Mary Wells skyrocketed to legend status when she founded the wildly successful advertising agency Wells Rich Greene in 1966. Her latest project, “The Women on the Web” (WoW), a site for sophisticated women over 40, has captivated an audience across the nation.

Read on as the epitome of style, ambition, intelligence and triumph reveals the power of women in business, and why everyone should live the life of their dreams.

In today’s economic doom and gloom, women-led companies are thriving. The Center for Women's Business Research reported that in 2008, women-led businesses in the New York metropolitan area brought in over $93 million. Last December, WoW received $1.5 million in venture capital funding, and the Huffington Post has received a whopping $25 million. Why do you think women-led ventures are shining in the recession?

Well, some of that is accidental, but women have been better off in business in the last 25 years than most people understand. It’s true there are still far fewer women than men, but their number is growing at a great speed. One of the reasons it hasn’t grown even faster is because women have made their own choices. More and more women are willing to take jobs that are not the very top job in the old-fashioned sense, but where they can do something and really make a personal impact. All of the strengths that women have are becoming more important — in politics, in banks — so many of the problems that we’ve had have really been a breakdown of communication, creativity and the practical running of things. Women are in the process of running the world.

What advice would you give professional women to inspire them to keep accomplishing even if they are struggling in the economy?

Nobody should struggle. I understand that may sound ridiculous to people who have lost their jobs, but, in general, if a woman is struggling, it means that she’s either approaching her business incorrectly, she’s in the wrong business for herself or she’s in the wrong particular aspect of the business she’s in. You shouldn’t be struggling. Working hard, yes, but struggling is something else, struggling suggests there’s an inner misery. Maybe you should get out of that business, take a big chance and go try something else. Maybe you need to refresh yourself by broadening yourself, by doing something very unusual and coming back charged as a different person. Or maybe you’re really not in your dream. If you’re very far removed from your dream, get out of what you’re doing, the sooner the better. There are so many possibilities and so many opportunities, and if you aren’t living your dream, you’re crazy; there’s so much more to life than that.

You are known as WoW's “Gypsy” because you've been living on your yacht, traveling the world for over a year. What's that life like?

My entire life has been a life of travel. I can’t imagine living in one place. My home is Mustique, a little island down by Barbados, and I have an apartment in Vancouver, which I think is the prettiest city in the world. And then I have a boat. It’s an ideal life for me. What’s it like? It’s thrilling. Every day there’s something new; every day there’s a new adventure; every day, I learn something that I didn’t know before; every day, I see something, I never saw before. I see through new eyes every day. I’m never bored. Never. Not for a second.

Do you have a favorite ad campaign of late?

I don’t. I think advertising should make you nervous that you don’t have a product, and I don’t find that in campaigns. There’s been a loss of heart. Advertising depends so much on the general state and the direction of its clients, and it thrives on change and making people live differently. If you’re in a very conservative environment with very conservative clients, you can’t do that, so you’re not in a position to change the world. At the moment, the world doesn’t need anything and clients are still very cautious, but that’s going to pass. Somebody’s going to break through and then all of a sudden, wham, it’s going to be thrilling! And the technical aspects are riveting. It’s going to be an extraordinary world. Give it ten years, you won’t recognize it. If there were ever a business to go into, advertising would certainly be it, because the future is going to be spectacular.

What’s next for you?

Well, I am interested in everything, and I get an idea every day about something to do. I have an idea of what I’ll do next, but I’m not going to give it away just yet.