Why You Shouldn't Let People Put You in a Box

As you go through life, people are going to stereotype you. They are going to do all in their power to put you in a box based on how you look, where you work, and where you live. This allows them to mentally file you away alongside the thousands of other boxes consuming their mental real estate.

Take Emmett, for example. Let’s say that Emmett is an entrepreneur who lives in Palo Alto, attended Stanford, and wears tee shirts and jeans to work every day. When you meet Emmett and learn about these characteristics, you immediately try to put him in a box that you neatly file next to the boxes consisting of all the other entrepreneurs that you know. For you, this categorization is effective in that it allows you to infer many other things about Emmett based upon his entrepreneurial characteristics – most of which are probably correct. But for Emmett, the fact that you filed him in the entrepreneurial box in the first place may make him feel the need to hide his other interests in order to assume the mold associated with his primary domain.

What if Emmett is an entrepreneur who paints watercolors two nights per week and writes fiction novels on the weekend? What if he lives in Palo Alto but spends three months of the year in Montana taking care of his parents? What if he only started his company as a means of generating enough revenue to support his dream of becoming a full time writer or artist? With this additional information, the box that we tried to put him in may not be as appropriate as it originally seemed.

We are not meant to be singular beings, put in boxes, stacked away collecting dust. We are complex, creative, living beings constantly exploring and trying to improve our understanding of the world around us. When people that we meet want to force us into nice little boxes, it is not our responsibility to help them to do so. It is our responsibility to simply be the multifaceted beings that we are. 

Having interests outside the scope of your primary domain does not make you strange. It makes you interesting. It gives you something to talk about when you bring clients out to dinner. It stimulates creative thinking in your primary domain, as it allows you to draw new connections derived from the influx of outside material.

Don’t be afraid to break the mold and defy stereotypes. Be the investment banker who bakes, the athlete who sings, or the ballet dancer who spends her weekends going to heavy metal concerts.

Keep breaking barriers. Never limit your journey simply because it doesn’t make sense to other people.

Yes, and...

Let’s imagine that two people - let’s call them Jess and Stef - are having a conversation at the juice bar downtown.

One turns and says to the other, “So what are we doing tonight?”

This story can play out in two ways. Let’s take a look at the first.

“We should go to the movies. No, but I get antsy trying to sit through a full movie. We should go to the mall. No, but I don’t like shopping. We should go mountain biking. No, but I don’t like getting my pants dirty. We should go swimming. No, but I don’t like getting my hair wet. We should go to a concert. No, but I don’t really like big crowds.”

Now, let’s take a look at the second.

“We should go to the movies. Yes, and we should get some popcorn before the movie starts. We should go to Johnny Rockets to get milkshakes after the movies. Yes, and we should paint a giant ketchup face in the middle of the intersection outside of the restaurant. We should probably head to the airport after Johnny Rockets. Yes, and we should buy some plane tickets to Barcelona. We should leave tonight. Yes, and…”

So why did these two conversations, which both started with the idea of going to the movies, end up in such different places? In the first scenario, when Jess presented suggestions to Stef, Stef constantly shut her down. So the conversation essentially went nowhere. A few minutes passed with them going at each other, and they just ended up right back where they started. In the second scenario, when Jess presented suggestions to Stef, Stef couldn’t say no. With the option of shutting Jess down taken off the table, Stef was forced to build on Jess’s suggestions rather than always playing defense and thinking of any possible reason to shut her down.

As we find ourselves in the midst of conversations like these in our everyday lives, we have a tendency to be incredibly closed-minded. When a stranger turns to talk to us on a train platform, or a friend asks us to do something out of our comfort zones, our first instinct is to shut him or her down. Sometimes, we don’t even give ourselves the chance to sufficiently ponder over the option that they’ve presented us with before we spit out a cold, hard, NO. We live on the defense, with our guards up, always willing and ready to shut each other down, instead of building on the people and stories around us.

But what if we didn’t? What if shutting an idea down wasn’t an option, and you had to take what someone said to you and run with it?

As an actor, one of the primary rules in existing in different environments on stage is that we’re not allowed to shut another character down. Particularly when working on improvisation, actors must live and breath the idea of building off our co-actors and moving the scene along with ‘yes, and…’ instead of bringing the scene to a screeching halt by saying ‘no, but…’  In scripted stage productions, while the lines are well-rehearsed and drawn out for us, we still must maintain the same mindset to ensure we are not preempting our lines and are listening to the co-actor who speaks before us. If a co-actor accidentally drops a line or skips over an entire segment of text, we must be listening closely enough that we can deviate from the script and build off of what the character is saying in an imaginative, yet believable manner.

Imagine what would happen if you were sitting in the audience of a show, proceeded to see an actor forget his line, and saw the co-actor on stage with him turn to him and say “dude, that’s not your line…’ Not only would this break the fourth wall and take away some of the magic, but it would also go against everything we know about our role as audience members. When we sit down to watch actors perform for us on stage, we expect to be taken along on a journey, to be brought into a story that may take twists and turns to end up in any which way. We suspend our disbelief, and we expect actors to let the story take them where it must so that we are all jointly brought along for the ride.

If we so readily expect performers to build off of each other and refrain from shutting each other down, how is it that we have become so quick to shut people down in our own lives, rather than digesting their ideas and suggestions and building on them? As an actor, you are repeatedly told that acting is primarily about reacting as opposed to acting. Even if we say a line at the proper time in the show, the magic is lost if we spent the prior moment pondering over our next line in our head, as opposed to appropriately reacting to the actor who has spoken before us. In order to create the magic that comes with watching a play or movie unfold, actors must learn to build off one another, and to embrace the idea of letting go and being open to going anywhere that the story may take us.

Often times, we are so quick to act in our lives and to jump on our premeditated responses, that we don’t give ourselves the time to appropriately digest what other people are saying to us. We don’t react appropriately. Instead of listening to them, we spit out some preformulated reply without giving ourselves sufficient time to even consider their offer. While the conversation presented at the onset of this piece is sufficiently an exaggeration, its intent is twofold: to demonstrate how different conversations and scenarios can be from one another when we are open to listening and building off one another instead of shutting each other down, and to demonstrate how ridiculous our overuse of the word ‘no, but…’ sounds to a third party observer.

By being open to the ideas of those around us and consciously listening to what others have to say, not only are we setting ourselves up for a much more riveting night out, but we are also giving ourselves the chance to think about what we want to do and how to respond, rather than acting based upon how we have been programmed to respond.

So, here’s a little game for you.

As you go through your various conversations today (both as an observer and as a participant), I urge you to think like an actor. For just one day, imagine that you physically don’t have the capability to shut someone down, or to use the word no. When someone talks to you, don’t go on autopilot and blurt out the first thing that comes out of your mouth. Listen to what they have to say, bring the idea into consciousness, and formulate a reply in the affirmative. You can pivot the conversation, but every time you reply to someone, it needs to start with some iteration of ‘yes, and…’ instead of ‘no, but…’ It may feel a bit ridiculous at first, but I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised where the elimination of this one small word from your vocabulary may take you.

