Denise Tomasetti

I'm going to say my parents. I was really blessed to have really loving parents. Though my parents divorced, they never had anything negative to say about each other. They always corrected me if I was a little out of line, but in a very positive way. It was never being yelled at. It was always being like, let's talk about why you acted that way, Denise, and then letting me have my platform to speak and understanding where I'm coming from. I had a father and a mother who were very hands-on. My dad would say every night at dinner, okay girls, gotta have a current event, and teach us to engage in those conversations about what's happening in the world and what's important to you. I would attribute that type of mindset to just having a really loving family that accepted the good and the bad but helped me through those stages. Then just surrendering - in my 20s, I totally let go of my ego. I saw so much ego and was able to recognize it was in everybody's way. I was trusted enough within myself to have the courage to say I need a little help right now, I'm stuck, not sure about that, and then I would ponder. I would only ask people that are really respected, then I would come to my own conclusion. Just living life day by day and recognizing just the simplest little thing of waking up and making myself a really good cup of coffee - how lucky am I? I find every little step in life to be something to celebrate, to cherish, because life is very short.

My father gave me great advice when I was in my 20s. He said, what do you have to do in a day? How many things? I said, well, I have like 10 things to do a day. He said, I want you to do 6 and leave the other 4 to the next day. Just prioritize. What are the most important things? Just do the top 6 and leave the other 4. I said, well, why would I do that? He said, because when you do that, you leave room for other things to come into your life. You will take the phone call that you didn't think you were going to take because you're too busy. You will take that lunch. You will read that book, and all those things that you will do that you did not plan will show you something else, will teach you, you'll learn from it. Trust me. And I did, and he was 100% right. Every time I took that break and said okay I'm done with that, that phone call I took, I learned something. I went out and did the shopping that I wanted to do and I saw the thing that I needed. He said that's a better balance of life for you and you will grow as a human being, instead of just doing what you think and not letting anything else come to you.

The first advice I would give is not to follow your dream, but to follow your passion. There's a big difference there. People have dreams of doing things, but is that who you really are? Because I think a lot of times we create this persona of ourselves because it's something we want, we see it in someone else, but that might not be our gift. The first lesson to anyone is really understand what do I like, what am I good at, and take your time with it. Know your gifts. Also know and recognize what you're not good at, and that's okay - we can ask for help with those things or take a course and learn a little bit more about that, but that should not stop us. The first step is recognizing our own gifts, because I truly believe we all have a gift. If you can take that gift and flourish it into a passion, there will never be enough time in the day for you. You will be so hungry for it all the time. You will never want that 9-to-5 type of position. You will want to work consistently because it's something that just feeds your soul. So that would be my first advice to someone - what is your passion? Once we can identify that, let's branch that out. How can we make a lifestyle of that for ourselves? How do we wake up every morning with that type of joy and giving back to society, but also very much fulfilling our own spirit and soul?