E1: Everything You Need Is Within

Welcome to Everything You Need is Within, a Spotify Greenroom live audio show and podcast produced by and for Gen-Z, with me, your host, Gigi Robinson.

I am beyond excited to welcome all of you into this space where I will be talking about my journey primarily and why I decided to talk about my story as a Gen-Zer, and how I can make a bigger impact in the world that we live in today.

A lot of the times, I go through a lot of different things, and I am always asked, How do you do so much? And why do you do so much? And why do you do it across the breadth of fields that you do? And the answer is, and always will be in the fact of the quote relating to (give me a minute here you guys, I'm a little bit rusty. I hope that made you guys laugh) "a master of none." When somebody said that to me one time a teacher said you know "Gigi, you're doing so many things. Your website's so chaotic. You're not a master of none." And I said what? Like, what do I want to be portrayed by that?

Do I want to really make a brand for myself on the, on the premise of not being strong and a bunch of different things? And instead of kind of running away and hiding from it, I looked at it as an opportunity to really think about how could I actually achieve the most possible and do it all with intention and integrity, and hold myself accountable to learning and being the best version of myself (as cheesy as that sounds)? So I decided, you know what, fuck that notion about not being a master of one. And I'm just going to, I'm going to do everything I'm gonna roll with it, I'm going to just figure it out as I go. I don't want to say fake it till I make it, faked it till I made it ... oh my gosh, you guys, this is out of control.

Also, can you tell me if the audio quality is good? I'm just going live here. So I just wanted to know what the audio quality is, since I can't really hear it on a feedback. But can you let me know in the discussion if it's good? Okay, not bad at all. Okay, so for now, I'm gonna just hop back on the bandwagon, I guess this will be the one un-edited things. And I am going to be eventually making this into a podcast.

But like I said, here, here's the quote, "a jack of all trades is a master of none, but often times better than a master of one." And a lot of times, I personally have heard only the first portion of that, where you hear a jack of all trades is a master of none. And you get really discouraged whenever you try to do something outside of the field that you're in.

And again, going back to that story of my teacher telling me like you have so much going on. It's like out of control. You have design on your portfolio, photography, social media, brand ambassadorships, public speaking, it's too much. And I had this moment where I was kind of like, is it too much? Or is it just too much for you? And I decided to say, fuck it and just go for it and just put all my work out there because I saw value in it, not only as a college student, but also as you know, a voice in the industry.

I also did a huge rebrand and I will definitely get to that, but this quote about I think confronting your limiting beliefs based upon what other people tell you is so so important, and I would definitely have a show in the future where I bring a manifestation coach up and I'll probably bring a spirituality person up and somebody up on finding your brand and finding your voice and becoming the best advocate and activist, and that's really what this podcast is going to be about once it is officially out in the near future. For now, you can just tune into my live episodes every single week at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific on Greenroom.

Just to go completely off the road into a different abyss, so that people know more about me, because you're probably like, Who is this person talking to me, I've never seen her before. I've never met her before. What's she doing? My name is Gigi — my name is actually Gabrielle. But like a lot of other people may have already realized, it's quite a long name. And I personally just have always been called G or Gigi by a lot of my friends, and that is why I decided to kind of do a formal rebrand of myself and my name, and I did that honestly about a year ago to kind of solidify across all platforms, my space on the internet, as I was gearing up to ultimately make the decision of quitting my part-time job, and quitting the nine-to-five life and just coming into the world of being a creator, full-time and embracing uncertainty and spontaneity in my life. So, that was last year, in May or June, I think I did that. And part of the reason was a lot of social injustice was going on in the world, a lot of horrible, horrible things have been happening around the world, especially in this pandemic. And I'd looked at the work that I was doing as a photographer, working with a bunch of brands, and I had a moment where I just sat back and realized like, what the hell are you doing, G? Like, this does not reflect a single ... or maybe does it reflect it did reflect some, but it did not reflect all.