Besides, would it really be so bad if you spent your Monday night en route to Barcelona?

What it Means to Be Empowered

When I think about great leaders like MLK, the first word that comes to mind is empowerment. Our nation’s greatest leaders didn’t take no for an answer. They united those around them to believe in something beyond themselves. When we look back at MLK’s journey, we often view empowerment in the collective sense, celebrating his unique ability and determination to empower those around him. When young men and women look up to leaders like MLK, empowerment may seem intimidating; it may seem like a task beyond our reach, a task that seems intangible. Yet, what we don’t talk enough about is where empowerment begins. Before MLK could empower so many people around him, he had to empower himself.

When I recently came across Suzanne’s piece on empowerment on FoxNews, it led me to realize how often we tend to talk about empowerment in opposition to a specific group that becomes the ‘other.' Being empowered does not always mean teaming up with those whom we feel are similar to us and standing up to a common enemy. Empowerment stems from within. Empowerment starts small. It starts with believing in ourselves and making the conscious decision to visualize what it is that we want and refusing to let anything or anyone stand in our way until we get it. It is not until we learn to empower ourselves that we can seek to empower those around us. So what does it mean to be empowered?

Empowerment is getting up in the morning without hitting the snooze button.

Empowerment is picking up the phone and having that difficult conversation.

Empowerment is knowing that you can when everyone tells you that you can’t.

Empowerment is foregoing short term satisfaction in favor of long term achievement.

Empowerment is shutting off your phone and learning to disconnect.

Empowerment is proactively working towards your goals rather than letting the world just happen to you.

Empowerment is putting down the bag of chips and getting on the treadmill after a long day at work.

Empowerment is shutting a door that you’ve been too afraid to close.

Empowerment is staying in on a Friday or Saturday night just to make time for yourself.

Empowerment is turning off the TV and picking up a book you’ve been wanting to read.

Empowerment is being vulnerable.

Empowerment is speaking your mind even if people don’t like what you have to say.

Empowerment is being okay with being wrong.

Empowerment is getting back up again after staring failure in the face.

Empowerment is giving it all you’ve got. EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Empowerment is saying no.

Empowerment is releasing negative energy.

Empowerment is standing in front of a room full of people and sharing your ideas.

Empowerment is forgiveness.

Empowerment is letting go of the toxic people in your life.

Empowerment is getting up on stage.

Empowerment is letting people get to know the real you.

Empowerment is pushing yourself to new limits.

Empowerment is a commitment to self discovery.

Empowerment is being your best self.

Empowerment means different things to different people, but the important thing is to take the time to think about what it means to be empowered in our own lives. While leaders like MLK have shown us that the progression and advancement of society is largely dependent on empowering those around us, our only hope in doing so is to first learn to empower ourselves.

The Debilitating Nature of Caring Too Much

Have you ever wanted something really badly? And when you did, what did that feel like? Every morning when you wake up, the gears in your mind start turning, and one cup of coffee quickly turns into six, and your mind doesn’t stop churning until your head hits the pillow at 2AM (on a good day). The days just roll by, and instead of staring at your watch waiting for time to pass, you’re constantly chasing it, wishing you could slow it down. Why? Because you care. You care so much about the purpose, the process, and the outcome that your goal becomes all consuming.

Being passionate about an idea and becoming so strongly invested in something that you care about the outcome is a good thing. But the more that you want something, the more likely you are to fall victim to caring too much, to becoming so focused on the outcome and achieving your goal that you go into a bubble and lose your sense of perspective.

Intensely caring about something that you hope to achieve is positive in the sense that it helps to align your interests, but caring too much can be debilitating. When we care about something 'just enough,' we maintain a certain degree of perspective that allows us to see that we are more than one individual goal, and our character does not rest solely on the evaluation of our successes and failures. Caring just enough allows us to voice our opinion, to take the risks necessary to help to carve out the path to help us to reach our goals in the first place. It comes with a whimsical attitude aligned with the many alternatives we have at our fingertips if all else fails.

But the more invested that we become in our success in a particular endeavor, the more we put ourselves at risk of caring too much. Caring too much can be debilitating and slow us down in reaching our goals, as the feeling reinitiates our fear of failure. When we care so much about succeeding, failing or falling short of our goals no longer feels like an option. We lose sight of all alternatives and get sucked into a vortex where we place unnecessary weight on our words and actions. In the process, not only do we risk losing the love of the game, but we risk undermining ourselves in the process.

The key to winning is not to stop caring, but to train yourself to maintain a sense of perspective that allows you to care just enough. Here are a few ways to begin to find an acceptable balance between constantly firing with an intense drive and maintaining an overarching perspective:

1)  Remind yourself of the alternatives. If all else fails, what is your next best option? In the grand scheme of things, if you had to resort to your next best alternative, would it really be all that bad?

2)  Do something for yourself every day. The more that you want something, the easier it is to adopt a singular focus. While this singular processing mechanism can be efficient for some time, once it reaches a tipping point, it may be taken too far. To prevent this degree of burnout, do something every single day just for the sake of doing it – something completely for yourself and unrelated to your primary focus or goal.

3)  Read stories or talk to other people about the state of their lives. Expose yourself to diverse perspectives or delve into fantasy worlds that are far from your own. Learn about the lifestyle, the goals, and the various aspects of the lives of others. Not only can this often be a humbling experience, but it can remind you that there is more than one way to live your life.

4)  Take five minutes to write down a list of things that you have accomplished up to this point in your life. When you care so much about achieving something or reaching a goal, it is important to remember all of the effort that you expended and the small wins that have gotten you to where you are standing today. This will help you to remember all of the tools that you have at your disposal and that your reputation is defined by more than any one individual outcome.

5)  Stop worrying about what everyone else is doing. We are all different people, with different backgrounds, with different personalities, who move at different paces, and who have individualized approaches to reaching an end goal. Just because someone else is taking a particular approach in attempt to reach an end goal, it does not mean it is the most efficient path, nor does it mean it is the path best-suited for you. By overtly worrying about what other people are doing and how they are doing it, you are putting unnecessary pressure on yourself to be someone that you’re not. Focus on you. Move at your own pace, and keep your eye on the prize.

While caring about something, whether it be achieving a goal or bettering yourself in some way, is an important aspect of improving your odds of achieving it, caring too much can drive you into overload and put you in a position where you are constantly putting unnecessary pressure on yourself. When you begin to feel this happening, it is important to consider the counterfactual – if all else fails and this doesn’t happen, what is my next best alternative? Chances are, you’re going to be alright. As much as you want to reach your goal, you may be unknowingly driving yourself into a wall by caring so much that your drive is debilitating - and maybe, just maybe, you’d actually perform better if you kept caring, but you just learned to care a little less.

