Each and every one of us is born with a unique set of gifts that we're here to express during

our time on Earth. Look, God doesn't make any extra peeps, and when we hold back our gifts,

we truly are stealing from those who need us most.

Hey, it's Marie Forleo, and welcome back to Love Letters to Our Creatives,

a special five-part series we're doing here on the Marie Forleo podcast to support and encourage

whatever creative dreams you might have. Now this week, I want to talk about something that a lot

of us struggle with, right? It's this idea that your dreams, they don't matter. That maybe you're

not good enough or that you're even selfish or greedy or maybe even conceded for wanting more

out of your life. Well, let me get this out of the way right now. You and your dreams do matter,

and guess what? You already have what it takes to achieve them, but don't just take my word for

it. You're about to hear from one of the most incredible women I have ever met. Dr. Terri Trent,

she's the author of The Awakened Woman and, as you're about to hear, a true inspiration and an

unstoppable force for good. Best of all, she's going to help you see that no matter what the batons,

your family or culture have passed on to you, you get to choose the ones that you carry forward.

You get to choose the life that you want over the one that's expected of you.

You know, I always talk about coming from this long line of generations of women,

women who had been denied the right to their dreams, the right to their education. I always

visualized my great-grandmother when she was born. She was born into this rest that she never

defined. And she was born holding the baton, the baton of poverty, early marriage, illiteracy,

a colonial system that never respected yet. And she's running into this race with this baton.

She ran so fast, she hands over this baton to my grandmother. My grandmother grips that baton

of poverty, illiteracy. She runs, she hands over that baton to my mother. My mother grips that

...