And I think that that moment was when I genuinely found myself really, really budding out and doing that work to learn as much as I could, and put that into my work. So, I spent all of summer of 2020, kind of, honestly, lurking on social media and learning, and that's really important to do a lot of the time. Now, the part of building a business and a brand in a responsible and respectful way, I think also comes from, first of all within hence the title, which I will get to, I promise.

But it also has to do with you being fearless to express yourself unapologetically and take a risk. Because if you're not willing to take a risk and fall on your face, then what are you doing something for in the first place? So, I always like to ask myself that before I really butt out into any opportunity that I want to be a part of or chase after. So backtrack, June 2020, the pandemic orders are telling us to stay home, we've have to be inside, and there's riots, and there are several different horrible hate crimes happening. Fast forward to the fall of 2020. We see AAPI hate crimes increase.

Fast forward to now we're seeing a lot going on in the Middle East right now with social injustice and authority. And I really just have to acknowledge that there is a space for this. And there's so much trauma across so many different communities, especially thinking of all of the people within those communities that are in a part of Gen Z, and that are the youngsters growing up learning the ways and confronting all of this trauma.

I think Gen Z does it in a really unique way where they look at that and they say you know what, this isn't right. Something needs to change here. And it's not going how I want it to go. It's not looking the way that I thought it should. It's not making me feel good about my role in society. I'm not at terms with my intersectionality of my identities, and I don't even understand what my identity is. And I think that that is truly what inspired me to continue on this journey, starting with the acknowledgement of my own identity as a disabled woman.

Part of that story, which you can find on basically anywhere if you Google my name, but I live with a rare genetic disorder called Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, which is a connective tissue disorder that makes my life difficult. It gives me chronic pain, always. It makes doing regular things like picking up a backpack, sitting down, taking a walk, sometimes you've been eating, sitting in a certain posture, really, really difficult for me, not only physically, but mentally and emotionally. There is the story that I like to tell in a lot of my talks, and it's about, I think, the defining moment where I realized in the winter of 2020, that I really needed help. And that I was really having this block where I needed to change something and stop running from the thing that I didn't want to be based on not only the generational structures that were set up by history, but also like familial and societal biases that existed.

So I was on my way back to school after being home, I think for a month, from New York City to Los Angeles to go back to the University of Southern California for one of my final semesters at school. And this had been actually after the semester of how, as I like to call it, where my body just gave up on me because I was burning myself out and not spending enough time honoring the way that I was feeling. And I wasn't spending time relaxing, I was trying to do everything and fight off, you know, this illness and just keep moving forward with honestly a toxic positivity attitude internally inside of my own head. And I just, I kept plowing through to the point where I got so sick. And I ended up going to so many doctors multiple times a week, trying to figure out what was going on.

And I really truthfully think this was, this was the time where I realized I'm sick, and I need help. And it was also a time where, because this disability is invisible, it put me in a position for friends and faculty and outsiders in my life, to look at me in a way and say, "oh, she's not actually sick," "What are you talking about?" "You're not struggling?" "We've all heard about that before." I unfortunately don't want to say this is true, and I hope that I hope that this resonates with people. But I do not hope to see this trend in the future of us all dealing with this kind of lack of validation around our problems.

Because I spent honestly over six months of my collegiate career between the fall of 2019 and the spring of 2020, combatting ableist structures that existed. And that was so emotionally and mentally difficult, on top of physically suffering, but not having anyone see it. So that was truly what geared me up for this moment in the airport. And I was on my way back. I think I had, you know, a full suitcase, photography gear and a bunch of other stuff in my bag I was carrying. Yeah, this is what I had. I had a big suitcase. I have a picture of me, actually, in the airport. Before this happened, I guess I'll have to link it in the description of the show once it's live, but I had a huge carry-on size bag, I had two checked bags, I had a backpack and a purse.

