Rosalie Maretsky

GRADUATE PROFILE

Rosalie Maretsky is a Mary Kay senior sales director in Los Angeles, California. Her professional explosion is an example of astounding transformation. She has gone from working for free in a friend's office, because she didn't believe that anyone anywhere would be willing to pay her, to earning over $70,000 a year running the Mary Kay sales unit that she built from nothing. Reflecting on her Basic Training, Rosalie remarks,“I look back on what takes place in those five days,and the transformation the training causes is mind-boggling! I guess confronting myself has always been my best teacher. When I had the environment to really look at myself in a way that I had never looked before, and to see the gifts that other people have to offer, it deeply affected me."

Rosalie took the Basic in 1980. “My life since the training has been incredible. I look at all that I've accomplished and am stunned by what I'm doing now.If anyone had told me eight years ago that I'd be doing this eight years later, making this kind of money, having this much fun, I'd never have believed them.

“If you had seen me ten years ago, you probably wouldn't have thought I was very different from now. I had a very good facade, but underneath I had very little self-confidence, and my self-esteem wasn't any better. I played it very safe. I would not risk at all. I had my moments when I did fund-raising events, being the president of this volunteer organization,or vice president of that one. But, when the event was over, I went back into my little world and stayed there. I was terrified of risking."

Rosalie has been married to her husband Sandy for thirty-six years. They have three children and two grandchildren. Rosalie and Sandy did the Basic Training together. “My son, Alan, was the one that originally got myself and my husband into it. He told us in December of 1979 that he was doing this training. I was very upset about it.I really felt that he didn't need it. I was wondering where I had failed and why he would want to take this course. I knew that this was a crazy thing he was getting into. Then, after he did it, I started to notice his life changing.I always considered him a workaholic,I didn't see him having fun in his life. He wasn't dating.All of a sudden, he changed his job and started working what seemed like regular hours. I saw him going to parties and starting to have fun.

“When he asked my husband and me to go to a Lifespring Guest Event, I said:‘No way: I'm not going because I'm very put together; I'm very aware; I have all the answers; I know what it's all about and I don't need it.' Sandy and I had done Marriage Encounter in 1976, so we already had closeness and good communication in our relationship.

“Finally I agreed to go to a Guest Event with Sandy, but there was no way we would sign up to do the training. I really had a preconceived idea about it. I told Sandy that if they're wearing robes or anyone looks dirty or like a bunch of hippies running around,I'm leaving. I really thought it would be like that. When I walked into the Sheraton Universal, it was mobbed. I walked in and saw people hugging and was completely turned off. We stayed and sat through the whole event, but I didn't hear a thing that was said. It went right in one ear and out the other.

“During the night, we bumped into a friend of ours, a woman I really looked up to. I thought she was fabulous. She told me she had done the Basic Training and it was great. I remember thinking that if she would be enthusiastic about this, there must be something to it. So I started to soften up a bit and considered doing it. Sandy and I eventually just talked ourselves into it, agreed to do it, and enrolled.I didn't really know why I had decided to do it or what was drawing me to the training other than the encouragement of this woman. I didn't think about changing my life,my relationships, my career,or any of that.

"When I went into the training, I was very resistant.I wasn't open at all.I only went because I had committed to my son to do it.I sat there that first night wondering why I was there. I said I was definitely not going to participate here. I'd just keep my mouth shut and sit there and observe. And that's what I did for the first two days. I thought the Ground Rules the first night were silly. I had no patience with the people and their questions.

“When I finally got engaged in the training, it was Friday during the day, while I was doing the homework. The training was on the week of my forty-sixth birthday and I was feeling very depressed, which is unusual for me on my birthday. I got very sick with a bad cold. By Wednesday before the training, it was a full blown case of bronchitis. I remember Sandy said to me that if I was sick, maybe we shouldn't go. I ended up doing my martyr mother routine, saying that we owed it to our son to do this. So I was sick on Wednesday and Thursday nights. Thursday night there was a lecture about illness and health. My ears really perked up. There I was in the training,sick; I had always had colds all my life, I grew up with illness around me my mother had died of cancer, my father was epileptic. I really started listening and looking at the role that illness had played in my lifehow I had relied on it as an excuse, how I had dealt with it with my parents. Then we took the homework that was on accountability to fill out before the Friday night session.I was so sick the next day I left work and just went home to bed. I lay in bed all day by myself. And all I had was time to think. That was where I really got the training. The homework got me thinking about what I was getting out of having this cold. Then I remembered that big sign hanging over the stage in the training that said ‘What Are You Pretending Not to Know?' The more I lay there, the more I thought about it. By that afternoon,I couldn't wait to get back to the training to share about everything that was going on with me.

“I was the second one picked to share that night. When I got that microphone in my hand, I was shaking like a leaf.I started sharing about this illness. I had a tremendous fear of dying. I had seen my father passing away, then my mother. The trainer said something to me that was so important. I don't even remember exactly what he said.It was simple, but in that moment it had a huge impact. When I sat down, I felt like another person. First, spending that whole day of thinking about accountability, and then sharing with the group, was very dramatic for me. Once I had really jumped in Friday night, that was it for me. I was in the training full force.

