By Amy Leon

Many of us envision a future of success and fulfillment that carries out into our lives, families and friends. We ask ourselves who we want to be and what we want the future to look like for us. The vision and dreams we choose to pursue have a lot to do with the people that surround us in our everyday lives. 

I know personally the people that I admire embody the things I aspire to be more of. One person that I really admire to this day is my math teacher from highschool. Being in his class I was able to learn a lot about the things he value’s and how he was able to be in the place that he is today. In the time I’ve known him he has been able to show that he is caring, resilient, strong, and personal. Growing up without much, he has been able to fulfill his dreams of becoming a pilot and flying. It was his dream and he did it, he’s lived his life to the fullest and has continued to be active even now that he’s older. He became a teacher even though he had already retired because he values education and helping to serve others.  This is all to say that these are things I have taken from him and wish to implement into my life going forward. 

I also asked one of my closest friends “who do you admire and why do you admire them”? She shared with me that for her it’s her grandparents because of how far they’ve come in creating a life for themselves. Immigrants, her grandparents were able to build a successful business changing not only their lives but also the lives of their children, grandchildren, and future generations to come. My friend explained that she wouldn’t be able to have all the life and opportunity she has now if her grandparents hadn’t worked so hard to accomplish what they have so far.

One saying I found on my instagram that has stuck with me says “Imagine the woman you want to be. What does her life look like? Does she work for someone else? Or does she run her own show? What do her bank accounts look like? What daily habits does she have? Start showing up as her everyday. You don’t become her like magic. You build her.” Moreover, when looking at the people you admire take the things you admire about them and integrate them into your life. These people my friend and I admire both have a common theme of success and fulfillment we both wish to have in our careers. Build the person you want to be now in order to become the person you want to be in the future.