Day 99: Alice Crisci
“I had a vision of what I could do with that diagnosis … It was about understanding the community that I was chosen to serve so that I really could have accurate empathy with no matter what program or idea that I had to give back to that young adult breast cancer community.”
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Toni Reece: Alice, thank you so much for being part of this Project, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?
Alice Crisci: Yes. I’m Alice Crisci. I’m the founder of My Vision and the founder of Beeline Global.
Toni: Thank you. When you think about the word inspiration, Alice, who do you inspire, and how do you go about that?
Alice: I love that word inspire. It means to breathe life into. Biblically, it’s God breathing the Holy Spirit into people. And when I think about, well, “How do I do that, and who do I do that for?”, I really recognize that I’ve never consciously said I want or I need to inspire people.
What I’m committed to is that my life is an expression of my divine self, that it is an expression of my uninhibited self, you know, and that I truly live up to my potential. I’m very humbled to know that people consider themselves inspired by me and they consider that I am inspiring. That’s a very humble acknowledgement, because it also comes with a great deal of responsibility.
The thing that I tell people all the time is “Whatever you see in me already exists in you.”
Toni: And when you are talking to people and you know that you might get a sense now that there’s a little inspiring going on by following you as an example, how do you think by being with you and you speaking to them and sharing that responsibility to inspire others, how do you think you might help others explore their potential?
Alice: I think the most critical part is giving them the space to explore and speak the truth in their heart. That’s what I do in my own life is I have to speak the truth in my heart. I can’t live unless I do that.
We’re in a culture where you recall when you were in high school and so forth, peer pressure and things of that nature, and that doesn’t stop. People are comfortable with status quo, and it kind of pulls down other people around them. I’d like to think that I give people permission to really be their best self, to really have their light shine bright.
I’ve been told that when I’m speaking in front of groups of people that there is kind of a mesmerizing. I can see all the eyeballs staring back at me, and sometimes I go “Wow, that’s incredible.” But I believe that that is of a divine nature — not a religious nature, but truly a divine nature — and that we have an opportunity with how we interact in our family and how we interact with our friends and how we interact professionally and in our communities to really bring that out in each other.
Toni: Can you tell me … just take a moment … and one of the things that you’ve just said is that it’s not of a religious nature but a divine nature. What’s the difference, from your point of view?
Alice: To me, religious, the word itself connotes an organized group and a specific belief system, whereas a divine nature, to me, is really connecting with the spirit itself. And for someone, that could be through yoga; that could be through meditation; that could be through prayer to whatever their God is. That could be, you know, so many different things that I think it’s more important to practice connecting to that part of the self, and I believe very strongly that without that cultivation … and then it dies.
Going through breast cancer treatment, I was really confronted during chemo feeling like I am dying, and to have a medication that truly was killing healthy and unhealthy cells in my body, the only thing that I had was my spirit self. If there was ever any doubt in my mind or life or being that that spirit self didn’t exist … well, yeah, actually, if there was ever any doubt that it didn’t exist, those doubts completely, just completely washed away. Because it was almost like I was having an out of body experience kind of watching this spirit self interacting with people accomplishing some pretty crazy accomplishments for being so sick.
I guess that’s what it really is, is just feeling like I’m humble enough to believe that there is a higher power, and that it’s up to me to be responsible for being the co-creator of my life.
Toni: So that lends beautifully to the next question, which is, what do you need to be inspired?
Alice: Yeah … well, part of what I need to be inspired is ritualistic, because I am a very literal speaker and fairly literal thinker. The idea of “to breathe life” into means “Okay, I have to breathe life into myself; how do I do that on a consistent basis?” And for me, it’s fairly ritualistic.
It’s “How do I start the morning and express gratitude for the life that I already have? How do I connect with that part of myself?” And there’s a very internal process that that requires. There’s an introspection that that requires. There is a level of being present in life no matter if it’s happy, sad, sick, you know, scared, angry, whatever it might be, that I don’t check out; that I stay present to it knowing that this, too, shall pass, both the good and the ugly.
