Before You Cut the Turkey, Stop and Give Thanks

Every night before I go to sleep, I take a few minutes to think about the things that I am thankful for.  While many of the things that I am grateful for are self-reflective, there are so many people who I can consciously say that I can’t imagine my life without.  I used to be too afraid to tell people how important they were to me, because I thought that maybe it was socially unacceptable or would make me feel too vulnerable.  But everyone in this world is both a giver and a taker – we change people’s lives and they change our lives in return.  After being on the other side of things, witnessing the small gestures that people have made to show me that I am an important part of their lives, I now realize the importance of overcoming your internal hesitancies to show people that you really do care.

In the midst of the daily craziness, I know as well as anyone how easy it is to get caught up in the chaos – chasing those dreams that keep growing, as the world around us keeps changing, and inevitably we get pulled into the riptide – further and further, until we begin to lose sight of land altogether.  While I’ve increasingly been trying to take enough momentary pauses to maintain my perspective, Thanksgiving is the perfect opportunity to pause a little longer, and to think a little harder about the people who mean the most to us.  At one point or another, we all have found ourselves sitting and wondering if our daily actions and relationships are making a difference to others, or if they actually mean anything at all.  Instead of making the people who are most important to you continue to ‘guess and check’ what they really mean to you, use this Thanksgiving as an opportunity to tell them.

When the fear of vulnerability begins to eat away at you, just enough that you convince yourself that a few words won’t change anything – take a step back, and remind yourself that they will.  On the hardest of days, when you feel like nothing is falling into place and your vision is consumed by every obstacle imaginable, it is those words that we’re often too afraid to say that hold us together, and the people who unconditionally love and care about us who make us realize that it’s going to be okay. 

So while this holiday has become a whirlwind of monster floats, a time to break out the fine china, and an opportunity to get a head start on our holiday shopping – don’t forget to give thanks.  Tell the people who mean the most to you why you’re so thankful to have them in your life, and that you can’t imagine your life without them in it.  Even though it may be hard sometimes, find the courage within yourself to turn your thoughts into words, and your words into actions – because to you what might only be a few words, might be the very words that someone needed to hear.  A few words might be enough to pick someone up on their down days, and to give them the courage to do the same for others.  So in the hope that this will inspire some of you to search within yourself to identify the things that you are most thankful for, here’s my list of thanks – the many aspects of my life that make my world go round…

I’m thankful for my family – for my parents who constantly challenge me to be a better mentor for my siblings and a stronger woman, for my younger siblings who constantly remind me of the small beauties in life, and for my grandparents who remind me never to give up on the people you believe in. I’m thankful for my friends – for the many people who answer the phone when I urgently need to talk to them about who knows what at two in the morning, who celebrate the quirkiest parts of who I am, and who are unconditionally there supporting me in the pursuit of my craziest dreams.  I’m thankful for my health – for the opportunity to wake up each morning and have another day to live my life.  I’m thankful for my mentors, who constantly challenge me to not only aim for good but for great, who help me to mitigate my weaknesses, and who inspire me to believe in others and to always believe in myself. I’m thankful for the freedom to choose – for the opportunity to carve out my own path, even if it might mean stumbling down the wrong path on more occasions than one.  I’m thankful for my education – for the opportunity to attend one of the top universities in the world, and for the chance to work with some of the most intelligent students and professors I have ever come across. I’m thankful for my love of learning – for the inherent curiosity that drives me to explore the questions that I’m passionate about, to identify new problems, and to build new solutions. I’m thankful for stability – for the roof over my head, for a warm bed to sleep in, and for food on the table.  I’m thankful for all of the opportunities that I’ve been given, and for the luck that has come my way.  And most of all, I’m thankful for my craziest dreams, for my deepest desires, and for the constant fire that burns within, pushing me to be a stronger and more genuine person each and every day.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

You’re decadent. You’re timeless. You’re authentic. You’re brave. You're beautiful. You’re unique. You’re intelligent. You're independent. You’re one of a kind. 

So you’re not perfect – but who is?  So you have flaws – but who doesn’t?

Any man or woman would be lucky to hold you in their arms. Any manager would be thrilled to have you working alongside of them. 

