Christina Semmens, MA, BA

I attribute my success to all those values I live by - openness, growth mindset, courage, perseverance, and holistic integration. But honestly, it's been mentorship. It's been those who have seen something in me and have been willing to invest in me. I still, just a couple of months ago, went down to see friends in the Keys, and on my way I stopped to see two couples who were my high school coaches and teachers. I'm still in touch with them, still have conversations with them, as well as people from college. People who, along the way, saw that I have potential and they were willing to invest in me. I try to do the same thing for other people. It doesn't matter whether or not my name gets mentioned, but if I have a positive impact on someone so that they're able to find their success, that's been key for me. Those opportunities, for example, receiving the 4-year Army ROTC scholarship - that was huge. I would not have been able to go to the university I went to without it. When I received the James Madison Memorial Fellowship, I would not have been able to get my first master's degree without it. So those organizations and receiving personal mentorship from people along the way, that's made all the difference.

Life is too short to do anything that you're not passionate about. This was reinforced by walking the journey with my husband and his passing. Yeah, there's always gonna be grunt work, there's always gonna be things that we don't like having to do that's a part of whatever it is we're passionate about. But be passionate about what it is that you're doing. For me, I'm passionate about helping people become their best selves and for them to be able to see that they truly are a gift to the world and they have everything to offer. There isn't a single person that does not have something to offer this world. Otherwise, they wouldn't be here. But life is too short to not be doing something that you're passionate about.

Look for people who are doing it the way that you envision you want to do it and seek them out for mentorship. Reach out and just say, hey, I really admire what you did with whatever. Could you share a little bit about how you came up with that? I would love to be able to implement that. I would love to be able to learn how to do that. It could be something as simple as you saw someone compliment someone and you're like, wow, I want to be able to do that. You just go up and say, it really touched me that you took the time and you really saw the person and you gave them a compliment that obviously meant a lot to them. I want to be able to do that. How can I cultivate that? So seek out people that you admire, of how they're doing it in your business, and then ask for that help, for that mentorship. And if somebody says no, or if they kind of rush you off or whatever, you probably don't want to model yourself after them. So often we'll think, oh, well, it must be something about me I'm lacking, and actually that's not the case at all. All the people that I've seen that are most successful in every field, I mean truly successful, are people that are giving back. And they do it without thinking about the cost. They just give because they have been given to. Look for those mentors, seek them out, model yourself after the people that you see are doing the things that you would like to be able to do.

It's the same challenge that's actually across all fields, and it is resistance. There's so much change that's going on right now in our culture and in our society that what happens is people resist change to begin with. The biggest challenge right now is resistance to a different perception or way of looking at things or approaching things, because people are afraid right now because there's so much that's uncertain. So the tendency is that they'll be like, oh, well, we know that this works, or even if we know it's not working, we're like, you know, you may mention about Saks Fifth Avenue, you need to re-envision how you're doing retail. But most times, people are resistant because it is so hard to start something new and you don't want to fail. And that's why I talked about courage before. It's far better that you have tried and you failed, because then you know what it is that you don't do. I mean, how many times did Thomas Edison fail at the light bulb? If he hadn't tried all those different ways, he wouldn't have finally found the way that did work. That is the hardest thing, is that people will be like, well, this is the way we do things, and no, we don't do that. And that is probably the biggest challenge right now, is just all this resistance to looking at things differently.

Openness, a growth mindset is the popular word for it now. Having a growth mindset, knowing that there's always going to be improvement, not resting on, oh, I've already done that, but rather realizing that, and golf is a perfect example of this, there is never the same golf shot. You can be on the same golf course, but there's never the same golf shot. It's a different lie, it's a different wind, it's different weather, whatever, but it's never exactly the same. Recognize that in our lives. So to have a growth mindset, to always be seeking, not for change itself, but okay, who am I now? What is it that I need to be attentive to so I can continue on my journey? So growth mindset, not being afraid to fail. Courage. To encourage, to do, to take the chance, mess it up. We only learn from failure. To talk about, to see failure, most people want to see it as, oh, I'm terrible, I didn't do it, I failed, but rather see it as, where's the lesson learned? So to have the courage to take the chance and to fail and to learn from that. Perseverance. Keep going. And the final one is just being attentive holistically. Be attentive to the whole person and the integration of all those aspects of the person. To seek integration and to live a whole, integrated life. That's always been the key.