So literally the most optimal amount of stuff that one could carry with them on an adventure across the country back to school for, you know, my plan was also to actually stay out there by the way from the January term, all the way through graduation and after. And my plan was to stay in Los Angeles for good. So now I'm in New York City full-time so I will get to that that part of the story but I had all this stuff, and I checked my bag in. And I was, you know, really struggling because my bag was so heavy on my back. And I think I looked at my dad and I said, Is there any way that you could ask the clerk if I can have a wheelchair or, or if I can get assistance to carry my bags to the gate. I don't, I don't want to sit in a wheelchair. But I do want to have somebody help me get my bags to the gate, because I know that will be helpful. And when we got to the terminal, it was JetBlue and usually their customer service is great. So I was like, oh, hopefully, it'll just go over well, and I'm sure they have a really great, you know, accommodation plan set up for people that need it, like myself, and they said, No, ma'am, if you want help with your bags, you're going to have to sit in a wheelchair. And that was the moment where I fully started breaking down in the JetBlue terminal at JFK. And I was just, honestly, I think it was this pinnacle moment where I realized like, your illness is real, and you should just stop running from it because there are things here to help you get through it and live your life to the fullest capacity, it just might not look the same as other people. And that was what I was running from. That was the moment that I look back on a little over a year and a half ago and I'm just like, holy shit, it all makes sense. Now it all fell into place, I had to go through that moment to get to where I am today. So I actually ended up that day not taking that accommodation and pushing through. And I believe on my flight, I was writing in a journal and after crying at the fact that I had to acknowledge the situation that I was in, I really, really, really had a difficult time articulating that and moving forward in a way that I could articulate that to other people. So that was my defining moment of what I needed to do to change within my life, to be able to help other people in the future. And moving on, I would say, now we're going to go back to

