It’s Not Too Late for Sucess, Money and Your Dream

The dream of achieving success, the opportunity to still change one’s life, to make more money or to fulfill a dream seems to die with each passing year as many women fall into the rut of woe is me. “I’m too old, who will want my services, it’s too late for me”… or any other myriad of reasons. Any inspirational pep talk of it’s never too late may be initially be met with a faint glimmer of hope but soon extinguishes itself with one’s own harsh view of reality.

Well Women Here is Your Wake Up Call! Yesterday, there were over 5 million YouTube views. This morning when I checked there were over 11 million. Here is a woman who stood on the stage as a contestant of the Britain’s Got Talent contest (The British equivalent of American Idol) and admitted to the world she was 47, had trouble describing her village area in Scotland when asked where she was from and appeared in a dress and hairstyle of another era. It didn’t make a difference to her that the audience rolled their eyes and snickered when she said she wanted to be a professional singer or if the judges, with all of their experience, were not likely to take her seriously.

All Susan Boyle wanted was a chance to perform because she believed in herself. Belief is powerful, and it is said to move mountains. Susan Boyle moved her mountain in only 5 seconds when given the opportunity. In 5 seconds she achieved her success, change her financial circumstances and fulfill her dream. In 5 seconds, everyone who judged her by her appearance and what she said realized they had fallen again for the oldest of character faults – prejudice. It took only 5 seconds for the harshest of judges, Simon Cowell, to drop his jaw in disbelief as Susan Boyle began the lyrics – I dreamed the dream of time gone by from Les Miserables, and as they say in the theater torn the house down.

Susan Boyle’s performance was astounding, and there was no question of the strength of the woman’s belief in herself and her willingness to endure whatever the cruelty of derision. As the judges, Simon Cowell, Piers Morgan and Amanda Holden continued to be stunned by Ms. Boyle’s performance, many of the camera views went back and forth between the surreal dichotomy of the frumpy Ms. Boyle and the glamorous actress Amanda Holden. Here was pure talent against pure beauty and never the twine shall meet. While both Simon and Piers lauded Ms. Boyle, it was Amanda Holden who had the character to speak up and publicly confront the prejudice and apologize. “… I know that everybody was against you. I honestly think we were all being very cynical about you, and it’s the biggest wake up call ever. I just want to say it was complete privilege listening to that.”

You may not have the caliber of talent of a Susan Boyle, but whatever your talents, whatever your obstacles – it’s not too late to doing something.