As I write this, it is 1:33 am, Sunday, November 1st 2020.
I just finished washing the dishes—yes, I wash dishes at 1 am.
I was also listening to an amazing conversation on Clubhouse featuring Angie Nwandu the CEO and Founder of The Shaderoom. The conversation was around greatness and many chimed in on the part of the conversation I caught, but the overall question was: “Is the Shaderoom and the work Angie is doing considered great? What about the blurred lines and the unintentional consequences of the platform?”
This conversation got me thinking about my own greatness and the legacy I will leave.
Earlier this week, I was interviewed for a role at a large corporation by someone who also happened to be named Angie, she asked me why I wanted the job and where do I see myself 10 years from now.
For the first time, I was honest with myself out loud. I said, “In ten years, I want to be a very successful businesswoman and running my own venture capital firm with its own accelerator program”.
She was very impressed by my resume but now more impressed by my dream and hustle.
I want a big, magnificent life, but always felt the urge to hide this. Oftentimes, throughout my life, my peers haven’t matched my ambition and this made me feel like I was “doing the most” by having these big goals and dreams.
Then, add being a Black woman in American society, to that—it’s just even more apparent that my big dreams were over the top.
No matter how much I tried to make myself small, my true size would always show. Yet, I was insecure about my depth, my shine and my magic. I would be in relationships, both romantic and platonic, that fed into my unhealthy need to shrink myself, which put me in the line of many levels of abuse from mental to emotional and physical. My abusers helped me to stay small, feel insignificant and problematic.
In 2020 alone, I have spent over $3000 and 100 hours on healing my mind, body and soul.
This money and time investment includes participating in the Landmark Forum, weekly therapy sessions, consuming dozens of books and podcasts, and lots of praying and meditating.
For years, I’ve been trying to shrink myself and it has failed.
I have vivid memories of my elementary/middle school teachers telling my mom that although my grades were good, they knew I had the potential to do better. Failing gifted and talented tests by 1 – 2 points, becoming the class clown to not bring too much attention to my high grades and that I was the teacher’s pet.
In high school, this pattern continued by using sex and drugs to distract myself and help me to “fit in” with the crowd—all failed attempts as my grades were still high. I was nerdy and seen as the “responsible” friend in every friend group I was in. Heck, I even became pregnant in the 11th grade, had my son in the 12th grade, all while maintaining membership of 9 school clubs, business manager of a theatre company, doing a high school internship and graduating on the honor roll with an advanced regents diploma.
What in the real fuck!
All attempts to be small have failed and each failure prompted me to try harder and harder to shrink.
I went to college and switched my major three times, started multiple businesses and had a successful business exit at 20 years old as a college junior. I got married at 21, had my second child at 22, scaled my husband’s company past 6 figures and 10 employees by 23 and published a book at 24.
I’ve been featured in dozens of publications, prints, web, videos and podcasts. I did a TEDx talk at 24 years old, worked as a corporate employee, started multiple companies and ran a non-profit—and might I remind you, this was all done while trying to force myself to be small.
Imagine what comes now that I have accepted my size, fallen in love with my greatness and chosen to be GREAT!
Oh, I am getting excited even thinking about it.
I was built to do the most. I was built to be a teacher, a leader, a force to be reckoned with, to take life head-on and change the world.
This is not only my nature it has also been my nurture. Doing is my love language. Doing is my gift.
I have created:
GSD with Georgie
GSD Solutions
Doer Labs
Doing the Most
And more
To share this gift with the world. To help everyone out there unlock their very own potential. To take action. To rise up and DO.
So, if you’re still reading, I have one question for you:
ARE YOU READY TO DO?
Just looked at the clock and it is exactly 1:00 am on November 1st 2020. (Shout out daylight savings time).
I got a whole hour back —that’s the blessing of taking action.
by Georgie-Ann Geton © All rights reserved