another portion of my journey. But we're starting back in June of 2020 again, and I looked at my social media page, like I said, and I was not realizing that my social media pages really was they were not reflecting my values, they were not reflecting what I was going through. It wasn't reflecting what I believed in. I didn't have honestly any voice, I just had substance. And I had what Gen Zers like to call clout, which I will also dissect in the near future, I don't want to give you all every single bit of knowledge and wisdom on my story, because it's going to take some time to get there and to talk about all of it. But I had this clout. And this was also while I was scaling my Tik Tok and I remember also I was posting some body image related things on my account back in fall of 2019. But it was nowhere near what I wanted it to be. And I eventually just started having fun with it and trying to do dance trends and there's this other pivotal moment where, again, keep in mind, this is all while I was sent home from the global pandemic, in early March, throughout the whole month of February USC was remote last year. So we had this like real isolation, starting in February of 2020. And I just I found comfort posting these videos online of my body and being vulnerable and talking about chronic illness. And it just ultimately, was not fulfilling to me. Because again, it was this empty kind of thing where I was like, are these videos actually helping people like, Am I doing this in the best way possible? Am I using my platform and my voice in the best way possible? And, in June, when I was evaluating that my answer was no. My answer was no, I'm not reaching people in the way that I want. So I spent all of June and July and August and September laying very low. And then to finish off my semester. I will also mention that back to what I said when I was having this health issues in fall of 2019. I actually went to my disability officer at USC and I said, can I do something I really need some help here, I cannot actually manage school, I can't move forward. I don't know what to do. And she said, How about we just put you on a reduced course load? You can take, you know, part-time units at full-time status, you will be able to have all the same benefits of coming to school, you'll be able to do everything your teachers will be aware, so they'll know you're dealing with stuff, and we're here to help you. And again, this was a moment, before my whole acknowledgement of what was actually going on and what was wrong with me at the airport. Where, in the fall, that I felt like I had somebody on my side advocating for me. And that felt really good to have a very small community and a very small person in my life, my disability service advisor, take a step back and say that she was rooting for me, and she was willing to help me. I mean, granted, she was getting paid for it. But, you know what I'm saying she, she was there to ultimately help me. So, I took the reduced course load and that was also difficult to confront, to anyone with a chronic illness listening, and if you are in college or high school, know that there's accommodations and people in place to always help you. You just have to look for it, and ask for it and be courageous with yourself and brave and asking for it. So, just wanted to acknowledge and say that before I forgot and moved on. But, I had this plan. Oh, when I was in high school, you guys, I had this plan. I was going to go to U Miami for art, I was gonna be a Florida girl, I was going to enjoy it, I was gonna do what I want to do down in Florida, the campus was beautiful. I felt like it was a place where I could do research. It was a place near the beach, it would be warm, it would help my joint pain and everything. And I got waitlisted. And I ended up getting in. But it ended up not working out. I ended up staying home my freshman year of college and going to FIT, which was a great school at the Fashion Institute of Technology. It taught me a lot about what I wanted. Moreso, you know how they say with dating, if you go out on a date, what's the worst that can happen, you learn more about yourself, or you had a great time with somebody that maybe becomes somebody that is in your life for a long time. That's, that's what I felt about my experience at FIT. And that was personal to me, again, no hate against the school, I absolutely loved it. I had a great experience there for certain things. And I did make some really incredible connections that I still talk to and work with today, four and a half, five years later, which is crazy. So it just goes to show the power of networking also. But I went to FIT, and I knew in going into FIT that I was actually going to transfer. And that was really scary. Because, why? Like my whole little plan of going to my dream school and staying there and becoming I guess the person or the person who I thought I would become todayI thought going to Miami would do for me. And it was the end all be all, there was no other option. But in going to FIT it uprooted that and it got me being comfortable knowing that I would be okay if I did transfer and if things were like that and like honestly, nobody really cared. I was holding myself to this really strange like expectation in my head. And I just I literally sat back and I was like, girl, you gotta relax a little like, let go like things are just gonna fall into place. So in the winter, after my first semester in fall of 2016, I applied to a bunch of schools. I applied to the University of Southern California as my first choice. It was a whim. I did not think I had the high school grades to get in. I knew I had a fantastic portfolio back to what I said before about being a jack of all trades. I had drawing, I had painting, I had photography, I had writing, I had all of these different things that would eventually get me into USC (spoiler alert) and now getting my Masters there. But, I just, I did that. And it was, it was actually crazy. I was out of the country when I got into USC, and I opened my portal and it was right before I was boarding my flight back home from Columbia, and I literally like did a somersault, it was really, really funny. I will always remember the day that I got in and it was a red eye flight. So when I came in, in the morning, my package, my USC envelope, the red envelope that we're all waiting for, was waiting on the dining room table for me when I got home. And so I got to USC, finally, great. What's next? You have to move across the country and uproot your life, you have to start over meeting new people, you have to make new friends, you only know a handful of people from your high school that went to USC. And just for some context, my whole family, and my whole life has always been in New York City. I'm a born and raised New Yorker. So people always ask me how I have that bold edge, I'm going to give it to New York. So, I get to USC. What's next? I get into a drawing class. And the professor, yet again, does not believe that I am sick, and that I need accommodations set in place. By the way, I missed a step. I went straight to the disability office first when I got to USC. And I set up my specific accommodations. And I said, this is what I need. This is what my doctor said, I need. This is what I've had my whole life. Can you, how can you help me? How can I leverage this? Again, it came to that like surrendering of saying, you know what, okay, I just am somebody that needs accommodations. And when I was there, I think I just turned 19. So, at the time again, I was hiding my illness from people that are in my circle. But if I needed an accommodation, my professors would know. So in a way I was somewhat guarded. I'll save the chronic illness story for another episode and for a conversation with a guest that I'm going to bring on in the near future. But let me just tell you how crazy it was to have (and invalidating) it was to have teachers multiple times in college, not believe me. It was horrible. Like, you go to school to learn, and somebody tells you, you can't learn in the way that you need to learn because you're different. It sucks. It sucked. But, I got through it. And I still get through it every single day because ableism is a part of our society, and the way that it functions. Cars are not designed with accessibility in mind. Cars are designed to get people places, right? They're not designed to accommodate. While there are very expensive customizations that you can do to a car to make it accessible, it's not. And that's the analogy that I will give to honestly help put into perspective of what disabled people go through almost every single day.

