Meet Lizz Carter Clark

 

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lizz Carter Clark a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Lizz, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

I found my purpose by leaning into where my passion intersected with my pain. After my 13 year old brother, Scott, died of cancer during my senior year of high school, I left home and everything I knew to go to college in California where no one knew me and no one knew that I was hurting. Because my coping mechanism was “leadership” I became well known in various spaces as a mentor and leader, even though I was drowning emotionally and struggling with my mental health. But pouring into helping others was within my control to do and helped me find my way. After I graduated, I was asked to come back and mentor collegiate women further and it was then that I realized there were other people who felt the same things I did, just through different circumstances. Because of this, I’ve been able to help students identify what is motivating their behaviors, know their worth and choose things that best serve them. I don’t believe in wasted pain. Nothing grows on mountain tops and it is in the valleys where we truly discover our strength and resilience. With everything we go through, there’s an ability to help others if we are open to it. And I find that every time I do, it comes full circle to both reinforce that I’m walking in my purpose and leaving the world a little better than I found it.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I love what I do because I get to spend my life pouring into future leaders and helping them know they matter. College Moxie has empowered hundreds of thousands of students over the past 6 years and it is so exciting for me to see. Our growth has taken shape in a variety of ways and I’m constantly figuring out how we can work smarter not harder to further our reach and create greater impact. I was just able to take some of our programs to Universities in South Africa and London, marking our fourth and fifth countries of impact. We also recently launched the “How to Find Your Moxie” podcast based on my book discussing themes of confidence, comparison, friendships and community with college students. I love when they share their stories because as much as I can empower them, there’s something exciting about them hearing from their peers. My goal is to reach every student in every country on every continent so we can all be better friends to one another and realize we aren’t alone in our struggles. If you know campuses anywhere in the world that need more compassion, love and moxie please connect me with them!

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

The three most important qualities or learned skills for me have been committing to growth, staying focussed on “the what” over “the how” and reframing failure.

The ability to both love ourselves and know we matter while also acknowledging that “perfect” isn’t real are necessary keys to being open to self-reflection and growth without implosion. If we believe the lies that everyone else is the problem or that “perfect” is achievable and a realistic expectation, relationships with ourselves and others become extremely difficult, and its easy to get in the way of our own success. We have to both be committed to growth, willing to acknowledge where we are still learning and also have grace for ourselves in the process.

I also believe much of our success has come from being laser focussed on our mission (empowering students to know their worth) without necessarily staying tied to “how” we do it. We have student interns from campuses across the country (and sometimes other countries) who we learn a lot from. I’m constantly utilizing them as a focus group to understand shifts in their needs, best approaches to needed conversations and how we can best help. College Moxie started as an instagram account committed to throwing up love on people. We then created a 9 week confidence building curriculum that we piloted on a four campuses. That quickly showed proven results and spread to 25 campuses which resulted in us starting College Moxie Campus Chapters. I then realized that I could use my background in TV, film and stage to engage audiences with keynotes and workshops to help fund these chapters. After hearing so many students share stories of sexual assault on campus, I decided we needed to produce a short film sharing women’s stories from the lens of what they wish others knew by way of support and care. We had no experience with production but knew it needed to happen. With the exception of me directing and a fabulous female editor I knew, the entire film was made by students and has now won two international awards. People are constantly amazed at what all are doing and so quickly with little funding and I believe we are successful because we are open to shifting in new directions in order to make an impact- and we are not afraid to fail.

Which brings me to my last tip- turn every roadblock into a speed bump. If you have a vision that is driven by purpose and about a cause grater than yourself- then make it happen. Not everyone will get it. Not everyone will get you. And that’s okay. If everyone thought like us we wouldn’t be passionate about what we are and have the desire to create movement in others. Focus on opportunity rather than rejection. Take a “no” as “not here” or “not right now”. But don’t let anyone own the power to determine your worth other than you. My background is in acting. The greatest lesson I learned as an actress is that rejection will not kill you. And once we realize death isn’t at play, we get to choose- do we let it stop us or fuel us? I have learned to be grateful for every interaction, every opportunity to communicate our cause and my purpose and every seed planted- whether it is acknowledged, watered or met with gratitude isn’t within my control. I reflect and consider if they made good points that I can learn from or if they might just not be ready for what we have to offer. Seeing all information as valuable to next steps really takes personal rejection out of the equation. I’m so grateful to have learned this and wish I had discovered the power of adopting this mindset sooner in life.

What was the most impactful thing your parents did for you?

The greatest thing my parents did was hold me accountable while also never making me question whether I was loved. A mindset of victimhood was never really a thing in my household, even when my youngest brother had cancer. And he was the greatest example of optimism, hope and focussing on what is within your control to change for all of us. I’m so thankful for my family and that my parents taught us to have faith, be kind, work hard and love hard. My parents, my brother on earth and my brother in heaven are all people who have gone through hard things and have chosen to be resilient. I look up to each of them and am so thankful to know that I have their love and support, no matter what I might go through.

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