Lizza Dwoskin

What is your Everyday Magic?

It’s an interesting question for me because I deal so much with the grim world in my day to day as a journalist. The goal there is to understand and interrogate power and to find out what’s wrong and not to try to uncover the magic in things. So, I think my everyday magic is the search for truth and the search for what’s really under the surface. And it’s often not what people are telling you or how they would like to spin it. So, I have to keep that in the forefront in the mind, no matter how much I may like them.

I had an important professional year, because as a journalist covering technology, there was the question of how the Russians interfered with our election through our social media platforms. I fell into a big story, so I already had the built in sense of purpose. I felt like we were really hunting down the story of a huge chapter in this country’s history and we want to tell it right for posterity.

I’m not satisfied unless I’m really in a position where the work I’m doing feels really meaningful.  Things are beautiful to me when there are holes, when there’s discrepancy in story that I can dive into. I get a high off complexity and explaining it and understanding it.

Then at the same time it’s also understanding that everyone wants to be loved and everyone has dreams. So, treating all beings well because they all have yearnings just like me.

What are the strategies and techniques you use for everyday magic?

One of the techniques I learned that applies to this is whenever you talk to someone is surrounding them with love. They won’t even know that you are doing it, but you will notice that their demeanor changes, because you are putting out a different kind of energy.

I also have to do the work. My mother passed away this last year, and it was the greatest tragedy of my life. When the grief comes up, I let myself feel it as fully as I can because it’s going to rear its head anyway. Instead of trying to suppress it, I hold space for it and allow myself to be vulnerable.

Every time I try to tell myself that I should be in a better place, or I should be doing X. I try to remind myself that this is a very hard time and that I’ve gone through a lot. I try to be that friend to myself and tell myself that I’m already exactly who I need to be in this moment. By surrendering what I cannot change, I reconnect with my humanity. Really knowing what life is, is a way of choosing it.

Tips for success?

Whatever you’re trying to do in your profession, the most important thing is just doing the work - both the professional and the emotional. It’s about understanding what’s stopping you in your life from doing the things you want to do and how you want to do them. If it’s about finding your life’s passion, and I’m still in that journey.

If you put in the work, when that pinnacle moment or opportunity arrives, you will be ready for it.