So, I think I need some water. I'm gonna drink some water. If you're listening on here, I implore you to drink some water with me because, you know, can't talk for 30 minutes straight without drinking. Oh, maybe you can. I just did. But I'm just gonna drink my water now. And, on to the next topic of the night. I would just love to go into my journey with body image and social advocacy work. What does that mean? A lot of the time people ask me, Gigi, how the heck did you get into working as a patient advocate? Or how did you get into advocating for marginalized communities? How did you get into advocating for mental health on your platforms? And again, June 2020. It put it all into perspective for me. I said, you know, I got to build this powerhouse of a thing that's going to help me move the ticker forward. It's going to help progress in spaces that have been needing it for so long. And back to what I said at the beginning, that is what Gen Z is all about. Pushing progress in areas that otherwise made people uncomfortable and that make us uncomfortable, but instead of running from it and suppressing it, we, honestly, we pull up the rug, we tear up the rug, we spill wine on it, we throw it out, we're like, hey, let's actually go change this, let's make a difference. And that is ultimately what I think is just so so incredible about this generation. And during my, my fall semester of 2020, now I know I'm giving you like this whole educational background and this is just how I kind of see my life in different chapters and it's just each semester is a very easy way for me to do that. And that's why I can remember so distinctly because a lot of these life epiphany and life changing moments for me have really come from these experiences during my school semesters where I guess I have been developing my brain fully entering the phase of, you know, my brain being fully developed as an adult. So, in that fall semester, which was all remote here in New York City, I had done an independent studies class, which basically is a self-run class. And it sounds kind of nuts, honestly, when you think about it, but you can do literally anything, as long as you write a proposal, and you stick to it, and you actually show up with work. And I was able, the amount that I was able to scale in just three months of doing like, I used my class time, which is three hours of class time, plus five hours of homework time, so eight hours a week, which is, you know, I mean, I don't know it's in the eye of the beholder, I would say realistically, I spent 10 hours on it from a school and research perspective. And then I also spent all of my other time since I was on a reduced course load, planning out my doctor's appointments that I go to now. And also just planning out what my next step was going to be when I graduated. So that was really fun. And I spent that time telling — my pitch, literally, to my faculty department was, let me prove to you that social media is art, and that social media actually makes a difference. And that social media is not just this thing where people post hot photos and get this clout from. So, that is what I did. And that's what led me to just continue connecting and building the foundation of where we're at now. And in the fall, as a part of that, I always like to tell this, the story of how I got on to a Times Square Billboard. I know, shocking, alarming.

How the frick did you do that, Gigi? Oh, my God, this is crazy. Can we be friends, you're killing it, I want to be your friend. And I feel like that was the first moment for me where I saw people kind of coming to me because they were, in a way proud of my accomplishments and wanted to know how they could be a part of it. And it was a good moment. It was a humbling moment. But it also was a moment where I felt lonely. Because I was wondering where were all of you when I was sick? Why were you not supporting me? Why were you? Why are you all of a sudden showing up now that you see that I might actually be making an impact. And that hit me, that hit me before I started doing this work. I don't know if anyone else can relate to that. I guess you can tag me and let me know later on if you do relate to that, but that hurts. And growth hurts. It really can. So yeah, it just it sucked. Despite being on a frickin billboard, in the middle of Times Square. I think it was the second biggest one. It's bigger than the NASDAQ one, it is the the one on the McDonald's in Times Square on I believe 47th? 45th and Broadway. And you can scroll back to November of 2020. And you'll see me there and oh my god, it was it was actually the most surreal thing but I didn't have the opportunity to live in it and like enjoy it. Because again, I felt like I was just being applauded with with no sound. You know, I had no real community that I felt was was ready for me. Or maybe, maybe the way that I shifted my perspective to literally just now as the sun is setting here on the east coast, I'm watching this beautiful pink sunset, come out of the sky, maybe, maybe those people were supporting me all the time. They just didn't have the capacity to understand what I was going through because they too are realizing and learning and needing to unlearn the structures that exist around ableism in society, and maybe they did actually care about me all along, maybe they just didn't understand before. So I like to, I like to just put that out there as a vulnerable moment where, again, it was an accomplishment, it was achieving my wins, and oh my God, I didn't even tell you the story of how I got up there. Just talked to you about how I felt. So, the story. So back in November, right, I just told you the story of how I felt, but I didn't even tell you how it happened. There was a hashtag challenge on Tik Tok. And for those that use the Tik ToK app, usually when you open your phone up, there is what's called a top view ad that companies pay an obscene amount of money for, depending on how long it's going to be. Well, it's obscene to start with, depending on how long it is, it becomes crazier and crazier to fathom the amount that they would spend on such a short amount of time and impressions for something. But McDonald's has a huge budget. So they went ahead and they made this top view ad, it was called hashtag here, h-e-r-e, for, f-o-r, RMHC. Here for RMHC, here for the Ronald McDonald House Charity in the long, full, full thing. But if you go to that hashtag, now, you'll see there's an audio and you'll see there's some videos. And this whole idea of the challenge was that for every single video made, they would donate $100, in your name to the Ronald McDonald House up to $100 million. Which is crazy, right? When you think about that number $100 million? What is that a 10th of a billion? Am I doing my math correctly? Math was never my strong suit. But I like to think I can learn.

