On her way to New
York, Bettie finds time for a surprise visit with her new Success Coach – and
completely fails to make an impression.
For all its obvious pluses, living on the Isle of
Man also means every time I want to fly anywhere international I am forced to
schlep to UK’s fine capital. Still, never the one to miss turning a negative
into a positive, I killed two birds with one martini-shaped stone by scheduling
a London layover that saw me trying not to be seasick at the Lyceum
iGaming Summer Social Boat Party, before popping in to see my new Success
Coach.
Like Abraham Lincoln, I’ve failed my way to success every
time, so the thought of paying some string-thin Brit bint to tell me what I was
doing wrong was never going to make my Top Ten list. But after my maid Mona put
the fear of God into me by pointing out, “You’ll end up living foot to mouth –
you see if I’m not right!” I decided I needed to
take action fast.
Actually, I got the
idea as I snatched my diary back from Mrs. Roosevelt and caught sight of the
back cover blurb about the author, Jerinda Rawls Kingston-Royce:
Jerinda’s Success-A-Day Diary
One Diary… A Lifetime of Experiences!
Internationally-famed Life Strategist, Success Coach and
Stay-At-Home Mum, Jerinda perfectly balances her life with yours. Do you Want
to Achieve 101% of your Destiny Potential? Of course, you do! Then…
Blah-de-blah-blah-blah… It went on like that for a while,
but the general gist was, in addition to daily Top Tips, Words of Wisdom and
Inspirational Nuggets, jolly Jerinda offered coaching to get one’s life back on
track. I figured it was worth a shot.
How to describe the swanky Kensington offices of Living Your
Success Limited, diary? Well, since London was still clearing up the discarded
Kate Middleton masks and Union Jack bunting from HRH’s Diamond Jubilee bash and
was now in full Olympic Games frenzy, the place felt like an oasis of calm by
comparison. It also suited its CEO who, it’s fair to say, had more personality
than Barbara Streisand’s drinks cabinet. At first she was reluctant to grant an
audience, but it’s amazing what waving a Mastercard can do.
“I’d like to start with a bit about you,” the backcombed
businesswoman began. “Can you fill in this brief questionnaire?”
A long time later, Jerinda grilled me over my answers.
“You’ve left a few boxes blank?”
“Like what?”
“Like birth date.”
“Is that relevant?”
“Yes. How old are you?”
“Thirty-nine… Ish.”
“And for Sex M/F, you’ve written ‘one and a half’.”
“Well, that’s how many times I had sex between Monday and
Friday.”
As you can imagine, this went on for some time...
Finally, Jerinda announced that time was up, but she really
didn’t need a crystal ball to see exactly why my life was in the crapper.
“You need to take control,” she said simply.
“Of what?”
“Of everything. Your marriage, your twisted family
relationships, the business…”
“The business?”
“Yes. Let’s imagine you
ruled the world, Bettie. What would you do?”
Well, didn’t that open the floodgates. One minute I was
bemoaning the fact that, for Big Frank, expanding our online offering meant
little more than offering punters beauty tips with their blackjack. The next we
were talking about my entire laundry list of woes and my ideas to turn
39-4-Ever into a raging success.
“That’s more like it!”
Jerinda enthused as she bundled me out the revolving glass doors and into a
waiting taxi. “And remember: The secret of future success lies in being
successful in the future!”
Well, I couldn’t argue with that.
