More Than One Voice

For me in the grand scheme of things I'm privileged. Yes I've had to deal with racism and sexism in school, at work. 

I've navigated peoples biases unconscious and otherwise. 

I've lived in countries where men assumed I was a prostitute because I'm black, even though I wasn't wearing clothes that you could even mistake as provocative or slutty. 

I mean I've seen prostitutes, they dress in a way and their behaviour  shows that they're available, and I wasn't ever showing or wearing any of those signs.

I've had pleasant professional conversations on the phone in English, Spanish and Portuguese. When I showed up at the reception desk, the shock and sometimes disdain was obvious because I didn't look or sound like the Evette Franklin they pictured when we spoke on the phone.

So yeah that's part of my truth. The other part is I've always had great job and business opportunities. Opportunities for education, for leadership roles. I've lived in cites that people dream of visiting. Traveled to parts of the world on peoples bucket lists. I have had and still have influential and empowering teachers and mentors.

So yes I say I'm privileged and perception is truth, isn't it.

That's my perspective. I know in many countries especially in the developing countries girls that look like me are not valued. It's considered a waste to educate them. They are the property of their fathers and their lives belong to their families.

SIDE NOTE: 

I hate those labels "3rd World and Developing countries"

I think they were created to make us feel less than and for me, nothing or no one is "less than" on our beautiful planet. These labels are a society/human construct of separation. 

Where am I going with all this? I'm privileged  to be a board member in an all female board of a NGO called Global Girl Project.

We run leadership and social change programes for girls like the ones I described above.

Before COVID19 this was delivered through and exchange programe to Nepal.  Can you imagine the mind expanding experience of travel for girls like these?

            

Before the pandemic we launched a very successful blended learning programe, which is online and delivered in Haiti and Nigeria.  We work with incredible partners and facilitators with the same mission to empower these girls to unlock the dreams and greatness they have inside of them.

Over the last few months the girls have put pen to paper and we have a beautiful collection of their stories.  Girls from 7 countries sharing their voices with the world. The book is Titled More Than One Voice

All we need is to get that book published and we're fundraising to do so.

For more info and to DONATE click HERE

This week I had the pleasure of interviewing the founding director of Global Girl Project Julia Lynch, on my Facebook live called Success Clues.

  

Check out the full interview. Click HERE to watch Success Clues with Julia Lynch

It was so much fun for me to spend time listening to Julia share her journey and vision for Global Girl Project.

Until the next post/time Happy Growth Games.



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When ALL AROUND ME is Madness.....

All around me is madness.....
The World definitely feels that way in the last 3 months.  It feels like we are in one of those weird independent movies that wins festival awards and I watch it and think WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ABOUT!!

I feel like we'll all look back at this crisis, pandemic, whatever you choose to call it and ask WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT! 
Let's not get started on the different theories about what is actually going on in the world and that we are but extras in the crazy movie.

NOPE not even going to touch that at ALL.
What I will share is my experience of the last 3 months, when it felt and still feels like the World was going Bat Shit Crazy. Yes that is my official labeling of this situation.

Like billions of people all around the globe this incredible storm came out of nowhere and it just raged. It had these crazy winds that destroyed countries, peoples livelihoods. It had massive waves that drowned whole communities, wrecked families. And no, we were definitely not all in the same boat.  It drove me crazy when people would say "Well we're all in the same boat" aahhh NO NOPE NO.

SIDE NOTE
About these boats we're all in, some of us are in luxury yachts, some in sail boats, some boats had holes and some of us don't even have boats, we had makeshift rafts, made of anything we could find.
So no, no way, were or are we all in the same boat.

So what did I experience? It's been a roller coaster really and not a fun one. Besides the fact that roller coasters do not equal fun in my view of the world anyway.

Suddenly school, business/work, entertainment, ALL FREAKIN LIFE happened in our home.  My home went from, a place I love to work from, to return to when I travel and our sanctuary to becoming THE CAVE.  I was trapped in THE CAVE with my 12yr old cub and his auntie.
To be fair we turned out be the most amazing company for each other as we adapted to this new lock-down life

My initial reaction was kinda silly because I work from home anyway but that shows the 1st trick my mind played on me. I'm still working from home but because now it was mandatory it became a problem, something I resisted. 

Then came what I dubbed "Zoomlife" not only was EVERYTHING happening at home EVERYTHING happened online.  For the 1st 2 or 3 weeks I was online all day everyday and I felt like I was sucked into screen life 24/7.

