Hello, welcome. I’m glad you’re here.
You know how people say wisdom comes with age? Well, pull up a chair, baby, because I just turned sixty — sixty rotations around the sun — and I want to sit with you a minute and tell you what those years taught me. The long way around, because wisdom comes in stories, and in years, and in the things you survive.
Let me tell you what sixty rotations really means. One trip around the sun takes about 365 and a quarter days — that’s why we get a leap year every four years, to catch that quarter. And while it makes that trip, the Earth is flying — about 67,000 miles an hour, 584 million miles in one orbit. Sixty trips is about 35 billion miles, baby. And the Earth spins on its axis once a day — that’s what gives us day and night — so sixty years is about 21,900 sunrises. Twenty-one thousand, nine hundred mornings to try again.
And the sun spins too, but it’s a ball of gas, so it doesn’t turn evenly — its middle goes around in about 25 days, and its poles take their time, about 35. Scientists figured that out by watching sunspots drift across its face, and that uneven spinning stirs the sun’s magnetic field. The seasons don’t come from us being closer or farther from the sun — they come from the Earth leaning, tilted 23.5 degrees, like it’s leaning in to listen.
Every one of those miles and every one of those sunrises taught me something. Wisdom isn’t something you’re born with. Life hands it to you, one hard lesson at a time — and you either pick it up or you trip over it. I have done both.
There were long years when I did not have a voice. I know what it is to be silenced. Trauma will do that to a woman. But here is what those quiet years taught me: your voice does not die just because it went quiet. It waits for you to come back for it — and when you do, you find it was never gone, only gathering strength. No season, no person, and no hard thing gets to keep your voice forever.
Then there were the building years. I did not start with money or a big name. I started with faith, a willing heart, and a decision to build. Grandmas in Business started small, from nothing. And that taught me: you do not wait until you are ready. You start with what you have. Ready is a lie fear tells you to keep you sitting still. The women who build are the women who begin.
And then, baby, there were the hard years. I have sat in hospital rooms and come through surgery and sickness that could have taken me out — and I am still here. What that season taught me is this: hope is not a feeling. Hope is a decision. You do not wait to feel hopeful before you keep going. You keep going, and the hope catches up with you. You are stronger than your worst day, because you survived it.
Here is what sixty rotations taught me. Wisdom is not knowing everything — it is knowing what matters, when to speak and when to be still. A detour is not a dead end, just a different road, and sometimes it teaches you the most. James 1:5 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally.” I have asked, over and over, and He has never left me without an answer — sometimes the answer was just, “Keep going, daughter. I am with you.”
Proverbs 31:26 says of the wise woman, “She opens her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness.” That is the woman I have spent sixty years becoming — not by being perfect, but by being willing to learn.
That is why I am the grandma in business. Hear me on this: this is not just for grandmas. Women in their thirties and forties come to me for grandma’s wisdom, because wisdom doesn’t belong to an age. Folks think the new tools belong to the young — but the newest tool in the hands of a wise woman is a powerful thing. That is why I teach AI Training for Women — so women like us, with wisdom already in our bones, can use the newest tools to build and earn and leave a legacy. Wisdom plus a new tool? Baby, that is unstoppable.
So here I am, sixty rotations in — thirty-five billion miles, twenty-one thousand sunrises — still learning, still building, still believing the best season is the one you’re in. The Earth leans into its seasons, and so do we — we lean into the season we’re in and let it teach us.
So let me ask you: what has your journey taught you so far — and what will you do with that wisdom now?
Come sit with me and let’s build what’s next. Join me for the AI Training for Women workshops at grandmasinbusiness.com, and let’s put your wisdom to work.
With all my love,
Dr. Sheila R. Smith, PhD
