Tue, Aug 21, 2006
From her soul: Carol Ann Cole
Writer, motivational speaker and 'comfort heart lady,' Carol Ann Cole has learned
many lessons through her life experiences and shares them in a new book
Ellen Ashton-Haiste
Forever Young
Lessons Learned Upside the Head is the latest book from Cole.
Carol Ann Cole, cancer survivor and founder of the Comfort Heart Initiative.
The big lesson, says Carol Ann Cole, is that when all's said and done, "it's
not the diploma you have on the wall, not what you've accomplished, not the
accolades, but it boils down to how you've made people feel as you've travelled
life's journey."
It might sound cliché -- and as Cole says in the introduction to her
new book, Lessons Learned Upside the Head, it's not rocket science -- but she
believes it's the biggest lesson we can learn in life. From secretarial pool
to boardroom, from crashing the glass ceiling to crashing with cancer, she's
learned many lessons in her own life. And she shares them in her book.
Cole, 60, is the founder of the Comfort Heart Initiative, which by selling
small pewter hearts, talismans to hold and rub in times of stress, has raised
over $1-million for cancer research and earned her the Order of Canada.
Her story of leaving Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley as a teenager for the "big
city" of North Bay, Ont., of landing a job with Bell Canada and working
her way up the corporate ladder from typist to one of the company's first female
vice-presidents, of giving it all up to forge a new path after battling cancer
and watching her mother die from it, was told in her first book Comfort Heart,
A Personal Memoir, published in 2001 by ECW Press.
In Lessons Learned, she delves into specific life experiences, telling stories
of how she learned to live life to the fullest, how to treat others, how to
help and be helped.
Although there were many life experiences that she learned from -- work issues,
divorce, single parenting -- Cole, now based back in Nova Scotia, says she didn't
fully appreciate them "until that big cancer umbrella shielded me long
enough for me to take a good look at my life."
Her book, she now finds, is opening that same door for others.
"What people are saying is that they're finding this book comforting from
the perspective that the lessons I've learned are not rocket science,"
she says. "You've learned them as well and sometimes we need others to
remind us."
She's had numerous calls from people saying they were happy to hear her talk
about issues, like developing good people skills, making everyone around you
feel that they're important, or being honest enough to admit when you don't
understand or know it all, because "things like that are important."
Touching people's lives in a positive way is the bottom-line message in all
Cole's endeavours, including her writing, motivational speaking and fundraising.
She reports that the comfort hearts are still selling -- more than 214,000
and counting. "People are still ordering and there's not a day goes by
that I don't receive a letter that makes me laugh or makes me cry."
Already, she says, Lessons Learned has injected some new life into the initiative,
with orders coming in for bulk quantities from some cancer organizations across
the country. It's also revived interest in her first book, which has hit the
5,000 sales mark, putting it into the "best seller" league.
Comfort hearts are available from the manufacturer, Ocean Art Pewter (800-407-4436),
which still donates all profits to research.
Lessons Learned Upside the Head (trade paperback, 2006, $18.95) is available
at bookstores, on-line through Chapters (chapters.indigo.com) or from the publisher,
Pottersfield Press (pottersfieldpress.com).