What a blessing that I am surrounded be growth folk. Yeah I guess I'm just making up my own words lately. I'm being creative right?
So, who are these "growth folk"?  They are my peer group, my peeps, my ride or dies, my soul familia. They don't follow any status quo, they ask powerful questions, they live life with and on purpose and we keep each other up, empowered, stretching, laughing.

We arranged calls where we worked on building our businesses, fitness classes, sharing our skills and knowledge, book clubs, cash flow games, calls to stay connected with each other regardless of where we live in the world not even limited by time zones. They feed my very soul. 

We shared content we had learned that ended up helping us navigate the Bat Shit Crazy and kept our compelling visions of our future at the forefront of our minds.
We reminded each other to live in gratitude, find the blessings, find something, anything that you could feel good about and on the days when you just thought, "please can I just get off this ride, sit in the corner of my room and drink a rather large glass of red wine", someone was there to lift me up again.

I'm telling you without this circle of people, without mi gente, I would have had a very different experience of this crazy storm.
I say all that to say this....
Please protect yourself, select who's around you. Take stock of who you are and who's you are.
The people around you either make life better, give you more good energy or they make life worse and drain you with their toxic ways and words.
Which just makes an already bad situation so much worse.

Who are you? and Who's are you?


Until the next post/time Happy Growth Games.



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DON'T make me wrong so you can be right

HELLOOOOOOOO WORLD!!

It's been a while.
SOOO 2020???
That's a whole other conversation.
Well, several conversations actually.

Right now I have something to say about our need as people to be "right" and make others "wrong"

I'm a fairly opinionated person. I'm Jamaican and culturally I'm used to people telling me their opinions. Whether I asked for it or not, whether I care to hear it or not, even if I like it our not, they're gonna tell me.

That's the programe I was taught. 
As I got older I figured something out, I'm completely open to being wrong by the way, I think one of the problems we have as people is our habit of making other people wrong so that we can be right.

Let me explain further. Let's say I have a perception, belief, experience and I'm 100% positive that that's my truth. I then talk to my friend Carol who has an different or opposite, perception, belief, experience to mine. I say to her she's wrong.  I don't say she's wrong because I logically disagree with her. I say she's wrong because we cant both be right, can we???

For me it's not about right our wrong. I feel like I'm in a space were even if I don't agree, understand or even respect your perspective. I can at least honor that it's yours. It's your truth, it differs to mine and just leave that right there. We can even agree to disagree if you're a responsible person.

In my heart I believe that from that place, that filter, we would save ourselves a lot of hurt, pain, arguments, not just as individuals but as the human race.
That's just me. I have no problem if someone else has a different opinion.

SIDE NOTE:
When someone makes me wrong or just refuses to acknowledge my perspective, I'm done listening to them FULL STOP!!

I did a live on my Facebook page where I go into this point a little more
Feel free to take a look Don't make me wrong so you can be right Facebook Live

Until the next post/time Happy Growth Games.



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YES I Just Make This S**T UP As I Go....

As a child when I asked my wonderful Mother for guidance about what to do, what course to choose, what to study as a degree, what Uni to go to, her answer always ended with something like "follow your heart hon" OH MY LORD!, that used to drive me nuts.
Other kids complained that their parents told them, what to study, what to be when they grow up, I was dying (or thought I was) for some straightforward "do this" "don't do that".

As I got older and even more so now that I'm a mother I get what she was doing or better still preparing me for.

The older I get I also realise what an incredible woman my mother is. No, I didn't always appreciate her ways or point of view but now I soooooo do.

You see, I think it's divine because she prepared me for MY life. Not A life, or life in general as a concept. Nope, My Mummy fixed me up for My life. Let me explain.

I'm gonna give you the short version and if I ever write a memoir you'll get the full story.
So short version.

SIDE NOTE:
I would write a memoir not an autobiography because memoir is just a nice word to say don't you think? ;o)

I grew up with my grandparents in Kingston Jamaica 'till age 10.
At 10 I came to London to live with my mummy. I studied English Literature and Art A levels and my Degree is in Fine Art and Art History. Uneventful really except my family are ALL professionals, Doctors, Engineers, Accountants, Pollitricks (not a typo). The only room for painters was my grandfather the Carpenter and my other grandfather the Architect.

So my point is I went my own way, always and in everyway.
And after studying my career has been the same. No need to bio that but it's my own road.
I dug it up, trudged along, explored, made mistakes, had a blast and kept on moving.

