A Van Down By The River

For the last two hours of class on Saturday we cosmo girls (and two guys who could probably pass for girls) were lucky enough to sit through the witty repartee of the motivational speaker, Doug Cox. Before the rodeo Santa Clause (no joke) showed up, the girls were thoroughly annoyed that this man would be infringing on the last two hours of an eight-hour makeover. I, on the other hand, was absolutely gleeful that I would get 120 wonderful minutes at the end of the day to sit in the back row and sleep. (65-hour workweeks have helped me to build a staggering amount of sleep debt. I takes it where I gets it, mmmm-k.)

Off the track:
About a year ago, I was waiting for my ride home after a long day of work and class outside the student center and fell asleep on public bench for what had to be about 40 minutes. I woke up to two guys pointing and snickering, most likely at the spot of drool on my chin. Mortifying, yes, but sadly enough it was not the first time.

Back on track:
Unfortunately, I was quickly ushered to a seat in the second row because I showed up late by two lousy minutes. The entire exhibition ended up being very involved. We were standing up, sitting down, hugging, holding hands, and singing “Kum By Ya.” (OK, OK, I made those last few things up.) Nevertheless, audience participation was a requirement and sleep was not an option.

Rodeo Santa talked about how to be successful in your life whether it‘s personally, financially, emotionally, physically, or spiritually. He guaranteed that if we followed his plan, we too would be successful. He did, after all, motivate Donald Trump to be the real estate mogul he is today.

To start off, he made us promise that we would be all ooey-gooey-lovey-dovey toward our selves.
Repeat after me:
I promise myself that I am beautiful. I promise that I will embrace my emotions and I will be an emotional person.

Right about now, I was kind of wishing Chris Farley would bounce into the room and give his rendition of Matt Foley, Motivational Speaker to break up all the unbearable mush.

Next he talked finances and we continued to make promises to ourselves:
Ahem. I promise to make my money work for me. I promise to buy only what I need. And I promise to buy things that accrue value.

The first two promises seem to make sense. The third, however, is not as easy as it may sound. Rodeo Santa used the example of cars, they do not become more valuable, therefore, do not purchase a car.

Do not purchase a car? Do not purchase a car!? Well, my apologies, but a majority of the population does not live in down town NYC and have public transportation available to them round the clock. AND, spending money on public transportation doesn’t do you any good financially either. If you have to take the bus twice a day and bus fare is $2 per trip, that’s $1,460 you could have applied to something else, like – I don’t know – a piece-o-crap car! A car that you would only have to buy once. Taking the bus year after year would be like buying the same $1,460 piece-o-crap every year.

(*Stepping off my soap box*)

More promises:
I promise to use my memories and not be used by them.

This one really resonated for me. My life made a one-eighty almost 3 years ago and I have, and still am letting the events leading up to this turn effect every aspect of my being. Maybe it’s because the ripples from these happenings are still very strong. I often find myself struggling to keep my head above water. I know it is cliché but easier said than done, Mr. Rodeo Santa, easier said than done.

The last promise we made to ourselves:
I promise to be a little better today than I was yesterday.

This is when Rodeo Santa (I don’t know why I keep calling him that, his name is Doug) broke out in a (surprisingly good) rendition of Martin Luther King’s most infamous speech, “I Have A Dream.” He would shout out, “I have a dream!” and the audience of wannabe stylists would repeat the words with enough zeal to mimic that of Dr. King himself. You’d better stand up ladies and gentlemen, because we’re gonna have church in here tonight! I have a dream!

We wrote out our dreams on a 3”x5” note card we creatively titled, “My Dreams.”
- to travel all over the world
- to open my own salon and be successful
- to give back
- to be a good person

We were told that if we hold on to our dream sheet we will be successful. No bones about it, Rodeo Santa promised us success. Let it be known, I still have my dream sheet.

Have I motivated you yet? Can you make these promises to yourself?