Profiles

Day 38: When Darlene Bock, 52, was in elementary school, she came home crying nearly every day after school. The kids said she was too tall, too skinny, and too ugly. It was, to say the least, incredibly hurtful. And it impacted her confidence, until she learned something that her own mom had learned many years before. “You don’t let people tell you who you are,” Darlene said. “YOU tell you who you are.” Darlene’s mom had gone through a lot of the same challenges in life that Darlene was facing, and then some. Her mom was legally blind, very tall, and not attractive. Both suffered from Marfan Syndrome, a connective tissue disease that affected their eyes, heart, lungs, kidneys, and nearly every other body system you could think of. Marfan Syndrome was the reason...

Day 75: Bill Kenower, 47, knows a lot about stories. He’s the Editor-in-Chief of Author Magazine, hosts a weekly radio show by authors for authors, and recently finished writing his memoir, “No One is Broken.” Bill knows first-hand how to craft a good story, but for many years he did just the opposite. It impacted his whole life, and according to him, you may be falling into the same trap. Although Bill is a full-time writer now, things weren’t always this way. For more than 20 years he worked as a waiter while writing and acting on the side. It was a way to pay the bills and support a wife and children. The money was a blessing, but the job felt like a complete curse. “I felt trapped and imprisoned at the restaurant,” Bill said. “And I felt like a victim to the...

Day 54: Last week I finally had the opportunity to sit down and speak with New York Times Bestselling Author Kevin O’Brien. I had been looking forward to our meeting immensely. It wasn’t just the fact that he was a famous author that had my curiosity piqued; he came with his own reputation. Several people in the writing community had sung his praises to me, and I had to see what all of the excitement was about. As soon as Kevin joined me at the cafe table, steaming cup of coffee in hand, I felt like I had known him for years. It was the way he was so easy to talk to, his propensity for good humor and laughter. I couldn’t wait to ask him about his greatest life lesson. “It’s really simple,” Kevin said. “Always clean the lint trap for the next person.” As we...

Day 126: If learning your greatest life lesson the hard way were a contest, Marissa Boone*, 23, would have everyone beat. It’s not something that she’s proud of. It’s not even something she tells most people. “I grew up in a really ugly situation,” Marissa said. “And through that, I learned to not follow the Pied Piper, but rather to be independent. My childhood was very different from what a lot of people experience. I don’t tell a lot of people about it, because they either say, ‘What the hell?’ or they don’t believe me.” Marissa’s childhood didn’t start out so difficult. She was an only child in a typically normal family. Her dad was an engineer; her mom was a drama teacher. Although Marissa had a good relationship with both of her parents, she was drawn...

Day 107: “School was my misery growing up,” Malloree Nilson, 24, said. “I had trouble paying attention. My mind would go totally blank on tests. I had a lot of anxiety during exams because I saw other people finishing a lot earlier than me. In school, it’s uncool to be the last kid to finish because then you’re just the stupid kid. All of this started when I was really young, too. I was in tutoring as early as 1st grade because I was slow. It was embarrassing. All I wanted was to be the best student and the teacher’s pet. I was trying my best, but everyone thought I wasn’t trying at all.” Things only got worse for Malloree as she got older and switched from a small school to a much larger one. “All of a sudden, I wasn’t around the people I’d grown up with. I...

Day 19: There are some people in my life that I could listen to all day long. They’re just wise. My mom, Carol Veach, 53, is that way. I don’t say that just because she is my mom, either. I say it because it’s the truth. So I was honored when she agreed to sit down with me and share one of her greatest life lessons. Interestingly enough, my sister and I had something to do with it. “People need to be more gentle with themselves,” she said. “Sometimes it’s easier to forgive others for their imperfections than ourselves. This has not come naturally to me. I’ve learned it by watching you girls struggle. You’re so hard on yourselves.” Even though I know that my mom is very intuitive, I was still surprised that she had picked up on the way my sister and I handle...