Sandi L Boucher (Red Thunderbolt, Loon clan, Seine River First Nation) delivers a short motivational talk on the third of her 12 principles of personal power: you are not here to prove yourself to others but to live up to your true self. She asks listeners to examine whose expectations they are meeting, shares a personal story of having been married three times and changing herself to fit partners (including changing her name), and issues a practical challenge to actively choose and act toward the person you want to become.
Chapters
Foreign. Hi, everybody. My name is Sandy Boucher. I'm Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon clan, a proud member of Seine river first nation in northern Ontario. And I'm here, here once again, this time to expand on the third of 12 principles of personal power. So we're in the month of March, we're looking at the third principle. And last week I introduced you to what that principle is. So here it is again. Just as a reminder, you are not here to prove yourself to anyone else. You are here to live up to who you truly are. Now, I guess this week's question is, if you are not living up to who you want to be, to the image of the person you want to one day become, then whose image are you living up to? Who has decided who you will be? And again, I really want to stress, I am not encouraging anyone to live up to their lowest, lowest common denominator. If you're out there making excuses for why you're not going to try and saying things like just the way I am, stop. Please stop. Because Creator designed you to be so much more than that. And if someone else told you otherwise, their opinions the one you have to discard. You need to start trying things and doing things. And if it doesn't work the first time, try again. Treat life like a video game. You're not going to win the game the first time you try it, but you have more wisdom the second, third and fourth time. But as I was saying, and especially for women and guys, if this applies to you too, I want to hear from you. Please leave a comment or send me an email. I would love to hear from you. For women, we often we grow up in this environment that it's all about proving we're desirable, that someone wants us. Like, the most important goal is having a man in your life. And I'm not judging because I, I have definitely been there. But here's true confession time. And I really hope that you learn from my story and not from that insane cat, Stormy the kitten. Anyways, as I was saying, I have been married not once, not twice, but three times. Now. That's not anything to be proud of. And I'm definitely not bragging. But the scariest part is none of my three husbands know me because I was so busy becoming the woman they wanted me to be. If you looked at the woman I was, what I, how I spent my time, the activities I was involved in, what my interests were from marriage one to marriage two to marriage three, you would see three entirely different women. I changed My name. And I changed who I was. But none of them were me. Which is why it was so important for me to go back to my maiden name. Boucher is my father's name. Sandy Boucher was the young woman that my dad believed could achieve any dream she had. And if I'm ever to get married again, one, it would have to last forever. That's just. That's a requirement. But I definitely would not be changing my name to ensure that I always stayed the woman that I've worked so hard to become. The best version of me. So again I ask, who are you? Who has designed this person you've become? And is it all you could be? Are you as kind, as compassionate, as intelligent, as educated, as successful as you can be? And don't blame someone else. That rock's been put in your path. Go over under a round or through it. But your destiny is your choice. Who you become is up to you. And you get to decide if you're going to design this person you want to be or if you're going to let someone else do it. If you give someone else the power. And you can't really complain about feeling helpless, right? I believe in you. I know you want, need and deserve more than you have. But it's going to come at the price of starting to believe in yourself. So today, this week, the challenge is living up to who you you want to be. Not who your partner, your mom, your dad, your best friend. The community members think you should be who you want to be. Don't wait for someone else to be kind. If you want to be a kind person, you start. Don't wait for someone else to give you the chance to be successful. Choose something to work at and be successful. It's up to you. You get to decide who you are. Because once again, we have to remember, you are not here to prove yourself to anyone else. You are here to live up to who you truly are. Until next week. I love you. Talk to you soon. Bye bye.
