Career Changes and Forgiveness

About seven years ago, I was volunteering at Dress for Success as a personal stylist when I met Stephanie Plymale. 

While I wouldn’t say we became fast friends, we did become friendly, swapping stories about what we did for a living, favorite restaurants etc. About a year later, Stephanie sent me a request via LinkedIn.  Her title was Director of the Heritage School of Interior Design.  Intrigued, I accepted her invitation and asked her to coffee.  As you know, that meeting changed the course of my career, and very possibly, my life. Not only was she supportive of my career change, but she went the extra mile and gave me new business, even hiring me to help with her own home.  During this time, we shared some secrets about our lives and became friends.

 A few years back when I was going through my divorce, Stephanie reached out to me with some information I didn’t want to hear. Unfortunately, I wasn’t of rational mind and I did the irrational – I shot the messenger.  I harbored a lot of displaced anger at that time and I have so many regrets about that. 

Fast forward to today. I am of (relatively) sound mind, I’ve buried the hatchet and I think Stephanie has forgiven me for my terrible behavior. So it feels apropos to announce that today, she releases a book that contains some of those secrets about her life.  More importantly, though, I think this book’s message about compassion and empathy is a game-changer for those of us who hold onto grudges and anger for dear life. 

Congratulations to Stephanie and to her PR wiz and my friend Michi Suzuki for their PR win, a piece on the TODAY show.

You can watch her Today Show segment here and find her book on Amazon, here.