Earbuds: Motivation Expressway & Ultimate Shade Blockers

Here we are. Another Tuesday. This is the first full week after a holiday week. These are always my least favorite for a couple of reasons. The first being that no one really is ready to get back. I mean I am physically here but mentally I am pretty sure I will be asleep until Friday morning. The second reason particularity pertains to my current situation....working with robots.



I work for a company that is new to the U.S.A and new to the suburb where I reside just outside of Houston, Texas. I have worked for American companies pretty much my whole life...obviously. I am the ONLY female in this office and probably will be for quite some time. This doesn't bother me too much I have also worked in a predominately male environment and dabbed a little in a all female environment....personally I will pick the male environment over the female any day. The only difference is that I have always worked with "Baby Boomers" i.e. people who range in ages 52-70 and they all have or at one point had children my age. They get me and my millennial mind. They understand that I see the world very differently from them and they respect it. They always gave me room to do my thing and just trust that I will deliver results. I have had great runs and life lessons looking back on all of those opportunities.



Cut to present day. I work in this robot factory with A baby boomer who not only has been living across the world in another county with the other robots but, he has also have NEVER worked with ANY millennials. I don't wish this work situation on my enemy. I hope that this blog post spares & prepares you for this situation should you ever encounter it or perhaps are given the opportunity to encounter it.

Allow me to paint just a small picture with a dash of humor of course.

This morning as I was preparing my breakfast to-go and breakfast for my son I started to give myself a pep-talk out loud. I reminded myself of the day I had a couple of weeks ago where everything went wrong and the fear of "being late for work" completely over took me. I hated the way I felt I hated how I was so upset and focused on something so worth nothing! The flip side is that day inspired me to blog again. I also had an ah-ha moment and realized I was going to take my life back. Somehow up until that day I let these robots I work with influence my brain and tried to change everything I believed in and did for the last 12 years. After a little blogging, a little earbud inspirational pep-talk action from Tony Robbins, Oprah, Steve Harvey, Wayne Dyer, and a whole lot or gratitude and prayer I realized....NOPE we are not going to do this. I shut all that shit down. I shut it down. I disintegrated the whole "your gonna be late" dark cloud that the robots sent to try and follow me around each morning. How you may ask? I reminded myself that this place is just a job its a paycheck...its not a career, its not my dream, and its certainly not my destiny....its a lesson on the journey I am taking towards my destiny boo. Its right for this moment. Its right for this season in life. It is a great location and I am paid very well.

From that day on I decided that I leave all of the robot bullshit at the factory.



These robots don't see me more as just a girl who sits at a desk. At first I was so offended by that. I thought I am so much more...I know things you guys don't know I am a valuable resource to all of the foreign robots. Time and time again I have impressed you with my skill set, my resources, my humor but yet you focus on me coming in 3 minutes after 8:00 AM. You focus on what I don't do that YOU think I should do rather than what I have done. That's OK boo. I don't work for you. You didn't give me this job, you don't have anything to do with anything positive that has happened, will happen and is happening to me. God/The Universe or whatever you want to call IT is the end all be all for this.    


HE is the one who is directing my steps, giving me the lessons (i.e. robot interaction) and the drive to not worry or even give any energy to the negativeness and ya'lls lame robot ways.

This is America boo Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. 


So as I finish up this post with my shade blockers in my ear I will leave you with this:


Robots don't last forever. They run out of power. By that time you will be long gone. On to the next phase of wonderful in life.

As Tupac says:


Rest asure that when you change the way you look at things....the things you look at begin to chang

Fine What You Love.....AND SELL IT

I heard Mark Cuban say once on SharkTank "Find What You Love and Sell It" that is how you will be successful in business. That quote for whatever reason has stuck with me. I keep coming back to it every time I have a bad day at work, or a day I don't even want to go to work. I also have that quote pop up an swim around in my brain when I see other peoples' success from doing what they LOVE.

If you would have told 12 year old Del that she would be sitting here at 32 at her desk at work with Mark Cuban quotes floating around her head she would have said "Who is Mark Cuban?" "Is he cute?" because 12 year old Del was boy crazy. She also would have not paid attention to that quote because she probably still thought she was going to be a marine biologist who works for Sea World. Now here is a news flash from 32 year old Del...we are slightly terrified of marine life..we like the idea of dolphins, have never met one or plan or meeting one...we like a safe distance. Also, it has been a proven fact that killer whales actually kill PEOPLE so there's that.

