My mother, Theresa, was a force of nature:  Joyous, divinely artistic, unpredictable, enthusiastic and passionately invested in every moment she had the pleasure to inhabit. One sunny afternoon, when I was ten years old, after we had just finished eating tuna sandwiches at the white Formica table in our kitchen, my mother absentmindedly grabbed a black [...]

As a performer, the worst directors or coaches I ever had barked out a result and expected me to fulfill it. “Be more angry,” they’d say.  Or  “I need you to be more vulnerable.”  And I’d scratch my head, wondering, “how the heck do I do that? Give me something to DO?”   Because, as my [...]

“First it takes your money. Then it takes your freedom. Then it takes your life.”  The words were, raw, bare, and gritty with feeling.  Behind him, pale, still, tattooed, and in a brown wooden casket, lay his son, Andy.  Dead at 24 from a two-year dance with heroin.  The mourners–snuffling, sobbing, shifting– listened, devastated but [...]

As some of you already know, I watch American Idol.  I do this for many reasons, not the least of which is that I get to observe performers come through under pressure, which provides fodder for articles like this. Last week, one of my favorite of this season’s performers, Crystal Bowersox, knocked Kris Kristofferson’s classic [...]

When I was a kid, my dad decided I was going to be a golfer.  As he explained, golf was a game that would pay off for in me in the business world someday.  Besides, I was long and lean and athletically inclined, and, according to my golf pro, looked like I belonged on the [...]

I see it all the time:  Amazing, capable women who choose to give their power away by disowning or belittling their considerable accomplishments.  It happened just this weekend, at a public speaking workshop that I facilitated.  Not one but two women stood up, gave presentations about their life’s work, and essentially pooh poohed the astonishing [...]

I can’t tell you how many speaking clients complain to me about their inability to hold people’s attention while they’re giving a presentation.  I tell them, “You get back what you put out.””  And then I turn on my trusty camera and videotape them doing their thing.  During playback, my clients get to see themselves as they actually [...]

I don’t follow tennis much, but I am well aware of tennis stars Venue and Serena Williams, sisters who turned women’s tennis into a power game with their sheer physical domination.  Picking up the newspaper last night, I read an article about these exceptional athletes, and was struck by a statement that Venus Williams made [...]

I recently watched a PBS special about the life and career of singer, actress, cabaret artist and all-around stellar performer, Eartha Kitt.  Miss Kitt– who many of you will remember as the purring, growling, sinewy Catwoman from the original Batman television series) died this past Christmas day at the age of 81.  When asked by [...]

Last night I watched the semi-finals of Dancing with the Stars while lying in bed eating dinner with my husband and my three cats. Tease me all you want, but it was a whole lot more fun to watch people in satin and sequins salsa dancing and fox-trotting than, say, watching doom and gloom on the TV [...]