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“We often overlook the value of a tree, reducing its mystery to nothing more than an animal’s refuge. Yet, that same tree endures through every season—standing firm against years of stormy weather, ice storms, and the unrelenting heat of the sun. There is much we can learn from a tree: how to stand tall with unwavering strength, our backs straight, arms reaching for the sky, and our crowns lifted toward the heavens.”

— CHARIS: Living in the Light of Eternity

Radical Joy

Last week my husband and I received news that we were not prepared to hear.  Then came this revelation: 

When we cannot control a thing, we must decide to let go and choose happiness. 

We choose joy because it is our best way back to peace. We choose happiness because the said situation is as we mentioned – out of our control – so there is no point trying to control something that is uncontrollable. 

We choose happiness because if you take a broad inventory of your life, you realize that your days are shorter than expected and time has marched on without you giving much thought to it, like you one day awoke and could not believe today, or the year, the month had actually arrived. 

You choose joy because sadness does not only have an affect on you physically and mentally, but it affects your children, the people you work with, and the person you love the most. That pain is transferable, and if you allow it, if you let it, it will consume the best parts of your life. 

We choose happiness because it is a choice, like deciding what you have for dinner or if you will have tea or coffee. Happiness is a choice like choosing to smile at a stranger or over tip your waitress. It is a choice like deciding on dinner and a movie or a stroll in the park. It is a choice of your choosing. Choose well. 

The painful discovery, the missed recital, the unfortunate call has happened. You are allowed to mourn and grieve for what was lost. But that moment lives in the past, a past that you cannot alter and what is out of your control you must release. 

Joy is your only way forward. 

It is a radical act because another choice springs forth to meet you in your despair, that of the victim. But if you read the fine print, the victim role is a counterfeit and does not lead to happiness but discontent and further victimization. You end up giving away the same power and energy that is necessary for your freedom. The victim role was instant gratification and came with hugs and sympathy cards, but what really can these things do for you in your darkest hour? 

There is another way.  Choose joy. 

Your joy and story can offer others hope. Your happiness is a lantern of grace showing the way for those who may be lost in the depths of their sorrow. By choosing joy, you choose love over fear and a hope for a more desirable tomorrow.  

Meghan Markle's Thoughts on Turning 33

There is no fairytale without a real story....

Borrowed from the thetigarchive. The Tig is Megan's former blog site were she shared her travels, fashion, love of food, and interviews with influencers.

Meghan's birthday post is a great reminder that what it means "to arrive" in this world is first coming to terms with yourself. 

the tig archive

Birthday post from Meghan
In 2014, she wrote:
I am 33 years old today. And I am happy. And I say that so plainly because, well...it
takes time. To be happy. To figure out how to be kind to yourself. To not just choose that
happiness, but to feel it. My 20s were brutal – a constant battle with myself, judging my
weight, my style, my desire to be as cool/as hip/as smart/as “whatever” as everyone
else. My teens were even worse – grappling with how to fit in, and what that even meant.
My high school had cliques: the black girls and white girls, the Filipino and the Latina
girls. Being biracial, I fell somewhere in between. So everyday during lunch, I busied
myself with meetings – French club, student body, whatever one could possibly do
between noon and 1pm- I was there. Not so that I was more involved, but so that I
wouldn’t have to eat alone.
I must have been about 24 when a casting director looked at me during an audition and
said “You need to know that you’re enough. Less makeup, more Meghan.”
You need to know that you’re enough. A mantra that has now engrained itself so deeply
within me that not a day goes by without hearing it chime in my head. That five pounds
lost won’t make you happier, that more makeup won’t make you prettier, that the now
iconic saying from Jerry Maguire -”You complete me” – frankly, isn’t true. You are
complete with or without a partner. You are enough just as you are.
So for my birthday, here’s what I would like as a gift: I want you to be kind to yourself. I
want you to challenge yourself. I want you to stop gossiping, to try a food that scares
you, to buy a coffee for someone just because, to tell someone you love them...and then
to tell yourself right back. I want you to find your happiness.
I did. And it’s never felt so good.
I am enough.

Women Are Left Behind Because They Do Not Ask With Expectation

Could it be true? Could women be left behind in pay and opportunity because they do not ask with expectation? In a different time, I would say no way. Women ask for precisely what they want. I like to think my great, great grandmother asserted herself to survival and here I am. 

But do we as a whole ask expecting to get what we want? Do we generally expect to get the jobs we go for? I heard Paula Scher discuss this topic on Hurry Slowly, a podcast curated by a Jocelyn Giel. Paula is a legendary graphic designer with her own "BIG BOOK" and hundreds of community, public, and private design projects under her belt. 

During the interview, Paula states: 

"Men expect to get all the opportunities they go after. The reason why women don't go after opportunities or equal pay is that they lack the confidence." 