                                                                 

This is probably the most simple yet complicated piece of advice I have ever heard in my life. Let's start with the "Do What You Love" part. What do I love. Well I love Ranch Doritos, but I cant be a Ranch Dorito and eat myself...what sorta defeats the purpose right? I love spending money, but you gotta make that to spend it so scratch that one too. I love being with my kids and my husband each and everyday...but they have school and my husband and I have been together for a little over half my life so I'd say I got that one half accomplished. I love to talk. I love to get people just as excited as I am about something I believe in. I guess I like to motivate people. This is where we are. I cannot sell Doritos realistically, I cannot sell the idea that I can spend money and expect someone else to pay me to spend money, I cannot  will not sell my kids or my husband...so can I sell talking? Can I sell motivation? Can I sell the idea of something to someone and get them to buy it? What exactly is it that they will want to buy?

I feel like I am scratching the surface of something here so I will tread lightly here until I get another clue or sign from the universe to move forward from here.

Enough is Enough

Have you ever had one of those days or one of those moments when you say out loud or to yourself: 

Enough is Enough 

Now, stay with me here but I cannot continue this post without first referencing in the form of a shout out to Ms. J to the Lo for this piece of cinematic mastery:

OK now that's out of the way I can continue with what has inspired this post. First, let's start by thanking God and the universe for me getting to this place of Enough is Enough. Today started with me waking up late. Late is 6:58 AM. I was supposed to be up around 6:20 AM to greet my lovely son in the kitchen and make him chorizo and egg tacos. My 7th grade son is a phenomenal human being. He is kind, loving, funny, handsome, and makes me extremely proud to be his mother each and everyday. He doesn't ask for much..well he does ask for a lot of things..but he doesn't ask much of me as his mother. All he asks is that I be up in the morning before he leaves for the bus stop at 6:52 AM. I am up and slightly functional MOST mornings. Mind you I have a fun-sized mini human attached to at least one boob in my bed each and everyday. Not an excuse merely a fact. Today was different we had a mini adventure last night to the "Mexican Store" to specifically buy corn tortillas for me to make this breakfast. So, the amount of disappointment I felt when I woke up frantically at 6:58 AM as I heard a bus drive by my house was ridiculous.

 Mexican Store visual for you.

I normally start my days before my feet hit the ground and my eyes hit my phone screen by thanking God for this day. Thanking him for my children, my husband, my family, friends, and to be a blessing to someone, be kind to someone and so on and so forth. Today....that unfortunately did not happen. Instead I woke up frantic and then let out a good ol' OH SHIT I AM LATE...which set the tone for the whole morning. Nice.

I wish I could say I hopped up out the bed, turned my swag on, took a look in the mirror, and said what's up but girlbye I am not Soulja Boy Tellem' and this is not 2008. Instead I'm all like I gotta hurry, gotta get dressed, gotta go, can't be late. People at work get pissed off when I am late, even a minute or two. I have to leave at 12:00 PM today I don't want to stay past 12:00 PM its my PTO its my time. All of these thoughts and emotions running through my head while my Joel Osteen podcast was playing in the background. I don't remember much from that background noise even as I type right now, but I do remember how anxious I felt trying to get myself together. I get out of the room fully dressed and start my apology tour to my son via text. He then texts me "Mom I forgot my lunch, can you bring it to me?" It's 7:20 AM at this point and my other son is in the shower. I have to get him out the door before 7:55 AM to make sure he gets on the bus. My daughter is FINALLY blissfully asleep and so is my husband.

                                                                                                  

Immediately MOM GUILT sets in. I cannot tell my son to just buy lunch since I didn't even feed him before 1st period which is Athletics. I cant leave my other son here to fin for himself because of said mom guilt above so I must take him with me and drop him off myself at school. For your general information we live/go to school/ and work all with in a 8-10 mile radius from each of these destinations. My office is 2.5 miles away from home, one school is 1.5 miles away from home and the other is 4 miles away from home. We get it together and are out the door by 7:38 AM.


I'm going to stop here and point out that I haven't cared about being ON TIME at work in the last 8-10 years of my working life. I am just not an on time person. I don't think it matters if I am supposed to be there at 8:00 AM and I show up at 8:05 AM. I am still here before 8:30 AM and that should count for something. Unfortunately, for me at this point in my life I work for a Chinese company and apparently in China everyone is on time. This is hard for me to understand because isn't there like way more people in China than in America? It has been pointed out to me MANY times in the last 4 months at this job that if I am here even 1 freaking minute after 8:00 AM on the dot I am LATE. Now they ain't so crazy as to dock my pay or punish me but they always say "you need to make up your time at the end of the day." Before I continue on with this you should know that the days when my life is together...which is pretty much MOST days...I am here anywhere between 7:55-7:59 and your BET YOUR ASS I leave between 4:55-4:59. It works both ways guys!! This also confuses they hell out of these people I work with b/c I guess in China people work for free or whatever...but this is the good ol' US of A and this girl DON'T WORK FOR FREE.


