Love Your Story: Stories and discussions about personal growth, mindset and living with intention

Link to Stephanie’s site and this post:  https://stephaniestclaire.com/the-bad-ass-broad/

The Bad Ass Broad

By Stephanie St. Claire

Sometimes life requires you to be a bad ass broad. As in, take a look at the craziness surrounding you, pull that shit together, and HANDLE IT.

Who is the Bad Ass Broad?

She doesn’t tolerate drama, whether it’s her own or another’s. She lives in the real world, so there is always going to be craziness to contend with. But she recognizes it early and excuses herself from the scene.

She’s self-possessed and commands her space in the room. Her confidence is strong but quiet. She’s not a loud mouth. She takes a compliment and looks you in the eye when you’re giving it.

She’s an observer more than a talker, acutely aware of her surroundings. She uses the information to her advantage.

She doesn’t talk badly about other people, and while that sounds really angelic, she knows it will be traced right back to her and prizes her hard-earned credibility.

She enjoys a good stiff drink, but never forgets that the sun will rise tomorrow and require her full strength and sobriety.

She’s not threatened by other women. As a matter of fact, she’s the first to tell a stranger how pretty she looks, or congratulate a friend on her new promotion. She feels energized by other women’s successes.

A bad ass broad does not get involved with someone else’s man. Period. End of story. She has a memory of how that went down and has learned from her mistakes.

The fiercest thing about a bad ass broad is her ability to extricate herself from a situation that isn’t working.

Once aware of her mistake, she will snap her wallet closed, snap her knees together, snap her heart out of hypnosis and head out with a swiftness that will suck the very oxygen from your lungs.

A bad ass broad is not afraid of hard work. She rolls up her sleeves and gets to it. She doesn’t bitch about it, and she doesn’t wait for someone else to do it. She doesn’t let herself get distracted and is very aware that resistance is a cunning enemy. Resistance being: fear, self-doubt, procrastination, addiction, distraction, narcissism, self-loathing, and perfectionism.

A bad ass broad is not a loud mouth, gossip, or a bitch. She doesn’t throw her weight around, get loud and demanding, or act like she’s better than everyone. She lets her actions speak for themselves, which saves her of a bunch of vapid talking.

A bad ass broad values freedom, and sometimes does things unconventionally to afford her the highest measure of it.

She takes big risks because she is willing to be her own rescue if things don’t work out. She has survived numerous personal plot twists and can take what’s handed to her without blaming others.

A bad ass broad is MADE, not born. She’s a sinner with the heart of a saint. She’s been trespassed against, and she’s done some trespassing of her own. But at some point, she drew a line in the sand, stopped the drama, and took back the wheel.

She’s in charge of her life. She can take the heat. She handles business.

Touring the facility and picking up slack,

Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. You are tuning in today for the story of Tabitha Trent – a young married woman with a 2-year-old daughter who was diagnosed with stage III Colon Cancer in January 2017.

Let me share a couple reasons I’m doing this interview: first, there is probably not a soul out there that hasn’t either had cancer or known someone who has. It’s an epidemic in our modern world – my grandmother died of cancer, my mother fought breast cancer, my son has leukemia, I have another friend who has fought phenomenally hard for years but doesn’t have much time left. I’m sure you have a similar list. Second, Tabitha, from the beginning has been very open about her journey. She aligned herself with the Colorectal Cancer Alliance and volunteered in their buddy program. She’s been open from the beginning so that her journey could help others with questions or fears about the process of battling cancer.  She has proactively shared her story of grit. And third, because her advocacy and choice to shift her mindset from one of fear and denial to positivity and supporting others who were going through this as she was, gives us a story of one woman’s choice to create something powerful from something horrible.

Stay tuned for her story and listen in on her amazing and inspirational attitude.

Tune into the podcast for my interview with Tabitha

Contact information for Tabitha:

Social media tags and websites  – www.linkedin.com/in/tabtherecruiter and #TabTheRecruiter

Our realities are a creation of our mindset. I know it’s hard to take that full responsibility, especially when things kick our feet out from under us. Sometimes it’s hard for me to control my mindset – I get it. And, I would never suggest that everyone who gets a horrible disease should simply bounce up and away and shift their mindset into power and positivity, because there is certainly a time for mourning, for fear, for anger, for all the other emotions that are such a big part of illness, especially terminal illness. You are totally justified to feel all those emotions and more. But stories like Tabitha’s show us that the fear and anger, the horror and depression don’t have to be where we stay. There is a choice to shift into brighter spaces. For those of you who want another option – the option of finding power and positive and getting real with your grit – here’s a story of someone who has done just that.

