Helping Create Success
When you have a career like Lubos it’s hard to know from where to start, but like always we will start from his early beginnings.
I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. If you are making mistakes…you’re Doing Something. “
Life in the Bubble, with Euroleague (Junior) Basketball
Honestly, I have never thought that I would be part of the team that would spend the extended weekend “in the bubble”, meaning that nobody from the group of 23 people couldn’t leave the premises of the hotel and the arena.
I joined the team of Basket Brno Next Generation in their first ever trip to Adidas NG Tournament, held in Istanbul. I was assigned as team’s PR manager, meaning that I would do some interviews, and mostly be taking pictures.
My husband is the head coach and director of the team that was invited to the tournament, that includes some big names on club scene in Europe, such as Real Madrid, Zalgiris Kaunas, Efes Pilsen, among others.
The Euroleague did a good job of keeping the players, staff and team’s followers excluded from the outside world. They tried their best to separate even the teams, different times for meals, meeting rooms, etc. Nobody was hanging out in the lobby, which is very usual during these tournaments.
Tournament itself was broadcasted online, via Euroleague and YouTube, which was great since the games were closed to public.
I was fortunate to be allowed to be on the floor, and even though I had to always have a mask on, I was able to change spots on the floor, go into the stands and even get some cool pictures taken from above the floor.
People were genuinely nice and helpful, which is great in such times like present pandemic.
It was great to be part of the team, to feel their excitement from their first experience from the tournament, and even though they managed to win just one game out of four, they all seem to enjoy just to play and compete.
At the end, Basket Brno finished 7th but one of their players got selected in the All-Star team, which is very unusual, and it shows its value. It was definitely a great experience and everyone seemed to enjoy to play games, to compete and to feel a bit normal during this strange time.
Throughout my life I have had change come at me when I least expected it.
I am pretty good at making decisions, when something feels right for me. I am also not scared of change, when I can see the road ahead or when I believe that it will be good change.
However, like so many other people, when we don’t know what will happen, we tend to wait to create change until we have to or we hit a “pothole” on life’s journey and we have to stop and reflect on where we are going. Even when we know it is time for change, even when it hurts to stay where we are, when we long to grow emotionally, mentally, personally and professionally, even then we tend to wait.
But what are we waiting for?
Even when we long to feel better and get healthy, we tend to wait to clean up our habits, until something happens where we simply have to.
WHY TO WAIT?
Why are we so scared of challenging ourselves?
For the past 18 years of my life and changing cities, meet new culture, new people, I realizade that, people are create in kind of custuming and culture and they are fraid of changing.
What if we could look forward and wonder what we would do with change, rather than what change would do to us?
It is possible to create a life we love, but it starts with seeing change as a journey. It starts with having the courage to look inside and discover you own special, silly, beautiful, funny, clumsy, awkward, lovely self. And then there is also the dark side of ourselves, the parts we want to hide and the parts we don’t love because they are not so fluffy, or sweet, or pretty.
The thing is, nothing about being human is ever perfect.
“Life is not about perfection, it is about discovery….” In my experience it has been a “trip to me”— an open door to “me” discovering my whole self.
You learn that self-nourishment extends beyond eating healthy. It’s a beginning that extends to the whole self, emotionally, physically and spiritually.
Changing from the inside out.
You feel the love and power that comes with the understanding that you can own your “emotional” real estate—the whole self.
When we approach big change in our lives from the inside out, it means we unearth, understand and then begin to address the thought patterns and limiting beliefs about ourselves and our world that got us here.
That’s really how and when we begin to change the behaviors that we adopted as a result of that thinking that are no longer working for us.
That’s when we begin to unlock our power and address the underlying problem and not just the outer symptoms. And that’s when we are truly able to create long-term change.
Embracing the Change From the Inside Out!!!! “SO I INVITE YOU TO JOIN ME FOR SOME CHANGE”, be the change you want to see in the world!!
By Keilley Lee Marques
When you have a career like Lubos it’s hard to know from where to start, but like always we will start from his early beginnings.
I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. If you are making mistakes…you’re Doing Something. “
Sometimes, we are so keen on making plans, short term, or long term, and we don’t realize that so often, life makes plans for us. Or in other words, we are just reacting to the situations that we are thrown into.
Right now, I am in the middle of adjustment to our “new home” that is surprisingly not located with the borders of the United States, as we planned. Instead, I am in Brno, Czech Republic, trying to figure so many different things, regarding my kids, school, getting settled and thousands of other things to be taken care of. Luckily, I am equipped with the basics of the language (for those who know little bit about the local tongue, IT AIN’T NO JOKE), so this transition is not as hard as it could be.
My husband took an opportunity to come to Brno to be part of the new project, to stay active during this difficult period of time. Covid 19 pandemic has been hard on virtually everyone, and like I mentioned before, it has rearranged plans for many.
So, I am here, at the outskirts of second biggest city in Czech Republic, looking at the field of sunflowers that are almost all dead. School just started, and our kids are thrown into a brand-new environment, almost new language. New everything. But they are great, they do not sweat it as much as we adults would.
They are young, they adopt. They look at the bright side, and maybe we should take a note, and behave like them.
I feel truly fortunate that my husband has a job, we live in a safe place and pretty much everything is taken care of. Not everyone can say that. I am sure that Brno offers more things to do, and it is not going to be only about basketball this season. I am excited to get to know this part of Czech Republic, Moravia, the land of local wines. Let’s go!
Sometimes, we are so keen on making plans, short term, or long term, and we don’t realize that so often, life makes plans for us. Or in other words, we are just reacting to the situations that we are thrown into.
