Leeza Gibbons Time to Own Your Life
Leeza Gibbons - Time to Own Your Life TV for Grownups
I see a lot of things more clearly now — first and foremost, how important it is to take ownership of your life. Owning your life can make you feel emotionally naked. It took me a long time, for instance, to come clean about being a workaholic. I used to feel guilty about working late, but now I'm proud to flaunt how much I like to work. It's my vocation and avocation. If other people think I'm neurotic, that's their problem. Photo by Christian Scott Gibbons with husband, Steven, on their wedding day. What I've noticed is that once you admit to others that you are committing yourself to something you care deeply about, you become 360 degrees vulnerable. Not too long ago, I took some time off from television to start Leeza's Place, a nonprofit caregiver support organization , and my agent told me I was destroying my career by associating myself with something "old." He said I should focus on my kids charities and let someone else do the "un-sexy" stuff like caregiving. That gave me even more reason to plow ahead and, by the way, start looking for another agent. When you give voice to a dream, you're, in essence, changing the rules of the game. But from where I stand now, I see that the risk of not showing up to create the rest of your life is far greater than being made fun by others for your "grandiose" ideas of what comes next. Don't you ever see other people doing things you want to do? Or people who look and feel the way you want to look and feel? I did — and I used those images to inspire my own reinvention. For me, taking custody of my life meant simply admitting to myself what I wanted now and then going out and getting it. That's what worked for me when I was younger, but after a certain age I found myself unconsciously putting limits on what my life should look like. Maybe I shouldn't be so ambitious anymore? Maybe I should start slowing down? Maybe I should start wearing sensible shoes? Not. Instead I decided to look to the women in my field that I admire most: Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer and Maria Shriver. These women didn't run from change; they rewrote the script. Katie took over the anchor chair at CBS News knowing that she would be a target of criticism. But, in the end, it was worth taking the risk because she knew she was more than her public image as the perky girl next door. Diane has never tried to be in the boys' club. She's used her brains and her beauty to create a place of her own in the newsroom. And we all know Maria's story. What did she do after her famous husband betrayed her? She embraced change, as she had often done before, and immediately started rebuilding her life.
Is It Time to Own Your Life
Leeza Gibbons finds inspiration for reinvention
It kind of sneaks up on you, doesn't it? This "senior" thing, I mean. Before you even begin to settle into middle age, somebody is going to hit you with the "s" word — and I promise you're not going to be ready. I know I wasn't. Nor were any of my friends. But what keeps all us 50-somethings from storming off in what my mother used to call a "hissy fit" is the fact that there are a lot of big-time advantages to the view from this side of 50, and that's what I'm going to be writing about in this column. I hope you'll share in the conversation and tell us what it looks like from your point of view. See also:I see a lot of things more clearly now — first and foremost, how important it is to take ownership of your life. Owning your life can make you feel emotionally naked. It took me a long time, for instance, to come clean about being a workaholic. I used to feel guilty about working late, but now I'm proud to flaunt how much I like to work. It's my vocation and avocation. If other people think I'm neurotic, that's their problem. Photo by Christian Scott Gibbons with husband, Steven, on their wedding day. What I've noticed is that once you admit to others that you are committing yourself to something you care deeply about, you become 360 degrees vulnerable. Not too long ago, I took some time off from television to start Leeza's Place, a nonprofit caregiver support organization , and my agent told me I was destroying my career by associating myself with something "old." He said I should focus on my kids charities and let someone else do the "un-sexy" stuff like caregiving. That gave me even more reason to plow ahead and, by the way, start looking for another agent. When you give voice to a dream, you're, in essence, changing the rules of the game. But from where I stand now, I see that the risk of not showing up to create the rest of your life is far greater than being made fun by others for your "grandiose" ideas of what comes next. Don't you ever see other people doing things you want to do? Or people who look and feel the way you want to look and feel? I did — and I used those images to inspire my own reinvention. For me, taking custody of my life meant simply admitting to myself what I wanted now and then going out and getting it. That's what worked for me when I was younger, but after a certain age I found myself unconsciously putting limits on what my life should look like. Maybe I shouldn't be so ambitious anymore? Maybe I should start slowing down? Maybe I should start wearing sensible shoes? Not. Instead I decided to look to the women in my field that I admire most: Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer and Maria Shriver. These women didn't run from change; they rewrote the script. Katie took over the anchor chair at CBS News knowing that she would be a target of criticism. But, in the end, it was worth taking the risk because she knew she was more than her public image as the perky girl next door. Diane has never tried to be in the boys' club. She's used her brains and her beauty to create a place of her own in the newsroom. And we all know Maria's story. What did she do after her famous husband betrayed her? She embraced change, as she had often done before, and immediately started rebuilding her life.