Maria suggested that I write something on mothers today, tied into sponsoring a school or classroom for mom. However, my thoughts on mothers was interrupted by calls from crazy people. Usually, I have better sense than to answer calls from numbers I don’t recognize, so the sneaky ones have gotten to blocking caller ID. Occasionally, one of the really crazy people slip through. I have learned to save those numbers in my phone under “Nut Job” so I don’t make the same mistake again. You think I’m kidding, but I’m not.
The crazies come in two categories.
First, there are all of the people who want me to introduce them to one of my daughters. Two of these daughters are married, one is engaged and the fourth is a teenager so, just hell, no.
On top of which, as my lovely daughter, Jennifer, told me when she was in graduate school and I suggested she could meet someone I knew,
“I’m young, I’m smart and I’m hot. If I get to the point where I need my mother to find me a date, I will shoot myself in the face.”
Fortunately, she did not need to shoot herself in the face and got married instead, and recently had a baby, with the same husband, otherwise, it would have been really awkward.
Second, there are the people who want answers from me, on everything from how to live a fulfilling life to raising good children to running a successful business.
All of this reminds me of the time I overheard one my other lovely daughter, Ronda’s, friends responding to questions from a younger athlete on how to balance one’s personal life and career with,
“I cannot give you the answers that I have not got.”
You see, this is why I like math. The lowest terms to which you can reduce 4/8 is 1/2. The median of 14, 11 and 6 is 11. There are answers. For the rest of life, like what is the best way to teach a child math, how do you keep children interested in school and motivated to graduate or why in the HELL are math problems in textbooks so boring that you find your brain trying to crawl out of your skull to escape the tedium – I just don’t know.
- How do you get more people to know about the work that you do?
- How do you get investors interested in your company?
- How do you find the time to do it all?
My answer to all of those questions is that you just keep working every day, measuring the results, trying to learn more. The answer is not to call up someone you have never met, tell them your life story and ask them to go into business with you, send you money or edit your book. As a friend of mine said after she divorced her cheating ex-husband,
“Don’t ask me. Try your mother. She probably still loves you.”
See, Maria, I got mothers in there.