Scarlett 'Hara may have had it right when she said, "I'll think about it tomorrow."   Not a bad philosophy if there's nothing you can do today that will make a situation any better, whether it's the stock market, a career crisis, a health crisis, a midlife crisis or any crisis in between.  We love career coach Ronna Lichtenberg's three pieces of advice about career jitters, this week at The Three Tomatoes Ask the Experts.   She starts by saying  our feelings are only one source of information, and not always the best ones in making decisions about pursuing new careers or any other life decision.  Ronna will be sharing more of her expert advice at our Second Acts, Ready or Not Breakfast when she joins our other stellar panel experts on Oct. 8th .  And as a dear cousin who is thankfully cancer free after three years, says, she's not going to let her fears of tomorrow rob her of the joys of life today.  Great advice from wise women.  As for The Three Tomatoes, we always say, ride that roller coaster with a martini glass in hand.  It makes the ride a heck of a lot more fun.

Oh, and please take our Second Acts Survey and tell us what you think about your career/life work, second acts, and the "R" word.  We'll share the results on what tomatoes think and how ready we are for change. 

   
Those Glass Ceilings and the Having It All Myth   
Hillary Clinton and Sara Palin have brought the glass ceiling back to the forefront, along with the topic "can women really have it all?   Well we're all for women breaking through those glass ceilings and there are many women, like you and us, who have been doing that for the past thirty years.  And we need to keep doing it.  We need more women at the helm of businesses and government, to help create more inviting work environments for mothers with children, for starters. 

And as most of us have learned along the way, there is no such thing as having it all.  Not even Angelina Jolie has it all, despite the Brad factor and gazillions of money.  Okay, so maybe she has more of some of it, but juggling families and careers is all about sacrifices and balancing acts, and feeling guilty a lot of the time.  And decisions to put off starting families for careers, or careers on hold to focus on families is not always a happily ever after ending either.  As one very successful, Harvard educated woman entrepreneur put it recently, she spent years being "pissed off".  When she was a stay at home Mom she was envious of her friends with great careers; and when she was a Mom juggling a job and family she was resentful of everything; and finally she became herself when she started her own company - and says today that her kids and family are happier for it, because she's happier about herself.  
 
Hello 1960? 
At the end of the day, it should be about women being able to make the choices that are right for them.   And whether you are a card carrying feminist, a career woman, a stay at home mom, or a juggler of both, that's what most of us who came of age in the seventies believe.  So, now get this.   Earlier this week we happened to be listening to a Today Show segment on this topic.  Meredith Vieira interviewed a young woman, Megan Basham, who has written a book "Beside Every Successful Man," in which she attempts to make the case that women who quit their jobs are better able to support their husbands' careers and increase their family income.   Hello Megan!   If you want to know how well that works, start watching Mad Men, a pretty darn good look at women's roles in those early sixties days, and Betty as the "stay at home" wife of ad exec Don Draper.   Thank goodness they had a counterpoint with Leslie Bennetts, author of "The Feminine Mistake", who cautions women against financial dependence and points out that half of all marriages end in divorce; the average age of widowhood is 54; and women's life spans have doubled in the last century so we'll have a lot of time for second and third acts. 

 

While both points of view came across on the show as somewhat polarizing, The Three Tomatoes have always given this advice to younger tomatoes:  1) Know where the money is; 2) Know that you can support yourself; 3) Stop feeling guilty about your choices -- just make sure they are your choices.

 
Speaking of Tomatoes 
We got a kick out of a recent episode of Mad Men where one of the characters referred to Don Draper's beautiful and sexy secretary as quite a "tomato."   We like to imagine that today she is head of the agency, and still quite a tomato.  If you hear of any "tomato" references, email us.

Here's How to Win the New Natalie Cole CD.   Send your friends who are not subscribers of The Three Tomatoes to our home page and ask them to sign up for the newsletter.   They will find a sign up box on the upper right side at every page of our web site.  And in the space where it says "How did you hear about us", ask them to enter your email address.  The tomato who signs up the most number of new tomatoes by September 26th, will be the winner.   (If there's a tie, we'll pull names from a hat.) It's that simple. We'll announce the winner in our Oct. 2nd newsletter.