Meet Sara and Learn How To Give Away Your Life

This is Sara. And on a day where you may be caught up in the negative feels, the discouragement, the obstacles you aren’t sure how to overcome, I thought it would be encouraging to hear someone else’s story. Because on days that are hard, it’s just always better to think about others, to listen in to someone else’s smile.

You know what I mean? It’s like when I think about my childhood and wonder, “how was mom never sick?” Looking back, I can see it. Yea… she actually was. She was just more concerned about us, so we didn’t even know she was hurting. It’s like mom knew that caring for us littles, caring for others was ultimately going to be the medicine.

I’ve always said you should be today who you want to become in a lifetime, because it is day by day that we become who we are. Nothing fancy, just the little choices that we make and yea, the big ones too. Sara is one of those people who has jumped on the train to real living. There was a time when our team at ELEVATE had some big needs, like we were growing but didn’t know what to do, so we looked around and saw Sara. That girl with a smile that ignites a room who was ready to jump on the ship to do the things that were unseen for the sake of others. Those are the kind of people we want to build things with.

So, she asked how she could help and rather than soaring to the mountain tops every weekend, she decided to come with us into the weeds, the tall and scratchy and hard place of world changing. Some say this phrase of being a “world changer” is arrogant, others say unrealistic. I say purpose, hope, something to live for! To relieve someone else’s pain, to advocate for those who have no voice doesn’t seem arrogant to me and I know for sure that it is not unrealistic. Because we’re doing it.

Sara started off helping us with random small stuff. She learned about herself, we worked together and it was like one day, we all realized that it was in fact Sara who we all wanted to be when we grew up. She works a full-time job where she is a lab tech, she has a second job as a coffee rep in the area and oh, in all of that spare time, she drives 40 miles round trip to manage and lead our entire product department. 

Like she drives that far, handwrites every single note on every single package that goes out, she organizes all product, inventories everything, interacts with our customers, travels to events, hand conditions every leather Traveler’s Tote that is sent from our basement office, to it’s final destination.

Sometimes people tell me that they don’t know how to help in this world. Sometimes I laugh a little and respond, “lean in.” This country is full of people who are closing off, staring at screens and letting life happen to them. And you know what? It isn’t better. It isn’t better to live for yourself.

This week, I was hanging out with Sara as she is making some decisions in life and she looked at me and said, “Jess, I just want to do the thing that is going to allow me to give my life away more. That’s what is really important to me.” 

This world is screaming a thousand things at us, but today I hope you can see that just like mom, the best medicine is caring for others. Lean in, quiet down…what do you hear?

Now go.