Last weekend my mom took some of my family to hear Tony Robbins speak about unleashing the power within oneself. The title of the weekend was officially called "Unleash the Power Within" and after some initial joking about making matching t-shirts with Robbins's face that might read "Unleash Me," I agreed to go. Why not? He's supposed to be the best in the world at being able to change something in a person in an instant (imagine him snapping his fingers here because he did that a lot), and I wanted to see him in action. I'm a teacher at heart, and if I could learn how to stop my students from beating themselves up, I wanted more tools.
We attended the event in matching t-shirts we'd made (his face with a tongue-in-cheek quotation of his "In life you need either inspiration or desperation" with "the Icarus Philosophy Club" at the bottom), and over the course of the weekend it became clear that his goal was to re-write the damaging stories we tell ourselves that are often set in our middle grade and YA years.
As I began to realize what he was doing, I felt a deep well of joy. I know so many of the women and men who are writing the stories for our nation's youth. Not only do I know so many of them, but I love them.
So, to all my writer friends out there... remember: there is a TON of responsibility in being a story-teller to our youth. Instead of getting tempted to dream of book sales, good reviews, etc. as you write, keep up the great work of remembering kids. You are showing them the ways to process this crazy world. You are choosing which stories get told (and which don't). As a group, we are all choosing how our nation process the complexities of this world. It's a lot of responsibility, and I'm so happy it's in the hands of such awesome men and women.
XOXO & Happy Wednesday!
--Lauren
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| In case you want to get pumped up to write with Tony Robbins and 10k others in a dance party, click here. |
Can't wait. Sounds like such a great book. Love the title too!
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