My father was a Sicilian American from Brooklyn, New York.
He was a really simple guy.
He was a cable technician.
He really wasn’t into fancy cars or wearing suits,
but rather enjoyed eating pizza,
and watching American ice hockey at home
on the couch in sweatpants.
But the funny thing was
he was the most inspirational person in my life,
and this was because my dad could walk into a room,
anywhere in the world, and he would light the whole room up.
People wanted to talk to him.
He just had this amazing energy,
and I really, really aspired to be just like him.
But sadly, we lost him after a two-year battle to colon cancer.
He was in his early 40s, and I was just 19 years old.
Anyone who’s been through cancer,
in the sense of been through
either you’ve experienced it yourself
or you’ve suffered with somebody,
knows how traumatic and devastating this is.
But that’s not what I chose to talk to you today about.
I actually want to share with you
a lesson that I learned from my father during this time
Because he also had this amazing ability
to turn any negative situation to a positive one, even his own death.
People actually didn’t even believe he was dying
because that’s how positive he was.
I specifically remember this one time in the hospital.
He was getting one of his IVs, and I could just see the pain in his face.
I knew that he was suffering; he looked at me,
and I thought for a second, “He’ll say something negative.
I can’t believe this.”
But he smiled, and he started to sing Frank Sinatra
really loud throughout the whole hospital,
so we were all… we all started to laugh,
and I said, “Here’s this man who is months away from the last breath
he’ll ever take on Earth.
He has nothing to save him, – they said this is it –
and he still found a way
to take this negative situation into a positive one.”
I said this is what I’m going to do, this is how I’m going to live my life.
I did keep this with me for most of my early 20s,
But something started to happen along the way.
Something scary,
something that might happen to you in your life.
You start to lose yourself a little bit, and I’m sure you’re asking,
“Wait, you just said you were so happy. How, all of a sudden, now you’re not?
What happened in between there?”
Basically, what happened was I lost track of what I wanted.
I stopped remembering what it is that I wanted in my life to be happy.
For example, I had a job, and I wanted to be in the wine industry,
so I took this job;
but every day, when I would walk in, it was so negative in the office,
and nobody was motivating each other;
that’s not the type of environment I want to be in.
Then I would go out with my friends, and these are friends I’ve known forever,
and I was saying I want to talk about TEDx talks,
and inspiring things, travel adventure.
And they want to talk about,
the latest reality show, or what beer they were drinking;
which was fine, but that’s not where I wanted to be.
But I knew these people for so long – how could I just change friends? –
and then finally, the toughest situation was
I was engaged to a man that I didn’t want to marry.
So how do you get out of that?
You’re dating somebody, you’re just supposed to get married.
I couldn’t leave that
because besides the fact that I would be ruining his life,
I was going to be in my 30s, alone;
so I was thinking all these things.
So, what did I do?
I stayed exactly where I was,
and I turned to these: self-help books, therapists,
all of which were great.
I think they all did the job at the time,
but that wasn’t going to get me to the next place.
But I still didn’t listen,
so my ultimate wake-up call was at my last company holiday party.
I went…
I’m here in this room, with all these people
I didn’t want to be around,
but I did it, and I made it through,
and then I went back to the room that night, in the hotel,
I closed the door, I fell to the floor,
and I literally cried and cried and cried for so long that I couldn’t breathe,
and I thought I was having a heart attack,
and then I contemplated suicide.
So, that’s really scary, and I said, “There is no way…
Where did that come from?
Where did I even get this thought? I can get out of this.”
So, I came to the conclusion
after thinking over for days and days and days
that basically,
we live in a life that’s…
Death is horrible, that’s a terrible, horrible thing,
but really, it’s not the deaths of others that destroy us,
it’s the everyday negativity that we experience that cripples us.
Think about your day today. How did it start?
You probably went on Facebook, maybe you listened to the radio,
you put on the TV.
There’s negativity in all of that.
