Over the years, I had always considered myself (in many ways) like my mother. Heck, I looked like her. I walked like mom. At times, I even sounded just like my mom when I attempted to sing. Don’t tell her but she could never carry a note nor could I. In many ways, I thought that I should shoulder the very responsibilities that she carried. I often heard her say that “women were expected to carry the weight of the world” while men made children and paid the bills. As I grew older I understood what she believed to be truth. My dad would take the back seat to raising his daughter because he believed that only she could impart what it meant to be a woman in “this man’s world,” as he would say. There began my journey to finding me.
Ladies, in retrospect, many of us are taught to follow the rules, to follow those tight constraints, that made life more difficult than it had to be. In generations before mine, some women believed that if they followed those rules of engagement, they would find happiness and some sort of success. Looking back to many conversations that I had with my mother and grandmother once in a while one of them would say “I could have been…” or “I should have done…” I wondered if they had those opportunities, what their lives would have looked like. I, too, struggled to follow those societal rules only to find that there were delicious little donuts that intrigued me enough to take me off of the road to happiness and success. You know, I partied in college. I had children. Dropped out of college, dated the jocks and music industry entertainers and the list went on. My parents were devastated because I had not followed the rules. I, also, had the greatest opportunities in my career development learning the ropes from all of those people who crossed my path. I learned to strategically plan long and short term goals, to negotiate contracts, and to generate income at the drop of a hat. I was never afraid to experiment with challenging roles in the corporate world. I recognized that I had an eye for identifying talented people and I excelled at mentoring and coaching them to their successes. Over the years, I used those talents, along with the positive and harsh lessons to start businesses, lead changes in large organizations, lead people through change and build relationship.
Today, my mother often tells her friends and family that I could shake up soda and she’d expect the explosion to be golden nuggets. I am more than my mother’s daughter. I am in my own right a force to be reckoned with. I marked my own pathway to my successes and my happiness comes from within. I know that the rules were my “green tea” and my freedom walk away from those rules were my “donuts.” I learned that I could have both nodding to the not so distant past and blazing a trail to redesign, rediscover and re-ignite my passion and purpose as often as necessary.
Love and Light, Coach Cai
Coach Cai 