Victoria barret forbes bio

I could hear Judy’s sharp trill, loud enough that the other midmorning walkers circling Alta Plaza Park could make out her words.

From Silicon Valley: Giving Isn't Just For The Rich - Forbes

“You will always be a writer,” she said, pausing for effect. Judy had authority. Even her walking stride at eighty-two was long and confident. 

She had been one of my father’s closest friends, my adopted “Aunt Judy.” When I was a teenager, we went to her Mediterranean condo for home-cooked meals; she taught me how to press parsley leaves into potato wedges and pan-fry salmon, a fill-in for the mother I had lost years before.

She was an author of several corporate books and a highly-paid speaker.

Victoria barret - Forbes India

I wanted her success and life knowledge to rub off on me. 

That morning, I bristled as I nodded. Sure, always a writer.

Being a writer meant writing, and I had abruptly stopped the day I packed up a box of a decade’s worth of notebooks, a fancy stapler, and magazine back issues from my Forbes office in Ten Minutes That Mattered: Jeffrey Housenbold - Forbes TIN