"It was interesting doing the training with my husband because, of course, his experiences were totally different from mine. We did it together basically because I wouldn't do it without him. I wouldn't do anything without him. At that time, I really thought that I needed him there to pick me up in case I fell down. I really thought like that.Then, when I started to get so excited about the training, I was upset that he wasn't acting the way I was. Of course, he was going through it at his own pace."

After the Basic Training, Rosalie began stepping out in her life, particularly in the area of her career. "For so many years I put myself down.I had really lost so much of my self-confidence.I was married very young, at seventeen.Then,I had my first baby at eighteen.So my whole life in the fifties was raising kids, being the typical homemaker.In the fifties, I thought a woman's place was in the home; you cooked and cleaned, took care of your husband and children, participated in the PTA, and all that.

“Here's an idea of how low my self-esteem was before the trainings. When my youngest, my daughter, was thirteen, my mother passed away. It was a very traumatic illness, and it was very hard on me. My daughter was thirteen, so I didn't have to stay home with the kids anymore. I needed to do something.I was so terrified about going out to find a job.I would look at the want ads every day and close the paper. Nobody would want me. I didn't have any qualifications. There was nothing I could sell. I called my girlfriend who was managing an office and asked if she needed any help. I told her I would do whatever she wanted, I just wanted to get into that office. I told her she didn't even have to pay me.She had just fired someone and needed help on the phones. I helped her out every day without pay. And I was excited about it. That's how much I valued myself. That's what I thought I was worth. After a while, it turned into a paid position, for something ridiculous like $600 a month. That was a beginning for me."

Rosalie has spent over twenty-five years doing charity work and it was after she took the trainings that she began to take on more responsibility."I was and still am very involved with City of Hope. I was asked to be the chairman of their annual luncheon. That was huge. At that time,about 1300 people came to the luncheons. For the first time, they wanted to put on a two-day affair, and they wanted me to take it on. At first I shied away from it, I didn't want the responsibility. I didn't want to deal with the women involved, to cope with all the different personalities. The magnitude of it was overwhelming. Finally, I accepted and I did the luncheon. I know I only accepted because,after having done the trainings,I knew that there was so much I could do.” Remember, this is the woman who years earlier had worked for free because she didn't think she could do anything worthwhile. “Years ago, there’s no way I'd have been able to work with all those different people in a position of leadership. I'd have let them walk all over me. I'd have been a nervous wreck and I would have hated the whole thing. Once I took it on, I saw that I really can work with people. All the problems I used to have were insignificant. I had really learned in the trainings how to work with people, and how to communicate in a way that creates results. The luncheon was a huge success. We raised more money than we ever had."

A couple of years after doing the trainings, Rosalie first heard about Mary Kay Cosmetics.She was first attracted by a brochure she read that “spoke the same tongue I know so well. They talked about risking,about expanding your comfort zone, about responsibility, teamwork, and giving. I was looking for something that would support me in living by my principles, and here was this company that applied those same principles, a company that would support me in taking what I had learned in the trainings and putting it into action in the world. I saw this as a great vehicle to touch a lot of people and make a difference in their lives.

"I started out slowly, playing it safe again. I was just going to have fun.Then I decided if I was going to invest money in this, I was going to learn everything about this business and be the best I could be. That’s how it started five years ago."

The key to Rosalie's success is her competence in empowering the women in her unit.“I gained all my expertise in working with people through the training. I can work with a woman who comes in shy and insecure, and teach her how to work with people. When she starts to blossom,I step back and let her rise. There's a lot of rejection out there and a lot that these women have to face, but in the process,they start to learn that they really can make things happen. That's where I make a difference in people's lives. I motivate them and teach them everything I know to be great, not mediocre. I don't believe in anything small.I believe in going all the way to the top, and that means being the best you can be. Empowering people, to me, is the most exciting thing that anybody can do.

"I really do feel that I owe my success to Lifespring because I don't think I would have ever gone into business for myself given my insecurities and low self-confidence. I wouldn't have taken the kinds of risks I have taken. I have set and hit goals that were totally out of the realm of possibility. According to the numbers, we never should have done it. I don't look much at the numbers. I look at the people and see what I can do with people. The results have been phenomenal.I've had this sense of mastery about shooting for what seemed impossible, and we have done it, year after year.

“Empowering others is a full-time job. I love doing it. If I look back at where my life was before the trainings, I didn't have any idea about empowering people. I was more into running around and shopping, working with charities, and those kinds of things. It just wasn't very fulfilling. I have had to give some things up in the process. For one thing, my friendships have changed. I'm still close with my friends, but I won't just sit on the phone and gab for two hours in a day anymore. I would like to give myself more time with my friends, but I would never trade my life for where it was before. If I have to give something up in the process, then I'm willing to pay the price.

“I've learned to lighten up and enjoy what I'm doing, even when I stumble. When I get too serious, I'm not creative, and I don't produce results.When I stay light, have fun, the results come.That's what the training is about for me. It's not a magic wand you wave over yourself and suddenly your whole life is different. It's about applying what works in your life."