Mo Akif 🦆

5 years ago, my close friend passed unexpectedly. It was the first sudden loss I'd experienced, and it hit me hard. I started seeing a therapist to process the grief, and there was one breakthrough moment that deeply changed my perspective on life. She was trying to help me make meaning from his passing. I didn't believe in the traditional religious or spiritual ways to come to accept someone passing, and she was struggling for us to get to a breakthrough. She asked what he meant to me. I shared how he was one of my closest friends, and he was one of the coolest people I knew. He could do everything - literally. He could juggle fire, do circus routines, slack line, paint, draw, code. He made friends everywhere he went, he lived in foreign countries before age 18, he saw the beauty in little things. I could go on and on. There was so much about him to love and be inspired by. She said, Adele, you're not answering my question -- what did he mean to you? I didn't understand. I was sharing how much he added to the world, how much joy he brought. He had an abundance mindset on life. He was always taking on something new, always being kind and enthusiastic along the way. How wasn't I answering the question? She said I'm not asking about him as a person, I want to hear about the meaning he had to you. Then, it hit me. I said... "He was someone who I genuinely admired, who believed in me even when I didn't believe in myself." At the time, I was struggling with a series of hits to my self-esteem. I was at a pretty low point in believing in myself. But he always made me feel more capable than I believed I was. We'd walk around our local Farmers Market talking about what life goals we wanted to pursue next; he dared me to dream bigger. He gave me pep talks while we drove around our hometown about how I'd find that summer internship even when I was struggling. He would answer the phone to coach me on an upcoming final round interview even though it was 1 am and he was hopping on a flight to Budapest. I wasn't athletic, but we placed a bet. A "$20 and baked goods" bet: Could he do the splits first, or would I learn to run a mile under 9 minutes first? (I won). That's the impetus of my running stint... and why I ran a marathon 2 years later. He always believed in me even when I didn't believe in myself. Then my therapist said... Adele. How would it feel to see yourself the way that he saw you? To believe in yourself the way that he believed in you? Thinking about it flooded me with so much love and care that I had neglected to give myself for those years. And she said, Adele, wouldn't it be the greatest honor to him, to learn to see yourself the way that he saw you? That moment I've internalized to my core. It's gone on to influence a lot of what I've done in the last 5 years. Working on building my own self-esteem, internalizing what it means to be genuinely supportive of myself... and even bringing that to physical and digital spaces where people can work on their confidence alongside others. It's beautiful to tie back so much of who I've become to how he's shaped me. I've learned that we don't just love people for who they are, but what they represent to us. And who they inspire us to become 🤍