When confronted with a challenge, you don’t just survive it - you own it.  When you walk into a room, you turn heads. When you open your mouth to speak, the room goes silent and everybody listens. When you smile, you smile not just with your lips, but with your eyes. When you want something, you let nothing and nobody stand in your way until you get it.

You’re unstoppable. You’re a powerhouse. You don’t take no for an answer.  You don’t let other people dictate your state of mind.  You command the situation.  You don’t push off what you’re most afraid of.  You embrace the challenge. You don’t play it safe. You live dangerously.

You fight for what you believe in.  You don’t let people walk all over you.  You’re not afraid of failure.  You’re not afraid of falling flat on your face if it means getting one step closer to what you’ve always wanted.  You’re not afraid of what others might think – because your opinion is the only one that matters.

You’re a force to be reckoned with.  You’re a leader, not a follower. You don’t follow rules. You define them.  You don’t surrender. You fight.  You don’t hide in the shadows. You step up to the plate and face your biggest fears. You color outside of the lines. You wander into uncharted territory. You’re not afraid to risk it all if it means maybe getting everything.

You can do anything. This world is full of color, and opportunity, and surprises.  When you walk into a room and imagine that everyone is staring at you, waiting for you to fall flat on your face – you need to turn around, look into the mirror, and come to realize that the only one holding you back is yourself.  Because all of the people who you think are looking at you, are not really looking at you, because they’re thinking the same thing that you are, and they are equally fixated on themselves.

If you look in the mirror and see a champion, you’re going to win. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, or the next day – but someday. We all strive for things that we think society rewards - like beauty, and intelligence, and drive – but in reality, they all come from within.  You alone hold the key to the world you want to live in.  There is no better time to be the person, that deep down, you’ve always known you could be.  So look yourself in the eyes, admire the person staring back at you, and tell yourself, that against all odds – you’re the one. 

No, but what do you really want?

When I was a little girl, people would always ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up.  And you know what I would tell them?  “I want to be an ice cream truck driver.”  While most of the other kids would say they wanted to be firefighters, doctors, or lawyers, I had this vision of riding around in a shiny pink truck covered in neon flowers, as I would put smiles on all of the children’s faces as I made them rainbow snow cones on a hot summer day.  I wouldn’t have the classical ice cream truck music playing; instead, I would have dance party music blaring from the speakers, and fluffy pink boas lining the windshield.  When all of the children in town would hear my music, they would come running out of their houses, pulling their parents by the hand as they raced to the front of the ice cream truck line.  What could possibly be a better job than that?  Life was simple back then – eating ice cream made me happy, and I couldn’t imagine anything better than surrounding myself with tubs and tubs of ice cream that I could share with other people to make them happy too.

While I no longer want to be an ice cream truck driver and would now tend to choose the chic black convertible over the shiny pink truck, I have never lost sight of the power of a simple action to change someone’s day, their weekend, or their life.  But in the midst of making countless children happy as they would drip SpongeBob ice pops down their pressed school uniforms, it is inevitable that even at age five, one of my underlying motivations for wanting to become an ice cream truck driver was that I would get as much ice cream as I wanted for myself.  It was a simple formula – I loved ice cream, I wanted as much of it as possible, and I would do whatever it took to make that fantasy a reality. 

Even at a young age, I realized something that I hated to admit, yet knew all too well was the reality – that no matter what I might say to try to convince people otherwise, that underneath all of the pink fluffy boas and desire to do good, that it really was all about me.  While it is an amazing feeling to change the lives of those around you, the true motivation underlying why we wake up each morning, eager to start working recklessly towards our goals is inevitably tied to what we want to get out of it.  It has to be. Otherwise, we might as well kick our feet up and let the guy next to us pick his brain about how he can create the next big thing.

As time passed, the social expectations that I was immune to as a child started to come into play, and I no longer felt it was socially acceptable to live in a state of ignorant bliss.  Deep down, I think that I always knew what really motivated me to work as hard as I did, but in many ways, I reached a point where I was too afraid that people would look down upon me if I was to admit what I really wanted.  So instead, I learned to sugarcoat things – to give a ‘political’ response when asked what I really wanted – to appear selfless and put the well-being of others before my own.  As much as I wished that I could be as compassionate as I appeared while giving my fabricated responses when speaking on panels and chatting with guests at dinner parties, I knew that there was a disconnect between what I was preaching to the choir and what was in my heart.