Back to the story. I get my son's lunch to school, I get my other son to school about 5 minutes to 8:00 AM and then I get on the road. Oh I forgot to mention that I got lost AGAIN this time in the school neighborhood before dropping off my second son. So once again the anxiety of being late set in. I hit the road to work and hit all 3 lights on the way that I normally make. I pull up at 8:02 AM and walk in. As I walk into the kitchen to throw something away my boss almost walks into me..as he is walking out of the kitchen. He says oh hello I say hi and then he does something that just hit a nerve. He looks at his watch. So me being me, the Enough is Enough me I say out loud for EVERYONE to hear: YES IT IS 8:02 AM AND I AM TWO MINUTES LATE TODAY. My boss says something in Chinese to this guy who is the number one complainer of me coming in 1 minute past 8 and then silence in the office.

10 minutes or so go by and then my boss calls a tail gate meeting. Which to him means stand outside of our offices in a hallway and we talk about what we are going to do today. That's when the next trigger happens. A normally nice Chinese guy I work with says to me: What's wrong? Nothing. Huh? Are you OK? Yes, I am fine. You don't look OK, you look very tired.

In that very moment the first thing that popped into my head I kid you not was:



See in my mind I was not going to do shit today. I didn't want to talk to anyone I just wanted to get in get my 4 hours done and get the hell out of here. While I am here I am simply going to "work" on myself. Listening to Oprah, Wayne Dyer, Tony Robbins, anyone and everyone who would help me calm the hell down. They called on me to speak during the tail gate even though I said I had nothing to add..so I made up some shit about what I was going to do. I also said I will be out at noon today and tomorrow. Awkward silence meeting over we are dismissed.

As I am half listening to voices of reason I check my go-to news website People.com and stumble across this story on Ivanka trump and some website she has called #womenwhowork and immediately I am hooked. I start to read these stories and watch these videos and I am incredibly inspired. In that moment looking at that site I hear in my ear by Jim Rohn: Enough is Enough.
                                                       
                                                     
                                         
I thought this is it. THIS IS THE MOMENT where it starts and I realize I am going to focus on coming into what I can do for others as well as myself. This world, this corporate world that I live right now: I am not right for this world. My soul is screaming. I don't belong here...there is void of kindness, a lack of compassion. A mindset that a strong arm rules and ugliness and greed get you far. That's not me. I am far from all of that. I am thankful for this moment. I am thankful for realizing that I need to add value to myself, I need to align myself with those wonderful women who work for THEMSELVES and are kind and have purpose to spread that kindness and be better humans. This event this build up of these events is launching me into my destiny...but I cannot leave just yet. When the timing is right (God's timing NOT my timing) I will be launched to the next level. I have experienced this time and time again in ALL aspects of my life.

I am so thankful to have today where Enough is Enough.

-Del



                   

Starting Over

Welcome back. It' sure has been a while. 

Last time I was active on this blog I was starting my weight loss journey for the FIRST time. That was 4 years ago. Obviously so many things have happened in those 4 years. We can start with the birth of a 3rd child! A little girl who is everything I never knew I always wanted. Next lets talk about how I went from 220 lbs to 170 lbs and back to 204 lbs as of today. I can safely say that the weight was not from the pregnancy. I weighed 184 lbs when my daughter was born. I worked out in the gym, lifted weights, and ate fairly clean up until about the 8th month. She was 7 lbs 3 oz at birth. I gained a total of 12 lbs the ENTIRE pregnancy. My overweight curse has always surfaced AFTER the birth of each of my children. Not soon after rather 3 months or so after and continues to escalate all the way through their first birthday. At this point its a tradition! Now you might say Del, that's just baby bliss girl..."Ain't nobody got time" to work out right after birthing a human. I say its just neglect. I can't use that fun-sized mini human as an excuse, I would never, but I can own up to my own choice to neglect the gym and my health. There...I said it...and it was kinda freeing!



So, here I am back where I started. I am ready to get off this hamster wheel and officially live this life. Officially ready to tell the stories from my former fat self. I hope to motivate myself in the process as long with others. Let me also remind you all that YOU can do this without the help of large companies and their multi-level marketing systems. YOU can use this wonderful resource called THE INTERNET to look up workouts, recipes, etc to get you to where you need to be. Of course you can always count on yours truly for a good laugh, an update, and some information about what I am doing and how its going! I also started a YouTube channel here that you can follow along as well. I hope to have weekly updates of things I tried, things that wore me out, things I liked and I didn't like. This can consist of food, work-outs, clothing, and just about anything else I want to try that week or maybe something you want to know.

I don't have a clear direction on where this blog and YouTube channel are going. I have always only had ONE goal aside from losing all of this weight once and for all. That goal is to turn Stories From My Former Fat Self into a book.

Thanks for coming along on this ride with me. Stick around and eventually we will fit comfortably together in this tiny cart on this roller coaster of life!


Recovering Ranch Doritos Addict,
Del