Battling Mediocrity

Marta Monahan earned the title of Master Mopper at the boarding school she attended as a teenager in New Orleans. One of her duties was to shine the corridor floors, and she did it better than any predecessor. The experience became the core of her recent book, “Strength of Character and Grace: Develop the Courage to Be Brilliant!” (Vittorio Media, $24.95).

“My brilliance was revealed to me in that most humble duty,” Monahan said in a recent interview. “It is in trying to do that something more [than the minimum expected] that creates the excitement of living.”

Monahan will discuss her book Wednesday at Barnes & Noble in Thousand Oaks.

Born in El Salvador, Monahan lived in New York City as the child of a diplomat and later moved to California to attend art school. But her life didn’t make her happy, she said.

“I started on my path because I had reached a place of mediocrity in my life,” she said. “Everything was well done, but it wasn’t improving or growing--it was stagnant. What I had was a mediocre life in every aspect.”

Her goal now is to get people to take a look at their own mediocrity so they will grow into full lives. Most people don’t bloom, she said--they do just enough to get by in their relationships and in their careers. And since they don’t understand that, they change partners or careers and do the same things over and over, she said.

Monahan has been lecturing and teaching about character refinement since 1975, leading “Strength of Character and Grace” seminars for Fortune 500 corporations and private groups.

She identifies character as having two components--mental and moral. In order to have the intellectual clarity to make strong moral decisions, both sides need to be developed. She said that most people don’t make decisions--not because they are indecisive or weak, but because they don’t have clarity.

“People are always asking why we are here,” Monahan said. “We are here to evolve. The planet is an evolving planet and we are here to evolve with technology, and we are here to evolve as human beings. Both are equally important.”

She also has strong convictions about anger and victimization. People are angry because they think they are victims, she said, and when one becomes a victim, it is a resignation to victimhood. That leaves them open to becoming the victimizer--and the victimizer is always angry, she said.

She is excited about her next book, “Your Bouquet of Beautiful Things,” which will be published this spring. She said it’s about the seeds--in the Bible they are called the fruits of the spirit--of the good things in all of us, and we can either cultivate them or cultivate the negative things that are also in us. “I think most of us are a bouquet of buds, rather than a bouquet of flowers,” she said.

For more information, visit https://www.vittorio

media.com.

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Special Event: The Jewish Council--Temple Beth Torah Brotherhood will feature award-winning author and PBS documentary filmmaker and producer Edward Cohen at a lox-and-bagel brunch at 9:30 a.m. Sunday. At the event, Cohen will discuss his memoir, “The Peddler’s Grandson: Growing Up Jewish in Mississippi,” recently awarded Mississippi’s top two literary awards for nonfiction. More information is available on the author’s Web site, https://www.peddlersgrandson.com. For more information about this event, call the council-temple at 647-4181 or visit the office at 7620 Foothill Road in Ventura.

HAPPENINGS

* Today: 7 p.m. Corduroy Bear visits Pajamamania. Borders, 125 W. Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks, 497-8159.

* Sunday: 4 p.m. Rudy Yakzan, author of “Soccer for Everyone” and “105 Practical Soccer Drills,”will discuss the game. Borders, 497-8159.

* Sunday: 7 p.m. The Conejo Valley Poetry Society will hear Tim Murmani read selections from his new collection, “Blue Masked Forest.” An open mike session follows at 8 p.m. Contact C. Doering at 493-1081 or cdoering@gte.net for more information. Borders, 497-8159.

* Tuesday: 9:30 a.m. Story time featuring “Where the Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak. Ventura Barnes & Noble, 4360 E. Main St., 339-9170.

* Tuesday: 4:30 p.m. Angelina Ballerina games and activities. Space is limited. Thousand Oaks Barnes & Noble, 160 S. Westlake Blvd., 446-2820.

* Tuesday: 7 p.m. The Short Stories Group will focus on “The Man Who Was Almost a Man” by Richard Wright. Borders (497-8159).

* Tuesday: 7 p.m. The Partners in Crime Mystery Group will focus on “Danger” by Dick Francis. Borders, 497-8159.

* Wednesday: 7 p.m. Marta Monahan will discuss and sign “Strength of Character and Grace: Develop the Courage to Be Brilliant!” Thousand Oaks Barnes & Noble, 446-2820.

* Thursday: 10 a.m. The Simi Valley Book Club will focus on “A Map of the World” by Jane Hamilton. Thousand Oaks Barnes & Noble, 446-2820.

* Thursday: 7 p.m. Specialists from the Princeton Review, a course for college entrance tests, will give sample tests and answer questions. Ventura Barnes & Noble, 339-9170.

Information about book signings, writers groups and publishing events can be e-mailed to anns40@aol.com or faxed to 647-5649.