Sculpting Your Own Masterpiece Inside

Transcript

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A few years ago, my mom decided to take my sisters and I on an incredible trip to Europe. The only caveat is that I was not going to be able to make the three weeks of the trip. I was only going to meet them for the portion of the trip that visited Italy So I flew from New York to Madrid, where I was going to meet my mom and the entire tour that she was on, along with my sisters. When we arrived in Spain, the whole group was so excited to be getting ready to go finally to Italy. Now, this group was a group that had formed from the church, from my mom's church. So they, everybody knew each other, and there was a priest that was a, one of the leaders of the tour. And at the time, I was going through a very,, agnostic type of period in my life, and not a crisis of faith per se, but certainly something that I was not into following and praying the rosary like everybody else on the trip was. I was actually reading The Da Vinci Code, and every day when they would climb the tour bus, I would put my headset in and I would start to read, blasting some of my favorite rock songs. So from Spain, we traveled to Milan, and that was the first time that I realized that I was not going to fit in very well with this whole tour, especially because my mom and sisters are pretty compliant. And if anything you should know about me is that I'm not a rule follower necessarily. I'm a little bit of a rebel. And also, I'm not one that usually travels in a tour. I have traveled all over the world, and we really liked to go to these undiscover places off the beaten path. And being in a tour where they told you when to get up, what to eat, where to eat, what to do, what to say, it's really not my cup of tea still to this day. As we got to Milan and we took our first tour of the Duomo in the main square, it was time to go back to the hotel because they were going to be celebrating Mass. Now, it was Friday afternoon, and I did not wanna celebrate Mass on a Friday. Although I wanted to spend time with my mom and sisters, I also knew that I only had the one day in Milan. So I got myself on a tram, and I got myself downtown, and I walked around. I ended up meeting some very cool kids who were there, for a mission trip. I guess I couldn't get away from people from a church group. But we ended up walking around, and we ate at some really cool places and had the most delicious gelato, and I loved just being able to Learn a little bit more about this wonderful city that I had been wanting to visit for so long. Now, the next day, we got on the bus and we drove, and finally we arrived in Florence. And we arrived in Florence and we were not able to visit the city the next day, but I was so excited because being someone that loves and appreciates art, I was looking forward to seeing the David. Now, again, Michelangelo is an incredible sculptor, and everything that Florence has to offer was something that I wanted to experience so intensely. So again, the next morning, I got in the bus with all of the people and we got to Florence immediately the tour guide said, let's get started with the group, with the tour." And as we pass the Uffizi Gallery, I said, "Hey, Francesca, when are we going inside to see the David?" And she said, "We're not. The line is too long." And I thought, what do you mean the line is too long? They're not even open." And she's like, "Well, we have other things to do. I will take you to a market where you can say, you can see the replica of David." And I thought, I didn't come all the way to Italy to see a replica of David. I came to see the real one, the sculpture that has been sculpted by Michelangelo." And now if you know anything about the David, there was a piece of marble that had been rejected by many and Michelangelo started to craft this beautiful masterpiece from this piece of marble for over three years. Ultimately, it is one of the most beautiful sculptures that you can see in the world because it is so lifelike and real, and it was intended for something else. But David is what was able to come out and I'll tell you, When I left the tour and I said to my mom, I love you, but I definitely came to see the David," and my sisters did not wanna go with me, and she had seen it before, and she wanted to stay with the tour guide. So they left, and I promised to meet them at the end of the day. And I will tell you, the first thing that happened is that the tour guide told me that I would never w- would be able to get in because I didn't have a reservation. However, I knew that I needed to try. So I stood in line, and it was about 10 minutes later that the gallery opened, and I bought a ticket and went in and saw David. And I sat there in awe and saw what an amazing masterpiece this was that came from one piece of marble, and that it had been created just by someone that committed to the process of sticking to it and had seen the vision from nothing into something. Later on, I walked around the city again, and I was able to see all the nooks and crannies of this beautiful city in Florence. and I met some really cool people as I walked around and interacted with the locals, and then finally I met up with the group. And I felt really sad because a lot of these people had saved their whole lives to take this trip to Italy. And, they saw what they chose to see. So what is this episode about, you may be wondering, because I'm telling you this whole convoluted story. But today, I wanna talk to