Ok Brady, If
you had to describe yourself as a breakfast cereal, which one would you be and
why?
Does it need to be a cereal or could it be a
breakfast food? I guess I am changing the question, but I think I would
describe myself as toast. This is because you can serve it a million different
ways, but it is still simple. And I like toast a lot, I guess. It’s plain and
simple and everyone likes it.
What does the
term Authenticity mean to you?
To me, authenticity is a way of living, working, and
I think that it’s attractive when you see real authenticity in people. You
can’t help but be drawn to it because it is something we all desire. Whether it
is an organization, a person, a company, or a product, if it is authentic and
real, it is attractive.
Share a time
when you really felt like you were truly following your heart?
Hmmm…I would say I was truly following my heart right
after I graduated from college and went to work for a non-profit in Colorado. I
knew that I wouldn’t get paid for a while, since I was just interning, and it
just takes time out of college to get experience. You can’t expect to have a
full-time paid job right away. So, I interned for the summer and I interned
during the fall. Then I came back in the spring, and I knew that I probably still
wouldn’t be getting paid. However, there was something about this organization,
called Light Gives Heat, that I realized this is something I could be doing for
a while. So, I asked myself, if I don’t
get paid, is money the reason I am doing this or am I doing it because I
believe that it is what I should be doing? I knew that I wanted this to be a
part of my life. Then when I made the decision to return to work with them,
with the knowledge that money was not going to be a part of the equation, then
that was the time that I really realized that following my heart is good, but
it’s going to require sacrifice. I feel like that time in my life was really a
turning point in realizing the cost of following your heart, literally and
figuratively.
How do you
define success?
There are many different types of success. I think
every person has their own way to gauge their success. I think for me, if I am
being successful ….I think success is a mixture of things for me. Some of the
most important things for me to be successful are to surround myself with
loving and like-minded and like-hearted people. I also think that for me in
order to be a success there has to be an element of risk taking and knowing
that my success doesn’t solely ride on my accomplishments or failures, but
success is a big picture, it’s a way of approaching the world. I also think
that defeat often takes the form of settling down and not looking for a way to
grow or expand your horizons. So, I would say that success is always looking
for ways to grow and it isn’t something that you can reach, it is always rising
and is not stagnant.
Who inspires
you? Why?
Besides you…because that’s the answer. There are a
lot of people that inspire me. I think that I could point to one guy that I
worked with at Invisible Children named, Jedidah [Jenkins]. I think a lot of
people would be inspired by him, and I think the reason he is inspiring to me is
that his sense of purpose is so clear. You can see his purpose radiating out
from him. Lots of time people look at him and wonder how can you be so vibrant
at all times? It’s not that he has super human abilities or is faking it, it’s
because he has found freedom in letting himself be himself. That is just so
beautiful and it is inspiring. He is inspiring not because he makes a ton of
money, he works in an office with a bunch of interns, and it’s not the sexiest
and most glamorous job, but he is free and he is himself all the time. I think
that is one thing that is inspiring about him. That is what I really admired
about him and that is something I want to see more of in myself.
It’s
hard to do.
It really is, there is
so much vulnerability in being authentic and being a free person who is not
ashamed to be free around people who feel like they don’t have permission or
don’t feel worthy of being themselves. It’s a strange dynamic when you are in
an environment where there are people that are strongly themselves and there
are people who are along for the ride. I hope that I can work in an environment
where there is freedom to be who you are.
Where have you
seen the power of connectedness in your life?
I know that I keep pointing back to Invisible
Children, for good reason because it is such a beautiful place to work. When I
set foot in the doors of Invisible Children in March, the video Kony 2012 and
the Kony 2012 campaign just took off; we started getting emails from people
asking how they can get involved. I was a part of the team who were responding
to emails and directing them to people they should get in touch with and where
they should go. We were getting email from all over, places like: Belarus, Thailand,
Australia, South Africa, I mean, ALL OVER THE PLACE. It was insane. Just seeing
the way the global community saw an issue and was moved to respond was
unbelievable. Even driving through the streets with the Kony 2012 sticker or
driving in the Invisible Children van, you would always see somebody who was
waving or just excited about the work that is being done and that they could be
a part of it.
What is one
experience that you have had that shifted your perspective about something?