That word "expectation" rings loudly in my ears. Google Dictionary defines expectation as a strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future.  

How then are we asking for better-paying jobs and advancement in our workplaces if not with expectation? The thought gives me chills imagining a woman, my sister from another mother, stumbling into her bosses office meagerly asking for what is rightfully hers. The counter image is a bold and beautiful boss lady deciding its time for a raise or a new job and going after it with the expectancy and urgency of a toddler going after ice cream. 

Now, of course we all know the cliche life is not fair. But we could help life out by asking with the confidence of a warrior and the expectation of our male counterparts. 

Paula also argues that we should take jobs that we are not qualified for. She may be onto something with this one too. 

Take a listen to Jocelyn and Paula's interview on the Hurry Slowly podcast. 

How To Get Less of What You Don’t Want

PHOTO BY PIM CHU

Inversion is a way of thinking, in which you consider the opposite of what you want. 

The Stoics, a group of philosophers who lived centuries ago, had a way of reimaging their lives through a principle called inversion. They considered the opposite. To apply the technique, Instead of focusing on only success and great outcomes you invert or turn over, weighing the opposite to determine where your pitfalls, missteps, and obstacles lie. 

The philosophers believed that by imagining the worst case scenario ahead of time, they could overcome their fears of negative experiences and make plans to prevent them. 

Most of the time when I think about my future, I think about a remarkable encounter where my present-self meets my future-self in all her glory. The daydream is always me on a couch discussing big ideas with Larry King or Oprah. It ends the same way, “You’ve written a brilliant book here that has the potential to shift minds.” I nod graciously, button my Hugo Boss custom blazer, jump in a black SUV to my next interview.

And scene. 

I never get around to reversing that picture. My mom raised my sisters and me on the idea, “as a man thinketh, than so he is,” so I saw no reason to imagine a counter to my well-planned out future. 

But the Stoics may be onto to something. What do I think about when I think about failure? How do I react? How do I perceive failure? How do I prevent failure from happening by thinking of it ahead of time? Now, I’ve experienced my fair share of disappointment, jobs that did not work out as planned, relationships that went bad, and my first and even second book were not exactly New York Times bestsellers. If I had imagined each of this situations at the beginning with a possible adverse outcome, I could have rebounded faster or responded differently. 

Today, when I imagine my goals, I consider all sides and remember just because I can perceive my demise it does not mean I have to let it scare me from proceeding forward anyway. 

If you enjoyed this 'motivation' check out my newsletter Brave Living. Brave Living is a bi-weekly dose of what it means to chase courage and live inspired.

A Life Philosophy

I was recently asked about my view and overall thoughts on the world, what I think about today's polarized social climate, what I think about the future, applying my past and present, and did I have a life philosophy to counter the negativity? 

A life philosophy as defined by Merriam-Webster is an overall vision of or attitude toward life and the purpose of life.

For context, my mother, a single parent from the time my sisters and I were four, raised a total of five kids on her own. She was a police detective and highly active in the community. My father, a man who lived by his ideals, was an activist. He protested in the day and drove the city bus at night. I graduated from college with a degree in Communications. I've traveled around the world, to places like Japan, South Africa, London, and Paris. I've created opportunities for myself and have been given some as well. 

My life philosophy is we are all CREATORS. We are creating our lives by the way we think, speak, and move through the world; any self-help coach will tell you that. The application of this is much more transformative. The application that follows this belief has the power to unhinge a life of habits and traditions. This deep-seated belief has transformed the way I see my past, my upbringing, and my future. 

I believe that humans should live and exist in the present allowing the past to be a vehicle for correction and insight, learning from experience and disregarding what does not serve the now. Dismissing what does not help your present desires brings goals and dreams to realization. But ultimately I believe we are CREATORS, that if you or I don't like something we have the power to change it. 

A couple of years ago, I went through my church's recovery ministry because addictions to people-please and pride do not make for a healthy life. Later, I went on to lead the groundwork phase of that ministry. What I know from months of weekly meetings with others who are struggling to find a solid footing in life is that we happen to ourselves. 

We are both the problem and the solution.  

If this is true, which I think it is, the next steps are obvious. My thoughts create my actions so my "thinker," my mind, needs a revolutionary shift. 

I am not discounting bad parents, bad marriages, traumatic childhoods and other misfortunes life hands out. It distributes them equally in one form or another. All I am saying is, "what now?" What will you do with what you have been given? You had a bad family, CREATE a good one. You received a subpar education, CREATE one that fits your aspirations, read, challenge your mind. My mom used to remind my sister and me – the scripture say – you are “transformed” by the "renewing" of your mind. 

It is our mind that needs constant tending to.  

If we should all live by a philosophy, mine is this, because we have such a short time here, a short time to make a difference, a short time to make an impact you and I must choose the way of the warrior. We must choose peace, we must choose happiness, we must choose self-discipline, we must choose love, and we must choose life. When the world wants you to choose violence over peace, victimhood over solutions, don’t. Choose better. Choose higher ground or be swallowed by the waves of noise.  