Society Says We Need Many, but Sometimes It Only Takes One

Growing up in an arguably yuppie town on the East Coast, the emphasis was always placed on the fact that more is better. Taking eight classes with organic chemistry in place of lunch was better than taking six classes and spending a free period hanging out with friends. Having two hundred friends at your sweet sixteen was better than having twenty friends over for an intimate dinner. Getting a varsity letter in three sports was far better than getting a varsity letter in one. Having ten boys fawning over you was far better than catching the eye of only one. Getting into twenty colleges just for the heck of it was far better than getting into only five, even if the five were Ivy League schools. Having one hundred dresses and twenty bags was better than having ten (I mean, outfit repeating was a serious no-no).  Holding three jobs simultaneously throughout college was far better than holding a mere one job.  Having 2000 friends on Facebook was far better than only being connected to your 200 ‘real’ friends.

And so it goes…

So many people have bought into the concept that more is better, but the problem with striving for breadth over depth is that there is no end game here.  You will never feel the level of satisfaction that comes with mastery if you always want more, more, more.

For most of my life, this is how I was – it’s all I knew, and the more I had on my plate, the more attention that I received, and the better I felt. But as time went on and I found it within myself to think independently of the ideals that society is constantly pushing down our throats, I realized that in most cases, quantity doesn’t translate into happiness.  Only through truly committing yourself to something or someone with every ounce of your being can you experience a deeper level of satisfaction.

After thinking long and hard about why I spent so many years of my life buying into the concept that more is better, I came to see that through only halfway committing myself to a sea of activities or an entire spectrum of people, this gave me a built-in security blanket in case I failed.  If I wasn’t fully committing myself and jumping in with two feet, I would always know inside myself that I had more to give, which made the potential of failure seem easier to cope with, somehow.

As time went on, I knew that I had to start thinking hard about what and whom it was that I really wanted.  I couldn’t keep striving for more, more, more because the ‘what’ that I was receiving was no longer making me feel satisfied. So instead of continuing to strive for breadth, I started to strive for depth in my personal relationships and in the mastery of my craft; throughout the process, I’ve stared failure in the face time and time again.  Really committing myself to give everything I have to going for what, deep down, I know I want, has exposed me to levels of vulnerability that I didn’t know existed. I’ve been shut down, have felt broken and hurt and insufficient; but I’ve also witnessed momentary glimpses of bliss that I never would have felt had I kept holding back, constrained by society’s influence that leads us to believe in breadth over depth.  Have I heard the word no? Over, and over, and over again. But I’ve also heard the word yes; and once you hear the word yes once, when really, wholeheartedly putting yourself on the line, or you experience one fleeting glimpse into what could come with committing every ounce of your being to really going for it, you can see that sometimes, it doesn’t take many – it only takes one.

No matter how many times you hear the word ‘no’, it only takes one mentor to really spot your potential.  It one takes one best friend who will stick by your side no matter what. It only takes one job to peak your interest, or to expose you to something that sparks a new passion inside of yourself.  It only takes one man to turn your world upside down, to bring out a side of yourself that you didn’t even know existed.  It only takes one college admissions counselor who can see something special in your story, and who can alter the path of your life forever. It only takes one courageous decision to get on a plane, to open your eyes to people and cultures you’ve never experienced before. It only takes one good book to capture your attention for hours and to allow you to piggyback off the rises and falls of someone else’s story.

And ultimately, it only takes one conscious decision to go for it – I mean really truly go for it with every ounce of your being, to change the feeling that you have when you get up in the morning, and the rush of emotions running through your mind when you lie down to go to sleep at night.

It’s not about how many people you’ve impressed, how much money or material things you have, how many managers you’ve convinced to hire you, or how many ‘friends’ you’ve made.  It’s about really committing to be vulnerable enough to care about the outcome and embrace the heat of the journey, to commit to putting yourself out there on a deeper level – to thinking hard about what you really want and not allowing fear to stand in the way of sharing those desires with the people in your world.  It’s about taking the time to connect with yourself on a deeper level to make sure that you’re not just spending your days floundering away, but rather taking actionable steps towards accomplishments that you can be proud of.  It’s about finding that one thing that truly sets your mind on fire, that allows you to lose yourself in a problem that may take an all-nighter and five cups of coffee to pull yourself out of.  But you want it so badly that you don’t even feel the time passing.

It’s about embracing the uncertainty and vulnerability that comes with letting someone see the deepest parts of yourself, of sharing your whole heart and mind with someone, with no guarantee of getting anything in return.  It’s about finding that one piece of clothing that makes you turn heads when you walk into a room – not because of the way you look but because of the way that wearing it makes you feel.  It’s about finding that one mentor who truly believes how far you can go, who will never give up on you no matter what. And most of all, it’s about believing in yourself enough to know that no matter what obstacles get in your way or how many days end with eating a pint of Ben and Jerry’s in your pink footie pajamas, you’ll know that you’re going to be alright - that you’re going to be better than alright, because it doesn’t take many.  It only takes one. 

It's Time You Sweat the Small Stuff

As the New Year rolls around, people all over the world commit to turning over a new leaf, with an aim to better their lives in one way or another.  I love the feeling of walking into a room full of my friends or colleagues after the New Year, because everyone is filled with new energy, ready to conquer the insurmountable task that they’ve committed to achieving over the next three hundred and sixty five days. While the newfound enthusiasm towards their big-picture life goals typically starts to fade after a mere few weeks, it is refreshing to experience while it lasts.

The funny thing about New Year’s resolutions is that many people hang a ribbon on a tree with words written down that resemble one of the biggest personal transformations that they can imagine.  While the goal to ‘explore the world’ or ‘change your body’ may seem appealing and realistic when you’re at your peak of positive energy while ringing in the New Year, we often see it quickly begin to slip through our fingers as the daily intricacies pull us back into the daily grind.

While people often think that immense changes are required in order to alter the state of their lives, it is often the small things that repetitively irk us throughout the day which pulls our minds and bodies off track.  Rather than committing our newfound energy to removing these small annoyances from our lives so that we can focus our full attention on the big things that we want to achieve, we often sweep the small things under the rug, hoping that somehow they will just fade into oblivion. In reality, it is often not the big things but rather the small things that serve as obstacles in route to achieving our goals.

It wasn’t until I took myself off of my daily autopilot that I realized how much the small annoyances that I encounter throughout my day are responsible for shifting my mood and ultimately bringing down my performance.

