Ageless Pearl

As part of a Pearls of Wisdom world “blog tour” I am pleased to introduce another fellow author from our fabulous book – a real live human “Pearl” in fact – with a fascinating story and a reason to be hopeful about our future.

Sheila Pearl is in demand as Keynote Speaker and Seminar Leader in the New York metropolitan area and beyond. At 70, Sheila is at the beginning stages of her career as an author, with her newest book “Ageless & Sexy” to be released in June 2012.

Sheila is a retired cantor and educator, having been a spiritual leader in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area for over 30 years. In her chapter entitled Awful Gifts: Blessings in Disguise, Sheila shares her story of living with her husband’s illness and finding the unlikely blessings in the midst of adversity. With a busy private practice in life coaching, Sheila is dedicated to healing humanity, one conversation at a time: she has been a family and marriage counselor for over 30 years, specializing in relationships and transitions. Now widowed, she is the grandmother of five. She is author of STILL LIFE: A Spiritual Handbook for Family Caregivers; and the forthcoming AGELESS & SEXY: Pioneering Uncharted Territory for Life After 50. She is also co-author of WAKE UP WOMEN: A Guidebook; and The Winning Connection: A Networker’s Guidebook with a Foreword by Bob Proctor. You can visit her blogs at www.AgelessPearlsOfWisdom.com and www.AgelessAndSexyBooks.com, and her websites: www.SheilaPearl.com and www.SheilaPearlSpeaks.com

Enjoy my interview of Sheila below:

1. How did you get into this collection of inspiration with folks like Jack Canfield?
I was a finalist in the “Next Top Author Self-Help Book” Contest with Conari Press in 2011 – I had submitted my book “WRINKLED,  AGELESS & SEXY” and became one of the four finalists in the contest. As a finalist I was offered an opportunity to submit my chapter for consideration, which is what I did.

2. What is your chapter about?
My chapter title is “AWFUL GIFTS: Blessings in Disguise” – I tell the story of how my worst nightmare became one of my greatest and most awesome gifts: in the midst of my husband’s struggle with a form of Altzheimer’s called “Diffuse Lewy Body Disorder,” we both experienced a process of intuitive communication by my using a method called “kything” (spirit-to-spirit communication).  In that process, I discovered that Altzheimer’s and other related diseases are opportunities to access additional portals of consciousness.  In that process, my husband’s previous fear of death and limiting belief about afterlife dissolved into an acceptance of his passing and a realization that “I am not my body…I am not my mind” ah-ha for both of us.

3. What do you think makes this book unique and who would want to read it?
I think what makes this book unique is the variety of wisdom and inspirational ideas which are available to the reader, all in one place.  To have as our celebrity authors Jack Canfield, Marci Shimoff, Chris Attwood and Janet Bray Attwood sets the bar at a high level for the reader, also establishing the quality of wisdom which is being shared throughout the book

4. What kind of wisdom do you have to offer the reader?
What I have learned and what I teach others is that whatever life brings to us is also a reflection of what we have invited for ourselves to experience: every adversity has within it some form of gift and blessing, if we are willing to look for it and embrace it.

5. The publisher promises that the authors such as yourself are “up and coming” leaders in self-help.  How does the publisher know this and what is your expertise in “self-help”?
Before I entered the “Next Top Author Self-Help” contest and became a finalist with my “AGELESS & SEXY” book, I had also authored other books, including “STILL LIFE: A Spiritual Guidebook for Family Caregivers of Altzheimer’s Patients and Other Difficult Illnesses” and am a co-author in books including “WAKE UP WOMEN BE Happy, Healthy & Wealthy”.  I’ve been a spiritual leader for over 25 years and a life coach/thought leader for over two decades.  As I begin my 70^th year of life, I am just beginning my career as author, with two books coming out in 2012.

6. Most people know about Jack Canfield from the Chicken Soup books and Marci Shimoff from her Happy book … How would you like your readers to think of you?  What is your “signature niche”?
I want my readers to think of me as “A Pearl of Wisdom” (my name is Sheila Pearl); as a “Pioneer of Ageless Thinking” – as a thought leader coming out of the Baby Boomer generation who joins the “Generation Ageless” in re-defining aging, longevity, what it means to be “sexy” and how thinking with Quantum Mindsets in the Quantum Age is what makes the difference for living to 150 and beyond.

7. We often hear that the “whole is greater than the sum of its parts” – how does that proverb apply to the 30 authors in this book?
I love the way synergy works: when two people are having a conversation, a third reality emerges; when 30 voices are sharing their energy, their messages, entire new worlds are being born within each moment of the sharing.  Exponential Synergistic Energy: that is how I see the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

8. What is your most central and compelling “pearl of wisdom”?
My most compelling and central “pearl of wisdom” is that YOUR LIFE IS PERFECT RIGHT NOW…WHATEVER IT IS…HOWEVER DIFFICULT IT IS…IT IS ALL A PERFECT INVITATION FOR YOU TO STEP INTO ANOTHER POSSIBILITY OF YOURSELF AND TO MAKE IT ALL A GIFT.

9. How can our readers/listeners find you?
Visit my websites:  www.AgelessPearlsOfWisdom.com and www.AgelessAndSexyBook.com and www.SheilaPearlSpeaks.com

p.s. I am offering a limited number of signed copies of Pearls of Wisdom book and Your Spacious Self. These make fabulous gifts! Learn more here.