Shout Out to All of My GEN Xs: A little inspiration for us!

Apparently being 49 years old makes me a Gen Xer. There are some people out there in the world that believe that life for Gen Xs is basically over. Those people attribute my desire to go hard and pursue my passion in my 40’s to me “going off the deep end” or having a bad “midlife crisis”. I give all of the credit for my “awakening” to a lot of self-reflection, self-love, and self-awareness. I’ve always had grit and determination. That’s in my DNA. But the fear of failure was always right there to poke and awaken my self-doubt whenever it was about to fall into a deep slumber. I realized that I needed to attack my fear of failure directly in order to give my self-doubt an opportunity to sleep so that I could thrive and live my best life. So that is exactly what I did. And, although I was not able to completely destroy my fear of failure I was able to force it to retreat and stand down so that my self-doubt is not always awake, grumpy and prodding at me. 

So, For all of my Gen Xs that are holding on to that mindset that your time has come and gone, this one is for you! These folks have proven that you can realize your dreams and some, even after the age of 40.

After you read this, please tell me how you can not be inspired. After you read this ask yourself out loud:

WHY NOT ME?

WHY NOT NOW?

• Viola Davis was 43 when she landed a role in the movie Doubt. The rest is history!

• Although she was a competitive figure skater and senior fashion editor at Vogue when she was in her 20’s, Vera Wang did not launch her wedding dress design business until she was 40! And it was the launch of that business that made her a common household name when it came to fashion.

• Toni Morrison’s first novel, The Bluest Eye, did not get published until she was 40 years old.

• Everyone in America is familiar with the Gap thanks to Donald Fisher who was 40 years old when he and his wife opened the first Gap store. And, they had no experience in retail!

• If for some strange reason you are not familiar with The Gap, you have definitely heard of Wal-Mart. Sam Walton was 44 years old when he founded the first Wal-Mart.

• Before Yelp, Tim and Nina Zagat introduced Zagat (a restaurant review resource) to the world. They were both 51-year-old lawyers when they published their first issue of Zagat. 

• Arianna Huffington founded her namesake news publication, The Huffington Post, at age 55. It is worth mentioning that The Huffington Post sold to AOL for $315 million.

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Much Love,

Tonza