Staying Sassy | If you are:A woman over 45, in her prime and wants to feel it - Mind

MichelleObama

So Michelle Obama has imposter syndrome

But while we all gasp in horror at the highly educated, former first lady actually worrying that she might not be good enough, we might as well look around the room at all the women we work with. For, in my experience, the majority of us have experienced exactly the same thing.

woman old and young

Embrace your years – top tips for loving your age

Yesterday I listened in stunned disbelief as a doughty Dutchman - Emile Ratelband – stated on morning TV that he was choosing to reduce his legal age by 20 years. His logic….if you can call it logic…was that if there is fluidity of gender then why can’t you have fluidity of age?

Trump Baby Balloon

The Trump Blimp – did it do us proud?

Well what a week it has been. I have been basking in the sun of Marbella attending the wedding of a truly exceptional young couple who give you faith in the future. (More of Marbs and beach-wear blindness next week). But our escapism was occasionally punctured by news pictures from London, blimps, marches, shouting, helicopters and a rather rigid looking Theresa May at a joint press conference, looking sideways with that ‘don’t say another word, boy!’ look on her face. Why?

writer

The Courage to Change Life

We all face tough times. We all face change. We all have challenges. We all have to step out of our comfort zone at least a few times. Much of my work as a business psychologist is about building confidence. We build up skills but first we focus on giving our clients the confidence to do something different whether it is selling, managing their own clients, giving feedback, negotiating their own fees.

Meghan Markle

Photo source: Wikipedia

Top tips for Meghan Markle

I am in Chicago this week and every news channel is buzzing with their American beauty – Meghan Markle – the newest member of the British Royal Family.

Glass Ceiling

Well done Liv Garfield and ten top tips for smashing the glass ceiling

Last week I talked about the glass ceiling and what, maybe, keeps us under it. Today, we hear that Liv Garfield, one of the very few CEO’s of a FTSE 100 company has been voted Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year.

Glass Ceiling

The glass ceiling – can businesses really crack it? Or is it down to us?

As a business psychologist, most of my time a day is spent working with clients to develop capability in their business. High on the agenda is female progression. There is good reason.

Winnie Mandela

Image Source: You Tube CGTN Africa

When women fall – do we condemn them more than men?

On Monday this week, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela died at the age of 81. When she first came to the fore she was dubbed the mother of the nation.

Woman spring

Spring at last! Top tips for getting a spring back into your step.

At last it is here – that time of year when you wake up in the light again and birds are still twittering – in a normal twittering kind of way rather than incessant broadcasting of irrelevant comment and self-obsession. Trees are budding, crocuses peeping, the sky is beginning to shift from grey to blue.

sad woman

When a good friend dies

I have been away a while. Life happens and the two inevitables of taxes and death catch up. Last spring it was my mother. This year it was my old friend Don – a friend and neighbour who has made life good for over fifteen years.

Blue Monday

Blue Monday and dark days. Ten top tips for getting more cheerful.

Well hopefully you have survived Blue Monday – the most miserable day of the year. Apparently it was identified by Cliff Arnol at Cardiff University in 2005 and even had a formula to explain why we find the day so very bad.

New year 2018

New Year Resolutions and top tips for getting your year off to a good start

Well the holiday is over, the turkey demolished, the tinsel back in the attic and only the odd forlorn, forgotten Christmas ornament left on a shelf to remind us that we have gone through the most indulgent two weeks of the year.

Strong women and imposter syndrome

Last week I was I my element – surrounded by a group of sassy, strong women who had made it in life. I was speaking at a conference for woman lawyers from all over Europe and the subject was very simple – them and their potential.

Sexual harassment on public transport and why we do not call it out

This week the BBC 100 Women initiative has been in the news for their work on preventing sexual harassment on public transport. We have all heard about terrible attacks such as the rape and ultimately murder of Jyoti Singh on an Indian bus,

Harvey Weinstein, sexual bullying, and why we need to call it out

There is no escaping the ever more lurid allegations coming out of Hollywood and the American Media about Harvey Weinstein’s stomach turning assaults on young actresses and other women in his empire. We all have heard tales of the casting couch in which fat, balding, never-to-be-fancied men, use their power and the woman’s desperation for success as a vile cocktail for abuse.

