Humility. I was raised to value it, treasure the fact that I could have my own personal accomplishments and keep them to myself – my strength quietly feeding off my actions with no need for recognition or reward. But now, as I shoot myself into the world of politics, my advisors say I must explain where my inner strength comes from, where I learned to negotiate and where I picked up my ability to lead, and how I developed the capacity to motivate people to work together towards one vision. ...

It’s hard to believe that seven years have passed since my wedding day on the hill beside the lake. I remember the very strange marriage vows we were made to repeat, and watching my husband’s eyes grow in disbelief as he realized that the minister was reading the wrong vows. My husband gave a slight shake of his head, indicating we shouldn’t say anything, and from there, every line the minister said made us giggle, until he finally said something meaningful for both of us to repeat: “I p...

Sunday: My mother had a stroke tonight. She and her partner Michael walked into the emergency department at Lakeshore General in Montreal just before 8 p.m. Michael told the clerk that he is a retired doctor and he thought my mother had or was having a stroke. The clerk told them they were busy and they’d have to wait. 10:30 p.m.: A nurse finally did an urgency evaluation and determined my mother may have had a stroke. While my mother and Michael waited politely, I know I wouldn’t...

Sunday: It’s a quiet day at the cottage. We discussed the Twitter phenomenon last night around the dinner table, all of us wondering why so many people use it. Today as I sit on the deck, a raven squawks as he flies past me. He’s telling me he’s here, that he exists. Perhaps that is what Twitter does. It allows people to claim their moments, to say to each other, “I am here.” Monday: Read

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Opportunities abound in this economy. I have a shameless sense of optimism that I find myself holding back because I feel the weight of worry in the air. This holding back reminds me of seeing an old friend at my father’s funeral. His death brought horrible change to my life, and the thought of living without him locked my jaw tight. But then I saw my friend. The warm memories pushed my grief aside and relaxed my jaw into a smile. She tried not to smile back, but some things must never be stop...

I was reading over some statistics the other day. Not that I’m one to follow statistics, but sometimes I feel this need to see how I fit into the world. I discovered that women own 34 percent of small and mid-sized businesses and they are likely to have fewer than 20 employees. Women also tend to have businesses in the service sector. What stood out most, however, was that women-owned businesses are not producing the revenue of their male counterparts. The truth is that businesswomen have a ha...

A few months ago, I received a call from a woman with agoraphobia. Her fear of being in public places meant that she couldn't even do her own grocery shopping. She told me that she forced herself to go out regularly to pick up a copy of Women's Post. There was something about the way our columnists wrote about the world from their own intimate perspective that she absorbed. The more of our publication she read, the more she realized how sick she was and needed help. The inspiration she found in ...