Seven years ago our babysitter told us she was going on Oprah the next day to discuss her drug addiction. We, of course, had no idea about her past and she was nervous about our reaction.

She appeared on the show and Oprah displayed pictures of her brain. “This is the brain of a 70-year-old stroke victim,” she said to the audience when she looked at the holes that riddled Lynn Smith’s brain. Lynn then went on MTV to discuss her past addiction problems. Every day, while I was stressing out daytrading in the markets of 2002, I’d hear my three-year-old Josie’s laughter as Lynn would play with her. After Lynn got a mega advance for her first book, Rolling Away, she quit as our babysitter and began the next phase of her life. Now she gives motivational lectures at high schools, is working on her second book, is negotiating movie rights for her first, and is figuring out the right way to syndicate her popular column ideas.