While there are undoubtedly times when I think it is beneficial to refrain from telling the whole truth when speaking to an audience, there is one person that you should never deceive (no exceptions) – and that is yourself.  The first step in achieving personal and professional success is to take the time to understand what it is that you really want.  What drives you to push your mind and body to unspeakable limits to accomplish the goals that you’ve written on the post-it note on your desk, or in the journal that you keep under your pillow?  What is in your individual pot of gold at the end of the tunnel?  What would winning in your lifetime really look like?  If you are not able to clearly identify and admit to your selfish motivations, then you are not going to feel fulfilled when you reach different milestones along the way. 

If you are truly putting yourself on the line and working effortlessly towards the deepest wants in your heart and mind, you should feel vulnerable every single day – excited by the wins, motivated by the losses, and intrigued by what is yet to come.  If what you do each day does not make you feel alive, it is highly likely that you are working towards achieving someone else’s dream, rather than working towards your own.  If this is the case, there is likely a disconnect between what you really want and your daily actions.  This disconnect can stem from a few different places: either you are not being honest with yourself about your true selfish motivations, you don’t fully understand what you really want, or you are afraid that you might appear to be a ‘bad’ person if you show the world what lights a fire in your belly.

While there was a period in my life when I was initially unsure of what it was that I really wanted, I think that over time, it was mainly fear that was holding me back from embracing my selfish motivations.  I was afraid that in many ways, if I was to admit to myself that I was driven by things that I claimed to look down upon (such as money, power, and status) that it would somehow make me a bad person.  But I realized that the first step in feeling a new level of personal fulfillment was to be honest with myself, and to accept myself for who I really was and what I wanted.  After coming to terms with the things that truly motivated me, I didn’t know what to make of it.  Over time, I realized that my day-to-day actions were not aligned with my true selfish motivations, and that I needed to make some significant personal and professional transitions in order to set me on a path that would allow me to achieve those long-term goals. 

Once I found it within myself to admit to what I really wanted, I finally worked up the courage to share my true motivations and aspirations with one of the people who I respect most in my life. While I was somewhat relieved that I was finally beginning to understand what I really wanted, I was nervous that once he (in addition to many others) learned these things about me, that they would think of me differently – that in many ways, everything that they had come to like about me would be nullified by motivations that were seemingly less pure on paper.  He seemed so humble and outwardly kind, that I was afraid that he might not respect me as much if he saw the raw and unedited version of my desires. But after sharing some of my selfish motivations with a self-acceptance that his opinions of me could absolutely change, he came to show me that admitting to being driven by things like money, power, and status didn’t make me a bad person, but rather an honest person. 

While I initially felt that because I had these selfish motivations, I was somehow worse than many of the seemingly kindhearted people around me, he helped me to see that almost everyone desired at least one or two things similar to the motivations that I had.  And while I was afraid that being honest with both myself and those closest to me would somehow push them away, it turned out that coming to terms with who I was and being accepting of what I wanted did quite the opposite –  while some of our underlying motivations and approaches may differ, he showed me that he could ‘respect someone who pursues their own desires passionately more than one who halfheartedly pursues what others will think is right or good.’

I came to see that if someone who I truly respected was accepting of these deeper and ‘darker’ parts of me, that maybe others in my life would be too.  While I don’t think that it is essential to share your personal motivations with everyone in your life, I do think that there are various benefits in sharing your motivations with those who mean the most to you.  Not only will this new level of honesty bring you closer to the people who you share your secrets with, but it will grant them the level of understanding that they need to have in order to help you to achieve your own goals. You deserve people in your life who don’t only tolerate but who celebrate who you are as a person – the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Now all you have left to do is to let them in.

Rather than telling you that you are wrong and trying to change you, they will help you to find your own way.  Your deepest motivations and desires are a big part of what makes you uniquely you, and if you give people that you trust the access to these deeper parts of your heart and mind, I think that while it may make you feel vulnerable, you will be pleasantly surprised by what comes out of it.  While each of us is ultimately our own biggest advocate, there are always people out there working towards the same things you are; and though not everyone will be on your side or be accepting of your true self, the people who truly care about you as a person will always be there to help you to get closer to what it is that, deep down, you really want.

