Keep pushing.
Be badass.
The other choice?
There is no other choice.
None of us have it easy. Just remember…anything is possible my friends. You just have to be willing to bleed out of your eyeballs.
#GetUp #StandUp #TodayIsTheDay
Entertainment all around us:
It’s a good thing they put the labels on these two so we’d know.
#SundayAdventures #CLT #CaptainObvious
This Jerry McGuire scene is one of my absolute favorites, and pops in my head weekly when the same conversation with everyone in my personal and professional life, seems to play on repeat mode:
“Do other people think about this stuff?”
(Forget the sports specific theme here, and roll with this for me.) And scene:
Many of us live in pain, locked in and loaded with fear of being judged at every turn, we suppress huge parts of who we are or what we want because we think we’re going to disappoint someone else. We’re convinced the wheels will fly straight off the bus of life going 100 miles per hour if we speak up about what we really think is right. We’re adults. We’re supposed to stay in our lane, act like it, and not ruffle any feathers.
What a bunch of crap that is! I’m thinking we should all be a little more like Jerry.
“I had lost the ability to bullshit.”
“It was the me that I’d always wanted to be.”
“I was 35. I had started my life.
We should bullshit a lot less, be who we want to be, and start life now if we haven’t already, at 35, 45, or 85 because we can and It’s never too late. We should shout from the rooftops about what we’re passionate about, stand up for what we believe in and speak up about what matters. When a “who’s with me!” fails (because it sometimes will) and when it seems like everyone around us thinks we’ve lost our minds (which they sometimes will), we will at least sleep good at night knowing we left it all out there on the dance floor.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never met a beer bellied old man at the end of his life on any porch I’ve ever sat on, who’s told me he wished he’d never spoken up.
Today is the day. Show yourself “the money,” baby!
#ThinkItSayItDoIt #LessFearMoreActionHappyLife #ThanksJerry
Today is March 9, 2016 and that means it is exactly 4 months until the 5th Annual BLR Play It Forward Event in Vermont.
In 2011 when we (a couple of my amazing alumni soccer soul sisters from back in the day) came up with the idea for an alumni soccer game which then turned into a full-scale community event and scholarship fund, I spent months in my Old Town Chicago apartment, floor 23 overlooking The Second City entrance, in my pajamas trying to figure out how to make it all happen. I remember some days I’d go to the gym for an 8 or 9am class, come back home all sweaty and yucky, wrap myself in a towel intending on getting in the shower, and start working only to find it to be 8 or 9pm and myself sitting there, 12 hours later stinky, starving, and still working. It’s kind of amazing how time flies when you’re in your zone working on something you’re so incredibly passionate about. I’d eventually shower, and often times take the elevator downstairs to Chipolte (which was in the same building as The Second City across the street), get a veggie burrito, sometimes a beer and by 10pm be eating my one meal of the day on my couch in quiet. Rinse and repeat this is how those few spring months of 2012 went before our first big event happened on August 18, 2012.
Check this out! I just found a photo of my little desk area in that great high rise apartment I had:
Small work space that cranked out some dreams. I can’t even remember what I used for a chair! Not fancy. It didn’t matter. Boy those are good memories. This scene is where Play It Forward was born. To this day, my best work and what I am most proud of.
I’ve got buckets of photos from 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 – but I will share just one from each year for space sake for today.
2012, balloon release in honor of our friends to kick off the inaugural event:
All hands in before game, 2013:
The Blue Lollipop Road Memorial Scholarship award, 2014:
Me and “Mr. B” last summer, 2015 – one of our most loyal fans and supporters, cheering us on each year in his same white t-shirt:
(That sweet guy was my 6th grade teacher!)
There’s no way I could share here, all the photos and words I have that would illustrate properly the amazing impact we make. This day is so special you have to be there to believe it. (I hope whoever you are reading this, you will join us this summer in some kind of capacity!)
On July 9, 2016 we will once again come together to reconnect, reminisce, play soccer, cry together, laugh together, and give back. I already know it will as usual, be my favorite day of the year. A bittersweet day in this “brutiful” life, where nothing else matters other than coming together to remember, celebrate, and live.
What do you do, to make sure you never forget where you came from?
#RememberCelebrateLive #PlayForwardGiveBack #StrongMojo