Put in the work to live your dreams.

At the beginning of May, I attended the HUE Tech Summit in Philadelphia, PA. I went with a group of women for Pittsburgh, and the night before the summit we got to tour Philadephia-CIC – an ecosystem to offers innovators access to Biolabs and working space. While at the summit I attended sessions on security, user design, and AWS. We were all eager to hear the closing keynote speaker, Arlan Hamilton, Founder of Backstage Capital.

In May, we also start really digging into our personal values and company as an Entrepreneur in Residence at CreateLab. I needed to know could live the values I wanted to commit to paper so they were not just words. These Nike commercials and my discovery of Lizzo carried me through the month of May.

Born to do it.

When you start putting in the work to love yourself, it rests how you prioritize your time. You become more disciplined about managing where, how and with whom you spend your time. Suddenly, you become keenly aware of what does NOT optimize your time to cultivate your dreams, talents, and skills.

“Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with worry and fear and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream. Water them with optimism and solutions and you will cultivate success. Always be on the lookout for ways to turn a problem into an opportunity for success. Always be on the lookout for ways to nurture your dream.” 

― Lao Tzu

Water your dreams!

Start by laying out the steps. Get a filter for the toxic water seeping inside to focus on finding your allies and architecting solutions. Then execute (or dance) like nobody’s watching, even when your act(s) go viral. Stay focused and have fun.

“All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.” 

– Calvin Coolidge

You got to put in the work. On the road trip home, I discovered the music artist Lizzo and became an instant STAN (“insta-STAN”). Then I started digging into her discography and was hooked when I found old tracks like “Good As Hell.” She has been putting in the work. She didn’t just appear out of nowhere on Jimmy Kimmel.