How Jane Won: 55 Successful Women Share How They Grew from Ordinary Girls to Extraordinary Women

Ask successful women what the secret to success is and you'll get a thousand answers. Every woman's story is unique. In this companion volume to the bestselling See Jane Win, Dr. Sylvia Rimm lets more than fifty women from all walks of life tell their own stories of success in their own words. Among them are plenty of household names, including Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, singer and actress Florence Henderson, New Jersey Governor Christine Whitman, space shuttle commander Eileen Collins, Harry Potter artist Mary GrandPre, novelist Jacquelyn Mitchard, and more. But there are also women you've never heard of -- scientists, teachers, artists, homemakers, doctors, publishers, and more -- who are every bit as successful. To learn how these women earned, struggled, and lucked their way to the top is both fun and inspiring.
How do you define success? In Dr. Rimm's definition, success is more than a six-figure paycheck or a fancy title; it's a sense of happiness and satisfaction in what you do. Lisa Hayes-Taylor's account of why she loves being an elementary schoolteacher, Roberta Baldwin's eloquent sonnet on the virtues of volunteering, Tamara Minick-Scokalo's story of rising to become one of Procter & Gamble's first female marketing directors, and Catherine Callaway's description of the road to CNN offer four routes to completely different experiences of success.
You'll find dozens of hard-earned life lessons here to inspire your own path, among them: be willing to fail; don't be afraid to be the smart girl; it's okay to fall from one career into another; if a mentor offers you a hand, take it; you don't have to know everything; transfer your talents from one field into the next; anddon't worry if you're not certain about what you want to do with your life. The common thread through these life stories is the wisdom of nurturing a passion, paying attention to what brings you happiness, persevering, and appreciating that the path between points A and B is seldom a straight line. Sometimes the first step to success is believing it's possible. How Jane Won shows the many roads from possibility to achievement and the inspiration you need to make your own unique journey.