With Geralyn Lucas and Marissa Acocella Marchetto at 92ndSt Y
This week was pure serendipity! I met two authors of top selling breast cancer books that inspired me: Marisa Acocella Marchetto, author of Cancer Vixen, and Geralyn Lucas, author of Why I Wore Lipstick To My Mastectomy. And I met Susan Seidelman, who directed a delightful movie opening this week called “Hot Flashes” which I highly recommend.
The movie’s about a group of middle-aged women in the tiny town of Burning Bush, Texas, who form a basketball team to play against the high school champion Burning Bush Armadillos in a charity competition to raise funds to save the local mobile mammogram clinic from being eliminated due to government funding cuts. The team is called “Hot Flashes” (as in The Burning Bush Hot Flashes), and it is a chick flick loaded with humor combined with basketball moves. My husband gamely went with my to the 92nd Street Y to hear the discussion with Ms. Seidelman and see the movie. I think he laughed harder than I did!
But here’s the takeaway: If I had not picked up the phone to make a cold call to the 92nd Street Y’s programs department to introduce myself and my book, I would not have been invited to the screening and met all these dynamic women. If I had hesitated, the opportunity would have passed.
As I promote my book with roll-up-your-sleeve bootstrap marketing, I learn picking up the phone or approaching strangers and fearlessly introducing yourself with a great pitch and a ton of enthusiasm is the Name of the Game.
They say “She who hesitates loses out.” Nothing can be truer in sports or in the game of life. As I watched the movie and the women’s quick moves on the court I thought, “You can’t hold the ball for two long; someone will shoot over you and score or grab it from you. You have to be in it to win it and be ready to act.”
While I haven’t spent much time on a basketball court since high school, I weighed shooting hoops and forming an “Iron Chest” charity league after seeing the movie. In life, good times and not so much, you need a great team, smart moves and the ability to think on your feet and push forward.”
The movie bonded five women of a certain age (played by Brooke Shields, Camryn Manheim, Wanda Sykes, Daryl Hannah and Virginia Madsen) over a great cause. They defied the odds: The Hot Flashes successfully compete against the High School Hotties. Aside from the menopause jokes, wisecracks about hair and body issues and weak men syndrome, the movie reminded me that you can get your game on at any age if you choose.
You just may need to kick a few balls.
