In the last 6-8 months, I have gained weight – 1o or 15 pounds – which feels like 200 (lol) which makes me pause and ask this question: “What’s eating you”? In order to answer that, I had to dig deep – and I came up with some pretty cool answers for myself.
I am going to tell you a little bit about me, in hopes that you will learn a little about yourself from my thoughts, my life. Yeah. It’s the ‘Oprah’ method of exposure for the benefit of others.
But here’s one thing I know for sure: when we know better, we do better!
Over the last 30 years, I have worn many hats.
So if you knew me as an importer, you got a young girl, traveling the world, designing and importing clothing. A young girl shocked by how things and people really are in business, yet still holding her own.
If you knew me before that, you got a ‘rockin’ DJ on radio and a Newscaster, trained by the same guy who trained Batina Gregory on CNN News.
Later? A fundraising woman doing high end events at the BH Hotel to benefit old people. After that? Helping needy people in crisis situations. And finally, a successful businesswoman helping to create and build a ton of nationwide companies, then along with a team of people – putting one the cover of Inc. Magazine. Finally? Being nominated by Ernst & Young as Entrepreneur of the Year, three years in a row, coming into some major money. And today? Someone who once again has traveled the world, cooked in kitchens, ate in Michelin Starred Dining Rooms, took cooking classes and food & wine pairing classes (a month in the Bordeaux region, 3 months in Paris, months in Italy and England, over a month in Bangkok, 8 months traveling up and down the coast of Australia)…. and absorbed, absorbed, absorbed!
My biggest success? Raising two beautiful, talented, smart children. My biggest joy? Ditto. My kids. But you can add to that music, art and making a difference. Making people laugh, making them know they are important to me, and being there for them no matter what.
And during the last 30 years, people viewed me in different ways.
If you were a mother of 3 who left her husband who was beating her, the night he laid hands on her kids….. and I took what little funds I had saved up (in the early years) to make your new life possible, then I’m a Rock Star.
If you couldn’t afford a family home, and I gave you the down payment, then raised your salary so that you could afford to pay me back, and then after it was paid kept that extra money for house repair, then I am pretty terrific – and you remember that.
If you were part of a 43 all women team (sorry but things didn’t start getting messy until I started hiring men) and we became the ‘little engine who could’, then you remember me as someone who created something fabulous, with your help.
If I ‘groomed you’ up the ladder and gave you a great life, if I really appreciated both your work and friendship and you knew you could count on me? Those memories are still with you, I’m sure.
If I dragged you into a limo headed for a party on a yacht? Then you remember those fun times.
If you were just making ends meet and I paid for your honeymoon, or paid for your wedding, or personally delivered high end champagne to your room? (three separate people) – Those are things you probably neither of us will forget.
If I created fabulous parties, wonderful food & wine tasting events in a town that was pretty boring, yes…. to you I am something else!
But I want to say this: no matter what someone thinks about you, it’s only what you think about yourself that counts. That’s where your true happiness is.
In the last decade I have learned more than I have learned in a lifetime.
People say you are who you are not, in this moment. They cling to past thoughts and live in a separate reality. Their ego’s are strong. They make themselves judge, jury and hangman. Do they feel better having said awful things about you? Over and over and over again? Apparently not… because the comments keep coming at anyone willing to listen.
But I have finally come to realize, their comments reflect them, not me. So I don’t need to explain. I just have to understand and be comfortable with who I am today, happy that I treat people with respect and dignity, and look to see the best (not the worst) in the people I let into my life.
My son says I no longer stand up for myself. I don’t fight back. But you know, I am tired of fighting. Tired of trying to explain why what someone is thinking is wrong. Really tired of caring about what strangers think at all, personally. Because I finally ‘get’ that a person reacts to you and most of the time, they are reacting through the eyes of their own personal damage.
You can’t fight that. And you shouldn’t try. Just sit with that for a moment.
Even circumstances. A check out girl looks you up and down and says something rude. You don’t know her. She doesn’t know you. Her husband might have kicked her out this morning. Someone might have slammed into her car on the way to work this morning and she doesn’t have insurance and doesn’t know how she’s going to pay for it. SHE’S PISSED!
There are so many reasons people react to you. And guess what? Most of the time they are not reacting to you. They are playing out their own drama.
The one thing you can count on is: tomorrow always comes – unless of course you ‘off’ yourself. I have been through the ‘best of times’ and the ‘worst of times’. And that’s the one thing I count on. Things can turn on a dime. You meet someone and your life will never be the same (not saying that has happened to me in these recent times, but I do know that is coming too).
You know what I’m talking about.
If you are one of the few people I have let into my life recently and you have watched me build the Chef Marian Brand from scratch knowing that I am headed on an incredible journey, coming up with creative ideas almost every day now as I put together my ‘game plan’, following my passion for teaching people to experiment and not fear their kitchen, doing charity work helping and inspiring children, re-creating restaurant menus to have more flavor and be healthier, planning my acsent to being an ‘on air’ celebrity chef, with 4 years of ‘on air’ work under my belt, lifting myself up by my bootstraps and starting again, almost ready to start my search for sponsors?
Then you are proud of me. As proud of me as I am of myself.
And here’s what I learned:
At the end of the day….. whether they love you or hate you….. it’s not based on the ‘now’. You are NOT the person you once were. Your entire cells of your body change daily. You have an entirely NEW body every 7 years, And you grow with experience. So of course you change.
You just have to stay in the moment, with who you are now….. and care only about that.
And if someone wants to keep you in their mind, back where you once were, even though you have moved on and think and act differently now? Just smile and wave boys. Just smile and wave!
Happy eating,
Chef Marian