Martha Stewart is not a character in someone else’s story; Martha Stewart is the lifelong Star of her own show. She is a big-picture person. Life is her puzzle and she is quick to identify when a piece is missing or out of place.
Martha Stewart was raised in Nutley, NJ, from a middle-class American family with old fashioned values. As a child she learned everything in their family home that would later become her marketable skills. Everything from sewing, to cooking, canning, floral arranging and gardening, she learned from her parents and grandparents. She was raised in an atmosphere where accomplishment, projects, and activities in the home were valued and praised. Her parents, being of p\Polish heritage, were tough because they well knew the lessons of going after what one wants in life and they instilled that in Martha. It was evident in her schoolwork where she excelled in everything, especially journalism and art studies as well as her regular classes.
Martha was hungry for knowledge and had a very hands-on and practical personality to go with brains and curiosity. She graduated from Barnard with a double degree, majoring in history and architectural history. Now the reason this is all-important is that Martha was gathering the pieces of herself that would become the foundation for her business success. She also happened to be tall and attractive so while in the school newspaper and art club in high school and again in college she began a modeling career in NYC, and also did some televisions commercials. Can you see how the storm for her success was gathering? Almost as though she planned it from birth!
Martha said she never asked anyone to do anything she did not know how to do herself. She was exacting because she knew the right way to do things. She would not accept a job done more poorly than she would do herself. Her father’s rigorous standards were a natural part of her personality. There are many other things Martha did during the early years of her career, such as being a successful stockbroker who walked away from the markets to spend more time with her daughter, after several very successful years. Not one to play by anyone else’s rules, Martha found the SEC ruled financial markets too restrictive for her creative personality.
Leaving the markets, she bought an old farmhouse on Turkey Hill Lane in Connecticut and began to renovate the place that would become the perfect setting for the Martha Stewart Living show and Martha Stewart magazine. Martha has the Midas touch. The basis for her success is that she is very high energy; she is a hand’s-on creative person. She takes responsibility for what happens in her life. She proved that when she took the 5 year prison term and made lemonade out of what must have been the sourest of lemons for a woman used to controlling and managing her own destiny.
Contrary to popular opinion, Martha is a people person and she made herself useful while in prison, leaving a group of admiring friends sad to see her go. Martha is not only creative, she is present and fully involved in anything she does and she makes no excuses. She has proven that one can succeed at anything one puts one’s mind to and I am certain that had she determined to be a brain surgeon instead of an expert designer of beautiful lifestyles, she would have been just as successful.
Martha has all the drive, self identity, vision, and willingness to work for what she wants that makes any entrepreneur successful.
For more information about this famous entrepreneur, visit her website. http://www.marthastewart.com
As presented by Alexandra Barrett at the YES941 meeting.