This blog came to me because I had brunch today with a lovely friend who I haven't seen for ages and we had a wonderful catch up. We came to the conclusion that the lives we created, as women of colour both from the Caribbean, in our Fabulous Forties and as mothers was not "normal" but it is completely just right for us. We made decisions for ourselves and our children because they felt like the right things to do and we're guided by some pretty strong principles.
Principles like

• Do the right thing and you'll know what that is
•  If they don't pay your bills you don't have to buy to their opinions
• Have manners  
• If you know better do better.

Those were the main ones that got us this far and we both agreed we're still learning and growing.

I've also come to the conclusion that just 'cause nobody's life looks like yours doesn't mean there's something wrong with your life.
Furthermore, you can learn and model different things from different people.  You just have to trust what to take for yourself because it works for you/serves you and what to leave well where it is because it doesn't work for you/serve you.
That's how my wonderful mummy prepared me for MY LIFE!!!
Partly anyway, she did so much more and continues to be the most amazing model of Motherhood and Womanhood I could ever have.

Until next post/time happy Growth Games.

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'Cause Life Is Better That Way

What are you so happy about?
You always have a smile for me!
How come you're always so happy?
These are some of the random comments I get literally on a daily basis from people I know, am acquainted with, work with and strangers too.
My standard answer is "cause life's better that way" which normally makes them smile or look very confused. Either way I've never stopped to discuss it further.

I've been thinking about it though not because I'm always happy. I'm not, no one is. I just choose to feel good and do genuinely feel joyful most of the time. So most of the time when you interact with me you'll get a smile.

I was thinking about the opposite, about people who feel bad, wronged, worried, victimised and they feel that way most of the time.

I know many books, audios and talks are written about the law of attraction and how what we focus on expands and where attention goes energy flows and so on and so on. We've heard that all before right?

If we've heard it what stops us from believing it?  What stops us from seeing it happen in our lives.
I've been watching someone very closely, no not stalkerish, we work together very often.  He values hard work, he sacrifices his health, his time, his relationships to run a successful business empire and I completely understand and appreciate that.

But here's the element he adds, that for me, makes life, much harder for him.
He believes that people are always trying to screw him, he has serious trust issues.
Not only does he believe that things are always hard, no one is on his side and it's him against the world. Because he's a fighter, he loves the battles, business and personal. The kicker is there's literally always a battle. It's exhausting to watch sometimes.
I can forget trying to turn a mirror on it and say (with love and respect) "look you are responsible for creating a lot of these, struggles, battles and fights".
It all falls on deaf ears and of course it's always someone else's fault, conveniently someone else is always to blame.

I remember a phrase I heard a while back and it stuck
"Fortunately or unfortunately we take ourselves with us everywhere we go,"

SIDE NOTE:
For you is that fortunately .......... is here, or is it Unfortunately ............ is here? (Insert your name in the space) Which is true about you? hhhmmmmmmmm

If we're not willing to take a look at what we bring to a conversation, situation, circumstances.. good, bad or otherwise, we can like my friend, get stuck in a pattern that just makes life hard, painful and of course have very little to smile or be happy about.

So what if its really true that what we focus on expands and if we focus on feeling good and on things that make us happy, we would experience an expansion of things that make us happy, wouldn't we?

Wouldn't it be worth a try, especially if you're stuck in a place where things are just funky all the time?
Like I said, I'm not happy all the time and I hate how people assume happy people are flaky.
That to me is just ridiculous. If you ask me, it takes courage and strength of character to choose to live in Joy and happiness, because life happens to or for us all.

So at this point you're thinking bladebladebla Evette.. Whatever!!!!
How about I explain how this works for me.

TRUE STORY: Today I went to a cafe to finish writing this blog post.
I paid for my coffee and I thought that I gave the cashier a £10 note. She was pretty sure that I gave her £5.
Long story short I wasn't that sure so I said, "It's all good", smiled, took my change and sat down to write.
I'm not some happy mystic, so I started to get irritated and felt like she ripped me off.
That voice went on in my head for a little bit and then it irritated me so now I'm irritated at the girl and at myself.
What did I do? I tried to tell myself to let it go, that in the grand scheme of things this really is a small thing. That didn't really work.
The thing I did that really worked was to call my Besty and find out how she's doing.
I basically distracted myself because otherwise I would have just gone around and around with this pointless irritation all by myself. Not only was I distracting myself, I was focused on something else.


