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queen of reinvention - Yvette R. Simpson
7
I tell people, we don't need to be Beyonce. We got one. So why am I trying to be her? If I try to be Beyonce, the world's gonna be missing Yvette. If Amy tries to be Yvette, we're gonna be missing Amy.
Even your flaws are gifts. I'm not a very patient person. My impatience has changed the world. My unwillingness to wait has caused me to push things faster and farther than they need to be. Now, there are times when you need a patient person, and you should go find her, but I need to put myself in places where impatient people are needed.
I think about the civil rights movement. If everybody was like, “Well, the world will change. We'll just wait and see what happens.” Nothing would have ever happened! It was the impatient people who pushed the world to change.
We need to see those things about us that are unique and distinct as a gift and as purposeful. Then we can't get tricked into believing that we're not the right one or the perfect one for the role that we're pursuing.
Where do you think people get purpose wrong or misunderstand what it is?
One, people see purpose as an external thing, rather than something that's inside of you and two, thinking that it's a time bound thing.
Generationally, we were taught that you pick a career and our purpose is our profession. Purpose and profession are two totally different things.
Purpose and passion are also different, right? Your purpose could be your passion, but not necessarily. So those three P's could be very different things.
Your purpose, your passion, and your profession could all be the same, but for a lot of us, it's not that. We have to understand and distinguish between those things.
Also, when you're operating in your purpose there is no drug that will make you feel better than that. That's what we should be chasing. Not the money, not the security, not the accolades, not the ego, not the fame, but this thing that gets you up every morning and makes you feel like,
“Oh my God, I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be!”
But we fight it. We think “but I need to make more money, but I've been working so hard at this I can't let it go. I'm on the track. I have to keep going. What will my neighbors say? What will my husband or partner say?” We keep talking ourselves out of it.
When you start to give that thing over, eventually it'll start to pull you. There's so much fear about going there and leaving the thing behind. It's the staying there that's keeping you from getting to the thing that you really need to do. You got to take the leap.
What is the one thing that you wish women knew?
How powerful we are, how strong we are and how beautiful we are. Purpose without power is anemic. You got all this purpose, but you're doing nothing with it. Power without purpose is destructive. We've seen people with a lot of power and no purpose and they destroy things.
So the magic is when you take your purpose, and you align it with your power. Now you're making an impact. So I need to remind women of the power part. We might get the purpose part, but you have the power and you need to use it.