Overcome the past, move towards the future: part 2

                                                                          PART TW0

                                                                              
Before we finished our conversation at Prêt, we were interrupted by Kia’s friend. He was 20 minutes early and suddenly her face lit up, and together they began to talk and laugh as if they were in their own little world. Suddenly the Kia I knew was back. Bubbly and free spirited. She began to talk about her book and how Kia Garriques had spent nights dreaming of this world which, existed in a far off galaxy of the universe, with super human power.

“Who’s Kia Garriques?” I said, knowing full well that everyone knew her as Nikki. “You mean Kia Storm.”

She laughed saying, “No! I meant Kia Garriques.”

“You mean, you haven’t told her yet?” her friend said, giggling away.

“What?” I asked in a confused manner.  I wanted to be in on their joke and was suddenly beginning to feel left out. I needed to be with the ‘in’ crowd.

Kia grinned. “Kia Garriques is writing a fantasy novel for teenagers.” she explained.

“But... what about Kia Storm?” I cried.

“Well I guess Kia Garriques is the alter ego of Kia Storm and Kia Storm is an image. I never try to look like that image in my daily life. I just like being normal. I guess I don't really like the spotlight too much. In my daily life, I dont like to be known too much,” she says. “So maybe in essence I see Kia Garriques as the writer, the creative side of me and well I guess Kia is just...".

Before she could say another word, her mobile phone rang and she was off outside, screaming excitedly into it, as though she had just heard some good news.

                                                                                                                                                                                                         

“Don’t worry,” her friend assured me. “She’s a complex character but, you got to love her. She has a heart of gold. She does so much but you would never know because she never promotes it too much, especially if its nothing to do with her writing. But she mostly talks about her dream which, is her novel. Even I can't wait to read this novel.”

"You havent read it?" I asked.

"No, just her sister and her agent have read it." he said. "It's fantasy fiction and believe me she has this unique imagination. I guess you can say Kia Storm writes the gritty stuff and Kia Garriques...well...Kia Garriques likes to create worlds...but I sure can't wait to read it."

"There's a lot more to discover about her." he grinned. "When this girl put her mind to something... I'm telling you, nothing stops her and she's got her heart on her book."

"Tell me some more..." He would not reveal anything else. He just placed his index finger over his lips as if to silence me.

I walked away from that meeting, still feeling like I didn’t know Kia as much as i would like. How could Kia Garriques be the alter ego of Kia when Kia Garriques was her reality?

                                                                       

Kia Storm/ Kia Garriques had mentioned to me on previous occasions that even though her friends were always telling her to grow up, she refused to listen. For a long time she felt something was wrong with her because she normally thought about life in bright colours and lights. She knows that her creativity radiates from her fairy tale yet inquisitive imagination.

I was once told that, “When we grow up, we become people who lose their originality and soon our life becomes more about caring for others rather than looking after number one." Kia knows that even when our priorities change, we can still build on what makes us wonderfully different from the rest of the human race and really start living our lives, rather than just existing.

I thought about one of my favourite singers, Jessie J, who had to deal with the pressures and stresses of being seen as different from a very young age. She has gone through a lot to get to where she is now. I mean, I remember reading somewhere how at the age of 11 Jessie J was diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat.

                                                                    

At the age of 18, she suffered a minor stroke and perhaps at that point she realised what was really important to her and has fought for her singing career since. Her most recent song on her album titled ‘Who’s Laughing Now’ is dedicated to those who bullied her, due to her illness when she was younger. “It wasn’t easy for me at school; I was called ‘Alien’ because I had a heart problem so I had these betas – blockers that actually turned my skin a light shade of green,” she said. 

My mind also drifted to Nicky Minaj, another artist who is different and not afraid to show it. Known as the ‘black Lady Gaga’, Nicky feels that she is happy not being part of the mainstream and promotes the idea of embracing your differences.

When comparing herself to the ‘Poker Face’ star, she said, “We both do the awkward non-pretty thing. What we're saying…well what I'm saying anyway is that it's OK to be weird. Maybe your weird is my normal. Who's to say? I think it's an attitude we both share. The point is, everyone is not black and white. There are so many shades in the middle, and you’ve got to let people feel comfortable with saying what they want to say when they want to say it. I don’t want to feel like I’ve got the gun pointed at my head and you’re about to pull the trigger if I don’t say what you want to hear. I just want to be me and do me.”    

                                                                         

So there you have it! Here I was thinking that we nerds have it hard, when most people, no matter who they go through, have similar traumas and experiences. It is all about how you stand up to these problems.

“You just have to think about others,” Kia had said to me. “If we focus on helping others, we begin to realise it’s not always about us all the time. When you focus on yourself so much, you are bound to start noticing the thing that isn’t right with you and that is the problem.”

So until next time....remember...we are all different and you know what? It feels great to be different... 

