The Brave Leap Sideways

i gave up a full-ride scholarship to a

top 25 u.s law school so that i could

speak with you today

sort of

of course the real dig in deep situation

that took me from dean’s list law

student to owning a copywriting business

and giving this talk today is much more

complicated than that

it involved personal relationships

mental health

and a rediscovery of my own values

but in very real terms i would not be

here in this room with you today if i

hadn’t decided after two years of prep

and seven months of classes

to drop out of law school

instead i’d be spending my saturday in

my apartment surrounded by highlighters

and six pound case books and i wouldn’t

even be thinking about the possibility

of giving a tedx talk

i want everyone to close your eyes

and if you’re someone who can picture

images in your head go ahead and imagine

yourself stepping onto a quiet treadmill

and if you’re someone like me who can’t

see pictures in my mind just one of my

neurodivergencies

go ahead and close your eyes

and relax as you follow along with the

story

so you’re stepping

onto a quiet

motionless treadmill

you begin to stroll

and the treadmill naturally matches your

pace warming up with a quiet hum the

treadmill’s track turns at a nice rate

and you’re feeling good

but

little by little you notice the

treadmill picking up speed it moves

faster and faster and after a while your

arms are swinging and you’re panting

you’re struggling to catch your breath

you’re not sure how much longer you can

go at this breakneck speed but you know

if you slow your pace you’ll get sucked

under so you frantically look around for

an off button or at least one that says

for pete’s sake slow this thing down

but

you’ve stepped onto the treadmill of

life

and there is no off button

go ahead and open your eyes

shake that off

take a deep breath

it’s not a great feeling being stuck

there just desperately trying to keep

going right

most of us find ourselves on this kind

of life treadmill at some point

we realize a relationship is no longer

fulfilling us but we’re afraid of what’s

next

or we’re afraid of hurting the people

around us so we keep sprinting

or we find ourselves years into the

college to post grad track and discover

that our education isn’t propelling us

toward the life we want

but we spent so much money and time

already that it’s hard to let go

so we keep sprinting

or we struggle to jump from promotion to

promotion at work and wind up in a

career that’s just not the right fit for

our values or our dreams

but we’re making money the benefits are

good and the grass is always greener

right

so we keep sprinting

our treadmill keeps turning keeps

pushing us faster and with no off button

it can feel impossible to let that

relationship that schooling that career

let it all go

and

i believe this mindset this experience

of feeling stuck goes back to a lesson i

think most of us learn early on when we

join a club or a sports team

and that lesson is that the most

important thing when we start a thing is

to finish it

we’re told just push through

you’ll look back and be glad you stuck

with it when the going gets tough

even dory said it right

just keep swimming

[Music]

