{"id":108750,"date":"2018-03-28T13:20:37","date_gmt":"2018-03-28T17:20:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wanderlust.com\/?p=108750\/"},"modified":"2020-01-14T13:10:16","modified_gmt":"2020-01-14T18:10:16","slug":"audacious-optimism-silicon-valleys-mindful-maven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wanderlust.com\/ro\/journal\/audacious-optimism-silicon-valleys-mindful-maven\/","title":{"rendered":"The Audacious Optimism of Silicon Valley\u2019s Mindful Maven"},"content":{"rendered":"

Learn more about why mindset matters\u2014and how to change yours\u2014with Tara-Nicholle Nelson<\/a> at Wanderlust San Francisco! For tickets and more information, click here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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If I had a nickel for every time that I\u2019ve heard in the past year someone in our community say that the \u201cworld is burning,\u201d or that we\u2019re nearing end-times, I\u2019d be a rich woman. With the 24-minute news cycle continually pumping destruction and sadness into our ears and eyes, it\u2019s easy to sense that our nation itself hasn\u2019t felt as divided since the Civil War. Given this pervasive attitude, it would make sense that Tara-Nicholle Nelson<\/a>, a self-processed Impact Junkie (also former VP of Marketing for MyFitnessPal and strategist for HGTV, Capital One, Eventbrite, and Zillow, among others), would be prone to these feelings of frustration or helplessness. But Tara-Nicholle has always been one to break the mold, and her relentless optimism and emphasis on self-agency is no exception.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a spiritual contrarian,\u201d she says. \u201cI recognize that many people think our world is a dumpster fire, and getting worse fast. I strongly disagree. I can see wellbeing is the order of our universe. Wellbeing is the order our individual lives. It is our divine inheritance. It is our birthright.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reasons for Optimism<\/h3>\n

This doesn\u2019t mean that Tara-Nicholle is blind to the challenges of our fast-paced, negatively-saturated culture. She admits that neither our brains nor our spirits are necessarily equipped to handle all that come at them every day.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of my teachers says that if the media reported the good news and the bad news in their accurate proportions, you could have the TV on 24 hours a day, and one time a day you would see a swoosh across the bottom of the screen, and that would be all the bad news,\u201d says Tara-Nicholle. \u201cOur hearts beat for decades on end. We didn’t earn it. We didn’t work hard to make that happen. There’s all this beautiful good news happening all the time that we can start to see more naturally when we turn away from the digital drama<\/a> of the day,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Tara-Nicholle believes that everyone\u2014from any walk of life<\/a>\u2014is simply doing the best they can to create a life from \u201cwhere they\u2019re at, for better or worse.\u201d For her, unwanted circumstances are simply a way to create clarity around what she actually wants. Anyone can harness the power to improve, simply by realizing that they have the agency to do so. \u201cWhether a situation or an emotion or a relationship pattern or a circumstance that is wanted or unwanted, they all create clarity,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Wellbeing is the order of our universe. Wellbeing is the order our individual lives. It is our divine inheritance. It is our birthright.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is through this clarity that we are able to capitalize on optimism<\/a>\u2014on the possibilities in life rather than the setbacks\u2014and create the life we want. We buy into the brainwash of our upbringing, she says. \u201cHow many of us have bought cultural or family conditioning and messaging about what is aspirational? We\u2019re good if we go to this school. We\u2019re good if we have this career. We\u2019re good if we make this much money, or live in this neighborhood … And then you get that thing that seemed like the thing you most want, and you don\u2019t like it,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Tara-Nicholle should know\u2014she worked like a madwoman to receive her law degree and become a lawyer, with a young child at home, and after a few years in the practice realized it actually wasn\u2019t for her. Rather than viewing the experience as a waste, however, she transmuted the skills she\u2019d honed to a very successful marketing career. She took the clarity of having done something she didn\u2019t love to discover something she did. \u201cEvery circumstance, every decision you make in your life gets you closer to fulfillment or closer to clarity,\u201d she says, \u201cso you can’t actually lose. That is a hundred percent the beauty of the hand you are dealt.\u201d<\/p>\n