There’s also that external level because we are all connected, because we are all on the same planet, because we’re all here. There is an external which is filling my mind with goodness, filling my mind with inspiring stories about some other people.
You know, when I see other women, other men, other young people that are giving back to their community that are taking the courageous steps to give back, to think that they matter enough that they can make a difference.
To me, that’s one of the most inspiring things is people saying “No, I do count. I do matter. I can make a difference, and I’m going to do it in this particular way.” That, to me, is kind of the ultimate when it comes to the external inspiration.
Toni: That’s a great way to put that, too, and it is amazing when people just show up knowing that they can, that they have that sense of knowing.
How do you continuously explore your own potential?
Alice: I continuously explore my own potential really through acting in spite of.
Toni: What you mean by that?
Alice: Well, to me everything is about vision in action. The Bible says without vision the people will perish. But vision is nothing; vision is just a dream without action. I’ve been confronted with a fair amount of challenges, I would say, in the last year and a half …
Toni: It sounds as though you have, yes.
Alice: Just with my health and the health crisis of being diagnosed with breast cancer at 31 years old, when my first company was truly on this great trajectory, and I had all kinds of plans in place in what we were going to do with it and do next. Finding out that I was facing a health crisis was … it was a very dark day. It was as if my life went on pause.
But despite that, I had a vision of what I could do with that diagnosis, and I had a vision of being diagnosed wasn’t all about me. It was about understanding the community that I was chosen to serve so that I really could have accurate empathy with no matter what program or idea that I had to give back to that young adult breast cancer community.
That said, I had a couple of people that said to me, “You know, you really should focus on getting well, and you shouldn’t do that right now.” There was something intuitively in me that said “No, I’m doing it now.” There’s no way that anybody could talk me out of that.
I’m so grateful that I did that, because I was able to debut the organization before I even had my double mastectomy. The momentum that we built carried me through chemo. I had no idea how sick I was going to be from chemo. I had no idea how financially taxing this was going to be. So my health crisis then turned into a financial crisis which then turned into an identity crisis.
So all of those things, I’m still actually confronting today and, despite it all, I have a commitment to the nonprofit and to growing that. I have a commitment to re-launching my consulting practice, you know, so that I’m still supporting the female entrepreneurial community.
And I truly think that if it weren’t for the action that I take despite — or in spite of — all the different challenges that I’ve had … and these were significant challenges. These are not challenges that I sort of created out of neuroses or whatever other issues I might have in my life. You know, I think we all do that. We all create suffering for ourselves. I was forced to really look at what real suffering is and to act anyway.
Toni: And I’m wondering if it was even a conscious choice for you, because what you said as far as what inspires you is people that show up to the table knowing they can make a difference. And here you are; you were in your darkest moments, and you knew that you needed to make a difference. That community became very aware to you … where your work needed to be, where your purpose was. And you had been working with people through consulting for years prior to that. But this is the one where, during your darkest moments, you knew this was the one you had to pursue.
So, I think you’ve done what you say inspires you the most, and that’s what I heard in this interview. That’s pretty amazing, actually, isn’t it?
Alice: Thank you.
Toni: So I absolutely … we will post your nonprofit on the … I know that you’ve created one … what is the name of your nonprofit again?
Alice: It’s called My Vision. At MyVision.org.
Toni: My Vision. Okay; we will have a link to that on the home page of the Project page.
Alice: Thanks, Toni.
Toni: You’re welcome. The fact that you have been so open, honest, and real in this interview will serve many people well. For that, we thank you very, very much, Alice, for joining us today.
Alice: Toni, thank you for putting this Project together. It’s such an incredible, incredible Project.
Toni: Thank you. I hope that we talk again soon, and I hope that your health continues to be well.
Alice: Thank you.
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For more information about Alice Crisci: www.myvision.org … blog.myvision.org
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