My smile was taken away at the age of 6. (Add Mom and Grannie's support. Resilience.

 

I was a kid that believed that if you do good, you worked hard you would be rewarded. What I quickly experienced is that no matter how hard I worked, how good I was there would always be someone waiting to knock me down. My experiences were many were I was second, not because I wasn’t good enough to be first, because someone decided that would be good enough for me.

 

I became the comeback kid in everything that I did. I learned to work harder, I tried to be smarter, I pretty much did whatever it took to win. None of that worked.

 

I experienced disappointment in the classroom with teachers, classmates. As I got older the experiences grew into relationships, lost job opportunities. By the time became an adult I was conditioned to work non-stop trying to take away any reason for someone to not like me, to not higher me, to not promote me, to not try to take away what I was working on night and day often time for something most people would overlook. In doing all of this I missed out on showing up for the ones that really mattered, taking care of myself physically, mentally, spiritually and living out the purpose in my life.

 

I was essentially giving away my gifts and not using them for myself. So what changed? Me! It took quite a few disappointments, rejections, being let down, failures, being alone to get to the good part of the story of my life. I finally realized I’m not alone, I do matter, I was just collecting chapters to my story in order to be able to help others. I’ve always been a Teacher, Motivator but I was being drained trying to be seen, heard, valued in spaces and places that weren’t meant for me. All of these experiences are what makes me believe I am One Purposed. Empowered. Ambitious. Resilient. Leader. Because I understand the failures, let downs, disappointments and I’ve worked double hard to get what I have I can tell you don’t give up! Don’t be discouraged! You are not alone! You are very much so needed! We all have gifts that once we learn to listen to, I mean really listen to and believe in and not walk in fear of failure we can be change makers!

 

My journey today is to motivate other P.E.A.R.L.s! Sometimes you just have to find your place and space to be able to breathe, exhale and know it was not all for nothing.