Next week on Thursday, Feb 4th, I will be on a virtual panel of 4 other #MississippiUniversityforWomen alumni talking about my career.

These are my freshman and sophomore year student IDs. I found them while moving, and they’ve been on my mind a lot through the W’s vetting process.

I was invited to this process because people view my career as model of success for the next generation of Long Blue Line graduates.

Here’s the truth. I still feel like the girl on the left.

Young. Smart. Curious. A bit out of place. Talented. Hardworking. Eager. Hopeful.

And scared.

I wish I could go back to Callaway Hall on move in day, and sit on her dorm bed and give her a hug. She'd be SO VERY PROUD of the woman she'd become.

That girl had NO CLUE how she was going to use the BA in Theatre to support herself.

The woman she’d become knows that Mississippi University For Women was the perfect place for her to learn to be independent, creative, collaborative, and to resourceful so that she could build a life long creative life.

The W was a deus ex machina in my life. I was a full paid academic/leadership scholarship kid at the W. Without the scholarship, I promise you, I would not have gone far. My family had me tracked for their religious college, visiting there throughout my childhood. There were no funds for anything other than that choice. I worried from 8th grade to scholarship acceptance letter about this particular issue.

A dear friend and older sister type, Debbie, had gone to the W, and I had always looked up to her. I don’t remember applying. I do remember interviewing for the scholarship sweating through my dress. They asked me questions about my favorite tv show (I said CHEERS oh my goodness), and were quite kind to me. I left thinking I would never get in, let alone, go as one of their top 8 recruits.

Mississippi University for Women for me did what it's mission says it's there to do: to provide world class education to women (and men too since 1982) at an affordable price.

I am thrilled and grateful to be even considered for this panel, just like the day I opened the scholarship letter, and the first day of class when I I met my favorite teachers: William Peppy Biddy, the late Bruce Lesley, and Bridget Smith Pieschel.

I’m writing to you to invite you to take a moment to savor what you at 18 could not have imagined would become. Find one of those old photos, and put it by a now photo of you. How amazed they would be. How proud.

Sometimes, you are the only person that knows all of the ways the story COULD have unfolded.

Sometimes, you are the only person who knows what it really took to get from point A to point B.

Sometimes, YOU have to give yourself a dang medal (as @jenpastiloff would say).

Celebrate #allthethings, my friends. Celebrate the small ones, the big ones, all of the trying, the winning, the falling, the getting back up.

It’s your one precious life.

Thank you for being a part of mine.

X~

S

P.S. I have two slots left for 1:1 coaching. Message me if you’re curious about the process. I’d love to support your SAVOR and RISE.

Also, I have a small group coaching for $25 a month on Facebook called AMAZE YOURSELF in 2021. The group has myself and my co-coach Kimberly Mathis and will be for all of 2021, so let me know if that suits your needs, and I can email you more information.

Take good care.