Shine Like a Diamond

 We are more like diamonds than we think!  Once you decide to accept some basic principles about how life works, you can start creating that new you - the "you" you have always dreamed about being.  Your best stories CAN come from your adversities.

It Must be a Duck

We hear "you can't judge a book by its cover."  Maybe, maybe  not, but the cover is very often what gets many people to want to open the book or not in the first place. First impressions.   Make your cover a correct, honest picture of what your book is about.  Then the contents of your book and the cover must be related.  People don't want to open a book thinking its about a luxury train ride on the Orient Express only to find it's about couchsurfing adventures through the Andes.  So while your cover should be interesting and appealing, you have to have the goods to back it up.  I have used a 3-step process to rewrite my life book - I will share this with so you can start to write (or re-write) the book of your life.

Own the Room

If you don't feel great about the way you look, you are starting off in a negative position.  One of my favorite quotes is by a woman I admire very much, Lynn Dell, the Countess of Glamour.  She says "We must dress everyday for the theatre of our lives." If you treat each day as a stage play - write the script any way you wish - you can create whatever it is you want your life to be like each new day.  Dress the part, then get into the part, then act the part, then become the part.

Build Your Own Yellow Brick Road

This is the difference between being a survivor and being victorious.  Very often women are satisfied when they can get people to stop throwing bricks at them.  Well, the pain may have stopped; but is that enough?  Why not take those "bricks" and build something fabulous with it? 

Go Off to See a Wizard

Find the right wizards and really listen to them!  You'll remember from the Wizard of Oz that the "cowardly" lion just needed to be reminded that he was courageous and he was given a medal by the Wizard as a symbol of that courage.  Find wizards, a/k/a/ teachers and mentors, that can remind you of your great potential; not people that tell you what you can't do, or why you will never succeed.  And use outward "symbols" to help you remember your great potential every day. (PS: if you have not seen the Wizard of Oz, you must!)

With This Ring I Me Wed

Who will stay by your side and never, ever leave no matter what the circumstances?  Who can you depend on to always have your back?  Who understands you completely?  Who can you trust 100%, 100% of time time and who will never betray you?  THIS is the person you want to commit the rest of your life to.  This person is YOU.  Who better to "love, honor and cherish until death do you part?"  Perhaps a traditional marriage ceremony is something we, as women, really need to have in order to symbolize this commitment to ourselves - before we commit to putting someone else in first place.  Controversial?  Odd?  Silly?  Maybe, but it shouldn't be.