Maya Angelou once said she had thousands of daughters. I was one of them. I had never met this great lady but like thousands of other women, have been inspired by her words and wisdom and was devastated when I learned of her passing on Wednesday at the age of 86.

Nearly all of my favourite quotes are from Maya Angelou. One I live by. It is “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” This has become a mantra for me in how I try to live my life and in my work as a communicator.

Here are some of my other favourite Maya Angelou quotes

“Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.”

“I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life’s a bitch. You’ve got to go out and kick ass.”

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”

“All great artists draw from the same resource: the human heart, which tells us that we are all more alike than we are unalike.”

“You can tell a lot about a person by the way she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.”

“There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you.”

This week’s #HappyAct is to carry on the wisdom of our mother Maya. Tell the untold story inside of you. Go out and kick some ass. Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud. God bless, Maya.