Whose opinion of you truly matters in 2019?
Hello, 2019!
Happy New Year! It has been a while since we’ve connected. If you were at our last events featuring Julissa Calderon & Tracy G., you might have heard that we are taking a hiatus in 2019. Sometimes we need to rest and reflect to regenerate. We will continue to stay in touch with you via our monthly newsletter. We want to know, if everything else about BREAD changed, what would you want to stay the same? Shoot us an email and let us know what you think!
I’ve been thinking a lot about BREAD and why we began BREAD in the first place. We’ve grown over the past three years and have reached even more people, which is exciting! I’ve always approached BREAD with the intention that our speakers will share information about their lives and their journey that someone in our audience needs to hear. I want whoever needs to hear it to be able to be present to receive that message.
When growing something, it can be easy to get caught up in the idea of growing for growth’s sake. I am sure that many people are setting new goals today, both personally and professionally. For the past year, I wanted to grow BREAD to reach as many people as possible. As the year comes to the close though and talking to YOU, our audience, it offered me a very different perspective. BREAD isn’t about reaching more and more people, it’s about reaching the audience that cares most about BREAD, and that sees us for who we are in the present. I realized I was so focused on the future, how I wanted people to see and perceive us as an organization, that I wasn’t focused on who truly mattered.
This all led me to think about my own life and that too many times I set goals and I ask myself, who are these goals TRULY for? Are they for me because they give me energy or are they for how I want other people to perceive me once I achieve them?
A question I am asking myself in 2019 that I want to share with you is, whose opinion of you truly matters? I first asked myself this question around 2013 when I was exploring the work of Brené Brown. She says, “True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.”
She recommends that everyone makes a short list of about five people whose opinion of you truly matters. These are people who know and love you for YOU. They accept you no matter what. For many of us, that list is short. She calls these your “heart people.” Who are your heart people?
This leads me to my 2019 wish for all of us. Instead of setting goals that leave us crippled by what other people think, may our goals be internally focused. Here’s to being more of you who already are and letting go of the opinions of people on the sidelines so you can make more room for those who are dear to your heart.
Happiest and healthiest New Year.
As Tracy G. says, your partner-in-shine,
Leora, Chief of Possibility
