It took me years and years of trial efforts to work out that there is absolutely no knitting triumph I can achieve that my husband will think is worth being woken up for.
When you're starting out, you basically have all these assumptions about what it means to be an artist or how to be a rock star. It took me years, through trial and error, to figure out what does work for me. So much of it is counter to the myth of the rock-star life.
My first book took five years to write and I made $1,000 on it. The second took three years and I made $3,000. All this time I was a housewife being supported by a husband. I was very lucky.
I never had confidence - never. The hardest thing to know is your own worth, and it took me years and years to find out what mine is.
My advise to women is just to love yourself! It's the most beautifully liberating thing that you can do, but it's also the hardest thing you can do, especially if someone has lived with self-hate for years. But it's through meditating or reciting positive affirmations that you can come out of it. It doesn't happen instantly. It took me years and years and years and I'm still on that journey of self-love, but once you do find it, the liberation that you feel is absolutely amazing.
It took several years of trial and error, soul-searching and hard work to shape the ROI program into the ROI Community. In the first few years, we got to see the power of these gatherings and the resulting connections that spanned the globe. It inspired us to think about how we could transform an annual gathering into a year-round community.
I think Diana Vreeland recognized the passion and the energy I had. I stayed at Harper's Bazaar for two years, until I met my first husband and moved on to Philadelphia in 1952. But they were incredible years - wonderful, wonderful years. But, anyway, my career sort of took off from there. I was really blessed.
Many years ago, I went with my husband and daughter to Denmark. In those years, you could bring $400 worth of furniture without taxes. We had three people, we bought $1,200 worth of furniture.
Now I am practicing as well as a criminal defense lawyer in handling appeals. The court of appeals appointed me to handle cases and although that's not trial work and I don't have to go to court, it kind of satisfies the need I have to practice still and I have transitioned into readiness not to be in trial anymore. It took a little while for me to get used to not doing it and I did miss it for a few years, but eventually I transferred into another life.
I think the lack of precision and deep focus is why it took me years to build up my work.
I am glad and thankful that my husband forced me to start reading for pleasure, as it took me years to listen to him and pick up a book!
The only thing I have learnt over the years is that if you enjoy your work and put in the best efforts, it will show. If you follow this process, things work out. But if you go chasing a formula, success will elude you.
He's always been tough on me, but I've had to figure out when he's being a coach and when he's being a dad. Once I figured that out, it was much easier. It's definitely tough, something that took years to figure out. Just knowing he was looking for what's best for me, not just yelling at me as a parent. It took maturity.
In a few hundred years you have achieved in America what it took thousands of years to achieve in Europe.
My husband is my part of my greatest joys, so it doesn't feel like work or like I'm balancing anything. My husband and my kids absolutely come first, so work is just something where I figure out where it will fit.
The only time I took Ecstacy was years and years ago. It was absolutely amazing.
'Senna' took five years, 'Amy' took three years. You try and say, 'Look, there's no deadline.' That's important. Just saying, 'We've got to make the film. And once the film's ready, it will be out there.'