Celebrating an Anniversary – 10 Years After Sharing My Secret Story
When you think about celebrating an anniversary, we usually think of happy occasions like marriage anniversaries or work anniversaries. We also think about anniversaries we don’t necessarily celebrate but do remember like the loss of loved ones.
Well, maybe like the anniversaries above for some people, some anniversaries bring both happiness and sadness. Pure joy and a bit of anxiety. The anniversary I am celebrating is just like that.
10 years ago, I did a thing. A thing that had impacts much greater than I ever imagined. I gave birth to a book that had been in me since I was a freshman in college in 1997 but had been in the making since I was born.
I published my first book. My memoir.
Celebrating An Anniversary with Mixed Feelings
Publishing my very personal story was met with support by some, dislike by others, and silence by many I thought would be my cheerleaders.
Over the decade since I made that maybe ignorantly unknowingly controversial move, I have had some regrets about sharing my story. I have experienced relief from sharing my story. I have lost relationships from sharing my story. I have gained relationships and respect from sharing my story.
And maybe most importantly, I have helped a lot of people in a lot of ways from sharing my story.
So I’m celebrating an anniversary. Not by sharing what has happened SINCE the anniversary but by going back to what the anniversary actually is- the book and how I survived and saw success in spite of my obstacles.
At the end of every chapter, I share some of the Lessons Learned from that period in my life. I have turned each of those lessons into a short YouTube video. I’ll be releasing the videos of the lessons which helped me to go from an Innocent, Little Girl to a Pregnant, Little Girl to a Successful, Grown Woman with a whole lot in between.
So please join me in celebrating an anniversary, a very special anniversary for me, by subscribing to my YouTube channel. Comment, like, and share your thoughts and help me to continue to make the point of sharing my story ten years ago, helping people, have an even greater impact.
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I’m Summer Owens, and my passion is helping youth and young adults realize success no matter what obstacles they face. As an international resilience and leadership keynote speaker, author, S.O. What! Success Coach, and creator of the S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education curriculum, I empower people to say, “So what!” to even their greatest challenges. provide a framework to help people see past their challenges and focus on solutions using the S.O. What! Success System (Overcome Obstacles + Eliminate Excuses + Calculate Choices = S.O. What! Success). Through keynotes, workshops, books, online courses, and workbooks, I use life’s challenges and my own story of resilience as a rape survivor and teen mom success story to help others confidently pursue their dreams.
Looking for an inspiring college motivational speaker? A high school literacy curriculum? A middle school life skills workbook? A great example for teen mothers? A women’s empowerment or single mother’s conference speaker? I’m your girl and will help any audience say, “S.O. What!”.