I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. If you are making mistakes…you’re Doing Something. “
Right now, I am in the middle of adjustment to our “new home” that is surprisingly not located with the borders of the United States, as we planned. Instead, I am in Brno, Czech Republic, trying to figure so many different things, regarding my kids, school, getting settled and thousands of other things to be taken care of. Luckily, I am equipped with the basics of the language (for those who know little bit about the local tongue, IT AIN’T NO JOKE), so this transition is not as hard as it could be.
My husband took an opportunity to come to Brno to be part of the new project, to stay active during this difficult period of time. Covid 19 pandemic has been hard on virtually everyone, and like I mentioned before, it has rearranged plans for many.
So, I am here, at the outskirts of second biggest city in Czech Republic, looking at the field of sunflowers that are almost all dead. School just started, and our kids are thrown into a brand-new environment,
almost new language. New everything. But they are great, they do not sweat it as much as we adults would.
They are young, they adopt. They look at the bright side, and maybe we should take a note, and behave like them.
I feel truly fortunate that my husband has a job, we live in a safe place and pretty much everything is taken care of. Not everyone can say that. I am sure that Brno offers more things to do, and it is not going to be only about basketball this season. I am excited to get to know this part of Czech Republic, Moravia, the land of local wines. Let’s go!
I know it seems like there will be no party for the New Year´s Eve this years!
I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes…you’re Doing Something. “
In the next few paragraphs, I would like to share a piece of my life story. Some aspects of my life that not many people know but those things formed me as a person, the kind of adventurous and entrepreneurial woman that does not stop dreaming. What is the origin of my love for travel, my desire to discover new things, and try to learn new languages. Some dreams were shattered along the way, but the new ones arose from my way of living, and my way of wanting something more out of life. That is, maybe, the part of Keilley, that I would like to share with you now.
My mother was the source of my love for traveling! My parents split up when I was about two years old and I don’t have any real memories of my father, maybe only that he traveled for work often, and one day, well, he simply didn’t return. He worked as a promoter/producer of forro band, a type of music well known in the northern part of Brazil. He worked with big names in the industry at that time, and he became a well-known producer.
My mother was a gospel singer in Bahia. Part of her job was to visit churches in different cities and towns, located in my native Bahia. We started to move around when I was about three years old and we visited many churches.
My older sister also took on singing gospel and I took the opportunity to preach. I like to talk about God with people already at that young age. I remember many occasions when I could talk with someone about God, and their eyes would get misty, maybe because my words were coming from my heart, and were not polluted by adult thinking. So we kept on traveling, meeting more people and getting to know more places.
My mother was always on lookout for a better job, better conditions for her three kids (yes, I have a younger brother as well), and to allow them to get the best education possible.
My mother was a gospel singer in Bahia. Part of her job was to visit churches in different cities and towns, located in my native Bahia. We started to move around when I was about three years old and we visited many churches.
My older sister also took on singing gospel and I took the opportunity to preach. I like to talk about God with people already at that young age. I remember many occasions when I could talk with someone about God, and their eyes would get misty, maybe because my words were coming from my heart, and were not poluted by adult thinking. So we kept on traveling, meeting more people and getting to know more places.
My mother was always on lookout for a better job, better conditions for her three kids (yes, I have a younger brother as well), and to allow them to get the best education possible.
Modeling was around me, since my sister worked in the industry and won several beauty contests in Brazil, and it affected me in my early years.
I wanted to follow her footsteps, learn how to walk, dress, and all the other things.
My body wasn’t built to walk on catwalks, and my large breasts were not taken as a great asset in the industry.
My development started early, as soon as when I was ten years old, my chest started to form and didn’t stop growing until I was well in high school. It is not easy for a teenage girl to have her dreams crushed because of her big breasts. It was not only about modeling. Children at school often teased me about it, giving me a hard time, for something that I should be proud of from the very beginning. But at that time, it felt a little bit more as a curse, since it made my dreams impossible.
Around that time, volleyball came to my life, and made me forget about the modeling. Something that served me as an escape, soon became my love.
I put all my energy into becoming as good of a player as I could have possibly be. I felt the passion for the game, and my rapid growth only kept on motivating me more. Soon enough, I could also see pleasant results on my body, which was a great “side effect” of practicing hard every day.
Playing volleyball completely changed my perspective on life and by the age of 14, I ended up totally falling in love with the sport. Soon enough, my younger brother would join me, and we practiced together quite often. The routine of practicing and everything that was around it, made me feel great, and my taste of exercising was cultivated in me since that age. I started to play volleyball professionally, taking the sport more seriously. I went to Curitiba to get to another level. In that city were one of the best teams in the country, more opportunities to develop and get exposure. I did many tryouts and my experience grew rapidly. I got to meet many different types of managers, coaches, and when I look back now, it really prepared me well for the future.
Some time later, I went from indoor volleyball to beach volleyball. It was a new experience, and also a new opportunity for me to travel. Even to the foreign countries.
The emotion was immense. I couldn’t believe that something that I loved so much could open more doors from me.
When an opportunity to play in Europe professionally came by, I didn’t hesitate. When I crossed the Atlantic, and I landed in the Charles de Gaul airport in Paris, I felt an urge of thought, maybe a feeling, that I would never return to Brazil. That Europe would be my new home. It is a sensation hard to explain, and in my native language (Portuguese), we call it “a matter of skin and heart”.
I was enchanted with the old continent.
Every country, every city that I have lived in or visited, made me feel awesome and I never felt like leaving this place.
Spain would become my headquarters, since I learned the language quite easily, and it was not hard to fall in love with the climate and the local gastronomy. Looking back, all of this happened because of my passion for volleyball, and I am eternally grateful for it. It shaped me into a person that I am today!!
By Keilley Lee Marques
Building a brand has just become easy with Keilley Lee Marques. A name that is all over, describing various fields including digital and influencer marketing. If you look out for maximizing efforts for your brand strategy, ours is the name to look out for!
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