Thanks for joining us for her story today.

As I sign off I want to invite you to join the Love Your Story Podcast Groupies Facebook page and be a part of our community. We are going to be doing groups from that community who are doing the 21-Day LIFE Connection Challenge together, so you guys can do it in a group and talk about your experiences there in the community. I’d love to have everyone listening right now join that community, and if you want to join the next group of 21-Day LIFE Connection Challengers, just type it on the page or message me and I’ll be in touch about when the next group is starting. Check it out for more info on loveyourstorypodcast.com.

See you next week for another inspiring story or tool on making your life story fabulous!

Welcome back to the Love Your Story Podcast. Today we are picking up the story archetype discussion – specifically the archetype of the Herald. Remember in episode 72 when we talked about the Threshold Guardian and the things that test us to see how badly we want what we think we want? Well, today we are going to dig into the Herald archetype. Stay tuned for a look at who your heralds are and the invitation they are bringing, and why you should probably say “yes.”

Joseph Campbell, in his book The Hero of a Thousand Faces, posited that the most popular stories over millennia and across cultures, share a specific formula– the heroes journey. You have consumed this “monomyth” in pop culture classics like Star Wars, the Matrix, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, to name only a few.

The Hero’s Journey has a specific plot structure, but it also has a repeating cast of characters, known as character archetypes. Archetypes tell us the role a character plays in the story. Thinking about the characters in your story – or the people in your story as these pivotal characters adds a bit of a perspective shift that often provides clarity in your story, but most of all, when you look closely the archetypes of story provide the handbook for life, an instruction manual on the art of human stories and creating and recognizing your own hero’s journey. If nothing else it’s very interesting to consider the things that challenge you as threshold guardians, the people in your life who invite you into adventure and new ways as heralds, and the villains we face as shadows of our own possible dark side.

The central archetypal cast of the Heroes Journey fall into one of these eight character roles: Hero, Mentor, Ally, Herald, Trickster, Threshold Guardian, Shape Shifter, Villain or Shadow.

Today I want to talk about the Herald.

According to the definition on Mythcreants – Fantasy and Science Fiction for Story Tellers, “The Herald appears near the beginning to announce the need for change in the hero’s life. They are the catalyst that sets the whole adventure in motion. While they often bring news of a threat in a distant land, they can also simply show a dissatisfied hero a tempting glimpse of a new life. Occasionally they single the hero out, picking them for a journey they wouldn’t otherwise take.”

Why do we care who the heralds are in our stories? I don’t know, maybe you don’t, but the reason I do is because they are key players in the directions we head in our lives. They may be in the script for a very short moment, but the role they play is incredibly significant, and that merits at least a 15-minute conversation. And, personally, once I have identified the heralds in my own story they take on a pedestal place in my book because they are the catalysts, the instigators for my greatest pivotal events. They opened the doors to adventure. Life is one big journey, and within it we take lots of different kinds of journeys – we take emotional journeys, we take learning journeys, we take professional journeys and journey through relationships. We take literal journeys filled with travel and adventure, and the heralds who extend those invitations, who show me the door, well, they have a special place in my heart.

The great stories begin with the “call to adventure.” The human spirit is born to explore and grow, and change is happening to us all the time, but often it is our choice as to whether or not we accept the invitation. We have to act when the Herald shows up.

Let’s talk about some heralds we are all familiar with from pop-culture: R2D2 brought the message of Princess Leah that started Luke on the journey of his life.  The letter announcing the ball in the Cinderella story opened a door to magic and happily ever after – yes a herald can be a letter calling you into the adventure. In the Hobbit, Gandolf invites Bilbo out onto the adventure from which he may not return alive, but in reality, the adventure ends up defining his entire life and legacy.

In my own life, my friend Sally suggested I attend and invited me to embark on the emotional intelligence training that was very key to my healing. Very key to the creation of this podcast.  My friend Sandy was key in helping me find my way to my embarking on the journey of my masters program, teaching at Utah State, and ultimately adding one of the most important stepping stones into the path of my life.  I had a terrifying dream once, I woke in a cold sweat and sat straight up in bed, my back pressed against the headboard, looking out toward the door of my bedroom for hours, all lights on, 911 dialed into my phone and my finger next to the send button. This dream helped me realize how traumatized I was being with my second husband and began my journey to leave.

I’d like to point out the obvious, if Cinderella had not decided to accept the invitation and fight to go to the ball, if Bilbo had said “no” to Gandalf, if Luke had ignored the plea of Princess Leah the stories we know would never have taken place, but more importantly to the characters (if they were real), the experiences those characters had would never have happened. Do you see what I’m getting at here? When you don’t say yes to the Herald you don’t have much of a story to tell.

We talk all the time about creating your life story on purpose. We talk about choices and believing in self and possibility, we talk about action, but I know far too many people for whom heralds show up with calls to action and opportunity that include leaving the Shire or believing in the magic of faith, or creating a life outside their comfort zone, or embracing passion and love and they simply can’t do it/won’t do it. The fear of failure, the fear that they might make a mistake, the fear of the possibility of regret, the fear of the unknown freezes them into the lives they are already tired of.

Have you seen the movie “Yes Man?” In it, Jim Carrey plays a character that promises to say YES to everything anyone asks him to do. It opens up massive opportunities for experiences, for learning, for a relationship. Of course, there is lots of humor, but the takeaway is how saying YES to life, YES to opportunity, YES to the unknown opens doors. While I’m not suggesting we all relinquish our ethical better judgment, I am suggesting that we cannot embark on the adventures of our lives if we ignore our heralds. When the invitation to adventure, or change, or the unknown calls us out, the rest of our life awaits. Will we say no and keep writing the same habitually dictated script, or will we say YES and head out on the yellow brick road, on the fight for the universe, will we go to the ball and see what magic happens?

Nobody knows what lies ahead in the future. There is never a guarantee that the adventure you’re being called to will be filled with bliss – in fact, there is pretty much a guarantee that it won’t because that’s the nature of adventure. You still have to fight Darth Vader, you still have to brave the evil stepmother, you still have to fight trolls and dragons and your inner fears, but that’s the friggin story. That’s the story you’ll be telling when like Bilbo, you retell your story at the end of your life. What did you create with your YES and what did you miss with your NO?

We’ve had a couple episodes where I spoke with the Kjar family and their choice to heed the call to sell their home, buy a mobile home, and hit all 50 states in 52 weeks with 4 kids in tow (See episode 45 & 61 if you want more on that story). I asked them not long ago if they regretted selling everything and now that it was almost over having to start all over, and the answer was a resounding NO. It was and is an adventure of a lifetime with so many experiences that have built out the beauty of the last year of their lives and the effect it will have on all of them in the years moving forward.  They said YES to the adventure, they took the road less traveled, and that has made all the difference.

What if I hadn’t accepted Sally’s invitation to go to the emotional intelligence training that helped me heal my story. I wouldn’t be here doing this podcast. I doubt I would have found the healing I needed in the way I needed it. I certainly wouldn’t have experienced it the way I did. That’s a game changer for me. What if I hadn’t dared accept the call to embark on a master’s program that required me as a single mom supporting two sons to drive an hour and a half each way to the university every day, stay up until 3:00 am grading papers on a regular basis – I taught at the university also, doing research and homework constantly, presenting at other universities all while holding down a full-time job? Well, what absolutely seemed impossible became possible with all the magic and hard work that a real adventure takes. You too can embark on your own adventures, but that means you have to accept the invitation when the herald brings it.

Is there something inside you that is pushing for change?

Is there a friend or opportunity that is offering you a new experience, a new relationship, an adventure?

Remember heralds can be letters, invites, dreams, people….watch for your calls to adventure.

I’ll end with a quote from Joseph Campbell, “The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty  yes to your adventure.”