Overcome the past, move towards the future: part 1

PART ONE

From an early age, I learnt the hard way that life is full of challenges and it is not always easy to fit in with the crowd. I remember how, at school, it felt safer to keep a low profile and just follow what was hot at that moment. This can often be limiting, as it can prevent you from ever really being yourself and embracing your differences and just living your life the way you want to live it.

The strangest thing I find is that as we get older we are still caught up between this vicious circle, which carries on into our professional (adult) world.  We care too much what others think of us and this can limit our full potential.

I guess that when I was growing up, I wished I could have been more like the popular beautiful girls in my class. They all had beautiful figures and lots of male attention and were always being invited to infamous parties, which was the talk of the class the next day. 


Most of these girls were super skinny unlike my hips and bottom which were always too large for my liking. It seemed like every piece of clothing just hung on me. Plus it wasn’t cool that I could always be found somewhere in the library reading or doing my homework. As I hard as I tried to look and fit in with the in crowd, I just did not have the grace, looks or hair to pull off the hairstyles and clothes.

So I knew I didn’t have the glamour to compete with these super human creatures but, I had the brains. And boy, was I good at coming first in class! I felt that I had to study in order to be good at something and study I did. 


The better grades I received, the higher my status amongst the nerds! I was officially top of the nerd status list and I was proud to be there! But being a nerd had its disadvantages.  I was always bullied for being that girl who just studied all the time and was never accepted in the ‘It’ crowd, no matter how hard I tried.

And no matter how clever I was. In fact, it seemed the cleverer I became, the more I got picked on. I was getting good grades but something was missing. I had a longing for more than just being known as that nerd! I was never happy. I just wanted to be like the others. I wanted their lifestyles and even their boyfriends or at least a boyfriend. The popular kids were just a rare breed in my eyes. They were different. They were the apple of society’s eyes.

I grew up thinking the popular kids had life easy and when Kia confirmed that she was always popular at school, I felt slightly angry. She couldn’t possible understand me as a person and how much I have struggled.

From time to time, Kia talked about the power of women and how you have to stay true to who you were. I felt myself struggling against the urge to blurt out, “Easy for you to say. You have always been popular. You have no idea what it was like for me.”

It wasn’t until I noticed the questioning look on Kia’s face that I realised I had revealed my true thoughts. I really should have been more careful. They weren’t longer in my mind. I had said them and she had heard them.

“I didn’t mean...”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m use to it.”



There was an awkward moment of silence between us and for a split second, I thought I had blown the opportunity to shadow her for sure. We were sitting at Prêt and she was having her usual latte, “I hated being popular,” she said suddenly. 


“You thought you were bullied for being a nerd? Well, I was bullied for being too popular. Girls can be so mean at times and I had the bad end of the stick. Girls were afraid to have me around because they thought I was either going to hit on their boyfriend or make them look bad.”

She went on, “They were always trying to pick a fight with me because they thought I thought I was better than everyone else. I was always an easy target for both girls and boys easily picked out from the crowd and I hated the fact that I stood out from the crowd.”

Pausing for a moment, she stared into her latte as if she was seeing something I couldn’t and suddenly, her eyes were filled with sadness. I knew she was reliving some painful experience from the past. “I had so much pressure put on me that it was unreal. People told my mother she should be so proud of me because I was going to do so great. 


I became obsessed with being perfect. I remember when I didn’t get the GCSE grades I was predicted, I stayed in the park, afraid to go home, afraid to say ‘Hi mother, yeah, well you know those grades you were expecting, well, they didn’t happen’, ” she said, exasperated. 

She looked up at me. “You know there is a memory that I have that stick with me even to this day, when I think about it I push harder than ever to be somebody,” she mentioned.

“Tell me,” I said. I was curious and busy jotting down what she was saying in my note pad. I was hungry for more. I wanted her to spill all.

“I remember my first Psychology lesson, at college, when some guys just couldn’t stop bothering, like flirting, you know and I was trying to pay attention but they just wouldn’t quit. The teacher turned around angrily and told me to leave the boys alone and stop distracting them, even though they were the ones bothering me, “she stated. 

“You know what he said to me after class? He said, ‘You may think that butter can melt in your mouth but, in my class you are just another silly girl that thinks their looks is going to get them through life and it won’t. You won’t reach anywhere but, just have babies like all the others’.”

I didn’t know what to say to Kia, particularly because I couldn’t understand the effect that comment would have on her.

 “As a little girl, I always got so much attention that I became scared of going out.  But you could never tell because I always had lots of girls around me, ‘my crew’ I called them and they gave me that protective comfort, “she says, reflecting on some happy times.

“I felt safe with them and I wouldn’t go anywhere without them. I was brought up with a grandmother that told me I had to be smart, that looks fade and so I can never rely on them. It was embedded in my brain so much that I had an obsession to be taken seriously. 


I had this pretence air of confidence about me. I was determined to be taken seriously, coupled with the fact that I was extremely competitive. I didn’t want to be boxed in by anything and I fought hard against anything that tries to confine me.”

“Well... it’s all been for the good,” I said. “I mean, you are driven and you are focused and you seem to really love people so you were able to overcome all those negative...”