On a typical morning, I wake up around 5:50AM, press the snooze button once or twice, only to avoid having to get up and walk up the stairs to the closet to get a towel before I can take my morning shower.  While inevitably I would love to sleep for another hour, I realized that it wasn’t so much having to get up and shower that bothered me, but rather the fact that I knew I had to walk up the stairs to get a towel when I very well knew I should have put it in the bathroom the night before.  After shamelessly dancing on my bed while playing dress up in my closet, I usually make my way to the train, bracing myself for the breadth of annoyances that come with the all-so-typical NJ Transit experience. While I would characteristically cluster all of the aspects of that fun-filled experience together, I started to try to understand the foundation of what it was that flustered me so much about my morning train ride.  I realized that it wasn’t physically getting onto the train and sitting there for an hour that bothered me, but rather the fact that I have to get out my wallet, unzip it, and hunt for my ticket as the conductor stands over my shoulder and impatiently taps his foot while I struggle to get my ticket out of the small opening in my wallet.  I hate when I feel like people are waiting on me, and I realized that this daily in-and-out ticket routine was the main source of my negative feelings towards the NJ Transit experience.

While these annoyances may seem practically insignificant to some, they are only a few of the small things that were bringing negative energy into my life one day after another.  After realizing the extent to which these small annoyances were shaping my mood and affecting my performance, I committed to spending a few months really ‘sweating the small stuff’, trying to pinpoint the small things in my daily routine that I’ve been brushing under the rug, and committing to eliminating them.  I started bringing down my towel for my morning shower the night before, and I got a new backpack with a small card holder in the front so that I no longer have to go digging through my bag for my ticket on the train each morning.  Through changing intricate details that typically bring about negative energy throughout my day, it has really cleared my mind, leaving it open to focus on the big things that I’m trying to achieve rather than remaining fixated on the small annoyances that I used to avoid changing.

Though setting big-picture goals is incredibly important and arguably more glamorous when presenting them to our peers, it is often unknowingly the small things that stand in the way of achieving our life goals.  So rather than focusing on only the big things without stopping to question why things aren’t going your way, I encourage you to take a momentary pause to clear the clutter out of your life.  Spend a week or two focusing on pinpointing all of the small things that bother you throughout the day, and try to understand the source of your negative energy.  While it may take a few weeks to adjust to your personal version of walking up the stairs to get your towel the night before rather than in the morning, the tuning of our daily routines sets us up for a day that will work in our favor.  Then our minds will be primed to pour all of our additional energy into achieving those big-picture goals without sweating the small stuff. 

Maybe You're Not Crazy After All

Who designed this chair? It’s one of the most uncomfortable chairs I’ve ever sat in – and they claim to be a five star restaurant? There has to be a better way to make this. Did I finish that paper I was working on? I thought I did but I think I may have gotten distracted and forgotten to submit it.  The line of people waiting to be seated is making the dining area entirely claustrophobic – isn’t there a better way to structure the flow of seating? I feel like these people are standing on top of me. And I can literally hear everyone’s conversations at the tables around me. I can’t even focus on what this guy is saying.  Did I unplug my curling iron this morning? I hope it’s still not plugged into the wall. I really need to stop doing that. Why is he wearing that shirt? This is supposed to be a business meeting.  I wish business meetings didn’t have to be so stuffy.  If only every business meeting could be over ice cream sundaes, or maybe over bowling, or I’ve always wanted to have a meeting on one of those yachts that I saw in that movie one time.  He has green stuff in his teeth – am I supposed to say something about that? Hmm, better not. I’ll stick to the salmon just in case.  I wouldn’t want my teeth looking like that when I stand up to talk.  I’m so late.  There goes another one down the drain. I should really stop making three sets of plans in one night.  Should I get up and leave? It’s probably okay, right? I mean, I’ve been here for three hours – how much of my time do they really deserve? What excuse should I use this time – keep it vague or go specific?  This silverware is terrible.  My rice keeps falling through the holes in my fork, and I feel like a child eating it with a spoon.  I think it’s time I try to innovate on silverware – I mean, we’ve had the same three utensils for how long now? What were we talking about again? Oh, right – sales figures of some sort.  Let me flip through the presentation real quickly on my lap. Or did I leave it in my other bag? Am I supposed to travel tomorrow, or was that next week? If only I could find my calendar.  That’s a terrible idea.  I don’t understand why we’ve been talking about this for forty minutes.  We could have accomplished this in ten. Focus, Jenna, focus. Look at the person in front of you, and control your mind – control your thoughts.  Finish what you need to and flesh out your ideas later. Or maybe I should just jot them down on my napkin really quickly, because I might forget.  I doubt anyone will even notice.

Whether at a business meeting, dinner, a movie, or an event – these are usually the types of nonlinear thoughts that are flowing through my mind.  I can’t help it – it’s how I’ve always been. Since the time I was little, my mind has always gone to crazy places, and the gears are always turning.  As I started to get older, I began to wonder if everyone thought like this, if all people sat down for a meeting, starting out talking about revenue figures and then went to the beaches of Santorini, to analyzing the person at the table’s wardrobe choices, to brainstorming ways to make the table they're sitting at less shaky or the pen they're writing with stop smudging on their paper, all before the presentation is over.  When I came to realize that not everyone’s minds went to the imaginative lengths that mine did, I started to wonder if I was somehow ‘broken.’ 

I had never met anyone who noticeably had a mind quite like mine, until I crossed paths with an entrepreneur who had recently come to New York to scale a company he had started in Cleveland.  For as long as I can remember, I always wondered if I was the only one whose mind went to ten different places and back again all in the midst of maintaining a conversation about the movie that I saw last weekend; but when he started taking momentary pauses in the middle of dinner to write down the ideas that would come to him, I began to see that his mind was a lot like mine – spinning in circles and jumping from one place to the next in a nonlinear fashion.  Seeing the way that his mind worked in action simultaneously scared me and excited me, as nobody else’s way of thinking had so closely resembled my own.  Maybe I wasn’t crazy after all - maybe I was just ‘different.’ Or maybe we were both crazy, and our wandering minds would begin to feed off each other, stretching our imaginations to new limits.

His mind fascinated me – not only because it was the closest I had ever found to one that resembled my own, but because in many ways, he was even more divergent than I was.  In a midst of minutes, even seconds, he can rattle off ideas left and right – identifying countless problems over one dinner.  After all of the years that I had spent trying to mask my divergence to try to fall in line with the system, I couldn’t help but wonder how powerful my mind could really be if I started surrounding myself with people more like him - if I learned how to fully capitalize on my ability to think differently rather than trying to cover it up.

After meeting more and more entrepreneurs whose minds were somewhat similar to mine, I began to realize that I’m not broken, but simply different. Fitting in has always been hard for me; I always want to do things differently, to find a better way rather than accepting the conventions that society has placed upon me.  I used to wonder if thinking in this way was problematic, in fear that I would never be 'normal' or fit in.  But why fit in when you were born to stand out?  Though it may take a while to find your ‘group,’ to find those people who you can sit around a table with and feel like in many ways, you’re looking at a reflection of yourself – they’re out there.  You just need to keep looking – for people to collaborate with, for people to support you, and for people who can help you to channel your divergence into new ideas and products rather than encouraging you to fall in line with everyone else, when maybe you were never meant to be in that line altogether.

