Why Empowerment Makes You a Force to Be Reckoned With
By: Lauren Bannister
Tags: Empowerment, Support, Gender Equality, Gender, Books

Photo by Mareko Tamaleaa on Unsplash

In 2019, a random LinkedIn connection and message changed the path I had begun walking down. Someone saw my work and felt like I could write a book; A big, well-developed book.

So, I trusted that person’s instincts and their words of encouragement and decided to go for it.

Here we are — — a year later. My book is being published next month! It’s a book about women breaking beyond the barriers set before them and creating a world around them that is empowering and inspiring.

Yes, the big message known is Empowered Women, Empower Women.

But, I like how Empowered People, Empower People just as much. In writing my book, I have been blessed with support from women and men alike.

It’s my mom showing my book cover to her co-workers at a school just as much as my uncle showing it to everyone around his machine shop. Gender aside, there is power in empowerment.

In my book, Beyond the Title: Women in Journalism and Media, I aimed to find a way to empower the women featured but to empower to reader as well.

“I was compelled to research and write this book because of the people that have surrounded me in my own life — hard-working and passionate women. They have the drive to work hard and create things that shine a light on others. They are college students, CEOs, founders, publishers, and editors. If you wonder how a young journalist with a little more than a couple of fancy‐sounding internships to pad my resume can write a book, then I have an answer for you. I set a goal, did the research, made some connections, and jumped at the opportunity.”

There are people around you every day that need to hear words of encouragement — just as much as you do. When we step into a mindset of empowering others, we create the energy needed to foster an encouraging environment around us.

Support your neighbor, and see what you can get back. People will remember you for your positivity and not for being someone who brought them down. Supporting others will make them more likely to help you. Leave a nice comment, interact with their posts, send them a congrats message, retweet that tweet. Sometimes empowerment takes a few seconds.

I will disclose that they won’t always match your energy or seem like it matters as much, but I can tell you that they will remember any words you use to bring them down. If you think about the first time someone discouraged you from doing something you love, I want you to consider how much that has affected you and your confidence to do other things.

When I was only seven years old, a close friend of mine told me I couldn’t sing well and ‘I should just stop trying.” So, I did. I never made choir, I never tried out for musical theatre (even though it’s a secret passion of mine, and I sing as bad as I want around others. I cannot sing — I don’t think that is the talent I was blessed with — but I never even tried to learn how to sing “properly.” A note? I can’t find it. I never thought to try and understand the skill because some told me I couldn’t do it in one of my most impressionable life phases.

Inside, I still feel like that seven-year-old all the time. You may as well sometimes.

We have the choice to be who we are every day and make empowerment a part of it. I choose to empower others because it makes me feel empowered in my own right, knowing that I am bringing someone up, not down.

I encourage you to practice encouraging others and see how it changes your life. Through my book, I am using my platform to encourage others to follow their goals and build up others along the way. I am hoping to empower them. Follow along on my Medium account for more conversations on empowerment, life lessons, being yourself, and creating a life you love to live.