So, crazy mount. If you go to that hashtag now, I'm going to tell you that the amount of people that actually willingly were open to this idea of actually doing the challenge and making a difference was a fraction, an actual fraction of what it could have been. And that was so, so sad to me. I believe only about four 4000 videos were made on Tik Tok, which for a challenge where they said they would donate so much, really, they barely made a dent in that number. And that was really, really upsetting to me. So anyway, I posted my video, I posted an Instagram story asking people if you have the chance to give back would you? And I believe the number so vividly sticks out in my head, as 70% of people said they were not willing to give up their aesthetic feed or a place on their feed to do something good with the option. And 30% said yes. And I... wait, yes they would, they would give it up. I was dumbfounded, I couldn't believe it. I just sat back and was like, do people really not give a crap? Like is this just influencers that don't give a crap or just do or people heartless and if they could do something for free that takes you know, 10 seconds or five minutes out of their day where they know that someone else is going to benefit from them. Especially somebody in need a sick child at the Ronald McDonald House? Like, what I just was like, what is wrong with people? Is it a lack of education? Is it a lack of compassion? Is it a lack of understanding? Is it a lack of accessibility? Like I didn't, I didn't know. So I figured you know what, G, you're going to get to the root of this. This is all before the billboard happened. So, I did that. And I get a follow and a DM from the McDonald's account on Tik Tok, which has a crazy amount of followers and they're not following, I think they're following 60 people or something. At least they were at the time and I was one of them. And I said, that's interesting. There's some there's you know, 4000 people who did the video, there's all these influencers they're not even following. Why are they following me? A couple minutes later I get a DM. Hey, Gigi, we love your video, would you be open to letting us use your video on a billboard in Times Square? Literally that gasp was like how I actually reacted in real time to what happened, and I just couldn't believe it, I was like, I literally was in the right spot. It was a sign, a very big sign, to be honest about something that I was doing right. I needed to be on that billboard, to understand how to navigate, building an audience, and having people quote unquote support me and also guide them, to understanding how to support others more intentionally. And had I not posted that Ronald McDonald video, I would not have been here today talking about it on this podcast, like, eight months later. So, that is a little bit of a crazy story, and also fun fact about me I like to share, people are always like what's a fun fact? I'm like, I've been on a billboard in Times Square, people are like, wow. No, usually my go to fun fact, actually, is, I have two. One, I can walk on fire. I've walked on hot coals before. Two — and before... I mean multiple times shout out all my fire team family if you guys listen later on. And the second one is that usually my family — my dad, brother, and guests —usually whoever's you know, around friends, family, girlfriends, boyfriends, all that stuff, family friends, we jump into the Coney Island ocean, the Atlantic Ocean on New Year's Day in New York City. Sometimes there's snow on the ground, sometimes it's 65 degrees, it depends on how New York is feeling on New Year's Day, that given year. And I will say, I hate to admit it 2021 It was canceled because of COVID, but in 2020, it was literally so cold. It was the record I think for one of the coldest polar plunges to exist, and I did not go because I was so sick, and I didn't feel good. But thank God I didn't, I just, I like, I think it was, it was all in, in divine, divine storytelling, divine light that I was protecting myself from potentially dampening my immunity, although they do say that cold, cold showers and cold plunges are good for your health so take that with a grain of salt, do what you want with your health, advise with a doctor before you jump into the ocean, honestly, see if you're allowed to. And I guess I'll probably give you a little another story here before I close this out in just about 15 minutes is about the story of how I started advocating for myself.

