I was talking with a good friend yesterday and she mentioned a common acquaintance and said, “She’s such an attractive woman.”  I didn’t say anything but I did think that this woman, while not mud fence ugly, was not runway pretty.

All last night I kept thinking about what she said and why she had that perception of how this woman looked. As luck (or the Universe) would have it, that same woman called me this morning to talk about a project she’s working on.

We talked for about 30 minutes and I’m NOT a good phone talker. I’d rather have a root canal than sit on the phone. I’m not a good sitter either. Surprisingly, I didn’t notice how much time had passed until I hung up. That’s when the penny dropped.

She isn’t magazine beautiful but beauty comes through her voice. She’s happy, compassionate and truly focused on the person she’s speaking to and that’s what makes her attractive. She’s the type of person that instantly puts you at ease and says things that make you feel terrific about yourself.

I wanted to call my friend to tell her I understood what she meant when she called our acquaintance attractive but then I’d have to admit I didn’t agree. I do now.

Grumpy, whingey people might be magazine pretty but you wouldn’t want to be friends with them. This woman has chooses happiness for herself and her personality shines. I’m going to work on that. I’d love to be more like that and I don’t know her that well. You can bet that I’m going to do my best to spend more time with her.

It’s never too late to find a good role model for something you’re trying to achieve in yourself. Reminds me of when I was a university student with a young child. I lived in Knoxville, Tennessee and I had a neighbour across the street from me with a last name of Tweed.

She was like this woman I talked about earlier – always happy, always busy doing good things for her family and friends. My son called her Miz Tweet and he couldn’t wait to go to her house to play with her daughter who was the same age. She was a mother who got up before dawn to clean the house so she could play with her daughter all day.

Alan loved that. His mother went to university all day and he was in day care and then his mother had studying, cooking, cleaning and all the rest that goes with living. I wanted to be more like Miz Tweet and used her as my mentor.

Do you have someone that  you look to as a role model?