16 minute read
Embracing your
One-on-One with...
Meredith Allan
Tell us about your family? My mother and father have literally been my best friends on earth. They have been the first I call for good news and bad. They had insane work ethic, and while I grew up a day care baby I never thought anything of it. In fact, later in life, when I learned my friends’ moms stayed at home I was totally confused about what they did all day. My younger sister, Brandie, and her husband, John, own an international executive protection company. Their recent wedding was the most special occasion in our family’s history. The best part was having family fly in from all over the world and seeing my father Allan’s joy as he walked my sister down the aisle. I am also thrilled now to have a brother because it was an unfulfilled wish of mine, for many years. The most difficult thing our small family has endured is my father’s passing. Just a few months after the wedding, my dad fell ill with pancreatic cancer. It was fast and heart-wrenching to see my strong dad die so quickly. Losing him has shifted my entire perspective of life. I do whatever it takes to manage the grief. Sometimes I take his shoes with me to the beach and smile and know he is still alive in my heart and I take his love with me everywhere I go. I dedicate all my work to my both my parents. I also use my dad’s name Allan as my last name to keep him with me always (and keep the crazies from finding me when on TV). In Judaism we say “May his memory be a blessing” and I like to add that my father’s legacy will always be my light.
How do you prioritize your health, family, and career? Without your health there is no wealth. It is a constant struggle and I rely on my support system to help hold me accountable for healthy eating and habits. My parents really taught my sisters and I “next level love” so this year I am on a mission to be as loving as possible. I am searching for “the one” to grow old with and am accepting all referrals and recommendations. I am excited to slow down and build a family, and cherish my time with Meredith at The World’s Greatest Motivators TV Show
family and friends. My best friend Rocio reminds me that career success is not the top priority, having a family to share everything with is what matters and I am recovering from years of being a workaholic.
I also believe perfection and balance isn’t the goal but working toward inner peace and living a meaningful impactful life can create happiness. I am the designer of my life, and I get to switch gears when things get off track but I never ever lose sight of my mission “Being Light”
What motivates you every day? I have such a highly motivated personality and I think it was the unbelievable love my parents have consistently shown me that keeps me going. Like many families, we had a lot of difficult times and watching my mom and dad recover over and over again was amazing. My mom and dad literally told me I could be president of the world if I wanted to. And I wound up being president of my class and a large organization in my 30s, and now the CEO of my company Drive Marketing LLC.
My little sister was an undercover narcotics detective in the NYPD before launching her international company and my oldest sister, Marlo, lives in Africa with her husband, Aron, and my nephew, Max, working as the head social worker at an international school. I also have a “little sister” who I adopted for life through The Big Brother and Big Sisters of America Program during college.
Her name is Julia, and I consider her my forever sister 25 years later. I am so proud of her because is an immigration attorney and proud mother living in New York City.
How do you tap into the power of you that makes you unique? I can be super nerdy and silly and I have learned to embrace it. I love reading books, and watching TED Talks, and interviewing my guests and helping them figure out their unique messaging and share their powerful unique stories. My superpower is apparently lighting up a room, broadcast, or someone’s life.
And how has that pushed you forward? I recognize that the world needs my gifts more than ever. No one ever wakes up and says I think I will focus on being mediocre, and unmotivated. People never say something is too inspirational. Lifting others is a privilege and has proven to be the most rewarding work of my life time and time again.
Who inspires you? My 3 friends currently battling breast cancer and my mom who is living on her own for the first time in 47 years. At 69, she even works full time too! In fact everyone who steps up and decides to start living their dream inspires me.
What’s the best thing a consumer/client ever said to you? “Thank you for taking a stand for me and your love.” I often receive kind words about how inspiring my speeches are too. I recently had 2 viewers contact me because I was not live like usual with my ”Mornings with Meredith” inspirational broadcast at 7:45 am sharp and they were worried about me. It really touches me that they are so loyal and especially when they hit the share button on the video and post online about how inspired they are by my words.
What are your strongest traits as a leader? Over the years this has changed. I do alot of personal and professional development work, and I now see it is not good enough to speak about leadership as I am often paid to do. It is more important to live the distinctions of leadership. I value being authentic, in integrity, my commitment to excellence, my faith, kindness, generosity, endurance, and courage. I hold a vision where I am able to inspire and motivate others to understand how you serve the world can change the world for the better. I just happen to serve through speaking, broadcasting, and mentoring.
