Blog Tour – Spotlight: Victorious Woman! Shaping Life’s Challenges into Personal Victories by Annmarie Kelly with a guest post from the author

Victorious Woman! Shaping Life’s Challenges into Personal Victories
written by Annmarie Kelly          
published by Optimal Living Press

find it here: Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Goodreads

About the book – from the publisher: Real Women – Real Stories – Real Challenges – Real Victories

What’s a woman to do? If she makes a bad choice or gets thrown one of life’s curveballs, is she forever doomed?

Author Annmarie Kelly says “NO!” and proves it with compelling real life stories of women who faced and overcame seemingly overwhelming life challenges. This powerfully moving book overflows with intelligence, understanding, emotion and true grit.

Kelly explains victory as the stretch you make out of your comfort zone and into the greater, fuller expression of who you really are – your authentic self. She demonstrates victory by taking you inside the lives of nine distressed women and showing you how they became victorious. You are likely to recognize something of yourself woven in each of these stories; each one will inspire and encourage you to forge your own victory over whatever is challenging you right now. At the end of each woman’s chapter you’ll find soul-searching questions that you must ask yourself to insure your own victories. 

Author Kelly concludes the stories with a “lessons learned” chapter. Gleaning the best from each Victorious Woman, from the many other women she interviewed and from her own intriguing life challenges, Kelly describes the FOUR LIFESTYLES that either support you in victory or sabotage you, and the SIX SKILLS every woman has to learn to be in control of her SELF. She also gives you, her readers, the Victorious Woman Model to help you figure out what you need at different stages of challenges. The result is a book that is part inspiration, part motivation and part skill building. Some have called Victorious Woman “a blueprint for life” and “a practical approach to taking control of your life.”

Since its first publication, many women say that they keep Victorious Woman! on their book shelf for reference or on their nightstand for comfort at the end of a long day. This “celebration of life” is an encouraging and enlightening read for women who want to create their own personal and professional victories.

Thank you for doing this!
 
I interviewed many more than the nine featured woman but chose those nine because something in their story had an “everywoman” quality.
 
For example, Tekki Lomnicki has diastrophic dwarfism. Her story started out as a story about women with disabilities. But about halfway through the interview, I realized I was identifying with her experiences – not because I have the same physical condition, but because her story was about self-esteem, self-acceptance, and finding a way to love yourself in spite of your imperfections. A lot of women – probably most of us – can resonate with Tekki’s experience.
 
Probably the most unusual experience I had was with Nancy Hill. She was referred to me by her son, Russell, a man I knew through business. He said his mother had a story that I should hear. After doing my usual prep and vetting process, I decided to write Nancy’s story. By then I’d found out that she had cancer. I set up an appointment for June 25th. 
 
In late May her son called and told me that he didn’t know if his mother would last until our scheduled appointment and, if I wanted to interview her, I’d better come soon. So I cleared my schedule and, in early June, I took a day to drive to her Harrisburg, PA home. 
 
When I arrived, Russell met me at the door and introduced me to his brother, Bob. Nancy was busy with hospice caregivers so Russell, Bob and I chatted in his mother’s living room for a while. For nearly an hour the two big and tall men – one a training manager and the other a college professor – became like little kids and had me laughing with stories about how tough their mother was when they were growing and how they didn’t dare do anything to incur her wrath.
 
When his mother was ready, Russell took me to her bedroom and left us alone. There was Nancy, a tiny black woman wrapped up in a powder blue robe, obviously facing the end of her life. As I watched the sunlight reflect on the grayish pale of her complexion, was touched by her gentle power and the dignity with which she spoke. She told me about her poverty-filled childhood and how she met and married the man who would later abuse her. She also told me about the friend and mentor who supported her decision to leave, what it was like being a divorced, black single mother in the 1960s and her experience with the Civil Rights movement. During the whole time, though she struggled to speak every word, Nancy was determined to share her story, her legacy to her children and grandchildren.
 