It’s in fear, it’s in a regular conversation,
it’s when your boss or your teacher is disappointed, in the work you did,
it’s just not that nice look that you got in the coffee shop
this morning when you were buying your coffee.
But it’s our choice on how we look at it.
I know it’s difficult, it’s definitely difficult,
because negativity is something that’s in us, and this is proven.
Basically, there was a study done,
and it was from a professor at Penn State University,
and he put a bunch of individuals in a room,
and they were from the ages of 20 to 60 years old,
[speaking] 37 different languages.
These people were from all around the world.
He said, “Just write down anything that you can think of in under a minute,
and then anything that describes emotion.”
So, at the end, he went around, and he took an average of the words
that he found from each person, and blended them together.
And he said that the words that described emotion
there was joy, but then, the other six words were
anger, fear, anxiety, resentment.
So, basically, what this is telling us
is that negativity is something that’s biologically driven inside of us.
That is why I want to speak to you today about living through negativity,
and I believe the way to do that
is by using the power of your authentic self.
When I say your authentic self,
I mean it’s just a fancy word for saying your inner voice,
the one that you are when you are confident,
and there’s no shame or judgment.
I’m going to help you do this
by suggesting five habits, thoughts, or practices
that you can implement into your everyday life,
and they’re really simple.
The point is to block out some of that negativity
and invite in some of the positivity.
Smile – smile is the easiest thing you do:
smile when you wake up, smile when you go to bed,
smile when you’re frustrated, smile when you work out,
smile so much you don’t even know you’re smiling.
I actually like to do a funny experiment sometimes on the New York City subway,
So, just like any other public transportation in the world,
everybody looks down, they have their headphones in,
and I just look up and smile, and see how everybody reacts.
I usually get one of these at first, but then, they always smile back.
That’s because smiling is contagious.
There’re all sorts of theories and research that proves this,
but one in particular, that is really simple,
is from the University of London.
There is a communication expert named Ruth Campbell,
and what she said is that we have a mirror neuron in our brain;
whatever face you see when someone looks at look,
you’re just going to mirror it right back.
So, it’s so easy, if you’re not motivated to smile for yourself,
at least think if you go outside tomorrow, you might change someone else’s day.
Number two is switch up your habits.
Einstein said the definition of insanity
is doing the same thing over and over again,
and expecting a different result.
Why do we think
that if I would’ve stayed in that job, in that relationship,
with my friends every single day,
why did I think I was going to be happier one day?
You need to switch up your habits.
I know that it’s not easy, but you can do it.
I’ve even had situations – I spoke about earlier –
that that group of friends that weren’t serving me anymore,
and it was really sad to walk away, but I I wanted something better.
And I chose to make that choice, and you know what?
Now I have such an amazing group of friends
that are entrepreneurs, inspirational speakers,
and every day, I feel more and more empowered.
And you could do the same thing with anything in your life.
Number three is accepting you are not perfect.
For so long in my 20s,
I hid my imperfections and flaws
so that I can fit in in these situations.
Again, I was in the wine industry, but I never studied wine,
so every day, I was anxious going to work,
“They’re going to judge me,” “They know I don’t know about wine.”
Until finally, one day I said, “You know what?
I’m a really hard worker, and I’m really nice,
and I’m good enough the way I am.”
And that’s how you have to look at life.
It’s all about how you want to feel,
what you put out in the world is what people are going to see of you.
I recently shared this Facebook post,
and I’ll just give you a quick idea of what it says.
It says I love food, but I’m not a foodie,
I love wine, but I’m not a wino,
I love yoga but I’m not a yogi,
I love art and books, but maybe you’re not going to find me in galleries,
and I go on and on.
But can anybody relate to this?
Has anybody tried to categorize themselves
so that they fit in somewhere in the world,
whether food or yoga, or wine?
It turns out a lot of my followers did,
and I go on to say in the rest of the post,
I basically say, “Forget about it. You don’t have to be something.
