Calling Over-40 Women – DARE to Treat Yourself: Laugh!
A lot of women over 40 tackle to-do lists that would challenge even the most altruistic and responsible over-achievers. The truly altruistic not only seem to find the time, energy and money to buy or make special and fun treats for everyone in their lives, but they're beatifically cheery about it.
Here's something to think about while you're always busy treating others:
Consider whether all of this "doing for" others is about sustaining their approval, acceptance and loyalty. If you're always so focused on treats for others that you're taking on more to seem indispensable, or buying more to seem magnanimous, could it be because you want the praise more than anything else?
If all that working and running and doing for others is leaving you with no time or money to treat yourself, I DARE you to treat yourself to comfort and pleasure. At least start with a free or low-cost laugh.
Here is the first of my top three picks for a good laugh for women over 40:
â–ºLAUGH #1. DARE to treat yourself to someone funny in the news. Start with a morning treat by watching MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski, co-host of "Morning Joe," Mondays-Fridays, 6 AM-9 AM on MSNCBC.
Mika Brzezinski, 43, who is the daughter of former President Carter's national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, has been a broadcast journalist in various capacities for more than a decade. She gained her career chops being DARE-ING and her sense of humor through various substantive news stints at ABC, Fox and CBS. Genuinely funny about life in general and intensely passionate about serious pursuits, Brzezinski has become notoriously DARE-ING because of her refusal to report as "news" the exploits of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and on-again, off-again Palin son-in-law Levi Johnston. During one particularly long Paris Hilton news cycle, a fed-up Brzezinski threatened to set the news script on fire, until a co-host snapped it from her, after which she took the script to a paper-shredder and destroyed it.
She is one of the few women in television who can hold court, let alone hold her own, with grumpy old men like co-host Joe Scarborough and his fellow overlord ogres, Pat Buchanan and Mike Barnicle. Ballsy, brainy and bitchy, Brzezinski's presence and delivery are so powerful and often so comedic, that one could mute the TV and almost lip-read her funny rejoinders and retorts. Brzezinski's NBC colleague Maria Bartiromo may be "The Money Honey" but Brzezinski should be called "The Funny Honey."
â–ºLAUGH #2: In between all your duties as chef or chaperon or casserole baker or CEO (or maybe you're all four), "The Today Show's" fourth hour â€" from 10 A.M. to 11 A.M. â€" should be on your treat list. That's the point in the program when the NBC airwaves give way and give in to the hilarity and totally uninhibited display of middle-aged DARE-ING. This transpires courtesy (or lack thereof, which is even better!) of two sometimes maligned and often unsung DARE-ESS role models: the completely irreverent veteran talk-show host Kathie Lee Gifford, and veteran serious journalist Hoda Kotb, who obviously has had a hell-raising party-girl twin lurking in the background all these years.
Even if you tune in as I do, working in my office and half-listening, half-watching the show, you will find yourself laughing at the frenzied frivolity and fluff. The 40-plus woman needs this as a treat. Gifford and Kotb have emerged as two of the funniest women (of any age) to DARE strut their stuff into our living rooms since Lucy and Ethel.
Whether it's Fun-Day Monday, Booze-day Tuesday, Wines-day Wednesday,  Thirst-day Thursday, or Try-Day Friday, these two ladies know how to laugh. They drink, dish, kvetch, cavort and otherwise completely misbehave in ways their mothers completely endorse. In fact, their mothers have appeared on the show several times with their daughters, raising the comedy quotient even higher. Agreeing wholeheartedly are the millions of viewers who tune in most days to Kathie Lee and Hoda, two of the nicest, most talented, and funny women on TV.
â–º LAUGH #3. Anything by word-genius Nora Ephron, but for sure her book, I Remember Nothing: And Other Reflections.