but

i

don’t believe that the most important

thing is finishing what we start now i

don’t want anyone walking out of here

saying you know i saw this tedx talk and

the speaker kathleen melvin she said we

should quit stuff as soon as things get

hard

that’s not what i’m saying

what i am saying is that we need to

reframe that mindset that the end goal

of a thing shouldn’t necessarily be

getting to the end it shouldn’t be

simply surviving through it

i’m saying what’s important is knowing

who we want to be

what world we want to create and making

choices that move us in that direction

but we can’t move in the right direction

toward values dreams and outcomes if

we’re stuck on a treadmill facing the

same

same

if we’re going to achieve our goals if

we’re going to live the life we want we

have to get off that treadmill

and i know a secret way

now it’s not easy

it can be complicated and it can be

scary

but it’s worth it

and you can make it happen

in order to get off the treadmill of

life what you need to do is take a brave

leap sideways and here’s what i mean by

that

on the treadmill of life as it goes and

goes without slowing or stopping you

have two choices you can keep sprinting

forward gasping for air and yearning for

relief or

you can vault yourself over that

handrail and land on the ground next to

it leaving you the freedom to find your

own path

and your own pace

that jump

that moment when you decide to stop

sprinting and instead hurdle the

handrail

that is your brave leap sideways

taking a brave leap sideways can be

painful

you might

roll an ankle or tweak a shoulder as you

dismount you might land on uneven or

rocky ground

you might have to limp

you might have to crawl

but those injuries are temporary and you

will be limping crawling in the

direction of your values and dreams

instead of sprinting towards something

you may not even want in the first place

my background is in classical theater

performance for 10 years after undergrad

i worked as an actor and i loved it

it fulfilled me in so many ways

but as i got older my values changed i

decided to go to law school

i studied for a year

then took the entrance exam

and

then i lost someone important to me

suddenly everything shifted again

i wasn’t sure if i

wanted to go to law school anymore but

what else was i going to do

in the midst of the worst depression of

my life dealing with this tremendous

loss

it was all i could do to keep trudging

forward on the treadmill i had placed

myself on over a year earlier

so i managed to submit my school

applications

and the university of gainesville

offered me a full ride under their

governor’s scholarship so i moved to

gainesville

and i

started classes

my treadmill

kept rolling

did you know that one out of every three

law students leaves law school with an

addiction they didn’t have when they

started

law school sucks

even for a dedicated detail-oriented

academia-loving student like me

i

thought that being in school might help

distract me from my grief

but instead i felt worse

and worse

and as i pushed through i justified my

efforts i told myself i had already

invested so much time so much energy so

much money

surely it was worth two and a half more

years of suck to walk out with a degree

that might mean something

to someone

i told myself

i had no marketable skills

i had no other opportunities in front of

me i had to get a degree in order to

take care of myself

i told myself my friends and my family

all seemed to think that law school was

just the right fit for me so i must be

overthinking things

besides if i quit they’d all feel like

i never really appreciated their support

and

there were some little truths in there

yes i had invested time energy money yes

i had previously worked jobs that were

super unhealthy for my

introverted highly sensitive quiet

selves

yes my community really was supportive

and when i told them i had dropped out

of law school and was focusing on my

writing business

they kept right on supporting me

and

that’s what i mean when i say we need to

reframe this mindset that the end goal

of a thing shouldn’t just be getting to

the end

the end of law school is taking the bar

exam it’s becoming an attorney

but i realized i didn’t want to be

an attorney

if i had hated law school but still

wanted to practice law i would have had

to decide if the pain of school was

worth the experience of being an

attorney and maybe i would have decided

to push through those next two and a

half years

but that’s not what i

wanted when

i took a hard look at my values how i

wanted to show up in the world

when i thought about the world i wanted

to create i knew i couldn’t live that

life if i chose to practice law

now law school does lead some people to

their perfect missions and they do great

things

but for me

it was a treadmill

and i needed to get off

so i had some hard conversations

cried a lot

took a deep breath and took my brave

leap sideways

and honestly i haven’t had even a

fraction of a portion of a slice of a

percentage of a moment of regret

that brave leap sideways

was exactly what i needed

and i want to put it out there that

every situation is different

i was not brave enough to drop out of

law school on my own my best friend who

happens to be a business coach

when i talked with her over winter break

she said

you need to leave

you need to be writing

we will figure out how to make this work

for you

and i know not everybody has a support

system like that

i am incredibly fortunate

and because not everyone has that

privilege

we all have that responsibility

if you’re feeling stuck

if you’re feeling like you may need to

take your brave leap sideways but you’re

not sure if you can land

i believe in you

i believe you are strong enough to make

that leap to land safely and get going

on the path that takes you where you

want to go even if you’re not sure where

that is yet

this is me

holding out my hands to you

and

you may not feel like you’re stuck right

now you might feel like you are going in

the direction you want to be headed at a

pace that feels comfortable to you and

if that’s you

i want you to notice the people around

you

not just here in the seats in this room

with us today but the people around you

in your everyday life your co-workers

your children your friends

i want you to hold your hands out to

them

and tell them you have a secret for them

it’s the brave leap sideways

[Applause]

[Music]