Finally.
More than 100 years after the creation of a day set aside to celebrate the accomplishment of women, women are getting the buzz we so rightfully deserve.
By revealing and sharing experiences that are uncomfortable, we are finding our power. Oh, the irony. (And guess what: these principles apply across gender lines!)
Though it’s no secret the #MeToo movement has pushed women out from behind the curtain and onto center stage, it’s SO not about us vs. them. That type of mentality is constructive for no one. After all, there is no equality until everyone is treated equally — women, men, non-binary, transgender, everyone. To get to that place, we’re going to have to start by getting vulnerable. Staying safe, quiet and small just isn’t going to cut it anymore.
Screw the comfort zone. We’re over it.
“Women (and all people) couldn’t, wouldn’t have gotten to where they are without taking risks, daring to blaze trails that had never before been paved.”
When Mae C. Jemison boarded the Space Shuttle Endeavor in 1992, she was the first African-American woman to travel in space. Before Mae came Sally Ride, the first female and LGBTQ astronaut, who joined NASA back in 1978. Fifty years before Sally Ride even entered the building, Amelia Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic. She risked her life, and lost it, making history that we could build on.
Today, we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, and to make dreams come true (ours and for those who will later be saluting us). To do it, as far as I can see, we have to get uncomfortable and deviate from the path, to do something that’s never been done before.
Is there any better feeling than doing something you never imagined you could??
Yet, so many of us are afraid to commit to our great dreams because realistically, on paper, they seem impossible…unreachable even.
When camper Carla Feely stood with us on a Malibu mountaintop in 2017, she loved her job but knew that she was in a dying industry. With the help of the Campowerment experts and the community rooting for her, she dug deep to imagine her dream job, without the shackles of whether or not it existed. She left with a very clear definition of what she wanted, but not a lot of faith that it was out there. Eight months later, while attending her second Campowerment weekend that year, Carla got the call that that job, exactly how she had defined it, was hers.
It took some awe-inspiring bravery for Carla to look at her career with a new pair of eyes, to realize she had outgrown it; it took even more courage to declare it out loud, and make it happen for herself.
And so today, on International Women’s Day, we salute you brave souls who are fighting for your dreams…you women who have beaten impossible odds AND all the bold men who are willing to get vulnerable and real (the way the world used to think only women could) in order to grow and expand and find ways to make the world better, alongside, rather than across the table.
If you’re currently in the pursuit of something that feels impossible to achieve, three words: do it anyway. Most overnight sensations admit it often took decades to get there.