Laura Kuenssberg, threats and the cult of Corbyn

Some years ago now, I had a fascinating dinner party conversation with a man from BBC news. He was not a ‘front-liner’ donning flak jackets and heading for the danger zone. Instead he was the man in the office who did all the planning and decision making to keep television journalists safe.

Bad relationships and why we tolerate them

This week Princes William and Harry have been talking about their mother, Diana and the loving, caring woman she was to two little boys being raised in abnormal circumstances. Their interview on ITV will bring you to tears.

Womens News

Twitter Shaming, Trump, Kim Jong-un, Rotherham - and why we look away

In 1964 a 28 year old woman was stabbed, sexually assaulted and then murdered in Queens, New York. But what really alarmed the community and the authorities was that many people had either witnessed or heard the attack and did nothing. There ensued a stream of laboratory social research and out of that emerged the theory of Bystander Syndrome – the phenomenon that human beings are less likely to come to the assistance of another person if there are other people in the proximity.

Women’s football, fortitude and a lesson in positive thinking

Last blog I was struck by the impact of a group of little four year olds on transforming the lives of old people. This last week has brought another lesson – fortitude and positive thinking.

This week I am angry

There are many reasons – injustice, wailing about Brexit disaster before the talks have even opened (the dumb-ass, fast-track to undermining a negotiation team), the horror of people burning alive and now politicians stating it could have been avoided (so why was it not!); politicians using the plight of these traumatised families to promote their own politicking.

Spite for the sake of celebrity

Last week I spoke about bitterness and the ‘Woman on the train’. This week it is about spite. Why do we do it?

My thinking started with reports in the papers – tabloids and broadsheets equally guilty - about a certain Lucy Brown who went on a first date with a man she met on a dating website.

The Trouble with Bitterness

‘Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host.’ Maya Angelou

I was confronted this morning on the 08.37 Waterloo to Reading train. I had sat in an area of four seats as that was the only way to keep my suitcase out of the aisle. Yes, I was blocking the seat opposite and, while I sorted out my stuff, I put a backpack on that seat.

The Problem with Democracy…

….is that you don’t always get what you want. And that seems to be a real issue with the so-called liberal elite who have lived with pretty predictable political outcomes for a few decades now. But the past few months have rocked their yacht. Those pesky plebeians have done the unthinkable – they have not done as the educated controllers wanted them to do.

Trump and the female voter - what happened?

He has been described as a narcissist, an abuser of women and a sexist and although last night's exit polls do show that 54 per cent of women backed Clinton compared to 42 per cent for Trump it also shows that fewer women voted for Clinton in 2016 than for Obama in 2012. In the 2012 presidential race 55 per cent of women backed Obama while 44 per cent backed Romney.

Are we getting more safe-space sissy than Sassy?

Is Theresa May right about safe-spaces? This pc-weary woman thinks yes.

If you are a Sassita over 50 you will remember the days when we formed our beliefs and values through debate, demonstrations, demanding answers from our elders and deriding politicians with whom we disagreed.

Bear, Rob Titchener and the Hijackals^TM Trap

Sassistas let out a long groan when Stephen Bear, an under-educated, over-confident little boy from Walthamstow bounced out of the House having been declared the winner of Celebrity Big Brother 2016. Why?

Theresa May – future-leader or good cook?

So Theresa May thinks Delia Smith is ‘too precise’ and prefers to follow the culinary approach of Ottolenghi. Oh, and she owns over 100 cookery books reports The Telegraph, (July 8^th 2016),

The BREXIT divorce – a lesson in negative thinking

‘Our D-I-V-O-R-C-E becomes final today… and it will be pure H-E double L for me’. Well the last week in British life really has brought Tammy Wynette’s words to life.

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