I’d like to honour two outstanding women over 40 that have set the bar high for the rest of us! I find their achievements inspiring and I know that if we believe in ourselves, there isn’t anything we can’t do.

One woman crashed through the film industry’s glass ceiling last Sunday. Fifty-eight year old Kathryn Bigelow was the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director for her film, The Hurt Locker. I lived with a bomb tech on a Canadian military base.  There’s something about these guys that you just can’t put your finger on.   Bigelow captured it. Just like that. And she purposely chose actors who were not as well known so that the audience wouldn’t automatically assume who would live.  I thought her directing was brilliant.

Hollywood isn’t the only place you’ll find beautiful successful women. Forty-eight year old world-class athlete Colette Bourgonje won the first medal for Canada at the Paralympic Games in Vancouver on Sunday. Her story is amazing. Right before her high school graduation she had a car accident leaving her a paraplegic.  I know if that had been me, I’m sure I would have had a great pity party!

But not Colette. She went to the University of Saskatchewan, became the first disabled student to graduate with a degree in Physical Education and didn’t compete in her first paralympic games until she was thirty! If you want to learn more about Bourgonje, read Mary Harelkin Bishop’s recently published book, Moving Forward: The Journey of Paralympian Colette Bourgonje.

Cheers to both of these strong successful women! I heard Colette say in an interview on the news today, “Age is nothing. Attitude is everything.” You go girl.

Be Sociable, Share!