Chaz Kyser Tell A Friend About Us:

Give Yourself the Power

I' m an avid seminar and conference attendee. I'll go listen to almost anyone talk about anything that sounds interesting-if it's free. I especially love to go to the empowerment seminars created to boost women's confidence, give us hope for tomorrow, and make us feel all gushy inside like we can conquer the world. Unlike many attendees I never take notes; I let everything just sink in. I've been to at least a dozen in the last couple of years, and I'm ashamed to say that they haven't helped me all too much. Like individuals who pledge to turn their lives over to Christ at church, but as soon as they leave go back to their old ways, I think I attended the seminars just to feel good and make myself believe that I was really trying to get myself together.

I've finally realized that all the advice, reading up on the five steps to achieving this and that, and the personal stories supposed to encourage me-don't have the ability to empower me. Whoopi Goldberg said it best while speaking to women during an empowerment seminar when she stated, "If I have to empower you then you're not empowered." In other words, power and the desire to change one's situation comes from within.

A lot of us are sitting around waiting to become empowered. We do this even though we realized years ago that are lives weren't headed where we wanted them to go and we weren't achieving all we could achieve. So why do we need someone to tell us this over and over again? Why do we search everyone but ourselves for the power we need to prosper? And why do we postpone living out our dreams? What are we waiting for-the actual voice of God to tell us "Okay, now is your time to be the person you really want to be?" The fact that we only have one life to live on earth should be enough to empower us all.

Sadly, many of us keep our dreams bottled up like we do our feelings about the people we love. We don't want to tell them how in love we are because we're afraid that we'll get hurt and look silly. We don't chase our dreams because we're afraid that we won't catch them and then everyone will know that we failed at our endeavors. But just like it's better to have loved and lost then never to have loved at all, it's better to go after every dream that ever crept into our minds and fulfill some of them, than it is to sit back and let all of them be nothing more than dreams.

I can't remember exactly when I decided that I had had enough of my laziness, my acceptance of mediocrity and the waste of my own talents and time. But after dismissing those thoughts and making excuses for myself time and time again, I finally wised up. The thought of being seventy and sad because I never made the decision to make the most of my life frightened me into doing it. And since I chose to dedicate myself to myself I haven't been the same.

I used to frown when famous people said the often heard phrase, "I never thought I would ever achieve this much!" during their acceptance of awards. I thought they always had the drive in them to be successful-something that average people don't have or at least I didn't. I don't think that way anymore. I realize that their biggest step to stardom was probably just saying aloud that they wanted to be a star, and not feeling silly for trying to speak their dreams into existence. I now constantly try to speak my dreams into existence and then go the extra mile and work my dreams into existence too.

Once we decide that we're not going to waste another moment of our lives without knowing what we're going to do with it, the empowerment we've been searching for will set in and overwhelm us. Instead of trying to figure out what we want to do, we'll be confused about what we want to do first.

I wake up in the morning less cranky now because I have dreams that I am truly committed to turning into realities. My days are no-longer filled with aimless hours of "just living." I have purpose and passion and all the good stuff the people in the seminars tried to give me. But I have these things and am empowered because I chose to empower myself.

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