FX makeup artist Bobbie Weiner is a master of transformation: She's created fake burns, bullet holes, and frostbite. Known around Hollywood as "Bloody Mary," she even turned 200 extras on the set of the blockbuster Titanic into drowned, frozen corpses. But Weiner's most dramatic reinvention was of herself.

In 1993, Weiner's husband of ten years, a prominent Los Angeles surgeon abruptly demanded a divorce. Gone were the big house, the boat, and the tennis club. She was forty-six, alone, and nearly broke. Sitting at a hair salon for what she assumed would be her last touch-up, she told a stylist she needed to get a job quick. He suggested that she study to become a makeup artist for film and television. "This was on a Thursday," she says, "and Monday morning I was sitting at the school."

Weiner's first movie job was on the set of cult horror flick, Pumpkin Head II-- which is where she earned the nickname "Bloody Mary." Two other students had already turned down the gig because

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Nobel Peace Prize goes to activists Tawakul Karman (left), Leymah Gbowee (center), and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (right). (Photo:ABC News)The Nobel Peace Prize has just been awarded to, not one, but three women. Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian women's rights activist Leymah Gbowee, and Yemeni democracy activist Tawakkul Karman, will share the $1.5 million award and the highest honor bestowed for human rights work on the planet.

Before today, only twelve women had been awarded the prize. Sirleaf, Gbowee and Karman join Jane Addams and Mother Teresa as members of an elite group of women who've made a profoundly positive impact on our world.

Sirleaf, 72, became Africa's first democratically elected female president in 2005. She's known in her country as the "Iron Lady" whose efforts in office have been marked by reform and a movement toward peace in a region crippled by warlords.

She's currently running for re-election (her campaign buttons read "Ellen-She's our Man").

"This gives me a stronger commitment to work for reconciliation," Sirleaf said from her home in Monrovia. "Liberians should be

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Heavyweight boxing champ and public school teacher Sonya Lamonakis has a seriously soft side: "I love children. I love helping them, teaching them, assisting them." Her big heart, however, didn't prevent her from being the first woman ever to win four consecutive NYC Golden Gloves titles.

Lamonakis grew up in a big, Greek family in western Massachusetts. There was a "deli and convenience store attached to the house…and my grandfather's seafood restaurant down the street, so as I kid, I learned a good work ethic," she says.

Although she had played basketball, softball, and field hockey in high school and college, Lamonakis didn't start boxing until she was 27. Her first bout was against a three-time world champion and the first woman to win an Olympic gold medal in heavyweight boxing. Although she lost the fight-and her next two-Lamonakis's work ethic came in handy. She says her losses gave her "the will and drive to want to succeed."

Her parents, on the other hand,

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By Zoë Ruderman

A coworker who messes up then doesn't fess up is officially the most obnoxious type of office behavior. At least according to a recent survey from LinkedIn. They asked 17,000 employees around the world to share the actions that drive them "up the cubicle wall". And here are the top five:

5. People who don't respond to emails.

4. Starting meetings late or going long.

3. Dirty common areas.

2. Constant complainers.

1. People not taking ownership for their actions.

Wondering why "that woman who always steals my yogurt from the fridge" isn't on the list? We were too, especially considering that scenario comes up in just about every single TV show and movie taking place in an office. Well, this was a global survey and it turns out that people in other countries care less about a missing snack. (Either that or it just doesn't happen as frequently in other countries.) Only one in two people worldwide listed "taking food from the refrigerator that isn't

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Trisha WaldronTrisha Waldron was 28 years old when she realized that the life she had drifted into was a dead end. She had gone from being a daughter to a wife to having her first baby at 22. Now single and barely surviving on food stamps in the Black Hills of South Dakota, she had no college degree, no work experience to speak of, and no clear idea of what to do with the rest of her life. She had mortgage on a tiny two-bedroom house, and she had her two lovely little girls, ages four and six, but that was about it.

You can create your own life

One afternoon, volunteering at her daughters' school, she heard a teacher tell the kids, "You can create your own life." That sentence changed everything. As she puts it, "I knew I had to take responsibility for my own life. I had been running it according to others and things hadn't worked out very well."

She applied for a student loan and went back to school. For one year, she and her girls lived on welfare, food stamps, and odd jobs, but the second Read More »from Welfare mom creates million dollar biz: how she did it

By Sian Beilock
Author of Choke

Close the gap between practice and competition. Meaning, practice under stress. This gets you used to the pressure so competition is not something you fear. Also, by understanding when pressure happens, you can create situations that will maximize the stress in your opponents (say if you are on the playing field). Interestingly, this practice doesn't have to mimic the exact pressures you will feel in a do or die situation. Even practicing under mild levels of stress (e.g., your friends and family watching you) can help you get used to the real pressure when it comes your way.

Don't dwell. Take that past performance and change how you think about it. See your failures as a chance to learn how to perform better in the future. There is research with Canadian National swimmers suggesting that dwelling on past failures can send the mind and body into a helpless state and, as a result, you are not able to get as motivated for subsequent

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Yoga teacher and self-titled "Life Stylist" Sadie Nardini advises her clients, "Think huge-small and medium have a lot of competition." That's just what she did when she went from being a broke, harried studio yoga teacher to harnessing technology, streamlining her workload, and earning in a day what she used to make in a week. In 2010, she put in the hours she wanted and netted close to $300,000.

Nardini got her start as a yoga teacher moonlighting after her day job in cubicle land. Eventually, she got fed up with laboring long days for little money doing office work and decided to teach full time. Soon enough, she was teaching 25 classes a week and feeling just as burnt out as before. "I love the scene in 'Finding Nemo' where he swims into the current with the sea turtles and speeds effortlessly toward his goal," she says. "I asked myself, 'How can I be more passive and less active income-wise?'"

Nardini posted free online videos to gain a wider audience. Now she has 25,000

Read More »from Earn more, work less: 8 great jobs that escape the rat race

By: Patricia Sellers, FORTUNE

Tyra Banks speaks a simple truth about a lot of powerful women (and many men too): Success, more often than not, is born out of insecurity.

The supermodel-cum-media entrepreneur created the TV hit, America's Next Top Model, has just released her first novel, Modelland, and is doing a variety of web projects. All of which makes her a powerful role model for many young women and girls.

Banks went from introvert to "mean girl" to "freak girl"-tall and gawky and insecure-by her early teens, she told me in last week's interview for the MPW-Yahoo (YHOO) Power Your Future series. "I became a victim of mean girls," she said, adding, "I became the victim of myself."

It was on her first day of high school when a classmate tapped Tyra on the shoulder and asked, "Are you a model?" That was all it took to give her a little self-esteem. Starting to model in 11th grade, she was college-bound (with acceptances from UCLA, USC, and Loyola Marymount) but

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