Sarah Ferguson, the businesswoman, philanthropist, author and mother of two daughters, has found that a sense of humor has helped her through the hard times. And her charity, the Sarah Ferguson Foundation, has given her a sense of peace and purpose.
Lately, the Duchess of York has teamed up with Avon on a new lifestyle collection, Sincerely Sarah by Sarah Ferguson. Here, she talks with Bankate about her life as a former royal and how she has moved on.
Bankrate: Mom, successful businesswoman, advocate, philanthropist and author. How much of Sarah Ferguson goes into each one of these slices of your life?
Sarah Ferguson: Well, to answer that much more factually, I'm more from the heart than anything else. I'm just a big, honest, emotional heart, and I'm very spontaneous. And I just throw passion and my entire being into every single thing that I do.
Bankrate: So is there a specific time when you saw yourself as a successful businesswoman?
Sarah Ferguson: Oh you're so nice to think that I even am. I would love to think that I was. I think it's because I put so much weight behind everything that I do that I put my passion into business like I do into philanthropy, like I do into Avon and Sincerely, Sarah. Mother Teresa was asked when there was a huge disaster in India, "Mother, what are you going to do about all this?" And she said, "We'll just take one at a time, and if we can help one, we'll help a lot more. Just go slowly." And I think that's honestly what I believe.
Bankrate: In Avon's press release, it says the products actually draw on your own life's pleasures and memories, such as the lavender-scented throw. So, what life's pleasures do you draw upon?
Sarah Ferguson: I love to take photographs, and my favorite thing to do is to sit in a lavender field. I love to smell the lavender, and I like to watch the bumblebees be busy because they really shouldn't fly, and they defeat gravity by flying because their fat little bodies can't manage it. I enjoy that sense of just being still and just watching somebody else work flat out like they do in the lavender fields. That's why I thought of the lavender throw blanket because I thought it a rather good idea to take people on a journey to Provence in the south of France, where I look at my lavender and see the bumblebees and have people remember that every minute of the day, make it the precious present, the precious moment.
Bankrate: Your career is on a really grand level right now, so do you feel financially stable at this point in your life?
Sarah Ferguson: The trouble is I give it all away to charity (laughs), and I guess that's why I'm going to go on being commercial and work as hard as I can. So the more I work, the more I give. I just gave some money to Romania ... I find these children in institutions there and I don't want mothers to have to abandon their children. I want to start a community center there for mothers to be able to stay there, so they can manage to get through the winter. I want to help the women of the Congo who are fleeing from these wars there. I want to help them so they can bring up their children. So I'm just going to keep on working.
Bankrate: Do you have a particular pet charity?
Sarah Ferguson: Well, I have (the) Sarah Ferguson Foundation, which is a fairy godmother foundation that gives to already-existing charities. It doesn't have its own projects. If people donate to me, I give it to charities like Children in Crisis, the charity I started in 1993, which educates children all over the world. I believe education is the key. I also gave money to the earthquake victims in China, and so it goes on. I tend to give it all away.