you about a couple different things. Number one is you are created as a unique individual with so much potential, and sometimes we don't realize the masterpiece of individuals that we are. Sometimes all we see is a piece of marble that may be broken and cracked and maybe doesn't even have potential. But what's inside is so much more than what sometimes we give that, credit for. So I want you to think about all of the times that you thought that you were just useless. And I want you to think if you were to invest the time that Michelangelo invested in caring and loving and lovingly chiseling something from the inside. Work on yourself, my friend. You are already a beautiful creation, but there's more to come. But it's gonna take patience, and it's gonna take a vision for yourself. Now, the other thing that I wanna talk about is I wanna remind you to Not take no for an answer. I think that a lot of times we just accept something at face value, and we take somebody else's opinions as law. I actually met someone who had moved to Florence from where I lived in New York and had started his own business and had a store. And I thought, "How cool is this?" I would have never been able to meet this person and learn about his journey of moving to Italy had I just decided to go with the flow However, all the greatest adventures in your life are gonna require you to step out of your comfort zone, are gonna require for you to decide that you don't have to belong for this moment, that you can be your own person, your own masterpiece. The next day after we left Florence, we drove and we arrived in Rome. And of course, Francesca, not happy that I had gone off on my own, said to me, "We'll see you tomorrow. We'll see you tomorrow at bright and early 8:00 AM because we are going to go in to Vatican Square and listen to mass." And I thought, "Oh, okay." And this time I thought, "You know what? I'm gonna go with the group because they probably already have a section, selected for them, and, it's not gonna be a lot." So I woke up and told my mom, "I'll meet you downstairs for breakfast," and surely I thought I had enough time to meet everybody downstairs for 8:00 AM. And it turns out that Francesca decided that rather than leaving at 8:30 in the bus, they left at 8:00. I came downstairs to the lobby- In time just to be able to see the bus pull away. And I thought, "Are you kidding me? You're leaving me out? You gotta be kidding me. I'm not the person who you think I am. You think that leaving me behind is gonna be something that stops me from seeing Rome, going to the Vatican?" So I did the next best thing. I got a cab, and I moved myself to the Vatican. And I thought, silly them. They think I'm not gonna find them in the Vatican once I get there because they're all wearing the same T-shirt, and they all have this yellow handkerchief and the same hat, and they look pretty similar." So as I got to the Vatican, I was pretty excited, and the next thing you know, I realized that, wait a minute, their yellow handkerchiefs resemble the yellow in the Vatican flag. Oh, wait a minute. Today's a big celebration. And as I started to look around, I noticed that everyone in the crowd was wearing that yellow color that I refused to wear. And I thought, "How in the world am I going to find them?" And then all of a sudden, I started to regret my choices of maybe not going with the flow, being part of the crowd, going off on my own and deciding what I wanted to do and needed to do. And then I came to my senses, and I said, "Okay, let's see how I can get in." Then all of a sudden, I saw these two little nuns, and they started to go through the metal detectors, and I decided to follow them. And as they were clearing the metal detectors, I pointed to the Swiss Guard, and I said, "I'm with them." And sure enough, they cleared me in, and I followed the nuns all the way to the front, and I ended up sitting in the very front, seeing the Pope up close and personal. This was much closer than everybody else had been in that big group. Now, obviously, not the entire group was gonna be able to sneak in with the nuns like I did. However, this is another reminder for myself that sometimes going against the flow can open the door for you to have even better adventure, for you to really be able to see and do the things that really matter to you, Now, I'm incredibly grateful for that trip. We had a wonderful time with my mom and sisters and are memories that I'm gonna treasure forever. But also, the memories that I treasure from that trip is realizing that I am my own creation, that I can do the things that I set myself out to, and that I don't have to fit into somebody's mold. But that as I work on myself, I can be my own masterpiece, just like Michelangelo created. So my friend, if you're sitting on the sidelines, I want you to think about what can you do to sculpt a masterpiece from your life? And where are the places in which you're following the flow, conforming, wearing that ugly yellow that maybe doesn't suit you? Remember, brave moves are about being ourselves, about choosing ourselves, about deciding what is for us, not what other people tell us. And at the end of the day, people-pleasing is not gonna be something that helps you live the life that you imagine, the life that you've dreamed. So go and confidently figure out what you want, figure out and decide how you will sculpt and design your life so that at the end of the day, you know that you lived bravely and you lived in your own terms. Until tomorrow, my friend.