What traits of other leaders inspire you? The most magical inspiring traits of great leaders are radical honesty, willingness to press through adversity even when it is not clear how, and willingness to stand for what they believe in. I am so inspired by the story of Ghandi, because he held a vision for a free unified India and never ever gave up. He never ever supported violence, and never accepted the excuses for acts of prejudice or injustice. If more people would take a stand for what they believe in and for others this world would be a totally transformed place. As a Jewish woman I have experienced hatred, and prejudice over the years and am always shocked that communities and individuals tolerate that behavior. Kindness and generosity are what great leaders practice.
How are you mentoring/sponsoring others? I am completely devoted to mentoring high school students on overcoming adversity, and I lead ongoing masterclasses online teaching leadership. Recently I have become focused on giving talks on how you can overcome anything to foster kids. My dream is to grow the program to reach foster kids across the United States.
What was the best advice you ever received? Life is now. Also in the wise words of my mother, “You need to be in it to win it.” Which motivates me to take committed action. I have found that the magic doesn’t happen when you are sitting on the sidelines. I’m all in!
What does “Lead Up” mean to you? It means we are all here to lift each other up. I pride myself in leading with generosity. This has changed over the years for me. It does not mean to over extend yourself, but give as often as you can, as long as you can. I used to shrink back when receiving compliments, later in life I began to acknowledge my greatest gift is to lead. When receiving kind words, I now say, ”thank you I know.” Too often we play down our greatness, our accomplishments, and to me it shows a lack of confidence in your purpose. While I feel strongly that your ego is not your amigo, I do acknowledge myself for being a loving, courageous, powerful leader. I no longer shy away from difficult conversations, and I am first in line to take a stand for someone who is struggling and see them and hold them to their highest. Leadership and “leading up” is about who you get to be. Being kind, being generous, and committed to being in excellence and always being your word can impact millions. I am on a mission to impact millions, and the ability to lift, lead, inspire and motivate is a privilege. As long as I live, my plan is to keep learning, growing, and transforming. Being the one to light up a room, stage, or broadcast is an absolute honor. The world needs more light. Lead Up and light the world up, shine on my sisters. You were born to shine.
What are you waiting for?
By Kelly Surette
I was carrying a load of laundry when I happened to catch a glance of myself in the mirror. I could not believe what I saw. My younger daughter was just three months old and my oldest was two and a half years. The woman staring back at me had black, and I mean black bags under her eyes, from sleep deprivation, breast milk dripping down her T-shirt, and gray hairs sticking up from the roots of the dye job she had had six, no, maybe eight months earlier? Her my face had somehow altered—beaten down by the rigors of two pregnancies, childbirth, a past of trauma and pain, and from caring for two children under the age of three.
I know many of you at this point might be shunning me in the name of the “beauty of motherhood,” but listen, I promise you this look was not pretty. I am sure I could have embraced my oversized breasts and tire-like tummy while dancing in the woods celebrating my newfound motherly glamour—and if that is your thing—go for it, girl. You are a warrior. But it just was not me.
The me I wanted to be was the woman I knew I could be for myself and my daughters. So, for some reason
that day, I pressed play on an episode of “The Chalene Show”—a podcast
created by fitness superstar and business mogul Chalene Johnson. I could not tell you what the podcast was about, nor why I gravitated to it on that particular day, but one thing Chalene said (in her usual galvanizing style) stuck with me. It was, “What are you waiting for?”
What are you waiting for? Now, I had been playing relatively small by my standards in the field of adaptive music instruction. And by “field,” I mean the unusually niche “Wild, Wild West” landscape of teaching music to students with disabilities. In other words, it was not exactly a field or career path—yet.
But, I had a decade of experience building and creating unique music education curriculum specifically designed to meet the needs of this population while teaching music to every variety of disability. Those included deaf and hard of hearing learners, students with Down Syndrome, Autism, William’s syndrome, and a multitude of other cognitive, intellectual and physical disabilities.
Music is a vehicle that transforms learners with disabilities on the deepest level. This was clear to me. I had witnessed its power first hand. I watched in awe as one of my profoundly deaf students felt music for the first time through a tactile audio device that used her skin as a hearing membrane instead of the cochlea in her ear. I cried along with support staff as a student with autism verbalized for the first time ever—singing the word “gorilla.” I danced the waltz with learners using wheelchairs—their elegant 360s rivaling that of ballerina’s at the Paris opera.
I knew both the importance of music as a means to elevate learners with disabilities to their highest level of self and the way in which the majority of
school systems, institutions and administrators were off the mark in serving this population through music.
Students with disabilities are missing a critical component of a well-rounded liberal arts education. The falls between public music education programs inadvertently missing the boat by thrusting exceptional students such as these in general education music classes where they are under stimulated or overstimulated, music therapy replacing music education, and some students not receiving access to a music experience whatsoever.
