Category Archives: Personal growth

Dancing With The Stars Trophy Winner Nyle DiMarco

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One of the most remarkable dance stories in the last season of Dancing With The Stars (DWTS) is the tale of Nyle DiMarco. Born into a deaf family and deaf himself, he’s never heard a sound, never a musical note. Yet this young man exudes a musicality that defies explanation.

In one of my favorites, Nyle dances a romantic and ethereal waltz with pro dancer Sharna Burgess. Sharna wasn’t his regular partner, but in the show’s week five “switch up,” they partnered together, and the two created magic on the dance floor. Nyle’s regular DWTS dance partner Peta Murgatroyd and Sharna are the show’s best female pros, in my view.

It’s a celebratory time for DiMarco: a few months before wining the Mirror Ball trophy, he also won the final series of America’s Next Top Model.

Nyle mastered the dance basics and captured the hearts of the audience with a mix of fearlessness, emotional abandon and vulnerability. Just watch!

Michele Roberts: An inspiration

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On a fall day at UC Berkeley, I left campus utterly inspired, and it wasn’t from class. It was from talks by Michele Roberts, a respected litigator and the first woman to lead the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA). She spoke candidly at a morning coffee with law students about her tough childhood, her youthful aspirations, and a legal career that proved her mettle.

Accepting a citation award later that day, she shared a story about one of her early criminal cases: a young prostitute she helped get off the street and go back to school. It’s a tale that, in the telling, moved her to tears, reminding her of her own hardscrabble road to the top.

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Selling Love and Tupperware

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Tupperware parties! A historical footnote, but in the fifties and beyond, women, mostly homemakers, sold the plastic food containers at house parties.  It was a way to make money, but also a way to socialize, to share stories of family, children, and heartbreak.

But most modern women work, whether by choice or financial necessity. And as the ranks of single women grow, there’s less opportunity, and less time, to sell the stuff.  So what are women selling now?  Love, and lots of it.

Oprah, Rori Raye, Arielle Ford: all selling ways to find soul mates, relationships for life, the ‘One.’ Just $297 for three lectures!  A bonus seminar for $97!  Or buy the book and the CDs and get 15% off.  It’s for love! Romance! It’s worth it!

I’m sure these (mostly) women are genuine and sincere. But it’s like a broker who says “give me your money, and I’ll make you rich.” The outcome is elusive, but the path the same: pay up if you expect any returns.

Still, many of the lessons they teach are invaluable. I do believe that many of us have focused too much on what we need to do in life — not on how to live and love in life.