No matter what type of circumstances that you have been raised in or have
experienced you always have the ability to find a way out and create success for
yourself and I had to do that in my own life. I'd see all the college students go
towards the campus and I thought to myself “Where are they going? What are they doing?
Why do they look different than the rest of people there in the group?”
That always kept in the back of my head. Our mother said, “Whatever you do,
in order to change your circumstance you’re going to have to get an education.”
I kept that in the back of my head. No matter what I had to educate myself.
I had to get a degree. So people that I saw going to the school down
the street, that’s something I could do. I had that vision. I would go to
this school that was in a predominantly well-off area and everyone
had books and paper and really nice shoes. I remember looking at this thinking,
“Oh, I don’t have any of that.” Every time I could come back into my
neighborhood I would see the graffiti, and I’d see the trash. I thought
to myself, “What makes a difference? Why are there people here in this situation,
versus here in this situation?” Every single day I would come back and it came
down to this, it was the thinking. How we think, how we
look at situations, whether or not we see ourselves doing well and being
successful, or versus if we see ourselves as a not successful person in an
environment. Our thinking defines our life. When we can take hold of our
thought and see it for what it is, and change it, and transform it, and change it
to convert it into an energy that unleashes a brainpower that allows us to
change a situation, that my friend is how we change our lives, and that’s how we
change everyone else’s life. What happened was I was failing algebra. I failed algebra,
I failed geometry, I failed calculus and chemistry. There was this
calculus teacher that said, “All right, I’m going to offer calculus tutoring for
anyone who’s willing to come to the campus during the winter break.” I
thought everyone’s going to show up. There was only myself. I thought to
myself, “This is such a blessing.” I sat there and I picked his brain. I'm like
“How do I look and what does an integral mean? What does the tangent mean? What does
the instantaneous rate mean?” These are all words for derivatives in
calculus, and I got to just sit down with him. That was the first time ever
that I realized I was smart. When I sat with him it was amazing because I
realized what was stopping me was my own fear. It wasn’t anything with
my educational aspect. It was me thinking I couldn't do well in mathematics and
when I learned to remove that fear and “I’m going to do this no matter what’s
going to happen. I may fail it. I may not fail it. I’m going to do well at this and
I’m going to just see where it goes. I’m going to put my all into it and find
out.” And I put my all into it and I failed.
But something inside of me shifted. I realized failing wasn’t that bad.
If I can spend a little bit more time at it I can actually
do really well with this. That was a shift in thinking. I’m like, “Alright, I’m
just going to spend some more time in it and I’m going to actually get this.”
When I overcome my own fear it was when I was working with someone else and
recognizing that person next to me was the exact mirror of myself and if
I could help that person right next to me,
I was helping myself at the same time. It became this teamwork. Every single
person on the campus needed mathematics and so I got a chance to know everybody on
campus and became one of the most popular people because everyone needed
mathematics and that confidence that was built from taking something that I
failed at before and shifting my thinking about it and embracing it to
actually create a new reality for myself, that’s what empowered me. That’s what
allowed me to graduate top of my class, which later opened up
the door to launch rockets.
Through a series of events I learned the power that we have in our brain. When
I overcame so many challenges when I was launching rockets of being a woman, and
being a person of color in a predominant area that was different
than myself, I had to think differently. I had to think, “Alright, I’m
going to stand out. Everything that I do is going to have to be twice as good. That’s
just the nature of it.” I had to change the way in which I was thinking
in order to do that. How am I going to be such a contributing force to this
environment that whenever I leave I've made a difference? When I realized
that, and then when I coupled that with the aspect of mathematics, where the same
type of math that we used to launch to Mars it’s the same type of math that we use
to literally reshape our own brain, I realized the power of our thoughts. When
we are aware of where we are, what we’re dealing, and more importantly the decision
that we have in front of us, the choice in our thought in a situation whatever
decision that we make in that full awareness, that decision in itself is a
fractal moment in chaos that literally changes the brain at that very moment to
restructure it inside of your head so you can unleash your power. When you look
at how are my thoughts going to align with where I want to go and you decide
that moment in time where you decide this is a thought that’s going to get me to
being a rocket scientist. This is a thought
that’s going to get me to be a doctor. This is a thought to get me to be a host of my
own show. Whatever it takes, I’m going to have all the type of thoughts that’s
going to get me closer to where I want to go in the future. When we realize that
we have a choice in how we think about things, where we have a choice, are we
going to be scared about something, or are we going to go for it no matter what’s
going to happen, that is when we unleash this power to here. When you are expected
to succeed by your mentors or parents or teachers, when there is an expectation on
your life to do well, at an early age you adopt it, you address
it, you adhere to it, you create it. But if you’re never given that opportunity
to know what you are capable of doing, if you are never given that word, that encouragement
that says, “You know what, you can be good at mathematics even though you failed
algebra and geometry and calculus and chemistry,” which I did.
“You can actually do well in mathematics.” If there is not someone showing you your worth
when you can’t see it, you’ll forever be looking in the mirror thinking that you’re
not worth what you are. When you see exactly what you don't
want, if you can take the exact opposite of that, that’s how you find out what you do
For example, when we launch rockets we knew, okay, we didn’t want there to be an explosion
out the jacket, which is was like the side of the rocket.
We wanted the explosion to go down. So we thought, “Okay, what is
the worst case scenario.” And the worst case scenario is, “Okay, there will be flames
blowing out where we don’t want it to go.” So we’re like, “How could we prevent that?
How can we focus on where we do want it to go? Where’s the ideal part for it to go?”
The ideal part is for all the flames to go down the tubes and go through and create a
plume. What we had to do in that aspect is literately
envision exactly what we didn’t want, and figure out the chain of events that
could possibly get us there to what we don't want and then go backwards.
The beauty about working in rocket science is that I had the ability to
observe genius brains and and I realized that any of us can gain a genius brain
no matter what age you are at. It doesn’t matter. Forget what anyone’s ever told you.
You can gain a smart brain at any age, at any age. Every decision that you make
reshapes your brain. The more powerful you are in making decisions after
decision after decision, the more powerful your brain becomes. Does that make
you really careful about what decisions you make? Like, are you super aware when
you're making decisions? I’ve learned to become aware to see, “Alright, this is
where I want to go. How is this decision going to help me get there?” It’s always
keeping that in the back of the head like this is where I’m going to go.
I made the decision very early in life that no matter where I was I was going to change it.
I was going change it so I would leave my mark to be able to help in a very powerful
way so people after I leave would be able to make their own
mark and build it in a way in which was going to be very powerful for their
life.
If you’re a person in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, in other words STEM,
Go into it, do it. There is such a overwhelming need for you, because you have the
ability to see the big picture. You have the ability not only to do the
mathematics, but you have the ability to see the big picture and use your
communication skills in order for people to see how important concepts are. So
that is the gift that you bring if you have the opportunity to go into that, do
it.