Suddenly, additional words I was not ready for landed me like a ton of bricks. “Write. That. Book,” spoke the quiet, yet persistent voice of, well, something. The universe? God? My own heart?
Whatever it was, it sure was commanding. “Um, universe?” I said, “No offense, but look at me. I am a mess. I cannot even find the time to make a cup of coffee, let alone write a book. You are out of your mind. My children are so little. Aren’t they supposed to be my sole focus and predominant source of joy right now? There is just no room for any other sources of joy in my world at this time.”
“Write. That. Book. What are you waiting for?”
Ok, listen. After questioning my sanity for about 10 minutes I resolved I did not get to go to the beach that summer and Daniel Tiger was on more than I would have liked in my house.
“Having it all” was more like having dishes to do with a sick baby on my hip while dictating a sentence into the recorder on my phone while laying out my clothes for work the next day. Ugh, and the fear and guilt. The blazing, nauseating, terrifying fear and guilt that wretchedly engrossed my body and mind over not giving my children my full attention and possibly missing some monumental first step or adorable giggle burp because I was looking at my computer screen. Facing the merciless emotions of fear and guilt were the one part of the process of stepping into who I wanted to be as exceptional mother/author/leader I just could not do alone.
I was sitting on all this knowledge, passion and experience. I was literally hiding away, excusing myself from the life I was meant to live because I was a “tired mother,” a “good wife,” and the pain from my past had beaten me up so bad I figured I “could not possibly find the energy to put myself out there again.”
But something pushed me to look in the mirror a second time that morning. “What are you waiting for?” Chalene repeated, a little more fervently this time from my muddied cell phone speaker. to write a book? I guess? After several direct messages from the cosmos, you just stop arguing. Despite my initial hesitation and mental back and forth, I got to work. I was afraid, but I did it anyway. My “Friends” binge-watching sessions on Netflix during naptime were cut short, but I got to work. I mean, what was I waiting for anyway?
Hustle and drive. In between nap times, on the weekends, after the kids went to bed, at 5 a.m., I took every piece of myself I had left at the end of the day and channeled it into that book. I wrote and wrote, pouring my heart out in every sentence, every letter, every punctuation mark.
It was not without sacrifice; however, I do not want to give you that impression. Enter Dr. Lori—the life coach who saved my life by leading me to the conclusion that all of my sources of joy matter. My goals matter. My dreams matter. We dealt with that fear and guilt head on in our gratifying Friday afternoon Skype sessions—weekly reminders that I was, in fact, born to raise two women who would go after their dreams because they saw their Mommy take action on hers.
Because I asked for Dr. Lori’s help, asked my mother-in-law to babysit a few extra days, asked for extra support from my parents, and asked my husband to skip a few Patriot’s games so he could watch the girls while I worked, I finished that book.
And the weird thing? The bags under my eyes actually got a little less
black and my eyes started to glow again. I somehow managed to get myself to the hair salon and even squeeze in a “Beachbody” On Demand workout or two during the week. When I was with my children, I was present, totally and unequivocally engrossed in playing with the Elsa castle or reading "Guess How Much I Love You?" while cuddling my two little snuggle bugs by the fireplace.
The time I spent gloriously creating, editing and laboring over my book emancipated me in the rest of my life. I now had complete autonomy over that woman in the mirror. Life was not just happening to me. Now, I was in the driver’s seat—my creative and personal needs on an equal playing field with those I cared for around me. I made the choice to have my children—and I am beyond grateful I did—but I also made the choice to write my book. And both of these choices were okay and could exist side by side in the same, beautiful world.
So often we as women we do not go after the things that bring us the greatest happiness because we are waiting for something to free us from the definitions of our purported role and the deep diversion we choose to take away from our own soul’s calling in the name of it.
If you are a mom that derives your satisfaction from absolute, undivided devotion to your children, that is wonderful and you are to be commended for your choices and your heart’s calling. We all need to stay in harmonious alignment with exactly who we are and what ignites our spirit. But if you are like I was—waiting to go after your dreams because according to societal expectations as a woman you are “supposed” to be and want only one thing and you have allowed this societal expectation to become the compass for your life—or you are using motherhood as one of many excuses for not living your potential—or the woman in the mirror looking back at you is half the version of who she wants to be because she is waiting for someone to give her permission to chase all of the unrealized dreams that set her soul on fire.
Then I would challenge you to ask yourself right here, right now. What are you waiting for?
We only get one life. What are you waiting for?
