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I want us / to leave this world / better than we found it. // And how I choose to effect change / is by speaking up, / by being the first, and by being the domino. // For a line of dominoes to fall, / one has to fall first, / which then leaves the other choiceless to do the same. // And that domino that falls, / we're hoping that, / OK, / the next person that sees this / is inspired to be a domino. // Being the domino for me, / looks like / speaking up / and doing the things that are really difficult, / especially when they're needed, / with the hope that others will follow suit. // And here's the thing: / I'm the person who says / what you might be thinking / but dare not to say. // And a lot of times people think that / we're fearless, / the people who do this, / we're fearless. // We're not fearless. // We're not unafraid of the consequences / or the sacrifices that we have to make / by speaking truth to power. // What happens is, / we feel like we have to, / because there are too few people in the world / willing to be the domino, / too few people willing to take that fall. // We're not doing it without fear. // Now, let's talk about fear. / I knew exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up. // I was like, / "I'm going to be a doctor!" // Doctor Luvvie was the dream. // I was Doc McStuffins before it was a thing. //And / I remember when I went to college, / my freshman year, / I had to take Chemistry 101 / for my premed major. // I got the first and last D / of my academic career. // So I went to my advisor, / and I was like, / "OK, / let's drop the premed, / because this doctor thing is not gonna work / 'cause I don't even like hospitals. // So .../ Let's just consider that / done for." // And that same semester, / I started blogging. // That was 2003. // So as that one dream was ending, / another was beginning. // And then what was a cute hobby / became my full-time job / when I lost my marketing job in 2010. // But it still took me two more years to say, / "I'm a writer." // Nine years after I had started writing, / before I said, / "I'm a writer," / because I was afraid / of what happens / without 401ks, / without... "How am I going to keep up my shoe habit? // That's important to me." // So / it took me that long / to own this thing. // That was what my purpose was. // And then I realized, / fear has a very concrete power / of keeping us from doing and saying the things / that are our purpose. // And I was like, / "You know what? // I'm not gonna let fear rule / my life. // I'm not gonna let fear / dictate what I do." // And then / all of these awesome things started happening, / and dominoes started to fall. //