What are you going to do now?

Take a deep breath and join me for a stroll down memory lane. 

I was seventeen and a senior in high school the day I confessed to my mother (in front of a 7-11 of all places) that I was pregnant. I lowered my head and watched as my dreams crashed in slow motion into shards on the concrete.   

So much has happened between then and now. When people take a peek into my personal background, obvious obstacles, and then look left to right at my success and achievements they usually shake their heads slightly in disbelief and ask, “How did you do it?”

My answer had always been, I don’t know. I just do. (insert a shrug of the shoulders and pouty lower lip here)

But something significant connected for me recently. 

I was listening to Alex Gorsky speaking to the senior class of his alma mater at West Point. Alex is the CEO of Johnson & Johnson, the sixth-largest company in the world. His remarks were personal and his advice was real and practical. It mirrored the experience I’ve had with Fortune 500 corporations, with communities, building partnerships, and facilitating conversations that intersected across human capital, workforce development, and engagement. Two specific points stuck with me, accept responsibility, and look beyond yourself in service. 

That’s how I did it. Those two strategies were the keystone to my personal success and honestly my peace of mind and happiness. I only know that because I stopped doing it and I fell into what I call, “the dark years.” During this dark time, I substituted those habits for blame and criticism, at myself and those closest to me. But I recently got myself together and started back on my familiar path. 

I simply asked myself the same questions I had always asked myself naturally from such a young age.

The internal dialogue goes a bit like this.

What are you going to do now? How are you going to be different? What decision needs to be made?

That day in front of the convenient store I walked away from those shattered dreams. But I also started walking towards a new set of dreams. Today my life has surpassed 100 times over what I imagined it could at seventeen.  

I share this with you to show you, through my own personal experience that a detour is not a failure and to inspire you to lift your head and look around for dreams rooted in your own self-knowledge and grounded in love. You can and you will achieve them and so much more. 

I’ll admit the brain is a tricky little booger, though. Here’s a tip. No risk and with a money-back guarantee. For every negative comment, remark, or feedback your intellect throws at you. Seek out five pieces of evidence that prove it wrong. There are small tiny bits of hope that are swimming all around you looking for you to turn toward them. I’ve found that broken glass has a nice sparkle in the sun. 🙂

Your dreams are for your joy. If they are crushed and trampled all over the ground, lift your eyes, and find more dreams.

At this moment, right where you are with what you know and have right now, you are creating. Humans are being. Humans are never done or finally there.

You are an artist. You have a blank canvas in front of you, it’s called your life. Paint, draw, sing, laugh, or do whatever moves your brush. 

Love.Being.Human is a practice I teach that narrows the gap between love and our humanity so that our Soul can flow more easily through and between ourselves and those we love. 

Let your dreams lead you beyond yourself into the heights and depths of love. 

At your side on this *epic* journey,

Vivian 

 I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples. 

– Mother Teresa