Reading: #122: From Banker To Award-Winning Author (Rebecca Warner)

Rebecca Warner grew up reading Cosmopolitan Magazine, believing Editor Helen Gurley Brown’s mantra: You can do anything you want to. “It proved to be true,” she says today. By age 28 Warner had worked her way up to VP at the largest commercial bank in Florida, was raking in the bucks, and buying a condo. “But like lots of women in banking in the 70s, 80s, and 90s,” she says, “I was overcoming sexism and jealousy.” When the governor of the state called a special legislative session to enact stricter abortion laws, Warner was infuriated and sat down to write a book about it. “I stayed in banking but enjoyed the life of writing,” she says. That’s even though the book was rejected by publishers. Subsequent years took Warner into caring for her ailing parents. She self-published the rejected book, then wrote another self-help manual for women seeking relationships, and now, “My Dad My Dog” about caregiving. “I had the feeling I should be the person to talk about caregiving because I’d done it. I could bring people together with resources and support and lift up these in-home caregivers.” Warner says 1/6 of the country takes on “caregiving in some capacity” and that’s only been exacerbated by the pandemic.