Twelve Bits of Advice For a Rewarding Life

You might be wondering what a soap opera actress, dispatched from the land of outrageous and hilarious plots, has to say about a difficult, painful, and emotional real-life issue like aging. Well, aging is at times both outrageous and hilarious, and no one knows more about reinvention and perseverance than an actress who began her career as the star of a show – and then became the mother of the star, and then the grandmother of the star. Getting older keeps you on your toes – you have to fight to remain visible, or risk being pushed to exit stage left.

In Changing Shoes, Tina Sloan addresses the issues and feelings most women eventually have to deal with, using humorous anecdotes from her personal life (beginning with her first pair of Chanel pump) and her twenty-six years on Guiding Light (where she started out in a pair of white high heels and a fitted nurse’s uniform and finished off in sneakers and modern nurse’s scrubs.) Changes in her looks, love life, career, and family are managed with footwear to match: broken-in black flats when taking care of her aging parents, lavender “Cinderella” shoes to seduce her husband, and pink snow boots to hike Mount Kilimanjaro.

Tina’s commitment to live life to the fullest is inspiring and filled with advice on everything from retaining the spark and zest of younger days, staying “forever frisky,” expanding your world, and, as Tina puts it, “staying in the game.” Women of all ages will identify with Tina’s personal stories and appreciate her sincerity, honesty, inspiring words, and endearing sense of humor.

Twelve Bits of Advice for a Rewarding Life

Be True to Yourself
Always make sure that the shoes you wear are your own. That way your feet will know where to take you.

Never Compromise All of Yourself
The truly great thing about women dating at our age is that, unlike in their younger days, most are not willing to compromise.

Claim Your Feel Good Energy
I think, more than anything, feeling sexy and desirable is about energy. It’s all about tapping that flirtatious instinct that all women have.

Live in Kindness and Generosity
We need to be generous with the women following in our footsteps in the hope that they will be generous with us.

Embrace Change
Change often leads us somewhere interesting, whether we’ve looked for it or not.

Expect Bitter-Sweet Moments
There is perhaps nothing more rewarding for a parent than watching your child grow up and spread his wings- and for many, nothing more heartbreaking at the same time.

Prepare to Reinvent Yourself
Kids bring so much energy into your life- different people and all sorts of new experiences and ideas. When you get older, you have to generate that energy yourself, and you have to work at it.

Give Back
Nothing quite prepares you for the unsettling feeling of being called upon to care for those who once cared for you.

Persevere
We do learn something about ourselves when we are up against the wall, and we do most certainly come out stronger.

Draw Your Own Map
Aging is like a marathon. The key is to stay in the race and continue putting one foot in front of the other until we cross the finish line on our own terms.

Choose to Live Rather than Exist
Learn to silence the voice that tries to cajole you with excuses and reasons why it would be better to just sit this one out.

Don’t be Afraid of Falling
Whenever I wondered if I was brave enough to take another chance, or stretch beyond my normal range, or try something completely new I remind myself that I was an expert at the fine art of falling, and that most of the time, I landed on my feet.

Tina Sloan, author of ‘Changing Shoes: Getting Older – Not Old- with Style, Humor, and Grace’, played the role of Nurse Lillian Raines on Guiding Light, which aired its final episode in 2009 after a seventy-two year run on radio and television. She has appeared on many other television shows, including ‘Third Watch,’ and ‘Law & Order: SVU,’ and in a variety of feature films, including ‘The Brave One’ and ‘Changing Lanes.’ She is currently shooting two feature films and touring nationally in her acclaimed one-woman show, ‘Changing Shoes.’ She lives in New York with her husband, Steve McPherson. They have one son, Renny. Click here to purchase the book, or comment below to be automatically entered to win a copy.