About this conversation
Monica Kretschmer became a single mother overnight, to a seven-month-old boy. Then came more than 4,800 hours of family litigation, a 22-day trial, and eight more years representing herself.
"So it took me really 18 years to get out of a 15 month marriage."
When the trial was over she wanted to thank her lawyer, so one Saturday morning in 2015 she sold out a room at WinSport in Calgary and put her on that stage.
That was the first Women of Inspiration Awards. In this hour: the five people who stood by her, why she invited men in with SupportHER, the trucking companies that put women's faces on the side of their trucks, Hazel McCallion's one-word answer, and the memoir she's writing, ALL IN.
In this conversation
- 00:00Cold open, the intro, and the night her life changed
- 03:27The Power Era, after years of feeling powerless
- 05:24"My picker was a little off"
- 07:20Eight or nine lawyers in the room. She had one.
- 10:31The five people who stood by her, and 18 years to leave a 15-month marriage
- 12:39The awards began as a thank-you to her lawyer. WinSport, September 26, 2015
- 18:29SupportHER, the idea her advisors called "career suicide"
- 23:24International SupportHER Day, then the trucking companies that said yes
- 31:30Ten years of sticky notes on the dining room wall, and Hazel McCallion's one word
- 38:34The memoir, ALL IN, then her mom's sixty years of Tuesday bingo