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.

Building a Happiness Agenda

For a long time, I felt like I was running on a treadmill.  It was as if time was passing, but somehow I was mentally rooted in the same place – tied to a state of being that was inevitably being manipulated by the world around me.  Even though I was working towards my goals for as many hours as I could possibly keep my eyes open, I felt as if I wasn’t going anywhere.  On paper it looked as if I was making progress, but isn’t progress supposed to come with a feeling of satisfaction - a feeling of excitement that should come in knowing we are one step closer to finally clenching that green light? But somehow, I didn’t feel that way.  I felt like I was a voodoo doll being puppeteered by the world around me and pushed to unhealthy limits.  I didn’t feel in control of my own day, and each morning I would wake up, feeling like I was already ten paces behind.  I thought that in order to keep up, I had to try to run faster – to chase everything that I always thought I wanted but never quite knew how to obtain.  But it wasn’t until recently, that I realized that the only way to move forward at a healthy pace was to stop running, and to finally take control of my own life one step at a time.

Far too often, we spend our days running, but instead of moving forward we end up running in circles – moving towards our goals, but leaving a part of ourselves behind.  After many weeks of self-reflection, I realized that in order to somehow ‘feel’ differently, to feel what I thought that I should be feeling, I had to step off the path completely and to ask myself one question, time and time again: ‘does this make me happy?’  As basic as this sounds, I realized that one of my biggest problems had been that for the majority of my life, I didn’t quite know how to find the answer to that question – how to freeze a moment and to assess whether or not something really made me happy.  When I looked at my life, I wouldn’t say that I was unhappy; I would say that I was simply content.   But after spending year after year feeling ‘content,’ I realized that eventually I no longer was – I no longer wanted to be stuck in quicksand, mentally constrained by the rules I had set for myself as society continuously dragged me forward.  I wanted to know if something different was out there, if there was a way to feel something stronger, something deeper.  And after freeing myself from all of the expectations that I had ever placed upon myself and going back to the basic question of what made me happy, I started to realize that there undoubtedly was.

For me, reaching a new level of personal happiness came with a lot of trial and error.  After mitigating the various aspects of my life that I was certain were making me unhappy, I was left with a sheet of grey.  And in order to paint my world in color, I started making every effort to consistently live in an active state of mind.  I assessed everything – and from the time that I woke up in the morning to the time that I fell asleep at night, I tried to isolate every single aspect of my day and place it under the microscope to see if it was really making me happy.  While some aspects of my life were initially harder to evaluate than others, I experienced a series of moments where everything became crystal clear – where I finally let myself go, let myself fall into a space that I had previously blocked off.  And it was in those moments, when I was laughing until I cried, or simply sitting there in a state of utter serenity, when I realized that this is what I should be feeling every minute of every day. 

After I was more easily able to pinpoint what aspects of my life were really making me the happiest, I put together a ‘happiness agenda.’  This list is composed of a set of ‘rules’ or ‘guidelines’ that I set for myself, which I could hang up on my wall and reference multiple times per week.  The rules on my list are a combination of practical and marginally ridiculous things that I aim to incorporate into my routine on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, that contribute to either my short or long-term happiness.  I developed this list over many months of self-reflection, and I continue to add things to my list as I learn more about what happiness really feels like, and what makes me freeze in a moment, subtly smile to myself, and feel confident that I want to experience that same feeling again.  While making an agenda of this nature may feel somewhat silly, I would encourage everyone to go through this level of self-assessment and put together your own happiness agenda.  Because now instead of feeling like I am running on a treadmill, physically moving along but mentally stuck in one place, I live each day dynamically, and instead of chasing time I feel in complete command of my day.  I have shared my happiness agenda below.

My Happiness Agenda

·       Start each morning by blasting music and dancing on my bed

·       Run 3 to 5 miles per day

·       Consistently write in a journal

·       Don’t make plans on Mondays

·       Plan spontaneous getaways

·       Get my nails done once per week

·       Don’t eat fried food

·       Take care of my health by consistently going to the doctor and dentist

·       Prioritize sleep; treat it like a meeting

·       Do small things to show people how important they are to me

·       Only stay out late twice per week

·       See more theatre performances

·       Only drink alcohol on special occasions

·       Listen to music on my way to work

·       Only spend time with people who inspire me

·       Don’t do anything that I actually don’t want to do

·       Take social risks

·       Make an effort to stay connected with my mentors

·       Give thoughtful birthday and holiday gifts and gifts just because

·       Wear bright red lipstick as often as possible

·       Learn something new every day

·       Talk about startup ideas at the dinner table

·       Make an effort to look my best

·       Turn off my phone for a few days every month

·       Spend time with my siblings

·       Eat a lot of ice cream

·       Sleep in once per week and then make chocolate chip pancakes

·       Ask people what they are passionate about rather than what they do

·       Continuously re-evaluate my list of goals

·       Write in pink or purple pen at work

·       Block out a few hours per week to watch the shows that I like

·       Go shopping every other weekend

·       Make grand gestures for my close friends and family

·       Write my daily to-do lists on neon sticky notes

·       Meet at least one new person every week

·       Stop talking to people who bring negative energy into my life

·       Read a book every week

·       Drink a lot of water

·       Spray relaxing mist on my pillow before I go to sleep

·       Go to as many concerts as possible

·       Take a few short walks outside every day

·       Consistently throw out things that no longer fit or I no longer need

·       Mentor younger students as often as possible

·       Go to an over-the-top affair at least once per month

·       Take a new path to work every day

·       Consistently call or spend time with my close friends

·       Snapchat lots of goofy moments

·       Print new photos to hang on my wall every few weeks

·       Keep my room and desk clean and workable

·       Write short notes to the people I care about

·       Find a new secret spot every week

·       Watch at least three gossip girl episodes per week

·       Spontaneously buy plane tickets and plan trips around them

·       Stop a few times per day to freeze the moment and breathe

·       Talk to strangers

·       Burn candles while I’m working at home

·       Go on occasional adventures by myself

·       Cancel days on my calendar and do whatever I feel like in the moment

·       Live dynamically

Flirting with Change

I know a lot of people who are afraid of change – who cling to the many facets of the world that they know, only to avoid having to enter into unchartered territory.  While the majority of people find comfort in living the life that they have built for themselves, I find stability in instability, through living in a state of constant change.  From new cities, to new men, to new friends, to new jobs – being thrown into a fresh situation makes my senses come alive and keeps my creativity at its peak level of functionality.  I thrive on change.  In fact, I may even be addicted to it.

