Amazon 1 Piece of Advice 1 Piece of Advice Category:  Self-Help Publisher: 1 Piece of Advice ISBN-10:  098108320X Type: Non-Fiction Pages: 150 Copyright: January 2012 ISBN-13: 9780981083209 1 Piece of Advice: Exceptional women from around the globe inspire you to unlock your potential   The women profiled in 1 Piece of Advice: Exceptional Women from Around the Globe Inspire You to Unlock Your Potential range from an iconic feminist magazine editor and a Governor General, to the Chair of the Afghanistan Human Rights Commission. While their accomplishments and position are diverse, there is a common thread among them: Aspiring to achieve true significance in their respective careers, each of these fifty women persevered in the face of adversity, carving the way for women to follow in their footsteps and unlock their own potential. Trailblazers in their own right, authors (and cousins) Patricia and Barbara Moser have often been asked for that “one piece of advice” that they applied to achieve their respective levels of success. Patricia, who has had great success as both a corporate executive and entrepreneur in Supply Chain, Procurement and Marketing, and Barbara, a Professional Engineer in the aerospace industry who has held various senior management positions in Operations and Quality Management, dealt with their fair share of obstacles breaking into fields that were perceivably atypical choices for women. Having achieved many of their individual goals, Patricia and Barbara now focus their energies on empowering and mentoring women to discover fulfillment in their careers, no matter what path they choose to pursue. “All too often the rhetoric pertaining to women ‘breaking through’ points largely to what can’t or isn’t being done,” says Patricia. “This is not to say that such barriers don’t exist, but if you always focus on what can’t be done it often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. With the collective wisdom of the women included in the book, we hope to reveal that with persistence, courage, and passion, women can be successful.” Spanning different cultures, geographic locations, and disciplines, 1 Piece of Advice showcases exceptional women in six arenas: The corner office: featuring corporate icons and entrepreneurs Enriching the soul: leaders of the religious and spiritual communities Spotlight: Media and entertainment visionaries including producers, conductors, and writers Reach for the stars: Champions of air and space including a pilot, astronaut, and astrophysicist To serve and protect: human rights, military and political leaders In pursuit of knowledge: leaders in higher education Adds Barbara, “We wanted to find a vehicle whereby we could relay fundamental, positive message from successful women around the world. It is our hope that readers will consider what’s possible from a different vantage point and transform their dreams into reality.”       Excerpt Introduction This book was created as a way to acknowledge and celebrate the accomplishments of women around the globe and to tap into the insight of these amazing women. It is also meant to encourage women from around the world to accept that they can achieve anything they want if they believe in the possibilities. This book provides 1 Piece of Advice signposts, which are all pointing the way to your own success. We began this journey because we were tired of hearing all the pundits reporting statistics and writing articles about the decline in women’s prominence or inability to “break through” in a variety of fields. This is not to say that there are overwhelming numbers of women who have “made it” and therefore imply that barriers for women are illusionary. We have encountered both the tangible and intangible hurdles in our own corporate climbs. By reaching out to trailblazing women across the world, we hope that what we’re providing through this book is an antidote to the “glass ceiling” assertion. We intended to showcase that with persistence, courage and passion, women can and have achieved significance and success in many different areas. Believing that you “can’t” will become a self-fulfilling prophesy. What should amaze those reading this book is how many women have achieved prominence in a vast array of fields. When we started this project, we believed that we were quite knowledgeable about women who have “made it”. However once we began researching what women have accomplished throughout the globe we were, quite honestly, astounded. One evening while we were surveying our lists, we looked at each other and almost in stereo said, “Who knew?” and we recognized that this was part of the problem. Although women had accomplished much, they weren’t being regularly touted in the media, nor did they seek out the spotlight – most were quite content to make a difference in the world without any fanfare. So we began writing letters to these amazing women on a “wing and a prayer”, while of course keeping our day jobs. In addition to our independent efforts, every Wednesday night we got together and became the ultimate production line - printing letters, stuffing and sealing envelopes. We sent the letters in batches over a 1 year period. We didn’t know any of these women personally -- just by reputation. In our letters we explained the project and asked for the 1 Piece of Advice which they believed would inspire women to turn their dreams into realities. We explained that the 1 Piece of Advice was meant to cause others to consider their possibilities from a different vantage point, and that it could be a word, a sentence or a paragraph. When we went to the mail the first batch of letters, we took a deep breath, said a little prayer, and dropped them into the mailbox. The emotion it evoked was akin to that sense of joy and dread you experience when you take your child to their first day of school – knowing you need to do it, but also recognizing that you no longer have control over the outcome. And then we waited. Imagine our joy at receiving responses just two weeks after we sent out the first letters! It was intense. We began getting replies both by regular mail and by email. Follow up letters were sent to those we hadn’t heard from after a couple of months – we hoped that perhaps as more and more women joined us on our journey, others would as well. Some did, some didn’t. But quite honestly we were thrilled with the number of responses that we did receive. Countless late nights and early mornings of work ensued in order to capture not only the wisdom of the words themselves but also to present them in the context of the contributors’ lives. The simplicity and truth that speaks from the pages of experience of these women is profound. By understanding the challenges they faced and overcame, we too will learn. It is now up to all of us to honor their achievements by creating some or our own. Our recommendation is to read the profiles of these renaissance women and their accompanying 1 Piece of Advice. Allow yourself to become inspired by the words and incorporate into your life, every day or every week, a Piece of Advice that resonates. Work your way through the book and see how it changes you and your possibilities. You can record your approach and triumphs in the Reflections section. We believed that we could bring this book to life and against many odds we did. Every time we hit a “Road Closed” sign, we found a different route which inevitably brought us to a successful conclusion. Never forget, the only time you fail is when you stop trying!

