This morning I was the morning assembly speaker at the Marlborough School in Hancock Park. Marlborough is an all-girls school similar to Chapin in Los Angeles and they had 7th – 12th graders in my audience at their morning assembly. I had 25 minutes to speak. I remembered being a student and how so often the speakers who came to Chapin would be boring, or self-indulgent or just really disconnected from the day to day realities of our experiences as students. So I spent the past couple of days preparing a keynote that would address some of the things I wish people would have spoken more candidly to me about. I addressed bullying, finding power and strengths in our own passions, striving to be the best leader we can be by serving others, and how if we merge our passions we can vibrate at our highest frequency and therefore be a better contributor to making the world a better place.

I opened by telling my story, illuminating how I merged my passions and the specific moments that motivated me. I then moved on to address the key points of today’s emerging fourth wave feminism: the idea that we are linked and not ranked, that we must value femininity as much as we value masculinity, and that social media has the power to allow us to control our own narrative, preserve our own history and also mobilize people from online to offline. I concluded by sharing 10 lessons I’ve learned over the years with the students, which I have listed below:

10 Lessons

1. Invest in yourself. 
2. Fail forward: seek bravery not perfection
3. Never underestimate anyone
4. Distance yourself from things that harm or deplete you
5. Be brave enough to have tough conversations with those you love. Nourish your sacred relationships.
6. Don’t fall for the likability trap –> instead practice telling the truth – follow your intuition – own your voice.
7. Slow by slow chip away – 1000 kicks one day or 1 kick a day for 1000 days metaphor – confidence – consistency is the Queen.
8. Learn how to learn – practice the skill set in classes that may not resonate with you.
9. Question everything! Own your voice!
10. Leaders make other leaders. Successful people are not threatened by the success of others. Use your assertiveness to bring someone into the conversation, ask what they think, see them. Leaders ask what they can give, not what they can take. They want to serve their community.

Thank you to Sophia whom I met this summer at the NYT Music Business course I taught for bringing me to her school and to the Marlborough community and staff for having me. It was an absolutely energizing way to start my day!! #thefutureisfemale