A few months ago, I walked along the Champs-Elysees in Paris for the first time – and while I’ve spent the majority of my life immersed in vibrant cities like New York, I never felt more alive.  My trip to France was the first time that I had traveled to another country completely alone.  And while at first I was daunted by my fear of the unknown, it turned out to be one of the best trips of my life.  After a few weeks of wandering around the city, taking a weak stab at speaking French, mingling with the local shop owners, and tasting the best of Parisian macaroons, I was in love.  Even though I had no friends to keep me company and only about ten words of French at my disposal, I couldn’t remember any other time in my life when I was quite as happy.  And as I sat in my favorite restaurant overlooking the Champs-Elysees on my last night in Paris, tears started sliding down my face.  No man had ever made me feel as vibrant and alive as this city had – and we had only known each other for a matter of weeks.  I was completely and utterly enchanted by life in Paris – the people, the smells, the culture, the style.  And I knew one thing for certain – I didn’t want to leave.  As I dragged myself to the airport to go back to my life of normalcy here in New York, no loss had ever felt so great.  But I knew that when I left, it wasn’t goodbye, but rather au revoire.

As I sat in my Park Avenue office after returning from my trip, my focus was nowhere to be seen and my eyes were constantly gazing out the window as I drifted into a daydream that frequently involved me, with a lemon macaroon in hand, clothed in Parisian attire, perusing through the shops on Boulevard Haussmann.  When it comes to men, some things are out of my control – but I knew that unlike any man, Paris would never turn its back on me.  And that’s why I had every intention of going back, and this time for good.  Why couldn’t I drop everything and move to Paris? Nothing had ever made me feel so beautiful or creative or alive in my entire life – and I wanted to feel that way every single day.

As the days marched on and I slowly fell back into my usual routine of gallivanting from charity event to society gala in New York City, the taste of lemon macaroons that lingered on my lips started to fade away.  And that’s when I started to wonder if Paris and I were just a spring fling, or if we were really ready to take this affair to the next level.  And as I reconnected with the people in my life here in the city, my senses weren’t quite as alive as they were in Paris, but I was able to look at my world here and the people in it with a new set of eyes.  Wandering the streets of Paris for the first time made me remember what it felt like as New York and I were first becoming acquainted.  And while the flashing lights and roaring sirens inevitably threw me around a bit when we first started to tango, time brought us closer together.  And now I can confidently say that nowhere in the world feels more like home.

When you really love a man or a woman, you are wholeheartedly enamored by them.  They are the last thing that you think about when you go to sleep at night, and the person you want to share all your secrets with.  And it doesn’t take just any model in a bikini or man in a pinstriped suit to shake your focus.  So when New York had managed to recapture my affection and light up my eyes in only a matter of days after we became reacquainted, I knew all too well that my love for this city was far deeper than the winks from French men and the exquisite ballet that attempted to steal me away in Paris.  I couldn’t leave this city. Because beyond my favorite underground salsa clubs and secret societies, I realized that it’s really the people in our lives who make a place feel like home.

Change is good.  Whether it be meeting new people, visiting a place we’ve always dreamed of going, or taking up that hobby that we were too embarrassed to try, having new stimuli in our lives allows our senses to reignite and creates a spark inside of us.  But over time, more often than not, that spark will start to fade.  And just because something is new or different, it doesn’t mean that it is right.  So in the midst of traveling the world, embracing new experiences, and letting new people into my life, I have come to see that sometimes the most courageous decision is not to leave, but to stay – to immerse yourself in a career, to commit to a person, to fall in love with a city.  And one day, you might just be standing on your favorite street, with a macaroon in one hand and the love of your life in the other, in a city that couldn’t feel more like home.

Finding Your Why

Money, power, status, and intimacy - these are four of the carrots that life dangles in front of us as we run ourselves ragged trying to make them our own.  Through identifying what it is that we think we want and working towards our core motivations, we spend our days charging towards the finish line instead of skipping in circles.  The first step in achieving personal success is taking the time that we each deserve to discover what it is that we really want. What drives you to wake up in the morning and push yourself to the breaking point by the end of every day?  When you look at your life twenty, thirty, or forty years from now, what tangible milestones can you achieve that will make you feel as if you have overcome the potential failures and setbacks that separate the winners from the losers?  Once you know what you want, you can stop floundering in the sea of what-ifs and start devising a conscious roadmap to get to where you want to be.

While identifying the core motivations that drive each one of us is undoubtedly the starting point in living a life of intent, the problem with structuring our lives solely around our core motivations is that we will never have enough. Even if every day we are richer and more powerful than we were yesterday, there will always be more money out there that we can obtain and more aimless wanderers that we can turn into our followers. After we reach a certain benchmark, what used to be a source of healthy motivation morphs into a leech that starts eating away at us, consuming every part of our being.  Instead of charging towards the finish line, we get back on the carousel with all of the other lost wanderers who never knew what they wanted in the first place. 

If we work hard enough and sacrifice enough of our wellbeing to capture the carrots that life dangles in front of us, we may achieve a certain level of success and find ourselves in the midst of a lifestyle that seems too good to be true.  Too many people spend their whole lives devising a design plan that will help them to reach their goals, only to reach the finish line and find themselves more unfilled and unhappy than ever.  Even arguably worse than feeling unaccomplished and unsuccessful altogether is coming to the realization that what you thought you wanted all along never held the potential to make you truly happy in the first place. So while core motivators like money, power, status, and intimacy may prove to be efficient benchmarks of success – they are not a measure of personal utility after a certain point.

There is only one way to find the level of personal fulfillment that is deeper than the intangible green light – and that comes with searching deep within ourselves to find our inner why.  If there were no expectations weighing you down and you could wake up tomorrow and do anything, or be anyone – what would you do? Who would you be?  There is something deeper than the external motivators that tempt us, and that is the inner fire that burns within.  There is something greater that each of us feels destined to accomplish, a mark that we want to leave on the world.  Beyond uncovering our selfish motivations, we need to dig deep within our hearts and minds and find the one thing that makes us feel like we are on top of the world – not temporarily, but indefinitely.  While swimming in a bathtub of hundred dollar bills may make us feel drunk on champagne, the dollars are spent and the feeling fades.  And then what?  We make more money and buy more champagne, pulling us into an endless wheel of temporary satisfaction.  In order to bring meaning and fulfillment to our lives, we need to let our deeper why drive our day-to-day actions.  We need to let our inner passion run wild, and find the one thing that truly makes us feel alive.  While a certain level of money, power, status, and intimacy may give us the foundation to fulfill our greater why, it is not a change in flight class but rather a change in mindset that is going to make all the difference.

A few months back, I lost myself – I was living the life that I thought would take me one step closer to fulfilling my core motivations; but when I looked in the mirror, I couldn’t recognize myself anymore.  The more that I leaned over the sea of people and reached out for that green light that seemed within my reach, the more that I came to realize that the tangible accomplishments that I was en route to achieving were not going to make me happy. Instead, they were physically and mentally tearing me apart.  I reached a breaking point, and I knew that I needed to make a change.  As afraid as I was to sit on the expectations that constrained me and put the car in reverse, I knew that going forward in the same direction only meant that one day I would end up running in circles. 

