One of my guests on AGELESS recently said something that got my attention. She said that she appreciated it when women shared their knowledge, that we can’t “hide the keys to the kingdom” because unless if we share what we know, “all boats will rise.”
It didn’t hurt that the person who said this has been a friend of mine since the 1990s. We worked at WRAL together when she was an education reporter. Yvonne Simons has now risen up the ranks to become a news director in Portland, Oregon at KATU. She grew up poor in a large family in the Midwest and was told by her parents that she needed to work hard and get a scholarship if she wanted to go to college, and that’s exactly what she did. And she’s been hustling ever since. She is now in a position that historically was not held by women, especially women of color.
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I have to honest, I think I’m getting more out of AGELESS than my audience is. I’ve learned so much from the women I am interviewing. This month I talked to Megan Sumrell, a working mother who helps other working moms find harmony in their schedules and their lives through organization and planning. I spoke with Deanna Jones who at the age of 54 transitioned into the woman she always knew that she was. Karen Woomer shared how a cancer diagnosis led her to find purpose volunteering in her community. These women are tackling big issues in midlife with grace and wisdom. And the best part is that like Yvonne, they are sharing it. They journeys, their pitfalls, their missteps can help other women avoid the same mistakes.
“It doesn’t have to be me or you. Everybody can have their time to shine,” Yvonne said.
She also stressed the importance of forming a group of mentors who can keep you grounded and help you navigate troubled waters.
“You need partners. Even if you're going it alone, you need partners who've been there, who are doing it, who will save you so much time and so much money and so much angst by giving you guidance,” said Yvonne.
Yvonne shared with me that as a young child she was more interested in Broadway than journalism. Her dream was to star in The Unsinkable Molly Brown, a 1964 musical which tells the fictionalized story of a woman who survived the 1912 sinking of the Titanic. And even though she never made it to Broadway, despite being an accomplished singer of classical music, in many ways Yvonne is that character. She is unsinkable because she gathered her tribe on her lifeboat and they help carry her through it all.