Meet Chloe Howard

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Chloe Howard a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Chloe, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?

I believe that resilience exists within all of us. We were each created carefully and mindfully, woven with strength that enables us to rise to different circumstances and meet them with grace and quiet strength as they arrive. When difficulties arise, we merely have to channel what already exists within each of us.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

Chloe Howard is a believer in storytelling, second chances, making mistakes, and life altering love. Her curiosity in the human experience began while growing up with a severe foot deformity, and her interest in storytelling grew after she was victim in a 2014 hate crime assault. Leaving high school coming out of a three year criminal trial and entering college with a published memoir and two TED talks, Chloe threw herself headfirst into living and loving all that was around her with the goal of understanding herself, her God, and her world.
Chloe is the author of Stand Beautiful: a Story of Brokeness, Beauty, and Embracing it All, and Stand Beautiful: a children’s picture book. She has been speaking internationally since 2017 to youth about self love and life purpose, and was recently featured as an author in Clubfoot Connections, an anthology. She has shared her story numerous times on national news networks, has been an honored guest on talk shows, and has starred in three documentaries. You can see more of Chloe’s work and read more about her features at her website, standbeautiful.me.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

1. Only I have the power to determine what my labels are – no one writes my story but me
2. We are never stuck
3. My story is not yet over

My dad coached me from a young age on two concepts: my life as a tapestry, and the art of “yes, and”.
Life as tapestry allows us to take each individual story we carry – different threads, some harder to weave in than others – and see our lives as a beautiful big messy glorious combination of all of them. You look at a tapestry and see how each thread is a part of something bigger; this perspective is what allows us to not get stuck on the difficulty on a single thread/story, and continue to weave.
The “yes, and” is a practice utilized by artists and improv actors: taking what comes at us and reacting in an additive way. At times we cannot change what happens to us, but we can choose to take it in stride and respond well. “Yes”, this may have happened to me and it may have sucked, “and” this is what I’m going to do about it.

Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?

I think vulnerability is the most powerful tool we have. We are created to be storytellers, it’s in our blood, and when we talk about what we’re going through, not only is it cathartic to our brains and hearts that so ache for connection but we encourage that vulnerability to be met by others. The biggest lie that’s trapping our youth today is that we’re alone in what we’re going through. We are not, and the more people that give voice to what they go through, the better.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://standbeautiful.me