And it kind of goes on to what I said before, with the experience of going to the airport and going straight to the disability office, and having conversations with friends, who didn't understand and friends who dropped me and told me I was selfish. But overall, you have to realize that a lot of struggle, and a lot of difficult things, really — I hate to, I don't I don't even hate to say it, it just, I feel like a lot of people see it as a bad thing, they can't see the light, or see something good come out of a tricky, or difficult or hard situation. And part of the problem with that has to do with your vibrational field and the way that you actually think you're capable of accomplishing something. If you have an intention in your head of saying, I can't get paid, X or Y because I'm too young — and I spent, honestly, a majority of my high school years, even though I knew I was really talented at photography and started winning awards left and right, people would tell me, G, your rates are too high, you're too young, you're only 16, you don't have enough experience yet. And I'm like, fuck the experience, you either have

or don't have the skill, period. And skills are something you can learn. So, when people told me at that time like you weren't worth it, you weren't good enough, I had a choice. I could accept their, you know their perspective of not believing that a 16-year-old actually was capable of shooting at a professional level, or I could prove them wrong. And I thought how fun would it be if I could just prove all of those people wrong.

So I then, like I said, went on to have my work in the Metropolitan Museum of Art two separate times — three separate times, actually, in high school. I had it in because of the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, I've won a silver medal for that. I had it in the PS Art Competition. And another photo in for the Scholastic Arts and Writing Award. I had my art in a MOMA exhibit in the Tweet Courthouse, I have my work in galleries all over Midtown in hedge fund offices and all over the world, even out of state in Oregon and in Washington and across the globe. I had one in Athens, Greece and in Germany, and it was so fun, because I've remembered the naysayers and they said you know you're too young. You're not good enough, you know, I'm not going to pay you that much. And I just kind of sat back, I stayed low. I did my thing. And that's what I always have done with my friends and the way that they didn't exactly, I don't know if it wasn't that they supported it or that they didn't understand it or that they were threatened by it or insecure by the fact that I like to push boundaries for myself and for society as a whole, especially Gen Zers. I just found it so so fun, in a way to just do me, and all of the people that told me no like, I hope you can eventually just, you know come to respect why I did what I did and why I've done what I've done, and to know that it's all a part of my specific journey, and to really be okay, knowing that it's my journey, and that your journey looks so different, and the person next to you's journey, even your mom's journey or your dad's journey or your guardians journey, or your, your best friend's journey or your partner.

They're all different. But, what I can say is pretty cool is that on all of your journeys ,you've made it here to listen to me and to speak about my journey of self advocacy and chronic illness and body image, and being a Gen Zer thought leader, and just learning how to pave the way for future generations to express themselves and come to terms with their identity. And I think that that's pretty cool. And I'm really really excited for all of the things that I've got planned in the future. But again, body image, oh my lord, you guys, you will notice over the course of this podcast, and you'll realize how frazzled I can get on. I go on these little tangents, that's why I like to tell stories, but um, on the note of body image, I really started reflecting a lot on it when I was taking medication that was suppressing my appetite, and it wasn't because of that, it was the pain medication that was doing that, it's like a side effect, and it happens.

And every time I would get really sick and like nauseous and it just made things not really fun for me. And then, once I, again, acknowledged everything and I thought okay, like I'm doing my reduced courseload, everything's gonna be good, I see my doctors three times a week, but it's okay I'm gonna keep going, I'll rough it out and I'll tough it out. Then the pandemic hit, USC said, you can't see your friends anymore. Go home, leave campus. And that was, you know, over a year ago, year and a half ago at this point that I stepped foot on campus, I missed my graduation, because it was not in person. I missed, you know, saying goodbye to people that who knows where I'll see them again or hear them, hear from them again.