I took a step back, and I spent the time that I needed to reconnect with my greater why. I asked myself the types of questions that I asked you above – out of everything that I have been exposed to in this world so far, what is the one thing that makes me feel the most fulfilled?  When am I genuinely happy living in the moment as opposed to sitting at my desk wishing the day away?  After weeks of reading books, talking to friends in different industries, and staring down at a blank page, I found a place within myself that brought me closer to my greater why.  I realized that while money, status, power, and intimacy are all a part of my roadmap for success, I am truly the happiest when I am mentoring young individuals.  I want to be a positive female role model to help young men and women to find their own sense of motivation, and to help them carve out their own paths to achieve the impossible.  I feel fulfilled when I am creating – when I find a way to build something out of nothing, and I can impact the lives of people around me as a result.

Finding your inner why does not mean that you should throw your core motivations overboard and live your life as a free-for-all.  It simply means that you need to align your core motivations with your deeper why.  For me, that means using the power that I am working to obtain to inspire the lives of those around me, and using the money that I am working to earn to solve problems and create things that can change the world.  Some people will search their entire lives in attempt to find that one thing that will truly make them happy; but a true life mission or deeper sense of purpose comes in different shapes and forms for different people.  The most important thing to acknowledge is that more often than not, your inner why is not going to fall into your lap.  You need to actively commit to living a life of fulfillment and go out and find it yourself.  For months, you may look in the mirror and see a monster, a person that is unrecognizable – but one day when you look in the mirror, you will see your reflection staring back at you.  And when you do, you will know that you are on your way to living not only a life of success, but a life of fulfillment – and once you get a glimpse of how that can change you, you will never look back.

Embracing Vulnerability

I cried myself to sleep last night. Not one or two tears running down my face, but a full-blown hissy fit.  I have a lump in my throat the size of my fist, and my heart bolted down to my ankles like an elevator on steroids.  My hands are up, my guard is down, and my tongue is tied.

The man that I love doesn’t love me back.  He held my fragile heart in his perfect hands, and then threw it on the floor and did the Mexican hat dance.  One day I was his everything - the most amazing person he had ever met, the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.  Nobody had ever looked at me the way he did.  And I knew that his feelings for me were real.  His touch electrified my body and his words melted my heart.  He paraded me around like his most prized possession, and he made me feel like the luckiest girl in the world.  And when our eyes met and our lips touched, the clock may have been ticking, but time stood still.

What started out as a mere fascination propagated into a love that was greater than anything I had ever felt before.  This man brought out a side of me that I didn’t even know existed, and for the first time in my life, I felt like someone was looking at the real me.  He was looking deep into my eyes, peering down into my soul, and he actually liked what he saw.  It was no longer me against the world; it was us against the world – and together, we could be great.  As time passed and the walls between us started to fall, I knew with all my heart that he was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.  But apparently, he didn’t feel the same. And it takes two to tango. 

While many things in life come easy for me, sharing the deepest parts of myself with another person has never been one of them.  Letting your guard down and opening yourself up to someone else gives them all the more room to break you into pieces.  I always thought that by evading any possible vulnerabilities in life, I would have a leg up over the competition; while others were on shaky ground, I would be walking on water.  But having broken my own rules and taken part in a game that I swore I would never play, I know that my logic was flawed from the start.

If you go through life playing it safe, you are going to miss out on the feeling that you get when you roll down the windows, blast the music, and feel the wind blowing in your hair.  Not only does that feeling surface new parts of yourself, but it also exposes you to a world where limits don’t exist and anything is possible.  By committing to embracing vulnerabilities – whether it be through sharing secrets with a friend, taking a business risk, telling someone you love them, or moving to a new city and starting over – you are taking the reins and facing your fear of failure.  You are living dangerously, taking a risk. And with great risk comes great reward.

So while last night I felt defeated, rejected, and more broken than ever, this morning I woke up with one, all-consuming question. Never before in my life have I been conquered by defeat. Never before have I surrendered at the first sign of uncertainty or doubt. Never before have I let anything stand in the way of getting what I want.  So why should I start now?  While embracing vulnerability exposes us to failure, it also exposes us to greatness. And the only force more powerful than fear is hope.  So I’m not going to let one glimmer of doubt stand in the way of getting what I want.  Sure, the road may get bumpy and the path may be undefined, but with patience, drive, and creativity, there is always a way to get what you want. So I’m not here to surrender - I’m here to fight.  I’m here to fight for the man that I love, the man that I want to spend the rest of my life with.  And I will not stop until I get what I want.  Because like all of the best things in life, love is worth fighting for.

So while you may lose control and expose yourself to failure, I encourage you to embrace vulnerability and to go live dangerously. Go fight for the job you’ve always wanted. Go fight for the love of your life. Go fight for the person that you know you can be. What would you do if fear did not consume you?  It’s time to conquer it and go find out.  

Controlling Your State of Mind

Stimuli. It’s everywhere. Car horns and ambulance sirens, crying babies in restaurants and snoring men on trains - all constantly pushing and pulling our minds and bodies in an infinite number of different directions.  While some of the stimuli that we encounter are directly relevant to our own lives, the majority of life’s distractions are externalities – the spillover effect of one man’s life onto another, resulting from a lack of boundaries to separate the two worlds.

By definition alone, many would argue that the various externalities that we encounter on a daily basis are out of our control.  They hold the power to push and pull us every which way, as other human beings are placed in the driver’s seat of our own lives.  Given that it is often unfeasible to put the car in reverse and redirect the actions of others, our greatest power lies not in our actions, but in our reactions. 

Have you ever been at an amusement park, waiting in line for two hours in the sweltering heat for a ride that will only last two to three minutes?  When you first commit to waiting in line, your mind remains focused on the light at the end of the tunnel – the enjoyment that will come when it is finally your turn to go on the ride.  But as time starts to crawl and heat and boredom begin to consume you, you become increasingly disconnected from your ultimate motivation for getting in line in the first place. 

As you rise to the surface level, you start becoming more and more aware of the nuances that surround you: the little boy fighting with his brother, the man twitching his leg in front of you, the gum that recently found a home on your shoe, and the infinite amount of other intricacies that are suddenly starting to come into view.  Yet, as you start to get closer to the front of the line, you remember why you were here in the first place, and you refocus your attention on the ride that is soon to come.  While it is unlikely that the boys stopped fighting or that the man in front of you stopped twitching his leg, you become increasingly immune to the externalities that surround you as you connect with your inner motivations on a deeper level.

The key to dictating your own state of being is to go one level down.  Instead of living your life on the surface level, where you are inevitably vulnerable to life’s many distractions, true power lies in the ability to connect with your inner self on a deeper level, and to carry your more complex motivations and ideas through to maturity. In order to gain access to this part of your mind, you need to overcome a fear that many of us don’t even realize exists within us – a fear of isolation.  Without consciously disconnecting ourselves from the human and technological stimuli that surround us, we will never be granted access to the level that we must descend to in order to remain in control of our own lives.  The only way to gain access to our innermost motivations and desires is to expose ourselves to a healthy degree of isolation.  By removing the clutter that regularly consumes our attention, we open a gateway that allows us to connect with our inner selves on a deeper level. For many people, this exaggerated level of self-consciousness evokes many fears, as it may resurface some of the negative experiences that we have previously suppressed; however, granting ourselves access to our deepest level of thought is the only way that we can come to understand what lies beneath the surface.