A few days later I spoke to a third brother. The then-editor of a metropolitan newspaper, Nancy’s oldest son spoke frankly about his experience with an abusive father and what it was like for him and his brothers to leave their rural home to live in the projects of Pittsburgh.
 
When I was writing Victorious Woman!, my usual post-interview process was to let the story “rest” for a week or two. Though that’s what I planned to do with Nancy’s story too, something pushed me to get started sooner than normal. I began writing for a couple hours each morning (my usual Victorious Woman writing time) stopping occasionally to listen to the audiotape. But by Friday morning I felt consumed by the process. I wrote the whole day. In fact, I wrote almost the whole weekend, starting at my usual 6am writing time and going through to Sunday night. I barely stopped for meals and really only took time off to sleep and fulfill a Saturday night commitment. I felt exhausted but I couldn’t stop. I had the strangest feeling – like Nancy was at my back, pushing me to finish.

On Monday morning I polished up the draft I’d finished and sent it to Russell. I was hoping the sons would read it to Nancy and she’d like what I’d written. On Wednesday night Russell emailed that Nancy was gone. I called him and when I told him about the “Nancy on my back” experience, he laughed and told me he wasn’t surprised – that when their mother wanted something done, she didn’t let it go until they did it. We guessed she did the same with me. Then, as we talked, I looked at my daytimer. It was June 25 – the date of the originally scheduled interview. I told Russell and we both got chills and got choked up.
  
A few weeks later I heard from Russell. I was touched to learn that they so loved what I wrote about their mother that they used it as her eulogy.

About the author: Annmarie Kelly is a professional speaker, workshop leader and victory strategist, who has firsthand knowledge of the transformative power which determination and motivation, the stuff of victory, can have in a person’s life.

Growing up in her Italian-Catholic home, Kelly wasn’t a natural go getter but rather a shy and introverted girl – a “good girl” who felt invisible and insignificant and powerless to deal with family problems including alcoholism, sibling abuse and mental illness.

In her early twenties, a broken engagement and her father’s reaction to it, caused Annmarie to look at her life and where she was going. After a couple “dark” years, she realized she had a purpose but that she was following a path that would only give her more of what she already had: disappointments, regrets and lost opportunities. Annmarie understood that she needed to make a change; she decided to start on a new track.

Through the rest of her twenties and thirties, step-by-step, she changed the way she thought about herself and her future, set major goals, and let go of many of the limitations that were holding her back, from kicking the undesired habits of smoking cigarettes and being a couch potato to getting honest about her own sabotaging behaviors. She also let go of people and environments that became obstacles to her efforts.

While leaving the comfort of the familiar for something better was what she wanted, it wasn’t easy. But in time the effort paid off. The decisions Annmarie made then have enabled her to BE more and DO more than she ever thought she could and HAVE more of the kind of life that, on her old path, would only have been a dream.

Not content to keep that kind of empowerment and success to herself, Annmarie Kelly has made it her life’s mission to help other women find the same confidence, inner power, and most importantly the “feminine victory” within. Whatever she does, whether she’s speaking, teaching, writing, blogging or coaching, she shows women just how much power they have over their own lives, encourages them to LIVE VICTORIOUSLY – out loud and in living color – and shows them the skills they need to do it! 

Annmarie Kelly owns and manages SkillBuilder Systems, a training and development firm specializing in management development and communication skills. She is also the founder of The Victorious Woman Project which focuses on the information, resources and skill building which help women empower themselves so they can live their best life.

Annmarie is a member of the National Speakers Association (NSA), the Greater Philadelphia chapter of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTDPhl), The Press Club PA and the National Association of Female Executives. 

Her services include:
– Keynotes for Corporate Events and Association Conferences
– Training Workshops (SmartWoman@Work and New Beginnings)
– Retreats
– Seminars, Teleseminars, Webinars
– Individual coaching
– Group coaching (Victory Teams)

Annmarie Kelly is available for interviews in the Greater Philadelphia area, New York, Maryland, Delaware and Washington DC, and by phone anywhere.

Find Ms. Kelly here: web, blog, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads