Day 44: Rachel Roy
What do you do for a living?
I design clothes with the intent of making women feel better about themselves and hoping that what women wear on the outside can mirror and effect how they’re feeling on the inside.
What do you do to feel alive?
I challenge myself to grow in ways that I know to be painful, but once I break through will lead me to the life I am destined to have. I’ve only just scratched the surface of my destiny, but I really believe that once you break through you live an easier life – that the pain leads you to the beauty.
A lesson you learned from your mother:
My mom is a white Dutch woman that converted – she tried to be everything that a good Indian woman should be. In her doing so what I learned was kindness, respect for your elders and respect for people’s privacy. If I had one wish for my mother it would be that she was a little more feisty, but we get what we get and from her I learned kindness.
A lesson you learned from your father:
My dad was extremely demanding. He worked three jobs his entire life – he still works three jobs. When he was a sociology professor at a college he would make my brother and I sit in the back row and take notes on what we learned. If I didn’t have that experience I don’t believe I would have had the successes I have had in all my work and in my business. It allowed me to apply what I learned about sociology – essentially the psychology of people – to my work.
What’s the most beautiful thing you saw today?
I’m on the beach right now with friends and family. The most beautiful I’ve seen today is someone who completely humbles herself to win the love of another. I think that takes a lot of strength.
What’s one thing you wouldn’t want anyone to take away from you?
My power. I’ve given it away too many times. It’s the one thing that I own. At its full capacity it is such a beautiful thing. Half of it is nothing. Half of it will not allow us to live to our full potential of what we should be.
What’s a thought you would like to never have again?
Fear that I’m incapable of something that God has presented because if he’s presented it that means I need to see my way through it.
If you could become an inanimate object what would it be?
I might chose another object when I’m older, but now I would want to be a mirror because I think when you hold a mirror to someone so they can truly see who they are it is such a beautiful thing. How often do we see how raw, how vulnerable, how miserable we are? The only way as humans that we get mirrors is through friends and if you don’t have friends that will show you it takes longer to learn.
When do you feel most loved?
When someone understands me. When someone looks at me and I don’t confuse them – even if I don’t speak in complete sentences or in a coherent manner – they still understand my heart -and they look at me and think I’m extraordinarily beautiful because they understand me. But no one does! I’ve experienced it enough though to know that’s love.
If your life were to end tomorrow what would be left undone?
The most important thing I’m working on is leaving this planet in a manner that my two girls can take care of themselves to a point where they are happy and strong. There’s no other point that we were put on this earth than learning how to achieve peace. When we do we make others peaceful. This is the test we must pass. If God forbid I had to leave tomorrow I don’t know how my girls would pass their test.
What global issue would you take on if you didn’t have to worry about how?
Peace in the total sense. Equality for all: gender equality, sexual equality…for someone to be able to look at you and not wonder what nationality you are, who you voted for, or who you choose to love. Peace that comes from happiness. I believe that if the people who were in charge were happy we would have more peace.
What’s the scariest thing that ever happened to you?
Probably the scariest thing that ever happened to me was thinking that I don’t deserve love. There have been very scary incidences in my life, but ultimately I put myself there because I didn’t believe I deserved love. That is when you end up in a lane where abuse happens.