How about just being yourself?”
I’m authentic, I care about my friends, family, and clients,
and I want people to laugh more, to do more, to be more.
I asked my followers, I said,
“What is it that you liked about this post?”
I got over 300 likes.
They said, “You know what, Cassandra?
It was just a reminder we need to accept our imperfections and our flaws,
and appreciate who we are before anybody else can.”
So, just keep that thought with you every single day,
and I really believe you’ll feel more empowered and more positive.
Number four is forgiveness.
I learned from several spiritual teachers, coaches, and therapists of mine
that Buddha had a theory, and it was this:
staying angry is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.
Yeah, when you think about it, you’re like, “This is crazy.”
But that’s it.
Do you think you’re hurting that other person
by waking up with anxiety every day?
No way! You need to let it go.
You need to…
I know that, again, this is a tough thing to do,
but you will feel so much better
once you have that weight of resentment off your shoulder;
The way to do that – and if anybody wants to do it today,
no pressure, you can close your eyes for a minute –
but I often find myself closing my eyes and saying,
“Whoever hurt me, or if I hurt you, I’m sorry, I’m sending you love and light.
I’m not saying you’re right, or I’m wrong,
I’m just letting it go, and I hope that you can move on, too.”
This theory has worked for me,
and I think that if you give it a try, I’m pretty sure it will work for you.
So, just remember, the easiest way to let go of resentment is to forgive.
Number five is travel.
Traveling changed my life so much that I started a travel company.
But I did it because I wanted to change other people’s lives, too.
So, to bring that story full circle
– that I was speaking of earlier, in regards to my holiday party meltdown –
basically, after about a month or two, I moved on from that job,
I broke off the engagement,
and I bought a three month-ticket to Italy.
I, of course, got accused of running away, but it’s not running away;
I needed time for myself,
I needed to think about what it was that would make me happy.
And that’s what traveling does.
Traveling makes you free,
it makes you listen to that inner voice, that authentic self,
it brings you to a place where you could start all over again,
and there’re new opportunities, and new people all around the world.
The theory of travel goes back centuries.
If you think about world numerous religions,
they actually practiced pilgrimage.
The definition of the pilgrimage
is taking a long journey to renew your spirituality.
So, when I asked a friend of mine
who just went through a pilgrimage himself,
I said, “Tell me a little bit about it,”
and he said, “Yeah, it’s really interesting
because, the first day, they set you down, and they say, ‘Listen.
You’re going to have some joy from this, it’s going to be good.
But guess what?
There’s going to be some suffering, and there’s going to be some pain,
but the point is that you’re going to come back so renewed,
and you’ll use every single thing you learned along the way.
It’s your life, and you’re going to have a happier, more fulfilled life.'”
That’s what inspires people to travel.
So, I’m not saying you have to go to another country or join a pilgrimage,
but you can get on the bus, or get on a train for an hour,
or take a drive, and just give yourself the freedom it deserves.
So, there you have it.
There’s five ways that you can try to change the way you’re thinking
and protect yourself from the negativity that’s coming into the world.
Tomorrow just give it a try,
I mean, try to smile a little bit more, or try to switch up one habit,
try to accept yourself in a situation that you’re good enough,
or forgive someone, or travel somewhere.
I’m not saying you have to do this all today,
but day by day, try to remember just one of these,
and I really believe
that you will get yourself to that place where you feel happy and really fulfilled.
It’s true; we can’t avoid the negativity; it’s going to be there every single day.
But we have the choice,
and our choice is to eliminate
unhappy people and circumstances in our life,
to bring us to our higher self.
Just like my father stood up to cancer and death,
you can stand up to anything that comes in your path.
And if you ever lose focus, just remember,
all you have to do is stop for a moment, take a breath,
look within, and remember
the strongest superpower that each and every one of us possesses,
and that’s our own authentic self.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)
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