If you’re anything like me, your entire experience from freshman year of high school to senior year of college was a massive lesson in self-discovery. Never before are you not only forced to think for yourself, but learn how to delicately balance that newfound independence with the expectations of the world around you. Those eight-ish years of school are really the years you start to meet yourself as you really are, in all your high highs and low lows. It’s liberating. It’s stifling. It’s fun. It’s scary as all hell.

For the most part, we feel like an anomalies. How on earth others could be feeling the exact same pushes and pulls as we are completely baffles us.

If only our younger selves had known we were not alone. If only we’d realized that other girls our age were experiencing the same exact things. If only we’d had I AM THAT GIRL.

Emily Greener is the CEO and co-founder of I AM THAT GIRL, a global movement inspiring girls to be, love, and express who they are through education, content, and community. She’s been Emily and the IATG crew have taken their movement off-line into communities all over the world, motivating girls from SoCal to South Africa to live the lives they were meant to lead, judgement-free.

Emily originally came to Los Angeles as an aspiring actress with a hunch: she knew she wanted to make major change and influence the world, but had no idea just how far her bright personality and can-do attitude would lead her. In one of those beautiful moments of kismet, Emily met now co-founder Alexis Jones at a random LA party, and was immediately hooked on this idea Alexis had to create a platform – and, subsequently, world – in which young women collaborated instead of competed. The platform was called I AM THAT GIRL. 

Fast forward to today, and IATG reaches literally millions across the world. The IATG website is chock-full of empowering content created both by and for users, yet what’s mind-blowing about this movement is how it’s resonated IRL. IATG’s local chapters not only create the community we so crave while we’re trying to find our way in the world, they provide a safe, fun place for girls to express their thoughts freely and realize that no matter our backgrounds, successes, or struggles, we’re all in this together. And their focus on young women between the ages of 14 and 22? Can you imagine if you’d had this kind of supportive space to just be yourself all throughout high school? Game changer.

As we’ve discussed over and over here on WANT, fearlessness is not the absence of fear – it’s when the fear is less than the faith. Emily leads the IATG tribe with humor, humility, radical self-love, and the kind of unshakable fearlessness that inspires others to do the same in their own lives.

Sound like someone you’d want in your tribe, right? Emily wants you in hers. Read on for Emily’s inspiring thoughts on curiosity, complexity, and the choice we all have to not only be positive, but really own that power. She is bold. She is visionary. She is THAT GIRL.

WANT Emily.

Name: Emily Greener

How you’d know me (occupation or role): Co-Founder, CEO I AM THAT GIRL

What I love about myself (and why): My curious nature and adventure seeking heart, my desire to keep growing and learning and being humbled.

What is your definition of “positivity?” Being positive is a choice to create and embody a perspective on the world (and any given situation) of magic, miracles, and optimism.

Being positive is a choice to create + embody magic, miracles, and optimism. - @thatgirlgreener Click To Tweet

When did you start to love yourself – did you have a self-love “turning point?” I have always both loved myself and simultaneously had fears, doubts, and insecurities. And I’m pretty sure that is a lifelong reality to exist with both. I would say the ratio of more love for myself than not happened when I started seeing my therapist. I call her my heart doctor. She taught me how to feel all of my feelings which opened up a huge space to love ALL of me, not just the “good” parts.

How/where negative talk shows up in my life: When comparing myself to others

When I talk negatively about myself, it’s usually… quickly resolved by remembering our values of I AM THAT GIRL

When others talk negatively about themselves… I remind them what there is to love about themselves.

It baffles me that women still… tear each other down.

I wish that more women… could be who they are instead of who they think they’re supposed to be.
I wish more women could be who they are not who they think theyre supposed to be -@thatgirlgreener Click To Tweet

The coolest thing about women is… our tendency to connect and feel multiple complex emotions all at once.

My favorite way to shift a negative into a positive: Picturing myself or others as a little kid = instant compassion and love and joy

My top female role models: Michelle Obama, Oprah, you know… the usual 😉

Men can help women crush their negative talk patterns by… reminding them how powerful they are.

Favorite negativity-busting activity: Picturing myself or others as a little kid = instant compassion and love and joy

Fave self-love ritual: Being in nature

Favorite feel-good food(s): Ice cream

Favorite movie(s) to watch when I’m feeling down: Pretty Woman

Favorite empowering book(s): Half The Sky

My feel-good playlist: Oldies

Advice I would give my…
…4 year old self: I love you
…14 year-old self: It’s okay to cry
…24 year old self: Hold on tight, you’re about to embark on a crazy roller coaster that will help you become so much more of who you are.

5 Things, personal or professional, on my bucket list: A trip around the world, and African safari, owning a boat, wine tasting through the south of france, building the most powerful movement of girls in the world

My best tip on self love: Look at yourself in the mirror for 60 seconds every day and tell yourself all the things you wish others would say to you.

When I truly love all of myself… I feel most connected to my purpose on this planet

Right now, I am most excited about… camping this weekend (and my new vespa)!

My body is: BeautyFULL

My body is beautyFULL. - @thatgirlgreener Click To Tweet

Three words to describe me: Love, light, power

Current mantra: “You yourself, more than anyone in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” – Buddha

For more Emily:
Instagram
Twitter
IATG Facebook
IATG Instagram
IATG Twitter

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