Taking Yourself Public

I definitely go through my phases. But for those of you who know me personally, you can probably attest to the fact that I’m a pretty ‘public’ person.  On a normal day, I wouldn’t be surprised if my achingly long snapchats are constantly lingering at the top of your latest updates, my most recent Facebook photos are flooding your newsfeed, or my latest musings about education policy or innovation and creativity are streaming down your Twitter feed.  And for those of you who don’t know me personally, you can probably get a sense of my outward nature from my willingness to share some pretty personal aspects of my life in some of my previous blog posts. 

You know, the funny thing is, I used to be the complete opposite of the way that I am now.  I absolutely HATED social media, avoided Facebook like the plague, and was reluctant to share any of the intimate details of my personal life with anyone who I hadn’t known since I was a teenager.  I was an incredibly private person, and given that I didn’t live my life in attempt to obtain any source of external validation, I didn’t think there was any value that I could really obtain from putting myself out there and simultaneously exposing myself to the various vulnerabilities that come with ‘taking yourself public.’

When I first started using sites like Facebook and Twitter, I was amused by the fact that in many ways, people’s personal lives became democratic, with the number of ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ dictating whose opinions mattered more and who looked shinier in their perfectly edited photos.  After toying with the multiple different social media channels on the market for a few months, I began to wonder what the significance really was in all of this. Did getting 30 likes on a photo instead of 10 really make me an incrementally better person?  Was it supposed to make me somehow feel better about myself or feel more significant if 10 people retweeted my article instead of 5? Because over time, I realized that it didn’t – but maybe that wasn’t what the purpose of these sites were in the first place.

Given how much time our generation spends on the multiple different social media platforms, I think it is extremely important to consistently stop and reevaluate what our individual motivations are in using these platforms in the first place.  While I think that there are various ways that social media can increase our level of personal utility, I don’t think that achieving ‘public validation’ is one of them.  In many ways, social media has tricked our minds into thinking we need instant validation; but the problem with our motivations being aligned with a public response is that our motivations are arguably never going to be fulfilled.  When you consistently start getting 10 likes on your photos, soon you are going to start wanting 20, and 30, and 40, and so on – and while you check your most recent updates every two minutes, waiting for a mass of people (many of whom you are only loosely connected to) to somehow confirm that your life is worthy of public approval, it is never going to be enough.  If you participate in the social media revolution for the primary purpose of seeking external validation, there is a good chance that you are never going to reach the point where you feel entirely fulfilled.

With that said, I do think that there are various benefits that can be obtained from actively utilizing social media – not only as an observer, but also as an active contributor.  Yet, in order to achieve the increase in personal utility that we are looking for through putting ourselves in the public eye, it is important to ensure that our internal motivations for doing so are aligned with the platforms that we are using.  Therefore we can control the way in which we share different aspects of our lives with those in our inner and outer circles, and position ourselves accordingly.  While I enjoy the various social media platforms that I participate in for various reasons, I realized that the channels that have allowed me to seek and obtain intrinsic verse extrinsic validation are those that are adding the most positive value to my life.

I think that many people would argue that, on a personal level, social media is primarily about connection – maintaining and expanding personal and professional networks, seeking feedback on ideas from a wider community of observers, and as a means to stay connected with those whom we might otherwise lose touch with.  However, I think that there is another primary way in which social media can contribute to our personal wellbeing, and that is by providing us with different platforms to explore our deepest thoughts and to serve as a source of stimuli to trigger creativity and innovation.  If we are driven by an intrinsic verse an extrinsic motivation, we are in significantly greater control of the outcome – so no matter how many likes we get on a photo or how many shares we get on a post, we will have achieved what we set out to do through exploring our thoughts and challenging each of us to be our best self.

While I think that there are a variety of reasons that different people allow social media to play such a large role in their lives, the most important thing is not that we align our logic and rationale with that of those around us, but rather that we take the time to analyze why we are individually ‘taking ourselves public’ in the first place, and reevaluating where and how it makes the most sense to do so.  In order to demonstrate what this type of self-evaluation might look like, I have briefly demonstrated what my personal intentions are in utilizing the different social media platforms that I actively participate in:

Snapchat – Of all of the social media channels that I use, Snapchat is by far my favorite.  While I was originally leery of the idea of sharing instantaneous and often ‘unedited’ moments with people, I came to love the idea of documenting the different parts of my day. My primary motivation for using Snapchat as frequently as I do is to serve as a digital version of a photo album, and to act as a platform for me to evaluate the different aspects of my life.  I think that far too often, we set lofty goals for ourselves in a variety of different walks of life – yet given that we cannot see ourselves growing and changing from the perspective of an outsider, we often overlook the progress that we are making and don’t place enough emphasis on all of the ways that we come to better ourselves each day.  For me, Snapchat has come to serve as a really important means of helping me to capture the various moments that I might otherwise overlook.  Given that my primary motivation for using Snapchat is not to share my life with others, but rather to reflect upon my own days, I go back through my Snapchat story every night before I go to sleep.  While this might sound like an odd practice, I have found that capturing the instantaneous moments throughout my day really allows me to reflect upon what the various people in my life really mean to me, and to see how my daily experiences shape who I am as a person.  While there are often photographers in the room to capture the ‘big moments’ that alter the paths of our lives, it is up to us to make sure that the everyday pleasures don't slip away from us – because in my opinion, it is the simple things that really make people who they are.

Twitter – I definitely go through my phases with Twitter, as my level of activity on the platform tends to fluctuate based upon where I am in my professional life.  In many ways, I initially became exposed to Twitter through working with the platform from a professional perspective, utilizing it as a tool for personal branding and consumer outreach for different companies that I had worked for.  In my day-to-day personal life, my primary motivation for using Twitter is to challenge myself to think outside the box, to stay up to date with the recent news, and to explore my new ideas or opinions on a particular topic.  I think that one of the great things about Twitter is that it allows us to share different aspects of ourselves with others; this often serves as a catalyst in spearheading new friendships and even potential business relationships.  Twitter further is representative of the fact that we are multifaceted individuals: a pilot can express his opinions on education policy, a fashion designer can share her newest dessert recipe, or a business leader can share his opinions on the story on the front page of The New York Times.

Facebook – Out of all of the social media outlets that I use, Facebook is the one that I feel allows for the broadest array of self-exploration.  Through allowing for the sharing of information in different mediums, I feel that it allows me to reflect on the various aspects of my life on one unique platform.  From sharing my latest blog posts, to uploading photos from my family vacation, to sharing an article that really inspires me, I feel that Facebook almost serves as a personal mood board.  While I don’t actively use Facebook every day, I love having everything in one place, as it serves as the perfect platform for self-reflection.  Often when I am having a bad day or trying to obtain a deeper understanding of various aspects of myself, I spend twenty minutes or so flipping through some of my old Facebook photos.  From silly photos from high school gymnastics meets to photos from Christmas Eve at grandma’s house, the depth of information that we can store about ourselves on Facebook really allows us to reflect on how we have grown as individuals over time.

Blogging Platforms – Until recently, the entire blogosphere was really quite a mystery to me.  I’ve always had a very active imagination, with constant thoughts flowing through my mind, but it wasn’t until recently that I had the courage to really dive in and see what might come out of trying to put some of my thoughts into writing.  When I first started blogging, I didn’t have any high expectations, and I didn’t necessarily go into the experiment with any serious motivations or intent.  Yet, over the past few months, blogging has served as arguably the most beneficial means of exploring my thoughts.  In many ways, my blog serves as a journal for me.  When I spend the time to put some of my thoughts on paper, it allows me to take my ideas to the next level, and to explore the various elements of a topic that might otherwise remain untouched and unexplored.  While I am always happy to learn when one of my posts has a significant effect on someone’s day, the primary reason that I blog is for the purpose of exploring my feelings towards people, places, and experiences in my life, thinking about the ways in which I can continue to grow as a person, and to initiate the exchange of ideas to further my understanding of particular topics.

While there are plenty of social media platforms on the market, these are the four that I have come to use most prominently – and for the reasons described above, they have all come to help me understand and reflect upon various aspects of my personal life.  In order to maximize the benefits that can be obtained from participating in the rapidly changing social media landscape, I would encourage you to similarly take the time to reflect upon why you are using each social media platform, and ultimately what you hope to get out of it.  These advanced technological platforms serve as wonderful tools that can not only act as a means of increasing our connectivity with those around us, but also as a platform for personal development and self-reflection.  If we keep our core motivations at the forefront of our daily actions, we will always be moving one step closer towards our goals rather than constantly sidestepping to chase the ever intangible sources of external validation that consume far too many of us.