And that was like so sad to not have that final ending of what I've been working towards for so long.

Now, I will say, I did happen to apply and enroll in a master's degree program at USC as well so I'm hoping I get my graduation from that and that'll serve as the milestone to be complete because after that unless I get a PhD, I don't know. I think I've done with school after this but I came home, and my family lived in a different apartment that we live in now. For anyone that follows along on my Instagram or Tik Tok, you will see a lot of like plants and home renovation and tidying videos, and that is my new apartment that I am in with my family, but before that we were in a different apartment. We were in the apartment that I spent my high school years and, and my year I FIT in.

And when I was at FIT back to that plan that I had in mind, I was so, so upset that I felt myself kind of falling apart, and I do want to mention that in some of these episodes I will mention that, like the topics of mental health and eating disorder, disordered eating habits, and the way that it's affected me so I just wanted to warn anyone if you don't like that, I'm just going to be touching on it very briefly in this specific episode. But in the future, I will put a longer warning and I will also note that in the description so that you're not taken by storm, if it comes up. But, I was binge eating a lot. I would come home and I would need to eat something salty, and then I would need to eat something sweet.

And then I would need to eat something chewy, and then savory, and then I would need ice cream, and then I would repeat it, and repeat it, repeat it, repeat it. Like, honestly, to the point where I was so bloated and so full that I sometimes did like throw it up. And that was like, very, very difficult for me to go through but, again, when I moved home from the pandemic, I had to live in the same space, where I dealt with all of that. And that was really difficult. And as a lot of other people experience no matter what age you are, you know, coming home and being isolated in in an unhealthy environment or in an environment that was triggering to you in the past, is something that, again, I do want to hold space for, for all of us to just recognize and realize that that was something that happened, and it's very real, and it was very triggering for a while, so my outlet there was creating these videos of me dancing, like I said.

But then I started seeing the dreaded what I eat in the day videos on Tik Tok, and on Instagram reels, and of these people who thought they were doing all of this good by sharing about, you know, this is what I eat in a day. But what they didn't realize, and how it was affecting me, which is now a part of some of my major social media literacy lectures that I give on my speaking tour, is that the videos that you put out like that, ultimately, can be triggering and lead younger generations who don't understand how to have boundaries with social media yet — they don't understand that that one person's video of how they eat works for them. It works for them. It does not mean that the way that they eat will work for you.

And you can go look up a bunch of research studies, there's a lot of information about this on the internet, especially in the past year, but just look up what I eat in a day videos related to eating disorders, and I said you know I think I need to stop my personal body image content on the app, also the fact that they were taking down some of my videos because they said that I was being, you know, too sexual for, I don't know, wearing a sports bra when we all know, I'm not even gonna go there in this episode, we all know what kinds of things get by on the internet from certain people so, I just yeah, it just was so triggering for me so I stopped. And again, this was all happening, leading up to and during June of 2020.

So, that is the first episode of Everything You Need is Within with Gigi, and in the future, I'm definitely going to have guests, and I'm going to have a lot of hopefully dialogues and Q&As where, you know, I'll kind of tell a little story in the subject and have the guests on here and then we'll do a little bit of a Q&A. And that's just how I'm going to run this specific podcast that is exclusive on here right now, and there will be much more information about it down the line in the future, and I cannot wait to share it with you but for now, please come and follow me on Greenroom @gigi. And on Spotify @gigirobinson, and I will be doing the show every single Friday at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific. It will be an hour long, again, I did mention I'm going to have guests and I'm going to have people live in the audience, but for now I just wanted to tell my story vulnerably of how I got to this moment in time, and how lucky I am that I get to share it with all of you lovely people out there on the internet, so thank you so much. Please don't forget that we can do this together, and that everything you need is within, and I cannot wait to see you next week. Bye, everyone.