Take action! When the herald proffers you the invite, consider the possibility, not the fear. Say YES to more than you say NO to. Answer the calls into your own life story. See you next week and your challenge for the week is to think about the heralds in your life. Who were they? What did they offer? Did you choose to accept the call? Where has that answer – whatever it was – landed you?

See you next week on the next episode of Love Your Story. May you heed the calls into your best adventures.

Share the podcast, leave us a review on iTunes, and go to www.loveyourstorypodcast.com to sign up for a couple important tools to help you create your best story: There is the 21-Day Challenge for living your best life story now; and the 5-Steps to Reframing past stories that hold you back. See you next week.

Carmel Clermont is a Haitian woman who was raised by her aunt in Haiti until she was 15 years old. She finally joined her parents in the US in 1986. She went to high school, and to college, got married and had 5 children, inherited 5 more stepchildren, and decided she was most at home when she was helping others, so she went to work to unofficially adopt 300 children in Haiti through the support of their orphanages.

Tune into the podcast for the interview with Carmel and discussion topics that include her sex education classes, child prostitution, single mother programs and getting meals and general education for the inhabitants of the two orphanages she has personally taken on.

For more information on her and on her non-profit the Clermont Care Center:

https://www.gofundme.com/ClermontInternationalAcademy

[email protected],

clermontcarecenter.org

https://venmo.com/schoolsponsorship

https://www.facebook.com/Clermont-Care-Center-Inc-463807990674848

Carmel Claremont goes beyond creating her own life on purpose, she makes sure that in the creation of her own life she is also creating a better life for others through helping to educate, feed and clothe them. She said to me:

“I believe with my heart and soul, those that give always have more in return. Matthew 25 V  35  ‘For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. 36 I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’  One of my greatest accomplishment on earth is becoming a mother, I think I was born to be a mother not only to my own kids but also to others I come encounter with. My aunt raised me, I grew with a lot of love and I see other children that did not have what I have, I always said to myself I want to be the best Mom, I can be.

Thanks for tuning in this week. See you next week on the Love Your Story podcast for another great story or story tool.

When a story is told we follow along with the main character and await the challenge or the crux of the story – the adventure, and then we listen or watch as the hero decides what to do. The events have already happened, that’s why the story can be told, but the piece we didn’t need to think about was how the characters in the story made their real-time choices and thus those actions or inactions that moved the story forward.  Let’s talk about that power. As the author of your life story every moment you are moving your story forward. Every choice, every action creates ripples, creates responses, closes doors, open doors, hurts, helps, generates energy and creates your future.  Will you enjoy poetry and tea and snuggling with a cute little Yorkie to start your day, as I did this morning? Will you start off choosing actions that make YOUR soul sing, or create love? Will you fight off fear that may loom about your day ahead? Will you yell at your kids, or take a run, or take someone for granted, or listen to an inspirational podcast that may trigger an action that will change up your day and maybe your story? Will you allow your inner critic to rip into you today, or will you manage your inner stories?  The choices are endless – really, you could create anything. What will you create today? Right now? What is your storyline? Is it on autopilot or can you shake it up for a little novelty?  Maybe just what you need today is to do something completely unexpected. Ooohhhhh – what might that be and where might that take you? Do it!

One of the tag-lines of Love Your Story is that it seeks to empower and inspire you to create your best life story on purpose. This statement exudes personal responsibility, but it also glows with power.

In her book The 90 Day Life, Dr. Jen Faber says,  One of the first things we must do in order to live well is to accept the responsibility we have for our own lives. “We are not the side effect of our current circumstances. We are the Cause of them. Once you realize that you had the power to create the way of life you’re in right now, you’ll see that you have the same power to change it.”

This is not to say that you caused everything that happened to you in your life. I’m never a fan of that theory, but it is to say that your thoughts, your perceptions, your actions, your inactions, your boundaries, your allowances, your inner stories have indeed played the major role in your life as it is…and equally important is the fact that your current circumstances are a result of your interpretation of those events and if you are caught in circumstances that hold you hostage due to your past, you DO have the option to choose to heal, and thus to change your future circumstances. With healing comes a change of vision, of attitude, of gratitude and those things are key in changing your future circumstances.

Let me get a little scientific on you for a minute.

