How to Be a Bawse: A Guide to Conquering Life(16)
I used to be so scared to spend time alone. Now I love being by myself sometimes. Like any other relationship, the one you have with yourself takes time and effort. Don’t bully yourself into thinking you don’t deserve to be loved. That’s ridiculous! You should walk up to a mirror and serenade yourself right now. May I suggest Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love”? Because that’s how you should feel about your reflection.
“LIKE ANY OTHER RELATIONSHIP, THE ONE YOU HAVE WITH YOURSELF TAKES TIME AND EFFORT.
You will not work hard for yourself if you don’t love yourself. You will not fulfill your dreams if you dislike the person who dreamed them. If you want to be a Bawse, give yourself a hug and mean it.
Write a Love Song
List five things you love about yourself. And don’t be superficial—no hair, eyes, or legs BS! Get real with yourself.
PEOPLE OFTEN ASK me if I have a clone—how do I manage to get so much done? A true Bawse is able to get a LOT done in one day, and as a result, people can’t help but wonder, “Do they sleep?” I get that question a lot. The answer is yes, I sleep. I love sleep. But when I’m awake, I’m awake 2.0. That means I treat my waking hours like I’m making up for the time I’ve spent asleep. I want to do so much in a day that when my head hits my pillow at night, I’m exhausted and feel I’ve earned the right to catch some z’s. Many people I admire all share this quality, this relentless work ethic that allows them to complete tasks back to back throughout their day. My friends always joke that they need to pretend to be doing work around me in order to keep up. I’m not telling you this to brag (although, heyyyy); I’m telling you because I’m now going to let you in on what keeps me going. The key to hustling hard is to pause.
You can only work relentlessly on something if you ENJOY doing it. If I hated Superwoman and everything she entailed, there’s no way I could wake up, check forty emails, write a script, attend a meeting, check thirty more emails, record a video, edit the video, do a conference call, release the video, do an interview, and also vlog throughout it all. It’s a bit easier to bear a nine-to-five job that you hate because you know that at 5:00 P.M. you’re checking out, speeding away in your car while giving the middle finger in your rearview mirror. But if you have a career or goal that consumes your entire day, you need to like it to succeed. Enjoying what you do is the only way you can commit so much time and energy to your work. But let’s be real, no matter how much you enjoy something, it can still wear you down. So how do you stay in love with your work? How do you wake up next to it every morning and still feel excited about how sexy it is? You pause. You can only enjoy something if you take a moment to appreciate it and pay attention to it. That’s why you slowly take the first bite of your dessert instead of gobbling up the entire thing. You savor it.
When you’re a Bawse and hustling every day, life can seem like it’s speeding past you. Decisions need to be made TODAY, you have ten urgent emails that need to be answered RIGHT NOW, three people need you to call them ASAP, and you have two deadlines for TONIGHT. Your days, weeks, and months—your whole life—can start seeming like a blur, and you’re just trying to see straight. I’ve learned that I thrive with this kind of schedule (or at least that’s what I’ve convinced myself). I am like the Energizer bunny: I never think I’ll burn out. But I did once, and that’s when I learned the importance of pausing.
I was attending a camp in Italy with some really cool people, and I was totally star-struck. One of those people was Pharrell Williams, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t internally fangirl while meeting him. When I arrived in Italy I was very tired, hoping to relax and sleep in. Prior to this trip I’d been in L.A. for two hours to pack, gone to Montreal to accept an award, done a fifteen-hour music video shoot, and attended a movie premiere after a morning of doing press, all while participating in meetings and making my weekly videos. When I arrived in Italy, I sat on my hotel bed and opened my itinerary with excitement. The first thing I saw was “Day starts at 8:00 A.M.,” and I instantly went numb. 8:00 A.M.? Why? WHY 8:00 A.M.? WHY NOT PASTA AND COCKTAILS AT A SOLID 2:00 P.M. BY THE POOL?! Or 1:45 if you’re feeling professional.
The next morning I woke up and started the day at 8:00 A.M., feeling completely indifferent about my day ahead, despite the fact that I was in this amazing place with amazing people. I felt numb while I ate breakfast and felt even more numb at the first event I attended. But it wasn’t until my conversation with Pharrell that I knew I was totally burned out and needed some down time. There I was, in Italy, on the way to an ancient temple to have dinner under the stars, and sitting in front of Pharrell Williams, who was telling me all about his life experiences, and the only thought I had was, “I can’t wait to go to sleep.” How ridiculous and ungrateful a thought! That’s the result of going and going and going and not giving yourself a moment to pause and reflect on why you’re even going in the first place. The reason I “go” is because I crave amazing life experiences. My most prized accomplishments have nothing to do with money or status and everything to do with meeting cool people and experiencing unique things in different places around the world. Yet there I was, having an amazing experience but yearning for my bed. What a sad thing it is to work so hard and yet be unable to enjoy the fruits of your labor.