TEDxNavesink Talk Inspires Action
Just Show Up
Here's a story of inspiration AND action. The inspiration came from Tereza Nemessanyi, who gave a TEDxNavesink 2013 talk, entitled, “Reinvention of a Suburban Mom”. Action followed when Joan Ellis, who was sitting in the audience that day, took in every word and went home to act on one of her big dreams to start her own blog. It was these three little words that stuck with Joan and moved her to action
JUST. SHOW. UP.
Furthermore, Tereza outlined six actions with the playful acronym BADASS: Bold, Aim, Data, Authentic, Social, Show up. Joan got it. There wasn't any point in just hanging out any more because here was the inspiration she had been waiting for.
Be BADASS
Joan has all those first attributes. She is definitely Bold, she has Aim, she has a ton of Data, she is most certainly Authentic. It was the two “ss” she needed a little encouragement on.
Joan, a highly spirited, active woman rides a tractor all summer long, and in winter she adds an attachment to her jeep so she can do her own snowplowing. Joan's a writer, and is most well known as a film reviewer for several print publications and digital sites. Her own website, Joan Ellis boasts over 1000 reviewed films, categorized and searchable.
Inspired by Tereza's Tereza's TEDx talk about how she had reinvented herself from being invisible to being named one of Forbes “Ten Female Entrepreneurs to Watch” (2011), Joan went up to Tereza, only to hear her reiterate: JUST.SHOW.UP.
So that day, Joan went home to start her first blog, The View from 80. Joan is over 80. She had been itching to share her stories, her memories and her gift of perspective. It was time. No more waiting. In her introductory piece to her blog, she writes:
Why now? Why not. Time has allowed us to process more than younger friends and family and we are experiencing the gift of perspective. We have spent eight decades living, building lives, making mistakes, observing and learning. Now the pieces of the big puzzle have begun to fit together. It’s a great time to be alive.
Synergy: TEDxNavesink Talk Inspires Action
It's not only cool that Joan has started her own blog, inspired by Tereza, a woman approximately 50 years her junior, but it's illustrative of one of many synergies and connections that are available to us when we find our tribe by going out to events – another of Tereza's tips. Other prerequisites are having the tools to be able to implement a dream and the personal attributes to make dreams come true.
So thrilled was Joan with the personal outcomes of attending TEDxNavesink in 2013, she was the first to buy two tickets for 2014 TEDxNavesink to be held on May 10 at the Two River Theater Company in Red Bank, NJ.
Check out Joan's blog, The View From 80. In her own words:
It’s all about acceptance of the choices people make. I ask the same thing of you as I ask of myself: to remember that it’s all about acceptance, not dismissal. It took me eighty years to learn that. So if you do read on, perhaps you’ll be accepting even when you disagree; and I hope you will comment so we can build a dialogue.