When you open your eyes do you see the world as it really is? Do you see reality?  This is how the book Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently, by Beau Lotto, starts out. Deviate is a neuroscientist scientific discussion explaining why we don’t, in any way, see reality. Our senses play a limited role in what we perceive, the rest of what we create comes from our assumptions. Our brains have evolved to do this, and it works, but becoming self-aware that our perceptions aren’t reality gives us a space for questioning and breaking out of old stories that hold us back. The fact that we can perceive our own perception is amazing…. How do we step outside the past to live differently in the future? How can you change your way of seeing? How can we become active writers of our own story?

You’re the only one seeing what you see. Perception is profoundly personal

Beau Lotto, posits that we do not live in reality – our senses are limited, we can only see a certain range of colors; we can only hear a certain range of sounds. We are aware of only limited dimensions. We have a limited and small window in which we as humans can actually see through. And we know it is small because other creatures have broader ranges of perception than we do. We know other things exist that we do not comprehend through our senses, which is our way of getting information from the world around us.

The importance of understanding that we don’t really see reality in the greatest truth of things, is the basis for accepting that we create our own realities – our own stories of what is going on, in order to adapt to our environment and survive. The first key here is that reality is subjective. We create it from the exposure we have had to the environment around us and the things it has taught us.

The second key I want to focus on from is research is the plasticity of the brain.

It is a scientific fact that the brain is always adapting, learning and changing. This means we keep adapting to our environments, to the experiences we are going through. Old dogs CAN learn new tricks if they want to. We can change our perceptions. We can change our habits.

Our mind is always adapting according to its perceptions, which reshapes the networks in our cortex, which is the basis for our behavior: established neural pathways.

So his next scientific point is that minds match their ecology; ecology – the interactive relationship between things and the surrounds in which they exist. Studies have shown that people and animals that live in spaces deprived of stimulus, challenge, love, etc. their brains adapt accordingly. Whereas the more alive, different and challenging an ecology, the more the brain steps up to adapt to the higher pace. This is big for parenting and creating atmospheres full of challenge and opportunity certainly, but it also means that as we seek to create our own stories that we CAN change our perceptions of the past, and thus create different futures. We can open ourselves to new cultures and new experiences, which stretches our minds and engages with an ecology that is broader than one where we limit ourselves to a story that comprehends only habit and singular ways of seeing the world. For example, it has been proven that those who travel outside their cultures and have been exposed to broader ecologies have brains that are able to comprehend broader ways of seeing people and life because they have been influenced by diverse stimuli, rather than exposed only to smaller realms of understanding.

In this example, people who travel more have actual physiological differences within their brains. Adapting means our brains physically change according to what they are exposed to. Your ecology – or environment -shapes your brain. Your reshaped brain creates a change of behaviors that continue to mold your brain. These adaptations change your future.

If I can sum that up it comes down to the idea that our brains have taken in the stimulus of our surroundings, our ecology, and we have established neural response pathways to that information. The brain is reformable, it is constantly adjusting to its environment and so we can broaden our experiences and our outer ecological atmospheres which will help us to expand our perceptions and/or we can reshape our perceptions on purpose by choosing to give different meaning to the events of the past, which as you alter their meaning you then alter future reflexive response, thus you change what you are capable of. We are complex and wonderful enough that we observe our own perceptions and deviate on purpose, time and again, to get to where we wish to be. Like when a pilot makes constant adjustments in order to arrive at the right place.

Ok. Let’s deviate from science here and go to pop-culture:

In the movie, I Feel Pretty with Amy Schumer, an ordinary gal who is a little heavy, struggles with feelings of insecurity and inadequacy on a daily basis. The movie does a great job of letting us see inside her self-loathing, which is heartbreaking. So, in the movie she falls off a spin bike at the gym, hits her head and wakes from the fall seeing herself as the most beautiful woman she’s ever seen – exactly what she’s always wanted to be. She feels capable and confident and is empowered to live her life fearlessly, which is extraordinary to watch because nothing about her externally changes, it is nothing more than her own internal story that changes. This movie is what I talk about all the time about the difference our inner stories – the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves—can and do make in the creation of our worlds, of our realities, of our life stories. Watching her interact with men, go after the job she wants, rise to the top of her company because she is no longer self-conscious is this beautiful illustration of what is possible for all of us with this same mind shift. Watch it – if you haven’t, just to see what I mean, bold and big in story form! This simple shift of perception creates such a totally different story and world for Renee, it’s absolutely delicious. But it’s delicious because it applies to all of us.

