Tiffara Steward is an inspiration in every sense. Not only has she overcome the obstacles that are inherent in her own body (which include blindness in one eye, scoliosis causing one leg to be shorter than the other, and partial deafness), she doesn’t even regard them as obstacles. They are merely facts in her life.

Fact: Some of her vertebrae never developed. Fact: She averaged 16.3 points per game last season (her junior year). Fact: She was born missing a rib. Fact: She averaged 2.5 steals per game.

Believed to be the shortest player in the country, Tiffara has a strength far beyond the size of her stature. Looking at a life marked with what others call disabilities, Tiffara sees opportunities. She has always loved basketball and excelled at it. Therefore there was no good reason not to pursue it. Perhaps a joke to the opponent each time she steps on the court, Tiffara is all business in the game. Her teammates and coach recognize her as a wonderful 3-point shooter and a stellar defensive player.

We, at iatg, love her for the passionista she is, pursuing her dream regardless of what others may think when they look at her or how she appears to fit in on the court. This gal steps through her life in power and in confidence.

Unfortunately God did not grant me a window seat on the four hour flight home, a travesty seeing as it was a 6:15am flight and I hadn’t slept in days. I had dressed in the dark, my punk sneakers reeked of “rebel” my thick red aviators and Emo beanie hid my blood shot eyes and the CK1 I sprayed on (to cover my lack of showering) made me smell of 1994. To an outsider I must have looked like a concert groupie, still up from the night before, experiencing the worst hangover of her life. The reality: I was experiencing the worst hangover of my life but it wasn’t the traditional, self-induced alcohol binge; it was so much more. I was experiencing the first ever, “post-activist, rally rebel, nine hours of sleep in three days, no-voice left” hang over of a true trailblazer.

The beauty of this kind of hangover is you’re not simply left with a migraine, nausea and vague snap shots of the night before (half of which you want desperately to forget), you’re also left with a better version of yourself because what you did. We rallied the nation. We inspired the world. Sure maybe we were tired and needed countless hours to recoup our exhausted bodies, but what we received in return was almost criminal.

If you read my blogs, you know that I was in DC rallying with the Invisible Children boys and that on April 25^th we had an impossible task looming before us. Our insecurities, our doubt and our fear flirted with our confidence, tempting us to join Café Resignation but we stayed strong, determined to pull off one of the most ambitious awareness campaigns taking place in 10 countries and 100 cities around the world to end a war in Uganda.

The night before, I couldn’t sleep. The anticipation was exponentially worse than any Christmas Eve I could remember. I wanted to know if all our work would be in vain, if we were going to be a success, or fall in the wasteland of mediocrity. I awoke before the alarm went off and we went to our designated location to wait. “If you build it, they will come,” echoed in my head. We would soon find out.

Then it happened, like a miracle, an answered prayer, as droves of people came streaming in. Part of me was in disbelief, the other part arrogantly waved the flag of, “I told you so.” Either way, I will never forget watching hundreds if not thousands of people marching in front of our country’s capital, demanding change. I have never been a part of something like this, witnessed the power of our voice, the influence of numbers and the strength of a passion induced cause.

Icing on the cake: I was asked to give a talk to the Passionistas who stood before me. Humbled, honored, I took the microphone and, to this day, I have no idea what I said. I remember bright lights, cameras flashing, the crowd roaring, and the most overwhelming sensation of pure, unbridled inspiration pouring from my heart, from my entire body and my voice. If there were ever a time I wish I could have stopped time, if I could have freeze framed or crystallized a moment in history, it was then for I have never felt so alive in my entire life.

I walked off stage and the rally raged on with music, camaraderie among strangers, and pride in ourselves. Then we proceeded to endure torrential rain that was all too familiar to my infamous Survivor days, yet none of us were discouraged. Another night of no sleep, but this one sweetly welcomed as I recognized the taste of success, the smell of accomplishment, and the feeling of gratitude. The sun came up sooner than I thought and our faces betrayed our tiredness as we gathered our belongings, thanked the hundreds of people who also chose to weather the storm, and we parted ways.

I returned to our luxurious apartment. I packed up my things and I hopped on an airplane to return to the real world. Just like that, I returned to feeling normal again, like a Superhero who changed back into civilian clothes.

So, yes, to the naked eye I was a party girl gone too far, paying the appropriate consequences for my reckless behavior the night before, brutally catching an early flight home. But to those who where there, I, along with them, was a warrior. I was a girl willing to fight for something bigger than myself and offering the most essential: sleep, food, and shelter as collateral. I was a hero; we all were.

