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Time.  I just want more time, and I am going to fight for that.   -Luisa Vargas 

This episode kicks off our annual 4-part series devoted to the inspiring stories of breast cancer survivors. In the spotlight, Luisa Vargas. Born and raised in the Dominican Republic, she grew up so poor she didn’t own a pair of shoes until she was 8 years old. As a single mom, Luisa made her way to the United States seeking medical care for her daughter, who had a heart condition. Speaking no English at all, she got the care her daughter needed, learned the language, and started a new life in Southboro, a small town outside of Boston. Trained as a psycho-muscular massage therapist, Luisa is one of the best in the world at her craft, and she has used that knowledge in her own recovery following surgery and chemotherapy for an aggressive form of breast cancer. “Chemo is hard”, says Luisa. “I have never felt anything so bad in my whole life. You need mental health support, spiritual support, family support, and community support. If you don’t have that support, it doesn’t matter how strong you are. Your body is not going to respond because we are connected through mind and body. We are one piece. “ What shines through in this interview is Luisa’s energy. A dynamo and a life lover, she will do whatever it takes to help others. Says Luisa: “I see an obstacle like a big fence. If it is too tall and I cannot reach the top, I dig a hole underground.” If you are undergoing breast cancer treatment, this episode is bound to give you the dose of hope and positivity you need to make it through. @elliefund #breastcancer

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I do love a good rush of adrenalin. I’m not gonna lie.  -Sandy Lish

For most of us, the word “crisis” is a negative,  but not for Sandy Lish. She loves a good crisis because she knows how to solve it.   Together with longtime colleague Wendy Spivak, Sandy co-founded The Castle Group thecastlegrp.com 27 years ago.  Armed with a yin/yang skillset, the two started small, in a shared office space, with their desks facing each other and 3 initial clients:  the Nellie Mae Foundation, Bank of Boston (precursor to Bank of America), and The Street, an online financial services publication.  With steady growth year after year, the company is thriving with specialties in PR, events, marketing, public affairs, social/digital, and crisis management and was named a Forbes Best PR Agency.  Based in Boston with offices in Atlanta and Maui, Sandy and Wendy have built a company culture rooted in trust, authenticity, and a deep commitment to civic engagement. It’s no wonder then, that this PR Maven is the recipient of many awards, including the Boston Business Journal Power 50.  Born and raised in Brookline, MA,  Sandy’s family struggled to keep their home in the upscale enclave known as Chestnut Hill when her father declared bankruptcy. Determined to keep the family solvent, Sandy and her mother both worked three jobs.  In this interview, Sandy reveals her natural born competitive edge and her lifelong ability to be resilient during adversity.   At only 14 she found herself unsupervised and instead of doing her homework, she became an income earner, scooping ice cream, working in a supermarket, at a local pharmacy, and as a waitress. After failing to graduate with her high school class, she opted to get her GED instead.  A first-generation college graduate of UMASS Amherst, Sandy is the proud mother of two who firmly believes “it’s a good thing for a son and a daughter to watch their mother run a business.”   For a tutorial on chutspah, resourcefulness, overcoming obstacles, and thriving under pressure, just hit that download button. #thecastlegrp #PR #marketing 

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The world is not soft and you will fail. You need to have the internal resources to pick yourself up and move on. -Betsey Sethares

The email from Betsey’s daughter, Lily said: “I’ve been feeling immensely grateful for the wonderful women who impact my life, especially during the pandemic and one of those people is my mom, Betsey Sethares.” With an endorsement like that, I knew that Betsey would be an inspiration to anyone listening to The Story Behind Her Success. The Executive Director of the Cape Cod Times Needy Fund for over twenty years, Betsey oversees the non-profit’s long standing mission to provide urgent financial assistance for basic human needs to residents of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. Because these communities rely on seasonal employment, many residents experience financial insecurity. Beyond the noble work Betsey does for her community, she is also a mother and a breast cancer survivor in a family where many women have died of the disease. In this interview, Betsey shares her wisdom about love, the importance of listening, and the idea that obstacles just might be opportunities. For a dose of inspiration from a humble woman who would never ask for applause, hit that download button. www.needyfund.org.

