Those three words kept me from doing so many things. I am rebellious at heart. I don’t try to be difficult; the tests show it. I naturally resist what everyone is doing and have missed out on, or hopped on the train late to many great things…Harry Potter, meditation, and On Cloud shoes…
My mother raised my sister and me to never get embarrassed. She devoted Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours to embarrassing us as children so we are completely desensitized to it as adults. I can fall down so spectacularly you will be embarrassed for me, but I’ll just laugh.
What did embarrass me was doing things I deemed uncool…I’m not a joiner so things that were uncool to me were anything involving groups. The thought of spending a Saturday in a personal development program or joining a challenge put on by my gym would be the absolute last thing I would ever commit to doing in my life. Flying under the radar was preferred and privacy was paramount. Yet, we are 15 days into 2021 and I have spoken to a group about happiness and positivity and am leading the women’s rowing challenge at my gym.
Enter the 30-Day Challenge.
I have a friend who created the idea to get out of a funk and it worked like magic. So, I decided to try it myself in none other than…New York City.
Guess what? It was the greatest month of my life. I did not give a shit what anyone thought of me. Take a picture with the Peloton instructor? Sure. Ask a stranger to take my picture at a funky art installation? 100%. Pose with the cardboard cutout at the off-Broadway show? You bet! Ask a stranger if I could use his fishing pole in Central Park? I have a picture to prove it.
And, it didn’t stop there. I pushed myself to really expand and explore, which found me…
Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge with Rob Lawless of Rob’s 10k friends
Kissing a stranger in Koreatown
Taking a class at Google
Getting a poncho from Simon Sinek
Spending an entire day on roller coasters in Coney Island
Visiting an abandoned smallpox hospital
Eating Greek food in Astoria
Taking a live class at the Peloton studio
And, last but not least, eating pizza past midnight with drunk NYU students in the West Village.
I stopped caring if the things I was doing looked cool. I now sing in the grocery store…out loud, go out in Tulum with a friend who carried around a green papier-mâché alien, had homegrown avocados delivered to me from a stranger in Jamaica, and am doing another 30-Day List that started today.
And, so should you.
That’s my hope for all of us. Do more of the dumb things, the fun things, the silly things, and the ridiculous things. So, make a list to expand and explore. 30 things. 30 days. Let me know if I can help with your list. If New York taught me anything, it’s to dream big. Here’s to recreating the magic all over again.