So, scientifically it is proven that we can change our behavior by changing our perceptions. And, as the movie illustrates so beautifully, with those changed perceptions we create a reality with an entirely different outcome – write a completely different story full of such staggering possibility when we lose the self-doubt and self-criticism, or change the past stories that we are stuck in.

And then the next step is that in creating this different story, this different future, creating your life on purpose also requires our action.

Dr. Jen Faber, in her book The 90-Day Life, said, “Nothing in my life ever materialized overnight. It was a series of decisions, actions, wake-up calls, and course corrections that made it happen, and all of that took time, a ton of awareness and a hunger for change.”

Do the quiet yearnings of your heart create just a space of yearning, or does it create action?

I bring this third point up, not to discourage you with tales of work, but rather to point out that creating a life on purpose starts with our thoughts, but it is moved forward by our choices and our actions, and our constant awareness of our perceptions and adjustments in order to get to our destination. For example, every morning I check my internal stories. Every morning I review my positive mantras and change the negative comments that creep in. This is a daily exercise. Every morning I rehearse my gratitudes. But here’s the good news – because of the plasticity of the brain, those positive things start to become the new normal. And that changes the game.

Creating your life story on purpose is about deciding what you want, making choices to get you there, reforming your neural pathways in support of what you’re creating, persistently choosing love and novelty and whatever floats your boat. It’s about deciding and then taking your power to do – to act. If something, some thought, someone feels like it’s stopping you, you have the power and choice to change perception or to change your situation.

Sunny Jacobs, a woman who was wrongly accused, put in prison on death row, and later released shared her thoughts about our ability to choose our frame of mind, our perspective, and our reframe. She said, “There is a freedom that only you can give to yourself, and that’s the most important freedom of all.”

I want to end with a quick story about a woman who struggled with the all too familiar struggles of creating something she wanted, and how she finally did it.

For more information on her:

Happinessabound.com

Happiness Abound blog – Facebook

You can find her podcast on iTunes and Google Play

Thank you for being with us today for this discussion. Let me sum up the points really quickly. To create our own life story we first have to take responsibility for the power we have to create our own lives. Then we talked about understanding that our perceptions of things going on around us come directly from our experiences and the environment to which our brain has been exposed and thus learned to adapt to and we see this as reality, but it is not reality, it is not fact. Our interpretations of the events around us, things happening to us, thing going on in the world are completely objective and understanding this gives us room for choosing to see things more fluidly, to observe our observation and choose different interpretations that will support our growth. We can choose to reframe old interpretations of our life stories/events which can create space for an entirely different future.

Then we talked about the plasticity of the brain and how this reformable aspect of our physiology allows us to create new habits, to broaden our ecologies, to orchestrate our lives. Then we talked about the importance of taking that action to use that plasticity to our advantage in changing our internal dialog – so like we saw in the movie, I Feel Pretty, we can change our actions and our futures.

Our lives start with our thoughts – that means those should be the first space we look to when creating our life on purpose. If we have thoughts that hold us back we absolutely want to become aware of them and adjust them. Because they lead to our actions, which progress to our habits, which creates our life stories. Boom!

Go forth fellow story creators and have an awesome week orchestrating your own life for your own best happiness. Because if you don’t, nobody else will.

A quick reminder to head to loveyourstorypodcast.com to share your thoughts or comments, to sign up for the 21-Day Challenge or the course on reframing the past stories that hold you back, or just to listen to or share other podcast episodes. See you next week.

Take Action – Create on Purpose.

What is an origin story?  The definition found in the ever trusted source of Wikidepia states that:” In entertainment, an origin story is an account or back-story revealing how a character or group of people become a protagonist or antagonist, and adds to the overall study of a narrative, often giving reasons for their intentions.”

I will add that sometimes it’s focused on what led you to a certain place – the origin of the journey. Sometimes it’s about your heritage – where you come from and how those family lines help define who you are and what you stand for.  Why does an origin story matter? Stay tuned for a story and discussion on this very topic.

