"Behind a Successful Man or Woman, there needs to be a Supportive Partner for Life."

As I perused reading material over the past few days, for this post, my wife, Mary Kennedy and I decided to download the Audio Version of Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. by Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook.

We listened to the book on the way back from visiting our daughter, Layne Kennedy, in Los Angeles last weekend. If you've never listened to an Audio Book, it's kind of fun when you're traveling and it makes the time fly.

I thought the book was very thought provoking and way past due. I especially enjoyed the section on how important it is for Women(and Men for that matter) to pick a good partner that's supportive in whatever endeavor each partner aspires to throughout their life.

The old saying that "Behind a Successful Man there is a Woman" needs to be updated to say "Behind a Successful Man or Woman needs to be a Supportive Partner for Life."

After listening to the book and watching Ms. Sandberg's interviews on the Television and Internet during the past week, Mary and I spent some time talking about Women in the Workplace issues of today and agreed on how fortunate we were to find and support each other for nearly 35 years. (I guess some would call that back in the dark ages)

Obviously the road was quite different back then. After I left the traditional corporate life at the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 1995, I joined Mary and we ran our Specialty Advertising business together in Minneapolis, until we moved here in 2001 and Mary added her Real Estate business to the mix in 2004.

With both Paul and Layne in college that year we entered the world of empty nesting and realized we had diversify as the college bills started rolling in.

2004 and 2005 were very good years, for us, in Las Vegas Real Estate. 2006 is when the character building, as the market turned down, began for both of us. Mary stepped up her game through a really tough Las Vegas Valley Real Estate Market and has grown into a great Realtor and the best partner anyone could ask for.

I encourage everyone (man or women) to read or listen to Ms. Sandberg's book and when you get to the point of picking that special partner for life, I hope that special person will make you feel as fortunate as I was on that blind date way back in 1978.

Hopefully Mary would say the same about me... (Of course that kind of depends on the day!)

The last thing is... If you have not seen the Pepsi Test Drive Commercial with Jeff Gordon video, kudos the Ad Agency! It's up to and over 29 million hits so far on YouTube and is hilarious.
 
Best Regards,

John Kennedy
Kennedy Specialty Advertising
Las Vegas, NV.
http://kennedypromos.com