SIDE NOTE:
I did not call to bitch and rant about to the situation I called to move my mind away from it. That's just one way of distracting yourself.

The most important part is to catch your mind heading down the swirling toilet flush of shit.  Check yourself before you end up going down there with it and sitting in the smelly mess, feeling shitty, not even understanding how you got there and worse still staying there for the rest of the day.

Catch yourself, awareness is your greatest ally.
Then get creative on distracting your mind from it, find the funny side, the lighter side and don't sweat the small stuff! We've all heard that one haven't we?
Cause in the end it's all "Small Stuff"

So chose Happiness
I'm telling ya Life is just better that way.
I dare ya!! Try it and see what happens.


Until next post/time happy Growth Games.

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Say What You Need To Say

All these means of communication. Oh My Days!!! Text, email, video chat, voice messages, recorded this and that....  You'd think we'd evolve into better communicators did we F**K.
We just have more ways to talk about fluff and avoid, divert, ignore, skim over anything important, anything difficult.
I've had too many conversations where I'm listening to what the person is saying but there's a part of me whispering "so why are you telling me and not them"? The person you have a issue with).
Really, I have so little patience for it.
Side Note: Have you noticed that if someone has an opinion on a Facebook post and people don't agree everyone is happy to chime in? In fact some people get quite passionate about discussions on social media.

Why not get as passionate about discussions that are on your doorstep in your home on your team.
We seem happy to talk about everything and anything except the things we really need to talk about. That critical conversation with your partner cause your not happy with how things are.
The talk with your colleague cause you really feel their actions disrespect you.
I'm not saying it's easy but it's gotta be easier than walking around with hurt feelings and more.
That energy will take you down will manifest as dis-ease disease in your body.
Nobody wants that.

Talk to who you really need to talk to. Say what you need to say!! You can still say it with love and respect, right? Imagine a home, a workplace a world where people said what needs to be said with love and respect?

I learnt an incredibly valuable lesson from my incredible mentor Sarah Thompson.
They come in 3 principles;
1. Challenges and problems are part of life Suffering is a choice
2. Life is too short to choice to suffer for too long
3. Take 100% responsibility for your experience
Everything is choice! EVERYTHING!!!
Just Saying!!!!!

I found this powerful video by Jay Shetty, a Huffington Post featured Vlogger, motivational philosopher, keynote speaker and urban monk. Check it out! https://youtu.be/powQ9tLbxos 
SIDE NOTE: the link from the video has been removed but the written link above works.

Until next post/time Keep learning and growing.

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Look UP!!!

So the technology brings us closer together, especially if we're half way across the world and further apart if you're right next to me.
I'm sitting next to a couple who seem like they're on their way home together. They're sitting next to me and they're both on Facebook. To be fair I only noticed them cause I have no signal or Wifi otherwise I would also be doing something on my phone.
As it is I'm writing a draft of this Blog Post, thanks to them.
They do come up from the screens for kisses as we wait for the train, that's sweet.
Truth is we're so into our modern technology. Look up from your smart phone and look around. What do you see? Right!! Most people tapping away, swiping away. I'm not criticising at all, cause as I said the only reason I'm even writing this Blog Post is because I have no signal so I'm looking up from my phone. What a concept ;-)


I gotta be real and say I love my smart phone. I practically run my businesses from it. I pay my bills, I keep up with family and friends that live time zones away.  It even let's me spend less time working at my laptop at home and gifts me more family time with my Cub aka 8yr old son. Here's the flip side.
Side Note: There's always a Flip Side

We hardly interact in public. Look up from your phone again! What do you see? Other people on their phones right?! I don't know about you but I love those spontaneous conversations with a stranger. They can turn out to be the most interesting conversations. Sometimes I meet the most wonderful person I've met all day, only if I look up. What's my point?
My point is in this world of isolation, misunderstanding, conflicts of so many kinds, it's more important than ever that we connect more with each other and no, not on social media, in person, face to face. Spend some time together and when we're together, please don't show me your clever Facebook posts. And how about we try and have a moment that we don't take a selfie of?

So it's not about throwing away your phone. 

It's just about being mindful. Be present, just be aware of how much of your life you give to social media, to your smart phone and just engage again.

I think this video with Prince Ea pretty much sums it up for me.
Prince Ea is a powerful motivational spoken word artist from America
Can We Auto-Correct Humanity? https://youtu.be/dRl8EIhrQjQ

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