Heart Book Series

Heart of a Woman celebrates the strength, humor, love and intuition–of women of all ages. She will delight in cherished classics, personal favorites and recent writings from Oprah Winfrey, Dr. Phil, Maya Angelou, Bill Cosby, Louise Hay, Marianne Williamson and more. Chapters include: Ageless Living, Art, A Woman’s Intuition, Challenges, Chocolate, Daughters, Faith, Falling in Love, Family, Fathers, Friendship, Gratitude, Health, Learning to Love Yourself, Love, Marriage, Men!, Military Relationships, Mothers, Music, Nature, Parenting, Passion, Patriotism, Pets, Prayer, Prosperity, Sisters, Teenagers, Women in History, Worthiness…

Heart of a Woman is now eloquently available in Spanish: Corazon de Mujer.

For your Mother, Wife, Grandmother, Mother-in-Law:
Heart of a Mother... a gift book filled with touching tributes to Mothers and Grandmothers, inspirational short stories, poems, proverbs and quotations.

Heart of a Woman in Business is an inspirational collection celebrating working women and their unique contributions to the global workplace. This “here’s how,” sisters-sharing-with-sisters book shares their authentic stories, and offers “here’s how” and “I did it, you can too!” Selections offer strategies, practical information, career-bolstering lessons, insights, affirmations, poems, prayers and quotations.

Whether you already own a business, planning to start one, or working in a job you love.

Chapters include: The Driving Force; Fulfilling Your Soul; Polishing Business Skills; Workplace Wit; Best Practices; Transitions from the Day Job to Your Own Job; The Entrepreneurial Spirit; Business Builders; Nurturing Our Mind, Body & Spirit; and Whispers of Wisdom.

Submissions include: career dreams come true; self-worth; goal setting; the history of women in business and as inventors; leadership and ambition; humor in the workplace; change, stress and time management; inner guidance and intuition; business promotion; hiring and firing; ways to rejuvenate and recharge; fitness tips at your desk; mid-life career transitions; and being a working mother.

The 240-page book features top talent and experts, including: celebrity personal trainer Jeanie Callen Barat; financial alchemist Morgana Rae; presentation skills from Juliet Funt (daughter of Candid Camera’s Alan Funt); having a leap of faith, from Sharon Wilson of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Life Lessons for Mastering the Law of Attraction; Life at the Pentagon from Jo Condrill; Hill Street Blues costume designer Karen Hudson; and sage advice from Oprah.

Quotations of inspiration include: Mary Kay Ash; Debbie Fields; Steve Forbes; Michael Gerber; Louise Hay; Kathy Ireland; Andrea Jung, Avon; Anthony Robbins; Martha Stewart; Donald Trump; Madam C.J. Walker, first black female millionaire; Marianne Williamson; plus the Founders/CEOs of Amazon, com, Apple, Craig’s List, Dell Computer, Google, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Starbucks; The Body Shop, Virgin Airlines, and Wal-Mart.

ISBN: 978-1-880878-19-4
$16.95 US, releasing October 1, 2008, 288 pages
Trade Paperback, 6×7”
Inspiration/Business/Self-Help
Sparkle Press

Other Books by Sheryl L. Roush:
Heart of a Woman, ISBN, 978-1-880878-13-2
Corazón de Mujer (Heart of a Woman in Spanish),  ISBN 978-1-880878-16-3
Heart of a Mother, ISBN, 978-1-880878-14-9
Heart of a Mother–Book & Music CD, ISBN 978-1-880878-18-7
Heart of the Holidays, ISBN 978-1-880878-15-6

If I live to be a hundred, I’ll still remember Friday, January 28, 1983. It was a bright sunny day, and I blissfully sang “I’m on the top of the world!” off-key as I dressed for work.  The day before, the company physician had confirmed what I’d suspected for weeks–I was three months pregnant–and after two boys I felt it would be a girl this time.
I had other reasons for feeling like I was on the top of the world…

I’d been promoted three times in the past three years. Regional Training Manager David Keith was now my colleague instead of my boss. We both reported directly to the Human Resources Director, an elderly Englishman named Anthony Kennedy. Great buddies, Dave and I usually traveled together to Singapore and other Timex assembly locations in the Far East. I enjoyed my job with the Regional Human Resources Department so much that I sometimes felt guilty getting paid. (In fact, Mr. Kennedy had been nagging me for months to complete my self-appraisal form so my annual merit increase could be processed, but I kept on putting it off. “What’s the hurry?” I told him. “I’ll get a retroactive increase anyway.”)

Although it wasn’t part of my job, I was often tapped by the Regional Marketing and Sales Group to conduct customer service seminars for Timex watch dealers. I didn’t get any extra pay, and had to stay at my desk after hours to make up for the time I spent doing these seminars, but I tremendously enjoyed helping the Timex dealers and staff understand the unique V-movement in Timex watches and why we didn’t need jewels like other mechanical or analog watches.

I also taught part-time at the National College of Business and Arts (NCBA). To cater to the thousands of young assembly workers pursuing a college degree, NCBA had opened a campus right next door to Timex. Some ingenuous folks had even constructed wooden stairs over the concrete wall that separated Timex and NCBA, shaving off a few minutes from the walk out the Timex front gate, down the block, and into the NCBA campus.

My growing family lived in relative comfort. In fact, we had recently moved into a beautiful bungalow in San Mateo (Rizal), a town outside Metro Manila. The peace and quiet, not to mention breath-taking views of the sunset and the mountains, more than made up for the hour-long commute to/from the Timex watch assembly plant in Cubao, Quezon City.

Life was great, I thought to myself that fateful Friday in January 1983 as I bounded up the steps to the Regional Office, still humming “I’m on the top of the world” under my breath.