When I was in college, I took a course called,
Business and Professional Speaking. It
was a good course, but I went to school at a small college in Kansas so most of
my classmates were middle-class, white, and there wasn’t much diversity within
the class. The professor of the class would say okay, you have an improv speech
to make today. She would throw out a topic and we would have to give a five
minute speech if we were called on. It was really intimidating sometimes and
she would have us just be uncomfortable for a few minutes and sit there to work
out our feelings and thoughts that way. Every Friday, people would just be
praying please don’t call on me; I don’t want to do this. They would get up and
stumble through a five minute speech. One day, she said, I want you to think of
one moment or day in your life that something happened, an event or something
in your life that after that moment you were never the same. I want you to talk
about it to the class. The immense diversity of stories that came from this
group of students that I previously thought were all very similar and came from
similar backgrounds was astounding. We had a girl who was riding the bus one
morning and the bus driver got a call from someone who said to drop this girl
off. So, they just dropped her off on the side of the road where her mom was
waiting for her and she then found out that her dad had just passed away. So
she became a caretaker for her siblings when she was only eight years old.
There was another girl, who on Sept. 11 knew someone from her community who was
in one of the planes that crashed. There were just gnarly stories that were
coming out of the mouths of my peers that I just assumed unfairly that didn’t
have good stories. The crazy thing about that day was that everyone who stood up
shared their stories with such confidence, and sincerity, and such ease,
because they were the experts of their own stories. They didn’t have to be
nervous, they were just being themselves, and they spoke beautifully. People
who were stumbling and stuttering on their words, were now speaking with
clarity and confidence. It just moved me in a way that it made me realize that
everybody has a story to tell and everybody wants to tell their story, but not
everybody is willing to listen. If we can listen to people’s stories and their
experiences, I think that it would change the way that we see each other and
the way that the world interacts with each other. We would just understand a
little bit more where someone is coming from if we just took the time to listen
to a story.
Have you ever
set aside fear to move forward?
I don’t think that I have ever set it aside, but I’ve
carried it behind me. I think that fear can stop someone dead in their tracks.
I know that I have been stopped by fear before, but I think it can also be a
good indicator that you are going down the right track because if you were
doing something that isn’t worth while there wouldn’t be any resistance. You
wouldn’t feel fear if you were just living an ordinary life. I think that fear
is an indicator that something is going on and that something big is about to
happen. I think disregarding fear is something people can do, but I wouldn’t
for a second think that dismissing fear is the right action for me to take,
because if I’m going to measure where I’ve come from and how far I’ve gone, I
need to include my fears in that measurement. It helps me gauge my development
as a person and as a soul.
What is one
question you would love to ask people? And why?
I really like that question my speech teacher had
asked, “What is the one moment or one day that changed you.” It is not a
threatening question, but it certainly opens up a big door to understand where
a person is coming from and where they have been and where they are going. I
think those defining moments can be an indicator of the character of a person
and the kind of things that they value. Yeah, it would probably be that
question, yeah.
If you had a
super hero power, what would it be? And why?
He is technically a super villain, but he is a
misunderstood super villain. His name is Magneo and he has magnets as a means
to attract metal things and do super cool stuff with it. I’ve always thought
that he was cool, but not because he was bad, but because of his power and his
ability to build stuff and fly things around and play some cool pranks on
people.
Anything else
you want to share, where you are at in life, your journey?
Hmmm…yeah, this past summer, I really came face to
face with a lot of my anxiety and feelings of inadequacy. There were a few
times over the summer where I started having panic attacks, which were really scary.
You realize that there is a lot of stuff going on in your mind that you aren’t
aware of, or that you don’t think is worth the time to deal with. I can point
back to the times this summer where I have really experienced these times where
I thought, “Am I going crazy?” I really thought that I might be going crazy or
that there is something wrong in my mind. I started doing research online, and
looking at what anxiety really is, and I saw that there are so many people that
are dealing with anxiety and depression. This made me wonder how I managed to never
know about this, I mean there are millions and millions of people who deal with
this kind of stuff. I’m not sure, but it seems like people avoid talking about
or admitting it. I don’t think that is healthy. If you are dealing with something,
don’t be ashamed of it, once you speak it into the universe, and into
relationships, chances are you’ll probably meet somebody who has dealt with it
before and they can help you out. I talked with a few people that I worked with
over the summer and one person was like, oh yeah I had panic attacks for a year
when I was in second grade, and another person said, yeah I dealt with panic
attacks all through high school. I was like oh so I’m not a weirdo, and they
were like no, this is just something that happens to people sometimes. You can
totally deal with it, you might feel like you are going crazy, but you aren’t.
It was just freeing, and I think that if more people would just share the
things that they viewed as a weakness or a disability, I think they would be incredibly
surprised to find that there are a lot of people dealing with very similar
issues and that its nothing to be ashamed of. This just something that I have
learned this summer.
Any parting words?
Be true to who you are and stop at nothing! Yeah Stop at
Nothing…
(Note: Stop at Nothing is the slogan that was used for the
Kony 2012 campaign)