Taking risks in life can be frightening especially when the payoffs are uncertain. Many of us would rather stay in a comfortable position than pursue something that makes us feel passion, excitement, and joy. Leaving a secure job or a cushy lifestyle is extremely difficult, which is why many of us stay stuck in unfulfilling and unrewarding situations. One common situation in which many people find themselves stuck is a job that compensates well but which drains your energy, passion, and vitality. In this interview with Lydia Lee, we talk about taking a complete turnaround and following your passion and heart and trusting them to lead you to a life that is infinitely more rewarding, fulfilling, and meaningful. Through our conversation, Lydia, a fellow Malaysian, describes the point at which she knew she had to change her high-paying job and jet-setting lifestyle for something that has meaning and purpose to her. She quit her job, followed her passion, and today serves clients all over the world by helping them carve a working life that is uniquely meaningful to them. From beautiful warm tropical Bali. 

About Lydia

Lydia is a work reinvention strategist (also lovingly known as the ‘Freedom Instigator’) at Screw The Cubicle, her own company. Since 2013, she's helped hundreds of people transition out of the golden corporate handcuffs, develop successful self-employment strategies, and create an impact in the work they want to do. 

The core of what she does is based on a belief that people can create a relationship with work that's deeply meaningful for themselves. And that they shouldn't have to sacrifice their lives for work. Instead, they need to find the right type of work that builds on their strengths, passions, and interests.

Now based in Bali, Lydia spends her time teaching people how to quit jobs that are crushing their souls, discover their hidden talents, and make money doing something they love and care about. She works primarily with corporate professionals, usually in mid-career to transition out of the traditional trajectory of a full-time job.  She's focused on helping them to repurpose their expertise into a meaningful business that' builds on their strengths, values, and personality. Lydia has experienced massive burnout with a high-paying job where she spent 6 months out of a year traveling around the world and living out of a suitcase in 5-star hotels. This kind of work, however, caused anxiety, health problems, and stress. After she suffered a panic attack in a hotel room in Moscow, she reevaluated her life, resigned from her job, and pursued her passion for helping others live their best lives. Screw the Cubicle was born and Lydia found herself setting up her business in Bali. She loves it so much that she's made Bali home. 

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Links and resources mentioned in the interview:

Website  

We all face emotions that can sometimes overwhelm. Maybe it is a difficult colleague at work who triggers our most visceral reactions or a stressful event that we are struggling to get under control. We all face those moments when it is difficult to make sense of the way we feel. How do we reign in those raging and uncontrollable emotions that leave us bewildered and wondering why we feel the way we do? 

In this episode, I talk to ST Rappaport about how to make sense of these emotions and triggers in life. We discuss how we can use a technique, Creative Journaling, to deal with these emotions, help us make sense of them, and come to a more settled and calmer space. The technique involves using your non-dominant hand to answer questions asked by your logical, conscious, and more dominant side of your brain. This will allow access to more creative, intuitive, and authentic processing of these emotions.

About ST Rappaport

ST Rappaport is a relationship photographer, creative journal expressive arts coach, and host of the LifePix Relationships Podcast. After observing, listening, and connecting with so many couples, ST is on a mission to find out what makes relationships work and how they can become extraordinary. Her life mission is to help as many couples as possible. 

Through ST Rappaport's podcast, she gets the chance to know other people's relationship secrets, successes, and challenges. She offers real techniques and tools on how relationships can be improved to become happier and healthier. Her podcast also focusses on the importance of communication and how to better understand your partner.

She uses the Creative Journaling technique in her coaching practice to help people overcome challenges in their relationship.

