This is how you make it happen

By the time you open this, I very much hope to be lounging by a swimming pool in the stunning surroundings of Lisbon with a selection of my very best friends. I’m on a hen do with 12 other girls, all of whom I’ve known for 15+ years. We rarely get time to spend together, so I imagine that although I should be lying in the sunshine, I may well be regretting my decision to drink by now. Ha!

I promised you last week that I would update you on more of the powerful things I’ve heard and taken away from the events I’ve attended. Since last week, I’ve actually attended another event, Atomicon, and again been blown away by some truly powerful speakers. But, of course, it’s not because they are speakers that they blew me away. These are human beings like you and me—everyday people who decided to make their lives bigger and make it happen.

I saw Davina McCall on stage. She’s absolutely unbelievable. She’s now a household name—I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t know who she is. You may have listened to her podcast with Stephen Bartlett? If not, I really encourage you do. When you listen to that, you realise she is a normal person who had tenacity, dreams, desires, and drive. She did not take no for an answer and has made life happen for her, despite some really difficult life stuff too. When she spoke on stage, everything she said really resonated with me; but this isn’t about me. I want you to hear this for you!

She said one thing that I thought was particularly special: "I’m not an expert at anything." She doesn’t really retain facts, she’s not a specialist in any area—she’s an amplifier. She amplifies other people’s voices and makes sure that people hear them in order to help as many people learn the things she believes will make a positive difference. And that is pretty incredible. You see, what I hear so often is, "Who am I to tell anybody this? I’m not an expert at this." Yes, that was my own voice too. But as I tell people all the time (because somebody said it to me and it hit hugely), an expert is just a person who knows the most about a thing in an average-sized room. So, then I ask you, what are you an expert in? Loads I should imagine!

Anyway, I digress. This is not about finding your expertise (although if you fancy it, stop and think!). What I want to show here is that every speaker that resonated with me is just somebody who wanted to improve their lives in some way, had a goal, started to do some work on themselves and made it happen, by just putting one foot in front of the other. Each one of these people is just a normal person who decided they wanted more. They came up against limiting beliefs, lots of "no's," lots of closed doors, but they never took a dead end as the final answer and the reason to give up. There is always a side street, there is always a side door you can go through, and these people chose to keep on going. That opportunity is available to us all. So many, the vast majority of successful people—and success can be on any terms you wish it to be—have failed so many times. But the difference between them and people who haven’t succeeded is that they got back up and just kept on trying, kept on going.

Success for me is living a life doing something, doing lots of things, that make me feel truly happy. All the people that stood on those stages will still have areas of their lives that they’re still very much working on, me too, very much so, but they (and I) will keep on working on them. That’s the difference: you choose to accept where you are and sit there, or you can choose to make life happen and get bigger and better. It really is just a matter of the choices we make, the people we surround ourselves with, the environment we create for ourselves. You get to choose. Will you stay where you are, or will you keep on chasing those bigger dreams?

After Davina was on stage, Jen Gottlieb took over. It was a brilliant, brilliant presentation. She is the queen of being seen. She is massively visible. What she documented on stage, and she did this via video, was her first-ever Facebook Live. She was so awkward, it’s unbelievable. You wouldn’t believe, seeing the person she is today, that that awkward person would become her. And she became that because she just kept doing it. It was quite beautiful to see her emerge. You saw this nervous girl, so conscious of what everybody might think. Then she becomes a girl who starts singing and dancing, and then you see her getting onto some of the biggest stages out there. She made that happen by continually showing up, continually proving to herself she could do it. And that is how we progress in life. We don’t wait for the right time. We don’t wait to be perfect. We don’t wait to be confident. All those things happen just by putting one foot in front of the other, showing up, doing things however imperfectly, honing what you do, owning what you do, growing in confidence, and with that confidence, your life grows and grows. You become unstoppable.

We’ve all had it, haven’t we? Where we get really fired up about something, really, really excited. We listen to something that lights us up inside, and we feel motivated. We start to move towards it. We’re like, "Yes, this is it. I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna change my life or I’m gonna become brilliant at this thing, or this is gonna happen," and we mean every bit of it. And then we close the notebook, put it on the shelf, and forget about it. What we’re actually doing is putting that possibility on a shelf, closing the cover on it, and forgetting all about it. And that’s a choice you make.

This is what I’m trying to say. You’ve got to keep that momentum up. If that fire is there, if that passion, that drive, that desire is available to you now, it’s up to you to keep that fire alive. Keep seeking new ways to learn about the things you’re passionate about. Seek new people who are passionate about similar things and spend time with them. Look on Eventbrite for events that are connected to your interests and go get in rooms with people who share the same passions. I cannot tell you how much this changes your life. They are your people. They are you. You don’t have to forget about anybody you’ve ever loved, good God no, you can still be friends with them, of course you can! But you do need to spend time with people who know the ‘you’ now, who are where you want to be, to keep driving that ‘you’ further forward, seeing and believing what’s available, propelling you towards those dreams of yours!

You can make this happen. I believe in you.

Have a wonderful week.

All the love.