Hi everyone, I’m Sharri Harmel, Editor and Chief Creative of the Extraordinary Women Magazine and community.
Our sole focus in the Extraordinary Women Community is to support women like you to start living their dreams and create live that matter. We do that by highlighting interesting women in the magazine, conversations within our private FB group and even courses to get you dream ready. I’ve been a coach for over 20 years and my dream was to create a bigger platform so that all women could step into their unique and interesting next chapters. Welcome to the EW Magazine and Community.
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Episode 66: Behaving as the Best Friend or the Leading Lady in Your Life?
Movie’s fuel me…. When I watch The Holiday or It’s Complicated or Something’s Gotta Give…. I get ideas far beyond those gorgeous houses. Someone needs to team up with a really good set designer and produce more of those movies! Maybe it’s one of you??
I mention this because movies with great houses, fuel my BIG dreams and my WILD imagination. I’ll actually step into the movie, as though it’s a photograph and suddenly I’ll get to try on a different life. In this imaginary life, my habits are different … I’m in my bakery making croissants. I’m an amazing cook in my fabulous kitchen. I have a table full of family and friends. I’ve renovated a chateau in Italy.
I love these movies because they make it easy to “try on” a different life from time to time and that’s a good for us. Trying on a different life fuels our imagination- and makes us ask the “what if” question I think is so important to us live our dreams rather than only writing about them in our journals. Who didn’t love Meg Ryan’s apartment in You’ve Got Mail? When I step into the interesting homes that are the backdrop of movie, I get ideas and I bet you do too!
The Holiday is one of my favorites, for all sorts of reasons. Two fabulous homes in England, and Cameron Diez’s Hollywood, California mansion? How much more luxurious can you get? But as great at the homes are in this movie, the message is what I especially loved in The Holiday. Eli Wallach, who plays Arthur, an elderly screenwriter during the Hollywood golden age, says to Kate Winslet, “I can tell you are a leading lady, but for some reason you are behaving like the best friend.”
How many of us do that? How many of us are playing supporting roles in our lives when we are supposed to be the leading lady? How many of us dim our big bright light because we’re afraid of being too much, too much of something. And what does that even mean?
When I first heard that line in the movie, I was sitting in a theatre with my former husband and daughter and I almost jumped out of my seat, it was THAT poignant. I wasn’t the leading lady in my own life….and that realization shocked me to my core. Now, when people from the outside looked at me, I probably appeared to have it all together, completely in charge of my life, but in that movie theatre, I knew I was in charge of nothing. I was behaving as the best friend.
That quote still stays with me today because even though we might make big relationship changes, such as a divorce or the ending of a friendship, unless we consciously accept our own roles in those relationships and try to make changes in ourselves, we’ll move on but re-create the same relationship over and over- just with different people.
I recently had an experience that cut me to the core and made me realize that I was still behaving as the best friend… It was a lady’s coffee and sometime during the coffee, I mentioned the topic of investing. One of the women had lived most of her adult life in an American city that was an early tech hot spot. I was curious what her experiences and thoughts were around the beginnings of those companies that you all know unless you are a hermit in the woods. In the actual conversation, the woman said she had little involvement in their investments but given her husband’s expertise in another area, that they had actually gone in an entirely different direction. Fine, right?
Well, I learned not so much. I was later severely criticized by the other gal at that coffee who I thought was a very good friend. She very strongly told me that my questions weren’t appropriate, that the topic of investing is too personal, and that I should have known better.
Now I began my career as a stockbroker, so I had always been fascinated by companies, the market, and investments. But I still felt myself shrink under her strong criticism. I listened, took in her criticism, and when I got off the phone, my own mind continued the negative comments… I asked myself why do I do these things? Why do I ask questions I shouldn’t ask? Why am I interested in things that no one else is interested in? Couldn’t I have just kept my mouth shut and my curiosity turned off? It went on and on….but what’s important is that you see that my so called friend made a few negative statements to me but how I took the criticism to a new level within myself.
How many of us do that? How many of us have internal conversations that minimize ourselves? That dim our own light?
On a side note, I truly believe women need to talk more about money and investments. Men do it all the time. The statistics on women, especially single women and money is rather grim so we need to talk about money and learn about money.
But the point of our conversation today is that I’m a grown woman. I’ve spent over 40 years paying attention to the market and the economy and yet, I deferred to my friend because I wanted to remain her best friend, even if that meant I was not the leading lady in my own life.
Bingo…. same behavior, different person. Deep down, inside my own fears, I realized that my fear of rejection triggers me into thinking that if I’m being too much, and that means that if I show my real self, my real interests, and ask the questions I want to know the answers to… that I’ll be rejected and abandoned. And ladies, as we all know, those are feelings we want to avoid.
But I ask you, what is the cost of avoiding rejection? What do you have to give up within yourself to be accepted by someone you might care about?
When we do this, we’re not the leading lady in our own lives.
So, the bigger question we need to ask ourselves is… what’s the cost of me behaving as a best friend and not the leading lady of my own life.
As Kate Winslet says through her tears in the movie, shouldn’t we all be the leading lady in our own lives??
Absolutely YES! No matter how hard it is. We MUST behave as the leading ladies of our own lives.
I want you to ask yourself that question over and over this week. If you were writing the screen play of your life going forward AND you’re the leading lady, what would you be doing? Would the dreams you have remain in your journal, in your head? As the leading lady would you be trying on some new experience or exploring a new habit and giving it a go?
And we’re going into the holidays- which can be jampacked with personalities and issues. If you have difficult moments or exchanges with others, ask yourself if you are behaving as a best friend or the leading lady in your own life.
I’m ready…how about you?
Outro:
Thank you for joining me today. If you liked our conversation, please give me a review, and do come back for more!
The Extraordinary Women Magazine Community and this podcast are tools to help you on your journey to you being the leading lady in your own life and living your dreams not just imagining them.
There is a lot of dream talk, but what makes me and this magazine different is I’ve been a coach- a real coach for over 20 years and ALL that experience helps me to create what you want and need. And because I’m a coach, I’m a super good listener, so your experiences, your wants and needs are what drives the content of the magazine, the conversations we have in our FB group, and even this podcast!
This isn’t about using the famous or even the local celebrity or influencer as our guideposts…. This is about extraordinary women like you and me. Women who make things happen by figuring out what you want and using your gifts in various ways to build what it is you want to create!
Wondering if you’ll fit in with the group? Married or solo, kids grown or still at home. A corporate career, a budding entrepreneur, a stay-at-home mother or even retired, you’ll fit right in. I’ve coached women and been in most of those roles myself.
Go to Extraordinary Women Magazine.com and join us by clicking HERE. We are a magazine community! I don’t know how long this price will last but for now it’s only $29.99, so do join us. I’d love to see your name added to the group.
Thank you for your precious time today and as I say to my friends and neighbors here in Paris…. à Bientôt!
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