Verwandte Artikel zu It Ain't Over . . . Till It's Over: Reinventing...

It Ain't Over . . . Till It's Over: Reinventing Your Life--and Realizing Your Dreams--Anytime, at Any Age - Softcover

Thomas, Marlo

 
9781476739922: It Ain't Over . . . Till It's Over: Reinventing Your Life--and Realizing Your Dreams--Anytime, at Any Age
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1476739927 ISBN 13: 9781476739922
Verlag: Atria, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

From actress, activist, and #1 New York Times bestselling author Marlo Thomas comes a unique, inspirational book “filled with stories of bold and brave women who won’t give up and won’t be held back” (Sheryl Sandberg, bestselling author of Lean In).

Anyone who has ever tried to make a big life change knows it can be complicated—and frightening. Especially if you’re feeling stuck. But how do you get up the nerve to actually take the leap?

Marlo Thomas’s It Ain’t Over…Till It’s Over introduces us to sixty amazing women who proved that it’s never too late to pull yourself out of a hole or to live out a dream—to launch a business, lose weight, discover a hidden talent, escape a dangerous relationship, find love, or fill a void in life with a challenging new experience. Meet an unemployed saleswoman who fought her way back from bankruptcy by inventing a simple product that earned her millions; a graphic artist who fulfilled a childhood ambition by going to med school at age forty-two; a suburban mom whose snack recipe for her daughter’s lunchbox turned into a successful business; and a middle-aged English teacher who, devastated to learn that her husband was cheating on her, refused to be a victim, filed for divorce, and began the challenging journey of rebuilding her life.

From the first page to the last, It Ain’t Over…Till It’s Over speaks to women of all ages with an empowering message: The best is yet to come!

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Marlo Thomas graduated from the University of Southern California with a teaching degree. She is the author of six bestselling books: Free to Be…You and Me; Free to Be…a Family; The Right Words at the Right Time; The Right Words at the Right Time, Volume 2: Your Turn!; Thanks & Giving: All Year Long; and her memoir, Growing Up Laughing: My Story and the Story of Funny. Ms. Thomas has won four Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award, a Golden Globe, and a Grammy, and has been inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame for her work in television, including her starring role in the landmark series That Girl, which she also conceived and produced. She is the National Outreach Director for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which was founded by her father, Danny Thomas, in 1962.

In 2010, Ms. Thomas launched her website, MarloThomas.com, on The Huffington Post and AOL. She lives in New York with her husband, Phil Donahue.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

It Ain’t Over . . . Till It’s Over Solving the Case
Jamie James, 54

North Hampton, New Hampshire

“Where are my keys?”

If she’d said it once, she’d said it a thousand times—Jamie James could never find anything.

And it was worst at the grocery store, always provoking sighs and grumbles from the people behind her in line. There she’d be, doing her purseexcavation routine, digging through receipts, reading glasses, and candy wrappers looking for the credit card she’d thrown into the leather abyss after her last purchase.

“I was always moving too fast to stop and put things back in my wallet,” Jamie confesses.

Jamie, mother of four and family law attorney, typically blew into the courtroom like a tornado, digging through her oversized bag for a ringing phone, never able to find it. “I felt like a bag lady,” she says. “I needed to simplify.”

She envied her daughter Kaitlyn, who organized all of her essentials (college ID, credit card, and even a random $20 bill) by tucking them inside the protective silicone gel skin surrounding her cell phone so they were always handy.

But clever or not, Kaitlyn’s system wasn’t foolproof. “Mom, you’re going to kill me!” she moaned one day after losing her credit card—yet again. The problem was that over time, the soft cell phone case would stretch, allowing her valuables to slip out and vanish.

There has to be a better way, thought Jamie. How great would it be to have one compact, convenient place where I could stow all of my must-haves: cell phone, cash, AmEx, debit card, driver’s license, health insurance card, and keys?

It was an idea that itched at the back of Jamie’s mind for months, something she might never even have acted on if not for a sudden tragedy: In November 2009, Jamie’s healthy, vibrant mom and dad fell ill with the H1N1 flu, were hospitalized, and died.

“My life came to a stop,” Jamie says. “I went to my parents’ funerals within 17 days of each other. No child, no matter how old, should ever have to go through that.”