So, why does an origin story matter?  It basically boils down to helping people understand you or your idea, and story is ideal for this. Have you ever wanted someone to understand where a concept came from – like, for me, I may want to share the story of how Love Your Story was developed – Love Your Story definitely has an origin story (which BTW you can watch a video of that on the website at loveyourstorypodcast.com); or you’d really like to share with someone the story of where YOU come from so they can understand you more completely – seeking to connect with another human.

Origin stories are powerful in business as they help you show, not just tell, why you do what you do and why that should matter to your employees or clients. For example:

David Hutchins Origin Story example in the book Circle of the 9 Muses:

There was an MBA student in the US on scholarship.

“I grew up in S America and we didn’t have any money. The way we earned our money was that my father owned a trophy shop. His whole family worked there to survive. One day a famous Hollywood superstar came into their little trophy shop because they were filming a movie in town. That was really exciting for us.”

“I spent my entire childhood observing winners, because the people who came into the trophy shop were winning things, accomplishing things. I was always fascinated. I would always watch them- whether it was Shaun Penn or the coach of a winning team. What did these winners have in common?  I wanted to understand everything I could about winners and leaders – that’s what I want to do for my career. That’s what brought me here to the US to get my MBA.”

Now he’s not just someone who needs the job, he’s got depth and drive. Now you can see that he is there because this is an expression of his identity. This is who he is.

In our personal lives, our origin stories may be useful for connecting with others, but they may also be most important to ourselves.

Will Schaub, was born in Saigon, Vietnam during the Vietnam War. His mother is Vietnamese and his father is from Kansas City, MO. He has 3 brothers and 1 sister and they came to the US in 1971. His father dies shortly after they arrive and what ensues after as he watches the struggles of his mother through his childhood creates an origin story has helped shape his responses to his own life journey.

Listen to the podcast to hear Will tell his story.

For more information or to contact Will:

[email protected]

www.willservsolutions.com

You can also find him on LinkedIn and Facebook

Spiderman’s origin story is based in receiving his powers from a scientific accident. Batman’s origin story is based in the death of his parents and how this shapes his choices and the trajectory of his life. Wonder Woman’s origin story is one of being raised by all-female Amazonian warriors with a sense of responsibility to the world. Superhero origin stories are fun to look at and they ALWAYS play the major role in the character and their superhero path. As do the stories of our pasts, create for us the forward projection of our lives. I’m going to throw out an idea. As you consider your origin story this week, consider if it has held you back or helped you to live to your greatest potential.

I throw this out for a little brain time because we have told our life stories, through our perception and our assumptions, and our lenses sooo many times that, of course, we know them forward and backward and they are fact. But this is not true. They are not fact, they are events we’ve interpreted in a certain way, and if that interpretation has added to you making choices that created a small life for you, or a scared life, or an unworthy life, then revisiting those stories and reframing them, considering how you can change your assumptions and shift into stories that create beautiful possibility and celebrate learning and individuality, well….then you’re on to something.

Will’s story is based in watching his mother struggle, make hard choices, and stretch beyond what she thought she could do. She set an example that helped to propel him when he hit hard times. That seems like an origin story that provided inspiration and examples. Only Will knows if there are other aspects of the story that he could shift. The Love Your Story origin story came from a place of not loving my story and the search to figure out how. That’s a rags to riches —so to speak— story that illustrates taking a weak space and creating good from it.

Your challenge this week is to consider your own origin story. First, what is it? Second, does it support your best life moving forward? Third, what other angles could you tell this story from? Fourth, Does it need a reframe, and if so, you can jump on the love your story podcast website and sign up for the reframing course.  Love Your Story is here to provide tools to help you love your story and this is one that is available to you.

Have a great week creating your best life story and I’ll see you back here next week.

“Along your pathway of life, you will observe that you are not the only traveler. There are others who need your help. There are feet to steady, hands to grasp, minds to encourage, hearts to inspire, and souls to save.”

