ME FIRST: To Conquer the world, you must conquer yourself.....

As I said in an early post I am in the process of reading  Black Woman Redefined by Sophia A. Nelson. It 's a great book. I have taken alot from the sixty-two pages that I have read so far. Don't worry a review will be posted as soon as I finish reading. While reading last night a line from this book caught my eye.

 WE MUST CONQUER OURSELVES FIRST!!!!

Sophia brings this line into her book as she explains that there are injustices black women face in the work place. And yes it is hard to get to the top as a black women, but you must conquer yourself first. Instead of complaining about what you do not have or what has been done to you, do something about it. Get more education, stand up for yourself.

WE CANNOT CHANGE ANYONE BUT OURSELVES!!!

So you aspire to be great? Well just remember that you are not going to make it to the top with out challenges, and you are not going to make it through those challenges if you are not at your best. Let's break this down. For example, you are trying to become a partner in your law firm. As a women you are going to face some adversity ( it's just the way of the world). Now with that adversity comes stress, aggravation, and frustration. Not to mention what may be going on in your personal life. If you have not conquered yourself, and are not at your best mentally, physically, and emotionally the stress will destroy you. Sickness, depression, and anxiety will develop and potentially  keep you from the top.

YOU HAVE TO BE CENTERED

Working on a Master's degree plus tackling a full time job is no easy task. The stress from my job, trying to maintain a 4.0 in my academic endevours, and my various family issues were eating away at me. The next thing I know I am in the hospital. Emergency surgery is needed and my gallbladder has to be removed. Can you imagine. I was like what in the world is going on. After being in the hospital a couple of days I realized that if I did not get it together and soon I would not be physically or mentally able to get where I wanted to be in life. As soon as my doctor cleared me I found a trainer and started to work out. I knew that if SheMogul was going to be a success that I had to focus, hummm.  That was the hard part. How do you get rid of the stress. Well as I said the only person or thing that I could change is myself. I started to think about what was stressing me out. I was hard on myself at work. I wanted the best program and would stop at nothing to get it. I would often come home worn out no energy to complete my homework. So I spent my weekends doing homework. This equation equales no rest!!! I did not have time for my mind or body to recharge. This had to change.

I had to change the way I thought and how I worked. While at work I made sure that I worked smart, delegating and getting my staff envolved so when I got home at the end of the day I had the energy to focus on other things that were also important to me. Instead of complaining about work, I made a change, and made it work for me.  I am not going to say that I have completely conquered myself, but I will say that I am working on it.

Leave a comment and tell us how you conquered yourself....

Shameka