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Lord, you don’t have to move my mountains, just give me the strength to climb. -Carmen Fields

She may have grown up in a segregated community outside Tulsa, Oklahoma, but Carmen Fields was surrounded by love and encouragement. The daughter of a teacher and a very well-known big band leader, she knew she wanted to write. That love of writing led to a 40 year career as a print and broadcast journalist, a media relations pro and a college professor. In this interview, Carmen and I settled in for a look back at a career that continues to inspire to this day. It was her mother who encouraged Carmen to come to Boston from Oklahoma saying: “You’ve never been East before, why don’t you go ahead to Boston, and just remember, you can always come home if it doesn’t work out.” Well, it did work out and Carmen has both passion and perseverance to thank for her success. As a black female reporter on the City Desk at the Boston Globe, there were neighborhoods she was afraid to go into during the Boston busing crisis. Yet, as Carmen says: “those old men in the newsroom with their cigars and off color jokes took me under their wing” and she continued to grow as a print journalist. Her career story includes her experience as a TV anchor, her stint as a press secretary to the Suffolk County District Attorney, her public relations roles at the United Way and National Grid her love of teaching at Boston University and her long running public affairs program on WHDH called Higher Ground. When it comes to the responsibilities of a journalist, Carmen Fields is clear: “I still look at journalism as the first draft of history. And I still look at journalist’s role as a responsibility to give the facts and some of the context and background and yes, even get both sides of the story.” For a look at a career worth emulating, hit that download button. #womeninmedia #storybehindhersuccess #journalism

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Whether you are young, or you are 80, 90, or even 100 years old, that moment when you make that connection and you have a partnership with an instrument…is a magic moment.
-Deborah Henson-Conant

When she was growing up, Deborah Henson-Conant refused to take music lessons. All she wanted to do was figure out for herself how to make music, writing her first musical at only 12. A prolific singer-songwriter in her teens, she agreed to play the harp for her college band and that pivotal decision has guided her entire career. You see, Deborah figured out a way to make a gigantic instrument smaller, easy to carry, and electric. She is known worldwide as the woman who liberated the concert harp by shrinking it down, strapping it on and plugging it in so that audiences large and small could hear every single gorgeous note. Her recent TEDx talk chronicles her collaboration with French harp company, CAMAC which resulted in the creation of the “DHC” harp, now played by harpists worldwide. In this interview, Deborah shares her passion for music and especially for the unbridled use of imagination. Never someone to color inside the lines, she is a trailblazer for musicians young and old who want to forge their own path. Nominated for a Grammy for a long-form symphonic concert of her original music performed in collaboration with the Grand Rapids Symphony, Deborah was delighted that PBS stations nationwide released the concert nationwide. Invention & Alchemy is now available to the world via streaming as a fundraiser during the Covid-19 pandemic, Deborah’s greatest hope is that the concert video inspires anyone who wants to make music. For a journey into the creative mind of a musical genius, hit that download button. #musician #harpist

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The strength and the passion I have aligns with my purpose. I want to help individuals, teams and organizations fulfill their potential. That’s my measure of success. –Jennifer McCollum

No one is born a leader. The traits and characteristics of a great leader evolve over time as an individual “becomes” the best version of themselves. What’s more: the best leaders aren’t in it for themselves, they are in it for the greater good. Meet a woman whose career has been woven around building and managing businesses that focus on leadership. Her name is Jennifer McCollum and she is the CEO of Linkage, Inc. a global leadership development firm based in Boston. Using its signature “purposeful leadership” model, Linkage is leading the way when it comes to advancing women leaders and creating a culture of inclusion. When you are the CEO of a company whose main focus is leadership, the pressure to lead is pretty demanding, but Jennifer is up for the challenge. A wife and mother of three, Jennifer shares what she has learned on her career path from 20, to 30, to 40 and now to age 50, explaining the importance of “taking a step back and realizing that testing, learning, failing and being disappointed doesn’t mean you can’t start over!” The daughter of two teachers, Jennifer was raised in Germany where she credits her mother with giving her the perfect balance of independence and responsibility. Of the many pieces of advice her mother gave her, Jennifer says these words of wisdom are her favorite: “Set the intention for what you want and then let go of how you are going to get it.” She credits mentors, colleagues and friendships with other women as her greatest source of strength. In fact, when her own “inner critic” might be getting the best of her, it is her friends who set her straight. For a look inside the mindset of an insightful, compassionate female leader in the C-suite, grab a paper and pen and start taking notes! #leadership #womenleaders #inspiringstories

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The lesson to me is always: GET UP. Don’t be afraid to get back up on your feet and keep going. -Joyce Kulhawik

