“Society may label me as not worthy of my achievements or too young, but I am destined to prove them wrong” – Inspiring Vanessa.
We at BoxHuman take time to celebrate humans who are inspiring, helping, and bringing light to the world. We do this in order to rebalance some of the negative messages we often hear, see, and receive on a daily basis. We met up with one of these amazing young humans…
Hi Vanessa, thank you for speaking with me today and for being our first BoxHuman Young Inspire. We’re excited to get to know you, so let’s get started. Can you please tell us a little bit about you and what you do?
My name is Inspiring Vanessa, I am thirteen years old. I am an international, multi-award-winning motivational speaker, YouTuber, Model, and Presenter!
My ultimate goal is to inspire and motivate young people to love themselves, grow their confidence, and give them the freedom to be who they want to be.
Watch Inspiring Vanessa in action here
WOW, Vanessa! What an amazing way to start this interview! I want to know like I’m sure many other people will too – How and why did you get into being a motivational speaker – What inspired you to do this
I have been doing motivational speaking for three years now and I started at the age of nine. It all started in 2016 when I attended a seminar and got invited on stage by one of the speakers! I said some affirmations and when I got feedback from others, I realised speaking on stage would allow me to help and inspire others!
At nine years old, I wasn’t the most confident person and certainly wasn’t ready to unexpectedly go on stage, but luckily I did. I said some affirmations for about a minute and it went very well. I was extremely nervous however, when I was on stage I realised that if I could talk about informative and influential topics on stage and travel around the world and help people, this is what I wanted to do!
In 2016, there were barely any motivational speakers at my age, maybe in the USA, but not in the UK. I hadn’t heard of anyone so I wanted to become that role model. If a child wanted to become a public speaker I wanted to be there to guide them and be the figure that I didn’t have when I first started.
That’s very inspiring Vanessa, especially the part when you said about wanting to be a guide and figure to other young humans. So keeping the positive and inspiring energy flowing…Can you tell me who are your mentors and what was the best advice they’ve taught you and why?
My mentor was Master Sri Akarshana (formally known as Eric Ho) but I look up to many other motivational speakers: King Nahh, Trent Shelton, Les Brown, Preston Smiles, Eric Thomas, Jay Shetty, and Prince EA.
I am mainly self-taught and I watch many motivating people across social media, who give me ideas, and they just inspire me in general. Although I am self-taught, I have had speaker training and am currently studying for my Lamda exams.
The most important lessons I have learned so far are to trust the process and be consistent with what I do and be patient. Everybody goes at their own pace and some even reach their goals faster than others. Even though it can be very difficult sometimes to still be determined when you see other people succeeding faster in a shorter amount of time than you – you should never give up!
Trusting the process is about knowing that if you consistently work hard and keep pushing forward, you will eventually get to where you want to be.
“Beauty comes from within if you want to feel happy if you want to love who you are, help others.” – Inspiring Vanessa
You are inspiring us to a 100% level!! Okay so knowing that you watch a lot of other motivating people. Can you please kindly tell us who is your biggest inspiration and why?
My biggest inspiration is, of course, my mum! She is the ultimate role model for me, all of her personality traits and how giving she is something I look up to every day. She is extremely hardworking, caring, generous, selfless, and beautiful inside and out!
Without my mum, I don’t know where I’d be or what I’d be doing because she is my number one supporter and without her word or permission for me to start speaking or make a YouTube channel I wouldn’t be where I am now.
She is my “mum-ager” (mum and manager) and helps to keep me organised and up to date on upcoming events! She is my biggest inspiration. Apart from my mum my biggest idols are Ellen Degeneres because of her generosity, Oprah Winfrey because of her wisdom, and Zendaya because of her confidence and kindness.
Awww! I’m sure your mum and everyone reading the part when you said that your mum is your role model all made that noise. So, Vanessa, you are only thirteen years old and have already achieved so much. What goal or goals do you want to still achieve and why?
The goals I want to achieve are to be on The Ellen Degeneres Show, it has been my dream since I started my career. The reason why I want to specifically be on The Ellen Show is that her show, in my opinion, is so different from other shows. There is always an element of kindness and positivity – whether it be, by making you laugh or playing games to win prizes. There is always something that she gives back to her audience and I admire that.
I would also like to create a hotel for homeless people. I believe everybody should be treated equally and giving people who are on the streets a place to sleep, eat, and be warm is one of my dreams and I believe would create a difference in the world.
Incredible goals, that I know you’ll undoubtedly achieve! Thank you for sharing that, we really appreciate it. Can we please now ask…What do you think people should learn or take from your own personal journey?
I think what people should take from my personal journey is that it doesn’t matter how old or young you are, you can still achieve a goal or aspiration and that not everyone who comes into your life will be there to support you.
When I was in primary school, I shared what I did with the whole school and did an assembly and a couple of weeks later I started to get cyber-bullied on my YouTube channel. I soon found out it was someone who was in my class.
As a result, not everyone is going to support you, not everyone is going to want to help you because unfortunately some people only want to help themselves and not everyone is going to understand what you do.
I look back and realise that at nine years old talking about personal development etc. of course some kids wouldn’t understand, so I think that is the most valuable lesson that I’ve learned from experience and something people should definitely take away from my journey so far.
We’d love to know from such a motivational human being – What three things inspire you on a daily basis and why?
1. My Inspirators
My followers and supporters. They are always there to watch and engage with my content and if it wasn’t for them I would never have grown in the time of three years, and gotten to attend amazing events and meet incredible people.
2. My Mum
She is always a living reminder to work my hardest and strive to be the best version of myself, as she has always worked hard for what she wants. On some days, I do just want to do nothing and I still do have days where I just relax, but on the days I can be productive I try to use that time as effectively as possible so I can soon relax and look back at the things I’ve done.
3. My Goals
My dreams are there not only to keep me determined but also to keep me going and stop me from procrastinating or giving up. Every time I think of my dream, I start to visualise and the more I think about the more I want it and the harder I work. Visualising your dreams and what you’re going to feel like and how you’re going to act after accomplishing that dream helps to manifest that goal or target.
We know that you love to support people to become more confident and happier in their lives. What three things should people remember in order to become more happy and confident within themselves?
1. Work on your self-love and self-belief. The more you start to feel good about yourself and start to love everything about yourself including your favourite features about yourself and your’ flaws’. To help improve your self-love, affirmations are a great way to start believing in what you say, the more you read out the phrases, the more you’ll start to believe them.
2. To become more confident. To use the body language of a confident person. For example, if you usually walk with your head down, walk with your head up high and straighten your back to look and appear more confident. You will soon start to adapt to this new body language and start to feel confident!
3. Do a simple act of kindness. Beauty comes from within if you want to feel happy if you want to love who you are, help others. Doing simple and small favours or even huge favours can really help better someone’s day and will, therefore, better yours and make you feel good and happy!
And last but not least… A BoxHuman is an empowered individual. They will not be defined by society’s labels. They show the better qualities of humankind, such as strength, kindness, and inspiration. Can you please tell us what makes you a BoxHuman?
What makes me A BoxHuman is that I show qualities of forgiveness, loyalty, and motivation. I love to help people.
Helping others is the core of my self-love, the more I help, the more I feel good for myself and others. Society may label me as not worthy of my achievements or too young, however, I know that no matter what, I am still helping someone and I believe whoever needs help will hear about me or come across my content.
“Thank you, Vanesssa”
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