How Experiences Shape Who We Are

As we evolve, we carry on with all the learnings, experiences, wisdom and wonderful things that took place in our past and made us who we are today as we evolve and adapt to the new day, the new present.

As we evolve, we also carry and bring with us the accumulation of exhaustion, frustration, stress, losses, grief, failure, fear and much more that have forged who we are today.

In life, there are always two paths you can take, no matter the situation, you can learn, improve, connect that experience with past experiences to integrate, connect and visualize the future through a positive lens. 

Or you can resist, challenge, and get stuck in the mindset of negativity, where you can’t move on past that experience, holding on to it as your shield to defend, explain, or excuse yourself. 

Neurons that fire together, wire together. This is how our brains record an experience and store it for future similar situations. You can consciously help your brain store those memories or experiences in different filing cabinets so rather than putting them in the negative storage, you can put them in the neutral or positive storage, and believe me, life will be easier for you. I once heard that is much easier to go from neutral to positive rather than negative to positive, which I stand by, so tip #1 from this post, make room for neutral storage.

I’m not saying it’s ok to ignore pain, or frustration, or fear, grief or anger. All of those feelings are real and are there as a defense mechanism. Don’t ignore them, embrace them, and acknowledge them, but you better be sure to not have them create a permanent residency in your life, it has a beginning and an end and you must find a way to bring those feelings from negative to neutral and file them accordingly. 

I’ll give you 3 personal examples of how I’ve overcome negative feelings and have made them neutral so that in future events, my brain is able to process them accordingly, rather than piling up on negative feelings that will serve as a blocker and won’t allow me to execute at my best self. 

1. Discrimination. In the many layers of discrimination there are, I’m a great target for quite a few. Female, Latina, relatively young for the roles I’ve had in my fast-paced career (just recently learned there is a layer of discrimination towards young accomplished people), and let’s face it, being smart sometimes can be your enemy in a room of other smart, white, older male that can’t get past the “package” that is in front of them. They can get defensive when they feel challenged by someone they think it’s under them in whatever sense that is. I can’t even please my own race as some of them think I had it easier because I don’t have the Hispanic looks nor accent. Well… if they will only know what my journey looked like. But for the purpose of this example, I’m going to stick to this time early in my career, where I was building a field marketing program to take some offerings to market in small, intimate dinners with client executives to drive incremental pipeline and sales. I had built the model and presented it to one of the key partners I was managing at the time. I recall someone in the meeting saying to stop pretending to be a marketer and to let their marketing team handle the program they had built already. Clearly, this experience had an impact on me, other ways I wouldn’t even remember it. I felt embarrassed, angry, diminished, and in a way disrespected. I couldn’t find the rationale in his comment, it didn’t really make sense to me. I’m a marketer, literally majored in International Marketing, and at the time, aside from being the global alliance manager for this company, I was also their Marketing Lead responsible for the brand experience, .com, social, content production, etc. I learned that speaking up wasn’t going to be enough and that I’d better show what I was capable of and lead by example if I was ever going to earn the respect that I deserved in the room. So, I moved on with my program. Fast forward 4 years later, my program was being presented as the golden standard model on how to run partner marketing and it was presented in their world wide sales kickoff as an example to all other partners globally. Looking back on that experience, I realize how resilient I was, not impulsively reacting to his comment, not letting that experience stop me, but embracing all of those feelings, filing them in my neutral storage, and later, upgrading them to my positive storage unit as a recorded success. It’s not easy, but it’s on you to connect to the positive side of things.  
2. Your idea becomes someone else’s idea and it wins. Has it happened to you? Creative minds that openly speak, create and share only to find out that there is someone else, someone you shared it with, who is making it their own. Yes, it happens ALL.THE.TIME. Two things, no one knows it better than you do as it literally came from you and second, you can welcome diverse thinking to iterate and improve from what you initially had in mind. I could pout and stomp and cry and it wouldn’t make a difference. I can support, embrace, get behind, and have an active role in it to bring that idea to life with the support and sponsorship needed for it to succeed. Tip #2: Don’t get hung up on thinking you can do it all, the credit can be shared and you can take the positive route. If you don’t jump on the co-creation wagon, you are left behind. 
3. Fear. Probably our biggest enemy for personal positive evolution. Colombia. For 90% of the people reading this post it may just take you back to a school geography class or a Netflix show about drug cartels. For me, it’s an indescribable feeling of pride, love, belonging, diversity, community and family. Born and raised in this land, who I am today has a lot to do with what I experienced in 21 years that I lived in Colombia. Leaving everyone I knew and loved behind wasn’t easy. I grieved land and living people. My mind and body went into shock. I was shaking at the airport in my city, Manizales, while uncontrollably crying and sobbing as if someone was dying. I watched my grandfather stand by the waiting area looking through the glass as I walked into the gate. His oldest grandchild and in a way, his youngest daughter leaving him. My parents and teenage brother whom I loved unconditionally. My entire troop was at the airport saying goodbye, aunts, grandparents, uncles, cousins, friends. Listen, it was a big deal. I was the first one in my family’s history to leave Manizales. Not even to a close by city, to another country, period. Turns out, that feeling of fear and uncertainty I had in that very moment was so powerful and somehow I was able to put it in my neutral storage, because every time I am in doubt of my superpowers or fear failing, I go back to that moment where I left it all to realize my full potential and look back and smile at how far I’ve come. Tip #3: Smile - you are stronger than you think you are. 

So, how have experiences shaped who you are today?