Resources mentioned in the interview:

Information about CJEA (Creative Journal Expressive Arts) 

The best way to connect with ST on social media is on Linkedin

For a free mini session with ST

Many of us have mental and emotional filters, which is good because they help us relate to ourselves, others, and the world around us in positive healthy ways. These filters, however, can become self-censors and prevent us from seeing ourselves as we truly are - amazing. When we are overly critical of ourselves and harsh in our self-view, we diminish our brilliance and deny the world of our true authentic talents and gifts. Dr. Denise Moore is on a mission to change that and help each one of us quiet that inner-critic, embrace our natural talents and  "own our amazing." This was a great interview where Dr. Denise took us through her own journey of quieting her inner-critic, finding her authentic voice, and owning her own amazing. This was a wonderful uplifting conversation. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

About Dr. Denise

Dr. Denise Moore Revel is a CEO, founder, an award-nominated, best-selling author, speaker, and personal development coach. For over 25 years, she has literally helped people find their voices. As a speech-language pathologist (therapist), her job has been helping her clients discover their voice. Dr. Denise founded The Own Your Amazing Movement has an extension of the message of finding your own voice and living your worth out loud. Through coaching, mentoring, and workshops, Dr. Denise empowers women to find their unique voice, live their worth out loud, and create amazing lives they love.

Links mentioned:

Dr. Denise's website

Dr. Denise's Own Your Amazing Facebook Page

Dr. Denise's Instagram Page

Founder and president emerita of the Children's Defense Fund, Marian Wright Edelman said, "You really can change the world if you care enough." And the people who have created a lasting change in the world because they cared deeply about the plight of the people and environment around them. They also took massive action to address the problem they saw in the world. And they did that with passion and commitment to a greater cause.

This month, as we reflected on passion, we look at how passionate people follow-through on inspired thought. A thought which said, “maybe YOU should pursue THIS course of action because you feel so passionately about it.”  When someone pays attention to that call and aligns their intellectual curiosity with their emotional draw and intuitive gut reaction that that is the right direction to move in, doors open up into a new world that is infinitely more rewarding and purposeful unfolds.

In this episode, I talk to Danny Blue, the founder of One Million Acres, about following that passion and creating a life and business that has a positive impact on other people and communities. We talk about how Danny left a high-paying corporate job to pursue his passion for the environment, love for the outdoors, and affection for animals. We also talk about finding a fresh path after leaving a settled position and being okay with the uncertainty that inevitably follows. Danny also shares how he started his social enterprise, One Million Acres, whose mission is to protect one million acres of the endangered rainforest while empowering indigenous artisan communities to rise out of poverty through the sale of hand-crafted and entirely biodegradable hand bracelets.

What are your passions and how can you turn that into a commitment to making your life more purposeful, fulfilling, and impactful?

About Danny Blue

Danny took a trip to the Amazon Rainforest in Ecuador in the summer of 2018 where he stayed in one village of the Waorani tribe, a beautiful people that have been living in harmony with the land for hundreds of years.

On the drive into the jungle, it completely blew Danny away by the vast number of oil pipes lining the sides of the dirt roads.  More shocking was the massive "oil block" (a fenced-in facility with a giant crab-like machine sucking oil out of the ground) located not even 100 yards away from the village where he was staying. After learning more about the plight facing these indigenous communities, and how their lack of economic opportunities was furthering the exploitation of their land, he knew he had to do something.

Danny founded OMA to harness the power of the collective good in people, to bring about large-scale change in the world and stand up to greedy corporations that care more about monetary gain than they do the future of our planet.

About One Mission Acres (OMA)

OMA is a social enterprise, a business that uses profits to support social impact causes. OMA makes bracelets entirely of sustainably sourced organic materials from the Amazon Rainforest, making it 100% biodegradable. The OMA bracelet is the only bracelet that has a zero-waste plantable packaging, meaning you can plant your packaging when you're done with it to cut down even more on unnecessary waste.

The heart and soul of OMA lie within our relationships with our indigenous artisan partners. OMA goes beyond selling bracelets to fund a cause. Instead, OMA is committed to creating new economies and opportunities for indigenous artisans in the same areas we are working to protect, thus increasing their ability to make a social impact.

