Meet Semi Watson

We were lucky to catch up with Semi Watson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Semi , thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

My resilience comes from many places. Being placed into a situation where I had to fight for my life definitely shaped me into the warrior that I am today. I’ve seen the rainbow at the end of the storm, so I know even on my worst days things will get better. Knowing that I’m inspiring others by sharing my story and advocating for my health pushes me to keep going. Giving up has never been an option for me.

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?

I was diagnosed with lupus in 2013. Throughout the years of finding my way I became passionate about advocating for lupus awareness. I started documenting my journey, the good and the bad. I allowed people to see how lupus can affect a persons life even though they appear to be healthy.
My main goal was to educate people about the disease because in my opinion it doesn’t get as much recognition in the public eye. Many people confuse it with cancer, and some haven’t heard of it at all. So I started Light For Lupus. I began speaking at public events, I took on guest roles for podcasts & continued to tell my story.
I felt like even though I was sharing needed information I wasn’t doing enough so I decided to channel my personal journey into creating children’s books that addresses the complexities of living with lupus. Through my writing, I aim to provide understanding and support for young readers and their families.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

If I had to pick three qualities that were the most impactful for my journey they would be persistence, patience and optimism. Persistence, was probably the most challenging for me because I didn’t like feeling like I was being a bother. Networking definitely wasn’t always easy. Starting up a social media page from the ground up, sending messages and not getting a response, setting up meetings and seeing that the client canceled the day of can definitely make you feel overwhelmed but I was determined to keep going.

Being patient with myself was also a challenge. In the beginning I felt like I had a vision that I didn’t understand. I didn’t know what I wanted to do nor did I know how to build a team for this idea that was coming into form. I didn’t want to rush anything. Trial and error played a big part.

Staying optimistic carried me through. I set high expectations for Light For Lupus. I knew that in order to get myself to the position that I desired it was going to take hard work. I had to train my mind to learn from the challenges that I faced. The phrase mind over matter is demonstrated daily for me.

If I had to give someone early on in their journey advice I would recommend giving yourself grace but not enough room to slack. This is your dream in order to make it a reality you have to do the work. Find organization in the chaos. For me setting quarterly goals makes my journey so much more achievable.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

I would love to have the opportunity to connect with parents who have children with chronic illnesses. I want to be able to provide their families with resources to help them navigate their journey. Having the ability to collaborate with youth support groups so that I can understand their challenges would be an amazing experience. I would love to have the ability to have copies of my book in school classrooms to help students understand diversity, inclusion & chronic illnesses.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Lightforlupus.com
• Instagram: LightForLupus