“You would think,” Kia said, cutting me off immediately. “You know what my biggest fear is? The bad memory of that teacher remained with me for a long time and I fought so hard against his voice. It uses to haunt so much that I rejected the idea of having kids, just being known for just that. It has taken a long time for me to accept myself for who I am and I am more determined than ever to embrace my differences.”

For a while, I couldn’t speak anymore, shocked and intrigued at what I had just heard. Whatever did happen next?

PART TWO CONTINUES.....

The importance of a positive mindset for your future

In this age of hardship, is it easy to let our troubles rule our lives, than to stand up like a noble modern day Joan of Arc and fight for what we want in life?

“It’s important never to lose sight of our dreams,” Kia once said to me. “Sometimes things can get so difficult that we end up losing sight of what we are fighting for in the first place. Having the mental determination to achieve is  vital in life, no matter what it throws at you. Why should anyone else have the authority to change it?”

I thought long and hard about what Kia had said. Everything seems so easier for her now but she had assured me that for a very long time it wasn’t.

 “There was once a time when each morning I had to convince myself I was truly happy just to stop feeling sad for just one day. I hate when people make you feel that your time is running out. We live in such a fast world, where everything must happen now and when it doesn’t, we never ever think positively.”

Was that really the case? Can everything really get better with a little bit of positive thinking? Does having the right mindset guarantee to always keep you on the right track to success?

If there is one thing that I can say through my journey of shadowing Kia Storm, it is that she is very determined and persistent. It was almost as if deep down in her heart, she really believed she was going to be this great, young writer. She believed in her dream so much that in less than a year she had over a dozen short stories published. 

“I love to push myself.” She would say. “Sometimes pushing myself harder reminds me that I’m still alive.” I didn’t understood what she meant by that and she didn’t elaborate. I had asked her peers about her and they all said the same thing. She was a workaholic.

 “What’s your book about?” I had asked her, but she only smiled and said.

“It’s gonna be epic. It’s about a whole new world, a world which I dream about, colourful worlds with super human creatures. Oh boy, it’s going to be awesome.”

That was all she said and even though I pried further, she only smiled even more revelling in my curiosity.

“You will read it next year,” she said.  Kia was talented and she said that for a long time, she tried to convince people of her talent. But the day she stopped trying to convince them, was the day they started taking notice of her.

“There are many individuals in life that will not see your talent immediately and will try and tell you that you should give up on your ‘fantasy’ and try something new. You start to think differently as you see people around you who are unemployed or are in a job that purely pays the bills and think maybe you should do the same,” Kia explained.

“But, even when life gets difficult, you need a strong, self – believing state of mind to help push you further to achieve your passion.” But, what is the main message here? Does this mean I too need to become a workaholic in order to become successful?

It seemed to me that Kia’s mental resilience has led her onto this amazing publishing juncture. In order to keep her aspiration of being a young fantasy fiction author, Kia leads a busy life. Her normal week consists of juggling two jobs per week; one where she works in the fashion industry preparing models to showcase diverse fashion on the catwalk and the other where she works on leadership training events for aspiring leaders and head teachers in various schools.

Both jobs took time to perfect and get used to and after work, usually in the late hours of the night, Kia pushed on with her main love of writing. It was this determination that earned her a reputation as a  young short – story writer and now had lead to the biggest accolade of all. It is the start of a challenging yet exciting trip to being a young published author, in just a year. Even more, she still has the time to encourage many young individuals like myself who still have to make their mark in the professional world.

American professional basketball player, Kobe Bryant has also displayed an extreme determination to follow his passion for his sport even when injuries could have got the better of him. He dislocated his right little finger during the 2008 – 2009 season but carried on playing, even when most players would have thrown his the towel and chose surgery over the game. His bravery and passion paid off as he went on to win his first award as the league’s most valuable player. His friend Hilary Swank once said that he likes to ‘get his mind out of the way’. By not thinking about his problem, he becomes strong enough to overcome it.

Like Bryant, rather than focusing on her struggles, Kia has picked herself up after every rejection and has continued writing and believing in herself. After a while, there were many who did offer her opportunities but, would she have ever got there if she just stopped trying? Michael Robotham, international crime writer and ghost writer for celebrities such as Geri Halliwell and Lulu, is no stranger to the difficulties of being in the right mindset.

He said, “I have wanted to be a novelist since I was about twelve and always saw journalism and ghostwriting as being stepping stones. I think writing can be taught, just as tennis can be taught, or golf or painting, but showing someone the theory won’t make them a great writer. Nobody else can put words on a page for you. It takes practice. It takes perseverance. Most of all it takes passion. If you’re writing for fame or fortune or posterity, prepare to be disappointed. If you’re writing because you’re passionate about it, prepare for a life long love affair.”

So my conclusion is that it looks like the professional world is a tough place to be in and success is not always at your fingertips. But, keep on trying and soon you will reach your ultimate ambition.

Keep reading and stay tuned for more...