One Million Acres

Danny's Facebook Page

Danny's Linkedin Page

This month as we reflect on passion as our theme, one thing that comes to mind is how to keep the passion that you have for something going on when things get tough. Sometimes in life and in business, things don't go as planned. And we can feel like the passion that we initially started with isn’t enough to sustain our goals and take us where we want to go. In this podcast episode, Ryan Stanley shows us how to continue pursuing our passions and following our dreams even when we run into hard times along the way. Ryan's book “Be patient, Be present, Be Joyful” is a delightful book that contains nuggets of wisdom to help us find the strength when passion isn't enough to carry us through rough times. Ryan and I discussed finding the patience to deal with life inconveniences that will inevitably arise and enjoying when things don't go the way we hope it to. Patience helps us put things in perspective and shows us that in the grand scheme of things, a little inconvenience - such as being stuck in traffic - will not derail our goals and hopes for the future. And to be patient, we really need to be present at the moment. Finally, when we are present at the moment, we will find joy and it's that joy that takes us through those rough times when our most passionate desires cannot sustain the pursuit of our goals in life or in business.

About Ryan

Ryan is a lifelong entrepreneur who is known for his impressively natural ability to connect with, understand and empower those who are in pursuit of and willing to make significant changes in their personal and professional lives so they can end up being the best versions of themselves. Since graduating from The Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC) in 2009 as a Certified Professional Coach (CPC) Ryan has changed the lives of hundreds of clients from all walks of life. More recently, Ryan has also been working at his alma mater as both an Admissions Coach, where he closed almost $22 Million in sales in 8 years, and as their first-ever Internal Coach where he coached staff from entry-level to C suite on everything from daily professional growth to how they want to show up energetically in other more personal areas of their life.

In the Spring of 2020, Ryan took his sales and coaching expertise to new levels by co-founding Teach Me to Sell, an online Sales Training Organization focusing on working closely with Service Oriented SoloPreneurs or SOS's (Coaches, Consultants, Direct Sales) as well as those new to any sales role in purpose-driven organizations to help them push past fears and blocks around sales.

In this episode, I reflect on creativity and discuss:

1. what creativity is and isn't

2. why creativity is important 

3. how to get your creative juices flowing

Here are 10 ways to spark your innate creativity and lead you to a more creative life:

🖼️  Create an inspiration board

🖼️  Meditate 

🖼️  Be grateful 

Link:

How to Use Creativity to Achieve a More Consistent State of Well-Being

Have you ever felt the call to be more creative and to have a richer, deeper, and more fulfilled life but did not know how to reach it or get there? Maybe you didn't know the right words to describe the life you want or couldn't even tell someone else what you were feeling because words somehow escape you ~ even if you spend your professional life as a lawyer or an educator where words are your essential tools of trade? Don't fret. Try drawing or painting what you feel. Forget trying to capture those feelings in words. Just draw or paint and let the art lead you. That's the message that our awesome guest in this episode, Julie Claire, shares with us this week.

Julie is both an artist and a creativity-based coach living in New Mexico. For around 15 years she has been helping people connect with their intuition, their inner guidance and their creative voice in their art lives and/or in their personal lives. She describes herself as a “recovering thinker”, having grown up “smart”, who after many years realized it was those little moments of creativity and intuition that consistently pointed her towards her joy.

Julie has developed her own coaching style working with people who know they are more creative and alive than their external lives would suggest. She leads intuitive painting retreats for creatives looking to free themselves up in paint. And Julie offers a free weekly online class to people around the globe called: The Creative Cure for Anxious Times on Fridays at 9am Pacific/noon Eastern on Zoom.

