THE ICEBERG ILLUSION

I was scrolling through pinterest trying to find things to add to one of my boards, and I came across this picture which caught my attention.

It's called the iceberg illusion, and it's pretty self explanatory. But what struck me the most wasn't the 'idea' or 'metaphor' of it, but more so how much it put things into perspective for me.

I've always known that I wanted to be successful. What does it mean to be successful exactly? I'm not too sure. My idea and your idea of it are completely different, so there's no real 'definition'. It is what you make it. For me, success is doing what I want, when I want, where I want with whoever I want! Quoted by the man himself, Tony Robbins.

When I started my little baby of a business, Empowered by Erica, selling booty bands, I never thought just how much time and energy I would have to put into it. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE a challenge, I thrive off of progressing and being uncomfortable. On the outside, it looks like it all just happened overnight and it's easy. Truth is, it's not. And I can't even really sympathise for myself when I know personally so many amazing people who are doing the same thing I am on an even bigger scale!

For me, personally, I crave the persistence, the failure and the sacrifice, because I crave the learning. I do get disappointed and sometimes lack dedication, but know how to pick myself back up. The core reason of me doing what I'm doing isn't because I have to, it's because I want to. I'm up late, I think too much, my mind is a mess unless I type things into my notes on my phone so I don't forget my brainwaves I have. I move forward 10 to get pushed back 11. 

So keep in mind that what you see isn't always pretty pictures and rainbows. The shirt you bought for $50 from a local shop is going to feed the owners child for a week, or buy them the uniform to put on their back, when you could've bought it online from a huge company with an overly wealthy CEO for $20. Keep in mind that behind every small business, there is only 1 or 2 people that are replying to all your emails, staying up late hand writing the addresses on courier bags and writing personal notes for every order. They're exhausted, but passionate. All you see is the glitter. All you see is the 1 success story from the 20 fails before that.

There's still so much more I want to do, I haven't even scraped the surface enough yet for me to be satisfied. But these bags under my eyes are from hard work, which I think are so much better than any chanel or louis.

Work hard, dream big, create your own success, keep an open mind and stay humble.

Love Erica xo