You're Someone's Reason WHY

I wanted to write something different to cap off this week.

So here’s some difficult-for-me to admit vulnerability:

I feel like a fraud. An imposter.

I fear being too preachy and all-knowing.

I fear not being relevant or capable anymore.

I fear everyone is looking at me, judging me, criticizing me.

I fear people are looking at me and discounting me without ever truly knowing me.

It surprises even me that I can feel all these ways after more than 17 years challenging myself in my career.

I’ve worked at a tech firm, small agency, software start-up, multi-national corporate, global agency hold co, consulting start-up.

I’ve worked with nonprofits, charities, blue chip brands, purpose-led brands, client-side, and in internal roles.

I’ve hosted a podcast, written a novel, travelled to a couple dozen places, danced until sun up, and made the best friends in the world.

I’ve taken time away from work to prioritize my health, have major surgery, recover, rebuild, and fight endo every damn day.

And as boundless as my resilience is because fuck I have done all those things and I am immensely proud of me — I am also, some days, incredibly doubtful of what comes next.

One of my guiding principles that’s helped me through some of my darkest times has been:

There is beauty in the struggle.

Even when all feels lost, when the heart feels hollow, the body betrays you, and the mind plays nasty tricks, there is beauty.

Not always the kind of beauty you can see.

Sometimes it means you don’t recognize the person looking back at you in the mirror.

It’s the kind of beauty that metamorphoses in the moment, one you can perceive and feel but hardly describe.

I am not some martyr.

Someone tasked with a hard life, sure.

But not without privilege. And not without support.

I think of me as a kid often: small, bespectacled, once boistrous turned shy from bullying, brown, unsure, scared, smart, talented, full of possibilities and pain.

Oh but she grew up to be the woman who did all those amazing things above (and then some!).

It’s often impossible to know what you might mean to someone.

I have the rare luck of knowing that I have been someone’s ‘why’. Many people’s why actually.

Maybe I was the push, the motivational talk, the unrelenting support, the advocate, the sponsor, the bright light, the sass, or even a reflection. I was someone.

And maybe I can be someone else’s why again.

I imagine I should start with being my own.

How about you?

💚

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Hi 👋🏽 I’m Simren, author of The Art of Healthful Leadership, teaching you how to lead and live health-first.

I’m a Corporate Executive with 17+ years in marketing, strategy, and commercialization leading global teams, a Woman of Colour (aka strong, proud Indian woman) who knows what it’s like to be the “only one” in the room and is always working at uniting the multiple coded versions of herself, and a Health-First Leader (and ‘Lifer’) who lives with Stage 4 Endometriosis.

Thank you for reading 💚

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