Here's how you can reach Julie:

Julie's website with all her offerings

Julie’s Creative at the Wheel podcast on Soundcloud

Friday's The Creative Cure for Anxious Times 9am Pacific / noon Eastern on Zoom

Julie's Business Facebook Page

One on one life coaching with Julie

One on one creativity coaching with Julie

Email Julie at: [email protected]

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Download our Creativity Booklet for the month of July to help you include more creative activity into your life this month and share your experience with us for the episode on the last Tuesday of July.

Download the HCL's July Creativity Booklet

In the final episode for the month of June we wrap up our reflection of adventure and what that means to heart centered living. It has been a incredibly busy week so this episode is published at the end of the week for the episode that was meant to air on June the 30th. Sorry about the delay but here is the reflection episode for June. 

This month’s theme was "Adventure" and in the HCL adventure booklet and guest interviews with Tamika and Kimmlyn Archie, Lee Chambers, and Dan Zehner, we reflected on what adventure meant to heart centered living.

In reflection, adventure = curiosity + bravery .... if we use the following definitions:

Curiosity: “I seek out situations where I gain new experiences without getting in my own or other people’s way.”

(these definitions came from the VIA Institute on Character that study character strengths)

It might seem that adventure has been put on hold lately and we did not get to choose to our adventures but sometimes it is important to realize that instead of getting to choose the adventure, the adventure chooses us. AND we need to embrace the adventure that comes our way.

One of the most important adventures of our lifetime that chose us is the adventure of healing past hurts and racial divides that have come to the forefront these past few weeks. To heal, we need to have difficult and often uncomfortable conversations. In thinking about how to approach these conversations instead of running away from them, I came up with this acronym that would apply to any adventure that brings us out of our comfort zone.

So, what does SWIM stand for and how does the acronym help us embrace a life of adventure? 

Well, I'm glad you asked. Here is what it stands for:

S - suspend fear

And here is how it helps us embrace adventure. 

S - suspend fear

When we suspend fear, we taper our flight or fight response to activities that cause our heart-rates to rise, such as an adventurous undertaking.

W - withhold judgement

When we withhold judgement, we allow ourselves to take a step into the unknown and explore the beauty that the adventure might uncover.

I - initiating the first step

The first step is always the hardest and we need to take that first step in the direction of adventure. The next step and the ones that follow do get easier and easier.

M - managing expectations

We need to manage our expectations of what that adventure might include because many times, the route to that peak of the mountain or the oasis of calm involves difficult times and trudging through unpleasant experiences before we reach our destination.

I hope you enjoyed June’s episodes. The episodes in July will be on the theme of creativity and I encourage you to download our creativity booklet to help you incorporate creativity into your daily life to support your journey to a more heart-centered space, where intellect, intuition and emotion align, so that you can meet the world's deep hunger from that place of deep happiness and watch miracles unfold.

Talk again next week.

Links:

VIA Institute on Character

We're officially in summer and celebrated Father's day over the weekend. We are thankful for the men in our lives who are our fathers and those who also play the role of mentors and "spiritual" fathers. On my end, we celebrated my father, brother, and husband as well remembered my husband's father and my father-in-law. It was a weekend of laughter and tears.

On reflecting on adventure, I've come to realize that having difficult and vulnerable conversations with loved ones are adventures in their own right. We travel into the emotional unknown not knowing what we will find on our journey to the other side. But we all hope that the conversation will deepen and enrich our relationship. In this week's conversation with Dan Zehner, an adventure enthusiast, Dan describes the adventure of traveling into an emotionally vulnerable space, such as when we broach a difficult conversation with a loved one that we haven't had before, and the rewards that follow from that conversation.

Dan is also the host of the podcast, "The Anthem of the Adventurer," where he shares stories (and more) with his listeners, along with weekly challenges for their friends and family to encourage people to live adventurously every day through a mix of casual, crucial, and epic adventures.

Links to resources mentioned in the interview:

SEAL Team Leaders

The Anthem of the Adventurer Podcast

The Anthem of the Adventurer Instagram Page

The Anthem of the Adventurer Facebook Page