Relevance and longevity in any field requires you to see things as a marathon, not a sprint. The work you do in the beginning can pay off greatly down the road. Fernanda De Hoyos-Walther knows this very well. She invested the time to become not only an avid endurance runner, but a successful lawyer, serious news hound, and social good advocate.
In social media, and life in general, its about your story: the ability to give people an idea of where you have been, who you are at the present moment, and how you’re building a strong foundation for culturally constructive future. This is what you get when you talk with Fernanda. Engaging conversation, filled with possibilities and action-oriented ideas. So I asked her four, very short statements, and she completed them. I immediately got a great vision of what drives her continuous passion for excellence.
Social media is effective at… engagement and interaction. In my experience it engages people to communicate and interact while building bridges that wouldn’t exist otherwise. It’s very effective to create new communities of people with shared interests that sooner or later will contribute in larger scale to another community or group. Aside from marketing benefits, I believe its effective at uniting people who together become more productive, efficient and knowledgeable than they would if they were alone.
I love running because… the consistency and balance that it brings to life, it challenges me every day: commitment, discipline, and a lot of concentration. I feel empowered when I run because it forces me to dig deep and push forth when I think I can’t give anything more. I am a better version of myself because I run. Running is always there for me to help me with my daily happenings, and magically makes my worries disappear.
Being a lawyer allows me to… walk in someone else’ shoes. I can understand the pros and cons of almost any situation. I also feel more assertive when speaking my mind. But by far, the best thing about it are the collaborations and interactions with a variety of national and international organizations that reach out to people in need.
Success is… the ability to recognize our gifts and realistically approach life within the set of circumstances that we are given, and thrive, and put a lot of effort into any endeavor and make a positive difference in someone’s life. Success is measured by many with standards that might not be reachable for everyone and that is why you have to keep it in perspective.
I commonly hear that you have to have your dream job to be happy or have this or do that. But it is very different from one person to another. Take some young, U.S. based entrepreneurs with a lot of debt but with a lot of charisma and great ideas, well, to them success might consist of paying off debt, developing those ideas and making a great company that employs a lot of people. They might make a great living, have a family, give back to community and have fun in the process. Now, compare them with aspiring entrepreneurs living in an African village. For them, the inability to be able to obtain clean water, and the illnesses that result from poor sanitation, keeps him poor. If we understand that Africa has abundant water resources that are not being efficiently utilized, then we can understand that to them, success would be to find a way to get water to where it is needed most. If they can somehow help their village get access to water, then he would have succeeded.
You can connect with Fernanda De Hoyos-Walther on LinkedIn or follow her on Twitter.
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