You can’t move to an apartment with an old dog but when Snoopy went to his reward, I moved downtown to the Gold Coast.

13.   Hated it.  You had to get dressed up and put on makeup to get your mail.  And crowded.  No outdoor space.  I sold the condo after ten years.  I love the city but I felt like I was living in a hotel.

14.  I found a small townhouse which is not exceptional or new but the location is amazing.  My front door is forty feet away from Lake Michigan and it is only nine miles from downtown.  I love it.  I still live there.

15.  I had nothing to do so I took a course in television production at Chicago Public Access.  CAN-TV For a few years I had a show interviewing authors in the personal growth area.  I started getting the really big authors and Wisdom Television picked my show up and it went on national cable.  This was nothing that I anticipated because who hires a middle aged national TV host  unless you are Barbara Walters?  It shows that anything can happen even if the odds are against you.

16.  At the same time, I started to study A Course in Miracles.  A group met at my house.  One of the members was a Judge in Chicago.  He suggested I teach it at Cook County Jail and he arranged for me to get in there which was not easy.  After two years, I got fired from my volunteer job.  The Course is based on love and forgiveness.  That did not sit well with some of the fundamentalist Christian preachers who taught hell, fire and damnation.  I was asked to come back after the inmates petitioned for me but it spoiled it for me.  They had spit in my soup.

17.  My Judge friend was not through with me.  He headed a court which was in an area of rampant prostitution in Chicago.  He said he was sick of sending them to jail.  It was a revolving door.  He decided to send them to me. (What?  Me?)   So we started a group called, Unhooked and Free. It was the first self esteem program for prostitutes in the country.  The BBC did a special on it. I did the program for five years.  I learned a lot about sex.  Smartest women I ever met.  They had to be.  It is a dangerous profession.  If you are not smart, you end up in a dumpster.  The program spread to other courts and got to be so big, we turned it over to Genesis House, a drop in center for prostitutes.  They are still doing it.

18.  One of my students in the Course asked me for a recommendation of a Life Coach.  I said I would think about it.  I called back and suggested me.  Figured I had made enough mistakes – and had enough successes.  I had my first Life Coach client.  I am still life-coaching fifteen years later.  I don’t tackle people who have mental health problems.  So it is mostly common sense helping people who already have their own answers to find them.  Life Coaches are a sounding board.  A paid friend, if you will, who has no personal agenda.

19.  One of my clients was a blogger.  I was not quite sure what that was so I had to do research in order to work with her.  A light bulb went on in my head.  Hey, I can do that!  You’ve been stuck with me ever since.

20.  It was easy at first until I took Yaro Starek’s Blog Mastermind course.  I realized I had to get off Google’s free service and go on wordpress.org.

21.  I am a writer.  Have three books published.  Low Pain Threshold, Love Waits on Welcome …and other miracles and Reflections from a Woman Alone. (They are all out of print but still available on Amazon)  A technical person I am not.  Word press was way above my pay grade.  Yaro said to do what you do best and hire out the rest.

22.  That’s when I met Michelle Vandpas.  She is also a blogger and a genius super techie.  She was writing code (whatever that is) before the Internet came into being.

23.  Michelle was starting a radio show.  After doing 400 shows for Wisdom Television, I knew a lot about interviewing.  We have a barter deal.  She fixes the screw ups on my blog and I monitor her shows and act as a media coach.  It is a marriage made in heaven.  I think I have the best of the deal and she thinks she has the best of it.  Perfect.

24. She is helping me launch an E-book which you will hear about soon.  It is called Sales, Lies and Naked Truths. I have been in some sort of sales for my whole life and was a sales trainer for new agents when I had a travel agency. Stand by for more information.

25.  Are we done yet?  Michelle, I will get you for this.  This was a lot of work.  Final note.  I am now advertising for more media coaching. Love it.  Have another client and want more.  Let me know if you need help or only a touch up on your radio shows or podcasts.

26.    Now for the getting even.  I am tagging the following people.  Give us 25 things people don’t know about you. If you dare!  Grace Kleppin, Melissa Goerke, Chris Brogan, Sherri Joubert, Craig Harper, Tom Stine