Even as the massive frosted glass doors slammed shut behind me, I knew that something was terribly wrong. The office was eerily quiet. There was none of the usual morning chatter as the regional staff got ready for another busy day. What was even more chilling was that the staff desks were all unoccupied, and the directors’ office doors were all closed (a rare sight in the “come-right-in-and-tell-me-what’s-on-your-mind” atmosphere of the regional office).
“Where’s everyone?” I quizzed Dave, glancing at all the empty desks. “In there,” he replied, gesturing towards the closed doors. He paused and then said with an inscrutable expression on his face, “The old man wants to see you.”
My heart pounding in my throat, I tremulously stepped into Mr. Kennedy’s office. There I learned the painful truth. Timex was closing down the Manila facility and consolidating its Philippine assembly operation in Cebu. I’d be losing my job by end of March. “But I’m three months pregnant!” I blurted out. Mr. Kennedy said there was nothing he could do. “Don’t worry, you’ll easily find another job,” he assured me.

I left Mr. Kennedy’s office in a daze and headed for the cafeteria. The hallway was filled with distraught assembly workers. Unlike me, these girls had been handed their final paychecks and asked to leave immediately. Some of them were wailing unabashedly, while others sobbed quietly as they gathered their personal belongings from their lockers. It was surreal. The words “I cried because I had no shoes, until I saw a man who had no feet,” came to my mind, as I forgot my own misery and tried to console the girls as best I could.

That weekend, I started sending out job applications and writing to headhunters. Nancy, a consultant with a leading search firm, echoed Mr. Kennedy’s assurance that I’d easily land another job – until I told her that I was pregnant. She promised to check with her clients and get back to me. I knew the answer even before she called. “I’m really sorry,” she apologized, “but my clients prefer someone who can work uninterrupted during their first year.” It was the same elsewhere. I’d get as far as the interview but the minute I mentioned I was pregnant the door would close. Some well-meaning friends advised me not to disclose that I was pregnant but I didn’t want to start a new job based on deception. I decided to stop wasting time, money, and effort on a futile–and extremely frustrating–job search, and wait until after I gave birth.

When March came and I got my final pay, I realized to my chagrin that through my own fault (neglecting my self-appraisal), my separation pay had been computed on my current (lower) base salary.  To make matters worst, the kids got sick and I needed to spend for lab tests and medicine. My bank account quickly dwindled down to zero. Fortunately, a nearby grocery store allowed me to buy food and other necessities on credit–but for how long?
I sold Avon products and Readers Digest subscriptions to help pay the bills. The only mails I received were window envelopes, some with “FINAL NOTICE” stamped in red. I didn’t have any money for a cake or ice-cream for my son’s fifth birthday, and it broke my heart.

Then, on May 26 (my birthday!), I received unexpected mail. I stared at the Abenson letterhead for some time, racking my brains for anyone I knew in the country’s largest appliance chain, before opening the envelope. The salutation read “To the Baby Maker, from the Profit Taker” and went on to say that Abenson was offering me the position of Human Resources Development Manager. It was a total surprise since I didn’t know anyone in Abenson but I soon learned that the Timex Marketing Director was also Abenson’s consultant, and the Timex watch dealership was owned by the same family.

So, while I waited to give birth to an adorable baby girl, I had a job waiting for me. I realized that I needed to LOSE my job to GAIN this managerial position. God does work in mysterious ways.

Being an eight-time entrepreneur, I can attest to the best business school courses worthy of consideration, with the lowest tuition yet the highest return. Some of the most valuable ethics were those role modeled by my mother. To support the family income, and to get her out of the house being a young stay-at-home mom, she was the door-to-door Avon lady. Since my two brothers were old enough to attend school, she carted me around on her weekly routes. Believe it or not, I was quite shy, so she made me meet people – which translated later into natural networking skills.

A few years later, to help put my brothers through college, mom starting selling Amway products, and our household was one of the first to use biodegradable products – a truly novel “green” concept at that time. When I was 14, she dragged me to an Amway “Revival” where I heard my first motivational speaker, Charlie “Tremendous” Jones. Today, we are colleagues in the National Speakers Association, and I’M a motivational speaker! From painfully shy to inspirationally high! (We never know where the seeds are going to be planted.)

From mom, I learned Midwestern values, work hard, show respect, do right, have integrity, help others, and what I now know as good old-fashioned customer service skills.

“Know what you want in life—and go for it.” A child of the Depression, at 18, mom moved herself from the farm in Iowa, with only $10, and her best girlfriend to “get a life” in California. She taught me about goal setting and visualization, without ever using the phrases. (I was named after that best girlfriend.)

“Be positive.” Attitude truly does make a difference in our ability to succeed—I’m convinced of that! In challenges where I have not yet developed the skills, it’s been having a positive attitude has catapulted me through the fears. As a speaker on the topic today, I believe that Faith is the “compass” of Attitude. We’ve also got to believe in ourselves.

“You can do anything you put your mind to.” A secret dream of Mom was to compete in the Olympics. At 68, she was selected to carry the Olympic Torch, on its way from San Diego to the 1984 Los Angeles Games. When I started a business at age 16 in the patio of my parents’ home, she encouraged and helped me with the silk-screening of t-shirts and bumper stickers. (My first “client” was the Shriners.)

 “Use what you’ve been given.” We each have skills, talents and unique abilities. As a youth, I was a graphic artist with a typewriter and mimeograph paper. (Remember those?) Mom constantly volunteered me to donate time designing the boating club and church newsletters. Later I earned four international design awards for newsletters (Top Ten in the world), have written five books and have presented seminars in eight countries on the topic. (It’s as if she knew…)

The best business school courses I’ve ever attended have been those in the classroom of life with Mom as my Teacher.