Another commonly quoted scripture of my childhood says, "whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.”

If you choose to focus on what is wrong with the world if you choose to focus on what has been done to you, that is a choice and as in life, what we focus on magnifies. That does not mean you are silent and absent in moments of great injustice or inequality; it just means that you are focused on and in the direction of solutions so that you can get back to creating a life worth living. 

I Want Better Representation

I want better representation not much for me because I am an adult. 

I want better representation for the kids coming behind me.

I want better representation for the world I have to step into.

I want better representation for the skin color I happen to be.

I want better representation so that when I travel to Italy, Spain,

or Belgium people don't ask me to rap or snap my fingers.

I want better representation because I am my brother's keeper.

I want better representation because my race does more than smoke, dance, and talk on money phones.

I want better representation because my husband is a smart and thoughtful human being

and I rarely see him represented in the culture.

I want better representation because I believe that progress can be delayed if we are all not on the same page.

RAP GROUP MIGOS

The Table Was Set For A Conversation On Race

This past Monday I had the privilege to sit around a table with five other brave participants and discuss race and ethnicity in America. Dallas Dinner Table, an organization founded in 1999, holds annual dinners to bring together people who may not have found each other otherwise. We answered questions about where attitudes, perspectives, and understandings of race come from and how they limit or define our reality? The goal of the two and half hour gathering, in simpler terms, is to learn to drop assumptions. We should judge people on the merit of their character and not because they are white, woman, Mexican, male, rich, or poor. 

But can we? 

This question came to mind for me several times during the night. Can we drop all of our assumptions when seeing and watching people from a distance? Our forefathers, who were cave dwellers, made assumptions to move quickly, assess a situation in order not to starve, or worse, be killed. 

Dallas Dinner Table Dallas Group

I believe we make assumptions to shortcut real thinking; to bypass connection and relationship, making assumptions is more accessible and less convoluted. I think it speeds up the process in the short term and limits us in the long run because we miss out on engaging people and experiences. It’s people and our communication with them that give us our greatest lessons in life. But we only have so many hours in the day. We only have so many interactions that don’t involve our family and friends, so many hours to process our news feeds, our place in the world, and how we are perceived. Here in America, we live in an individualistic culture, where a majority of the time self-interest is placed above “the other.”

We make assumptions out of necessity. 

However, meetings like the Dallas Dinner Table allow us to step outside of our beliefs about other people for a moment. These occurrences enable us to see a different point of view and maybe even empathize if we are willing to go deep. These moments create space for us to be bigger than ourselves. 

Why You Must Be Unreasonable

PHOTOGRAPH BY TATYANA DOBERA

To have anything in this life you must be unreasonable, like really unreasonable, like Elon Musk investing-his-Paypal-millions-into-Telsa-and-at-one-point-depending-on-friends-for-financial-support unreasonable.

Reasonable thinking says that living a life outside of the norm is ridiculous, it's risky, it's insane. But if you've dreamed of having anything outside of what you have today then that dream is only possible when you have imagination mixed with unreasonable thinking. 

I don't write these ra-ra-ra post for my health. I write them because I want you to understand that you must escape the confines of your reality in order to see all that life has to offer you. Yes, it's hard. Yes, everything for social media to binge-watching on Netflix is meant to distract you. Yes, finding your own way is frustrating and at times seems impossible when you are inundated with outright misleading advertisements; but at some point, you must choose.

Choose what you ask? Choose YOU. At some point, you are going to have to lay all those excuses at the feet of no-one-cares and go after what you want. At some point, it needs to be "do or die," "by any means necessary," "come what may." At some point, you will have to understand that no matter how comfortable you are and no matter how good life looks today, if you have delayed your dreams then you have done yourself a disservice and your children need someone to look up too, not a robot or a mannequin dressed in the latest trends.

You are not a mannequin, you are a human. You have been placed on this earth for a reason and I guarantee it wasn't so that you can drive the hottest cars and brag about your vacations.

Let's find out what it was.

Let's find out why you were made. Can you imagine the journey you would have to go on to do so? Can you imagine the people you would meet? The places you would go? The expansion of your mind in ways you never imagined? Whoa! I am feeling the tingles just thinking about it.

Who would you become at the end of this journey? I bet a person who loves harder, who feels deeper, whose sight is magnificent. It's almost as if you became a superhero and gained powers beyond your imagining. At the end of your life, you would leave nothing on the table and nothing in the gas tank. You would die on empty.

It starts with being a little unreasonable. 

Here are a few books that keep me thinking unreasonably: 
Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes
The Motivation Manifesto by Brendon Burchard
Art of Work Jeff Goins 

My latest book dives further into this topic. Read a sample for free here.