Over time, your mind will become trained to subconsciously shift to different levels of cognitive awareness.  However, until you get to that point, one of the best ways to train your mind to go one level down is to choose a consistent part of your daily routine that is most appropriate for slipping into a deeper realm of thought. Select a part of your day that is the most automated – such as the time you spend in the shower, your morning commute, or your daily run.  Regardless of what routine process you choose, begin your mental transition by consciously taking your mind away from directly thinking about the logistics of what you are doing in the moment. Stop thinking about whether or not you washed your hair, or what stop you need to get off on when you are on the train; your mind and body are comfortable enough performing these tasks at this point, that they no longer require your full attention. 

After you manage to reach this state of mind, there are a variety of potential ways to descend one level down. When first starting out, a good way to initiate a deeper level of thought is to ask yourself outlandish questions that begin with the phrase: ‘what if.’  What if trains and cars did not exist; how would people get to work?  What if you lived in the middle of the jungle; how would you manage to find food to survive?  What if you got out of the shower and found your dog serving you breakfast; how would you respond?  When first training your brain to function at this level, the questions that you ask yourself do not need to be entirely relevant to your life on the surface; because at that very moment, you will not be functioning on the surface level – you will be functioning one level down, where assumptions are challenged and anything is possible. This type of thinking begins to stretch your brain in new directions, and you will be amazed by where your mind might take you.

After consciously pulling yourself into a deeper level of thought for some time, the process of riding up and down the different levels of cognitive functioning will begin to happen subconsciously.  When you find yourself in a situation where attentiveness at the surface level is essential, you can focus your attention on your more reflexive thoughts.  This surfaced level of functioning is required when performing tasks that require you to live entirely in the here and now - tasks like driving a car, giving a presentation, or cutting your hair.  When you are directly engaged in a surface level action, going one layer down may actually derail you from successfully completing the task.  However, when you find yourself in a situation that only requires you to play a passive role in the surface level experience, this is a good time to go one level down.

When placed in conjunction with a passive experience, immersing yourself in your deepest level of thought provides a promising foundation for innovation.  This level of cognitive functioning is particularly effective when you don’t need to be extremely attentive to the present situation, and you can automate the surface level task – such as when walking to work, brushing your teeth, or standing in long lines. Given that different levels of cognitive functioning are more effective when partaking in certain tasks over others, your ability to ultimately increase your level of personal utility lies in your ability to effectively control the mental lever that moves you from one level of thought to the next. Once you have achieved this level of personal awareness and mental control, you will be well on your way to tailoring the world to your personal desires.

The first step in changing the world is to change the way that we see it.  Though we may not realize it, life’s distractions only pull us in because we allow them to.  The closer that you get to finding your center, the more leverage that you hold in dictating your own state of being. Instead of allowing the daily nuances of everyday life to rattle you, you will always have the ability to go one level down – to fall into a state of mind where your thoughts are all consuming.

The Power of Divergent Thinking

Your alarm is ringing. The shower is running. Cars are speeding.  People are passing.  Your coffee is spilling. The meeting is starting. Your boss is waiting.  The office is buzzing.  Your husband is calling. Doors are slamming. Dinner is cooking.  Wine is pouring.  Sparks are flying.  Seconds are passing. Minutes turn to hours. And hours to days. And days to weeks. And weeks to months. Time is passing.  My head is spinning.  And the game goes on.

But where were you in all of that? If I had to guess, my bet would be that you were the one spilling the coffee, running late to the office, racing home to cook dinner, drowning your day in wine, and trying to get to bed at a decent hour, all so that you could wake up five hours later to do it all again. Rinse, and repeat.  But it doesn’t have to be this way.

The majority of people that we encounter on a daily basis have become slaves to the world that society has built for us.  Since elementary school, we have been confined by a set of rules that we are told we must follow in order to get ahead.  If we don’t listen to the teacher in kindergarten, we don’t get to move on to first grade.  And if we don’t follow the rules in first grade, we don’t go on to second.  And so on, and so forth.  But if we conform to the system and study hard enough, we may end up giving the valedictorian speech at our high school graduation, all while being showered in praise by the teachers, parents, and mentors who have guided us along the way.

The problem with grades is that they don’t follow us all the way through life. While a perfect grade point average in high school or college may make us feel like we are the best of the best, we are going to reach a point in our lives where convergent thinking is no longer rewarded.  After university, the rules that have constrained us for the first twenty-two years of our lives no longer set the framework that dictates who succeeds and who fails.  It is at this point in our lives that the game changes.  Yet, too many people continue trying to play the same game that they grew up playing, as it is the only game that they know how to play. 

When we walk out of the gates on our last day of university, it is no longer convergence, but rather divergence that distinguishes the few from the many.  Given that the efficiency of society relies upon conformity, we are often not exposed to the type of divergent thinking that is required to succeed in the later stages of our lives.  If schools were to teach us how to think divergently, we would start asking our teachers ‘why’ - and when brought to scale, this alone holds the potential to uproot the system in its entirety. 

Over time, it becomes second nature for the majority of children and young adults to conform to the rules of the system.  They get so caught up in trying to reach the top, that they lose the ability to seek out the blank space that exists beyond the world that they know.  But for a select few, the idea of conforming eats away at us. From the time that we are little, curiosity drives our everyday actions as we strive to understand all of the layers of the world that we find ourselves in. This desire to use our minds as a tool for deeper exploration follows us all the way through college – and when we receive our diplomas and are finally set free, we are given the opportunity to play our own game, a game in which divergence is rewarded.

Rather than endorsing the conformity of society, the ability to think divergently gives us the opportunity to be the catalyst of change. We can see the world in a way that many others can’t – seeking out problems and building solutions to things that others did not even find to be problematic in the first place.  We may walk and talk like the convergent thinkers that surround us, but we are constantly challenging the assumptions that build the foundation for the world that we find ourselves in.  When set in the right context, the ability to think divergently is the most valuable skill in the world, as it gives us one thing that others don’t have – the ability to implement change.  We are the ones who ensure the growth of the very society that constantly rejected us.

It is never too late to start thinking differently.  Every one of us holds the power to use our imaginations as a tool to innovate – not only to change the world around us, but to change our own lives as well.  Just as with learning any new skill, it is going to take time to train your mind and body to use divergence to your advantage.  Your imagination is your greatest gift, and once you are able to let your inner curiosity run wild, you will have all of the tools necessary to design the world that used to only exist in your dreams.