Sometimes, my evenings are like this: I take myself on a 15-kilometre-boss-woman-running date and then make myself a bubble bath. I light some candles, relax to Rage Against the Machine, kick my aching feet up against the bathtub and release a happy little groan. Then I begin to wonder: How did I do it?
Ever since I became elected as the youngest prime minister in the world at the age of 34 (#thatgirl), I have known that people want me to fail. But I didn’t want to change myself, the world needed to change. We don’t need the old Saulis of the world to tell us that we are too young or too female.
So, when I became the youngest prime minister in the whole world, I knew that I had the right to be me. I only had to push through the limits and labels, stop being afraid and be amazing instead. Soon I knew that the way to do that was actually to quit politics and embrace being inspiring.
When you are in politics, you are feeling all the bad stuff all the time. Then you can forget all the good stuff.
In those long long Covid-time meetings, I sometimes forgot. The Greens and the Kepu were fighting all the time, and I just wanted to stuff turf down their throats. I left the room and let them sort out their fights, but they were like children and the last thing I wanted was to be a stay-at-home-mom. I ran and drank lots and lots of coffee and ran and ran, like my life depended on it.
It was all negativity. Lots of Covid, economy and inflation. I partied hard, and you know what happened. I became famous!
But what you don’t maybe realize is that this is how I found my true family.
It was the people who wanted to dance with me. Everywhere around the world, people wanted to dance. Talented, amazing, passionate people like you, my reader.
I learned that it’s not what you say or do, but who you are that matters.
I was amazing. I was beautiful, young and inspiring. I am.
Right now, I feel like my happiest self. And you know what? I am going to own it. There shouldn’t be any guilt in feeling good.
I mean now at Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, I get to inspire every day. I am a driver of change, a force to get things done. And by the way, Ukraine is so so important, #SlavaUkraini!
Sometimes, you hear the ridiculous rumour that women don’t shit. Well, I am not afraid to say that I do, each time after my bubble bath, naked, with a happy little groan. And every time, somewhere in the world a school bag is donated to a poor little girl. Because my mission is empowering underprivileged people, especially girls worldwide.
If I could become Prime Minister after working at the cash register, so can you.
You only have to want things to change. You only have to be better. You only have to start dancing.
XOXO, Sanna