Are you a woman over 40 whose workstation is so covered over with reminder Post-It notes that you could weave them together as a comforter? Then treat yourself today to this new book from one of the funniest authors alive.  Writing about the annoying and alarming things that plague most women over 40, Ephron makes me laugh so hard I can almost understand the reason manufacturers of adult diapers are in business. But I won't bring myself to forgive them for their insufferably awful commercials.
Ephron's last book, I Feel Bad About My Neck, obsessed about that body part while making fun of older women who celebrate their wisdom (OK, I confess, even I laughed at that).  Sit down with I Remember Nothing: And Other Reflections, and I promise you will never again think of Aruba merely as a pleasurable island getaway. Nor will you ever again take your elbows for granted.
Screenwriter, film director, producer, novelist, playwright, journalist and, of course, blogger, Ephron could easily add stand-up comic to her portfolio. During TV appearances to promote her book, she is both visually and audibly droll and hilarious. She is somewhat like your sardonic friend who isn't really trying to be funny when she talks about her latest horror show in front of a three-way mirror, but who has everyone screaming with howls of laughter and empathy, and repeating her stories for weeks afterwards.
Ephron is the DARE-ING master of the kind of humor based on the cruelest facts of life, especially for women over 40. This somehow makes those inescapable truths easier to bear â€" for us and for her. In fact, she managed to turn one of the truly awful periods of her life into a major therapeutic catharsis: the novel Heartburn, based on her discovery of then-husband Carl Bernstein's affair with a mutual friend. In the novel, Ephron describes the anti-hero husband as being "capable of having sex with a Venetian blind." I could only envision the literal manifestation of that phrase and how it would've cut the thing short â€" ba dump bump. But I digress. The novel was turned into the hit film by the same title, starring Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson.  Ephron doesn't allow herself to get stuck at "life sucks." She moves immediately to yucks, and then to bucks. If only all of us could be that talented.
For all DARE-ING women but especially for women over 40, Ephron is the real deal. Unlike other writers whose work seems an obvious pastiche of ghostwriters, agents, publicists and others assigned to famous authors' production line and marketing teams, she makes you feel that she's been through what ails you, she's still recovering, and she's got the cure. In fact, "Ephron" even sounds like the name of a great new drug for women over 40. Imagine:
For all those cranky people you know: "Get over your bitching. Take two Ephrons and brawl me in the morning!"
Not in the mood? "Sorry, not tonight, babe. I'm having a major Ephron moment."
Can't sleep? "Heading to the kitchen for warm milk and an Ephron, dear. Don't wait up."
So, go ahead and treat yourself with Ephron. You'll laugh until you cry, or pee, or fall asleep happily exhausted.
So my over-40 friends, DARE to laugh!
by Liz DiMarco Weinmann, MBA, author of the upcoming book, Get DARE From Here!â„¢ - 12 Principles and Practices for Women Over 40 to Take Stock, Take Action and Take Charge of the Rest of Their Lives.
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheDareForceforWomenOver40
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Elizabeth (Liz) DiMarco Weinmann is the Founder and CEO of The DARE-Force Corporation, an educational resource company providing online and on-site training, consulting, and resources for visionary, intelligent, motivated over-40 women who want to pursue new ventures â€" in their careers, lifestyles, and communities.
Liz brings to the firm 25+ years of expertise and experience with global marketing services firms as a strategist, senior management executive, and marketer for Fortune 500 corporations and trade associations. She is also the Founder and CEO of Weinmann & Associates, LLC,  which she began in 2005 to provide strategic consulting and marketing services to small and mid-size firms and nonprofits.
© The DARE-Force Corporation, 2011.
All rights reserved. Please note: all of the content on this website and in the other content-driven products and services of The DARE-Force Corporation are based on sound business principles and practices of strategy, operations, leadership and marketing, as well as current and emerging trends in those business principles and practices.  None of the content is intended to be, nor should it be perceived as, or applied as, counsel, diagnosis, or treatment for mental, emotional or physical health conditions.
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