Take my advice: Live Well
Review
Take my advice: Live well
Mary K. Nolan The Hamilton Spectator (Mar 7, 2009)

Someone miscounted.

There are actually 48 pieces of advice in 1 Piece of Advice, a new motivational book aimed at women, who will be celebrating International Women's Day tomorrow.

Add a couple of pearls of wisdom from its authors, Hamilton-born cousins Barbara Moser and Patricia Moser-Stern, and the list grows to 50 pieces of indisputably good advice.

But who's counting? The point was to convey a single piece of advice from dozens of the world's powerful and successful women.

They're not all famous -- in fact, it's a safe bet that most readers will be familiar with no more than a fifth of them.

Dame Calliopa Pearlette Louisy, Governor General of St. Lucia, and Yolanda Kakabadse Navarro, an Ecuadorian environmentalist, are not exactly household names, unlike Karen Kain, artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada, and Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion.

But each woman whose photo and biography appears in the 144-page hardcover book has valuable wisdom to share, based on her experiences on the journey to excellence in her particular field.

Moser-Stern, who attended Scott Park and Parkside high schools and McMaster University, has made a career of procurement and supply chain management and now runs her own consulting practice. Moser, born in Hamilton and raised in Grimsby, is an aerospace engineer with a master's degree in business administration.

We're from a family of overachievers, Moser-Stern laughs; But we're really just two women in science who've written a book.

In their traditionally male-populated fields, they've seen the glass ceiling and they know it still exists. One only has to look at the comparatively few women CEOs on the Fortune 500 list.

In this day and age, we shouldn't have to write a book like this; says Moser-Stern.

After months of Internet research, the pair sent out about 350 letters to women all over the world -- politicians, CEOs, social activists, athletes, academics and artists.

The first responses, which arrived on the same day, came from publishing powerhouse Heather Reisman and former Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown (whose reply was written on a typewriter.)

I called my cousin and I was so excited, she thought we'd won the lottery, and to a certain extent we had. We felt 'If those two think it's a good idea and have responded, then we must have something here.

There are entries, ranging from three words to 200, from the San Francisco fire chief, a retired U.S. Army general, the head of the Tsawwassen First Nation, a Kenyan judge, British rabbi, Afghani human rights commissioner and the Liechtenstein ambassador to the U.S.

The advice in the book transcends the traditional definition of success, says Moser-Stern.It's more about how you proceed in life. --The Hamilton Spectator, March 7, 2009

How to get wise to Success

How to get wise to success

Not sure what to do? Get some valuble life lessons from two authors who sought the counsel of the world's most powerful and successful women


From 48 powerful women leaders from around the world, including politicians, CEOs, social activists, academics, artists and athletes, these women blazed career paths in spite of the odds and shattered the glass ceiling.

Each one's single best piece of advice is showcased in a book entitled 1 Piece of Advice. It's an inspirational vehicle to let women know that anything is possible, that "the only time you fail is when you stop trying," say the authors Barbara Moser and Patricia Moser-Stern, who were presented yesterday with a bronze medal in the Women's Issues category at the 2009 Independent Book Publisher Awards held in New York.

Pummeled by stats and news about the women's inability to "break through" in a variety fields, the cousin-authors decided to focus on success. "This is not to say that barriers don't exist, but if you always focus on what can't be done it often becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy . . .," says Moser-Stern.

"We hope women will recognize that with persistence, courage and passion, women have and can be successful. I guess it is our version of Obama's, 'Yes we can!'"

The women featured had to overcome challenges to become successful, "some more, some less, but for none of them was it necessarily a straight-line to where they are today," says Moser-Stern.

"Interestingly, when people see others who are successful there is sometimes the sense that they magically arrived there without struggles or challenges. The stories of the women in the book paint quite a different picture on what the road to success can look like."

Approximately 350 exceptional women were approached -- all 48 who responded got printed. The shortest was three words and the longest 200. There was no consistent theme.

"Learning about so many accomplished women, in many different fields, in far-flung geographies was definitely a highlight," says Moser-Stern, and being able to showcase them for others to learn about them was the biggest bonus of the process.

Glass ceilings aside, the Hamilton, Ont.-born authors have both experienced success in male-dominated fields. Moser is an aerospace engineer and Moser-Stern runs her own supply management and procurement company.

So what one piece of advice would the authors offer up?

"Paraphrasing the poet Tennyson, we are all 'a part of all that we have met' and it is up to us to make the most of our life experiences," says Moser.

Adds Moser-Stern: "Dream big, otherwise you will only achieve small."

--The Sun Newspapers, across Canada, May 31, 2009