We won that battle, but the war goes on and this is but the first of many. However, the taste of victory is contagious, it’s addictive and I’ve been left wanting, needing more. We will end a war in Uganda. We will rescue the child soldiers of Joseph Kony and we will make history. But for now, I am turning off my phone, I am checking out, and I will voluntarily lose a day of my life to the allure of my bed and my sleep-deprived body’s necessity for rest.

photo by jim girardi

Yesterday was a very important day for the i am that girl Dream Team. Bare in mind that there are over 17 of us between the executive board, the art department, the editors, the writers and the PR department. Basically, it’s hard enough to schedule getting together with my two best friends, much less a gang of girls. And yet, when the request went out, they all showed up, dressed to the nines.

It occurred to me how unique the IATG magazine, company and movement really are because we are an anomaly. In fact, we are the few people who get to do what they love and unabashedly, have a hell of a time doing it. I’ll never forget when I was graduating from undergrad and going from job interview to job interview, until I finally came home and called my mom crying. I said, “If this is the American Dream then I don’t buy it and I don’t want anything to do with it.” The idea of working at a job for 10 hours a day that I hate and dread in hopes that, after forty years, I can retire with just enough social security to pay my bills, then (pardon my French) but screw it.

So immediately, I applied to grad school because I knew I’d need more education, more skills ,and more tools for what I was plotting. I graduated in a year (this is what you do when you realize that your passion and your sanity are at stake) and I started IATG. WHY? Because I figured there HAD to be other girls, other women out there like me.

I knew there were other chicks out there, willing to work the insane hours I was, willing to take a chance on a new company, wanting to LOVE what they did, wanting to feel they were making a difference, that they had a voice and that they were surrounded by equally inspired PASSIONISTAS! (Not to mention, they’d be equally unapologetic for looking good while they were kicking #@%). I knew there were girls as driven, capable, creative, courageous, determined and, more than anything else, more driven by giving back and contributing to the betterment of this world than wasting our lives making copies, passing time staring at our computer screens in our cubicles (secretly checking our facebook) and writing up forgettable, busy work memos. Yeah, not interested.

Thank God I was right and a slew of women showed up. The saying was right: “Build it and they will come.” Needless to say, I now have the honor of working alongside some of the most brilliant, hysterical, innovative, professional women who don’t give in to society’s mind numbing definition of “work.” We are living proof of what’s out there, what awaits the unwilling-to-settle-for-less women, hungry for their lives to stand for something.

So join us. Seriously. We need more of us on board and less women lost to the humdrum of zombie-ville work. All I know is that something is brewing at the IATG Headquarters.  We work because we love it. We show up because we want to. We kicks ass because we know we can. Some may call us social misfits, unable to conform to 9 to 5 and an office building. Okay, maybe. But we have fun doing it and I guarantee we get four times more done than the average Joe because we’re psyched and inspired. And I know there’s one of you reading this thinking, “That’s great. Great for them at least. I could never give up my ‘safe, cozy job’ and follow my passion. How would I pay my bills? How would I pay my rent? How, how, how??”

My tough love advice would be stop whining because if you never try, you’ll never know. This life is short. Big risk = big reward, sister. I could have sold out years ago, thrown in the towel, and hung up my jersey. Instead, I wake up every day grateful I didn’t because I’d be sitting where you are, reading someone else’s blog, watching someone else’s dreams coming true and not my own.

We’re on a mission to make sure girls stop settling. You’re going to spend a third of your life working, and your time is precious so make whatever you do worth it. And to my beautiful IATG bombshells, you KILLED it yesterday. It’s getting hard to sleep at night anticipating what we’ll conjure up each morning and I owe my insomnia to you ladies.

I am humbled, honored and inspired by each of you and am grateful for the opportunity to live, to learn and to work alongside each and everyone of you.

I’ll leave you with my favorite quote which is by Ayn Rand, “The question isn’t who is going to let me, it’s who is going to stop me.”

You have to fight for what you love, battle for what you believe in, get back up every time you get knocked down because pursing your passion is not for the faint of heart; pursing your passion is not a luxury many know, it’s an honor earned through blood, sweat and tears…. But worth every bit of it. That, I promise.

photos of Krista Simmons, IATG Editor (top) and Diane Ozanich, IATG Editor, with Kiran Alvi, IATG writer (bottom)