Welcome back to part two of the story of a woman who has done so much with her life, we just couldn’t squeeze it all in one episode! Joyce Kulhawik is a force of nature. As a well-known arts & entertainment critic, she has interviewed just about every celebrity you can think of. But it is her intelligence, attention to detail, curiosity and spunk that make her the kind of interviewer Oprah, Meryl Streep, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts, Steven Tyler and more love to sit down and talk to. In this interview, Joyce shares some of her favorite interviews, as well as the experience of covering the death of Princess Diana, live from outside Kensington Palace, and the horror of landing at JFK just 15 minutes before the first plane hit the World Trade Center. Her live coverage at Ground Zero would go on to receive numerous broadcast industry awards. No stranger to adversity in her personal life, Joyce shares her journey as a 3 time cancer survivor, her determination to be an advocate for anyone struggling with a cancer diagnosis, her very personal decision to have a child through surrogacy, and her powerful definition of “mother love”. The host of the Simmons Leadership Conference, Joyce is an in-demand “hostess with the mostest”. Her website: www.joyceschoices is a destination for legions of fans who value her reviews on arts and entertainment in Boston and beyond. More than anything else, this is an interview with a woman who is never complacent and understands the value of reinvention. Says Joyce: “I’m still trying to raise myself to be exactly who I am. I want to be the best self I can be.”  #inspiringstories  #reinvention  #theatre  #arts

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I never listened to my intuition. I did what I was expected to do. I made other people proud. That was how I lived my life. -Meredith Atwood

Meredith Atwood remembers working very hard to get into law school, knowing all the while that being a lawyer was not what she was meant to do with her life. She did it anyway. The years flew by, she married her college sweetheart, had babies, and was making lots of money as an attorney, but somewhere deep down inside, Meredith had lost her way. One morning, after drinking too much wine and binging on pizza and ice cream, the triathlete just couldn’t get out of bed. She didn’t even remember the promise she had made to her daughter to help with a project before school. Instead, she pulled the covers over her head and slept through the entire morning. When she woke up, she found a note from her husband with four powerful words on it: GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER. Says Meredith: “When you are in a state of emotional despair, you are not living your authentic life. You are sick.” And so began an open, painfully honest 365 day experiment which is now the title of her book: The Year of No Nonsense: How to get over yourself and on with your life.” Published by Hatchette Books, it reads like a journal and is both heartbreaking and hysterically funny, all at the same time. Determined to figure out what was working in her life and what wasn’t, Meredith gave up both her legal career and drinking wine, and set about the task of adjusting her compass. The result is a book that resonates for any woman who has also lost her way. In this candid interview, Meredith shares her belief that we all suffer losses throughout our lives, but “getting over the past requires seeing it, acknowledging it, and then saying to yourself: hey, I can do nothing about that. I only have today, so let’s get on with it.” For 23 minutes of truth and wisdom, just hit that download button. #yearofnononsense #storybehindhersuccess #triathletes

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We packed up our remote equipment and flew from Boston to Palm Springs, California to cover the 31st annual Palm Springs Film Festival  to talk to female directors about their craft. There was a time when there were virtually no women in director’s roles, but thankfully, times are changing and I was fortunate to meet and interview two female directors who are trailblazers in their field. First up, Sophie Deraspe, the Canadian director, screenwriter and cinematographer whose adaptation of the Greek tragedy, Antigone is giving audiences a new take on a very old story. Written by Sophocles 2500 years ago, Sophie’s adaptation centers around a modern-day immigrant family living in Montreal and a brave teenage daughter who stands up to the law out of love and loyalty for her family. The film explores the burden of responsibility, even when our actions demand incredible inner-strength and sacrifice. Antigone, starring Nahema Ricci is winning awards at festivals worldwide and was honored to be selected as Canada’s entry at the 92nd Annual Academy Awards. Sophie’s career journey toward finding her path as a director will inspire you. Says Sophie: “There is nothing that can stop me. I will never give up. I’ll find my way around any obstacle.” As luck would have it, I also had the opportunity to sit down with Australian director Shannon Murphy just a few hours after she was named to Variety’s Top 10 Director’s List. Her latest film is Babyteeth, the story of a cancer stricken 16 year old played by Eliza Scanlen who falls in love with a troubled drug addict. As a director, Shannon says she loves complicated love stories, and this is definitely one of them with the mother’s role brilliantly acted by Essie Davis. In this interview, Shannon shared what it was like early in her career when she was often the only female in the room. Heeding the advice of other women in film, she decided to be her authentic self. Says Shannon: “I knew when I was 17 that I wanted to be a director. It is all I have ever wanted. I’m incredibly ambitious. I’m obsessed. This is my passion!”  #PSIFF   @essiedavisdaily   @BWME    #storybehindhersuccess    #16LifeLessons    #mydoveproductions