Their deaths shook Jamie awake. “I realized that life can change on a dime. I said to my husband: We need to start new.” Two months later, they sold their house in Andover, Massachusetts, and settled into a home a mile from the ocean in North Hampton, New Hampshire, where Jamie, her husband, and their four children had memories of many happy summers spent sailing and going to the beach.

The change was good for Jamie and her family; their home life felt comfortable and safe. What wasn’t so great was Jamie’s work life, as she had to commute back and forth to her office in Massachusetts—an hour each way—every day.

The family law she had practiced for nearly 20 years, in which she dealt with divorces and child custody, was depressing. And now it felt even more so. “It’s almost like being an oncologist. I was dealing with the worst time of someone’s life every day. I’d go to bed questioning Is this what I want to do the rest of my life? Yes, it pays the mortgage and the tuition, but dealing with individuals who are so unhappy is emotionally draining.”

That’s when Jamie began thinking again about designing a product that busy women like her could use to hold all of their “vitals.” “It was almost like, if I could figure this product out, then I could figure me out. I needed to do something that was happier.”

Jamie knew she couldn’t outright quit her career, but she could start taking steps toward creating a business. A month after moving into their new home, she hosted a dinner party for four couples. She cornered her friends’ husbands and showed them a prototype of the product that she’d whipped together. It was the very definition of jerry-rigged: She’d cut some slits in the back of a gel skin phone cover that would serve as credit card slots, taped a piece of cardboard on as a makeshift cover, and added a string to form a wristlet. Not much to look at, but Jamie pointedly wanted to get the guys’ opinions.

“I knew my girlfriends were more likely to be supportive and say, Yes, you should do it!” she says. “But the guys would be brutally honest.”

At first, the husbands didn’t really “get” what Jamie was showing them, until she asked them a few questions: Does your wife ever have trouble finding the phone when you call her? Does she always have to root around in the depths of her bag to find her keys? Does she make you carry her phone and ID when you go out? Yes, yes, and yes.

The men got interested and started brainstorming.

“I always have to carry her lipstick, too!” one said. “Can you add a place for that?”

“I know a website guy!”

They were on a roll—until one husband posed a question that stumped the crowd:

“How are you going to create a product that fits all of the different cell phones out there?” Ya got me, Jamie thought. But, undeterred, she went ahead and took her prototype to her tailor along with some fun fabric.

“I was so nervous. I told him, ‘This is just between you and me. It’s our secret.’?” But when she saw the finished product a few days later, her butterflies went away.

“It was so exciting to hold in my hands what had once just been in my head!” she recalls.

To test out her creation, Jamie began using it everywhere—at cash registers, at restaurant tables, at the ATM, in bathrooms, and at her desk. And—bingo!—it actually did what she wanted it to do: made her life simpler. But in doing so, it was getting filthy fast. Jamie realized she was going to have to manufacture it in leather. Problem solved.

But other complications kept nagging at her, especially that one husband’s question about the product accommodating different-sized phones. Jamie arrived at the answer one day during her hour-long commute. Velcro! she thought. That’s it! Velcro! That’s what we’ll use to stick any phone to it.

She loved the idea so much that, within days, she applied to obtain a patent for the design. Unlike other cell phone cases already on the market that opened up like a little book, Jamie’s cover flipped up and over, like a steno notebook, essentially turning the wallet part inside out, so a user could talk directly into the cell phone without obstruction. Jamie also added a wristlet strap that unhooked so you could attach your keys.

“Everything you needed was in the palm of your hand,” she says.

Now all Jamie needed was a manufacturer—and she found one at a horse show, where a vendor was selling beautiful leather goods. They started talking and two months later, Jamie visited the company. “That’s when the lawyer in me came out,” she says. “I asked the president to sign a nondisclosure agreement so he couldn’t steal my idea.”

“I was thrilled at his reaction. He took one look at my product, hit his head, and said, ‘I can’t believe nobody else has thought of this!’?” Over the next few months, Jamie picked out her favorite Italian leather and fine-tuned the design, and in January of 2011, production began.

But what to call it? “My friends and family encouraged me to name it after myself, but then someone said to me, ‘Someday you’ll create another invention and what are you going to call that? You want Jamie James to be the name of your company, not your...

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
Atria
Erscheinungsdatum
2016
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1476739927
ISBN 13 
9781476739922
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
400
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV
info@simonandschuster.nl

Herculesplein 96
Utrecht
3584 AA
Niederlande