–Thomas S. Monson, Past Prophet of the LDS Church

Random Acts of Kindness are a thing. There are groups, websites, and people who rally others to get out and focus on acts of kindness and the creation of goodness and service on purpose. I am one of those who has served as a herald to help rally others into the RAK movement. I created groups and get-togethers for people who want to use this life story tool for bringing some good into the world. During two of these meet-ups I interviewed the people involved so we could get a real BOOTS ON THE GROUND retelling of what it was like. Hopefully you’ll find some inspiration from their stories. The cover photo is a group in Ohio that I was a part of. We made a sign saying we were giving away free hugs. The guy in the middle is one of the people we hugged, a man who wanted a picture with us to remember others reaching out to him.

Enjoy the episode and I hope it will inspire you to maybe find your own RAK today.

Tune into the episode to hear the interviews.

When a business defines its values it determines what it wants its governing value system to be. Now, this can be hot air, something that sounds good in a mission statement, or it can be something that the management and employees live by.  When we set our own personal value system it’s very similar. Actively choosing the values you wish to create your life around can give you direction, definition, and clarity as you make your day-to-day choices. Stay with me today for some thoughts on the process of setting your own personal values that will guide your life story creation and why you want to do it.

Let me start out with a story

A  new CEO had been appointed who believed strongly in putting the customer first. Right away he implemented the policy of all employees parking at the back of the lot to keep the closer spaces open for customers. Soon thereafter the CEO was out for store visits and arrived at one store just as a torrential downpour was unleashed. The employees watched nervously as he drove around the parking lot waiting to see if he would park at the back of the lot and ruin his expensive suit by running through the rain, or if he’d park up front and call it a special circumstance. A few moments later, they got their answer as the CEO sprinted through 100 yards of pouring rain, completely drenched. His suit was ruined. But, he bought a bargain suit from the store before he started his tour. There was never any question about how employees were expected to act regarding this value. MANAGEMENT MEANT WHAT THEY SAID WHEN THEY SAID THE CUSTOMER COMES FIRST.

When we as parents and adults set our own personal value system, and then live according to those specific values, we do what this CEO did – we show our children and the world around us what we are serious about. The values we live by, and the values we expect those under our tutelage to live by.

Early in my first marriage we sat down and created a family motto. Things we stood for. Ways of living that were important to us. We made a chart – like a mission statement you might see in a business, and we put it up so we could refer to it often.

One of the values I wanted to impart to my children was an appreciation and a love for the outdoors. I wanted to leave a legacy of a love for the land because it was something that had always been important to me.  A space where I found peace, beauty, recreation, spiritual connection. I proceeded through their young lives to take them into nature. To teach them to camp and hike, bike and ski, to canoe and pick up trash. This is one of many values we espouse in our family, and we lived it.

What have been the values that have been most important to you and the story/life you wanted to create? Do you know them off hand?

When I sit down with businesses and we start the discussion of values and value stories, we start exploring how this is actually taking place within the business. If you say that customer service is your priority, do you have any stories that show you and your team giving exceptional customer service? If you don’t, maybe that’s NOT really one of your values. The good news is, even if it’s not currently one, and you want it to be one, you can start today with this value in mind.

So, now, let me get to the meat of today’s discussion. What are your personal values? Have you ever taken the time to define 1,2,3,  personal values that you want to base your life story around? Another angle could be—what do you want people to say about you at your funeral. Were you the one who was always making others laugh? Always comforting someone? Known for your honesty? Was hard work your mantra? What about joy, integrity, virtue?

Today’s discussion is to get you thinking. If you are going to plan your life story on purpose, you’ve got to have guiding principles; values that help you know what you stand for and guide you as you try to live the life you want to create – our children need this clarity from us also. Most of us, I dare say, probably leave it undefined. We’re good people, we’re going to try and live good lives. BUT the power in defining a set of specific personal values comes in handy when tough situations arise. Like the CEO in the rain storm  – he knew he wanted to put customer service first, so when it came time to make the decision of where to park, he knew where he stood on the issue.

It reminds me of roll playing with my kids before they got put in tough social and peer pressure situations. “If your buddy offers you a beer at a party, what do you do?” The parent has made clear that underage drinking is not acceptable as a family value, then they help their children recognize the situation and learn how to navigate it. The parents often can share stories of the value in action to teach and illustrate. I shared with my kids the stories of watching my high school friends drink, all strung out on the floor at parties and making fools of themselves, and simply deciding one Saturday night that I was tired of being the only person who could carry on an intelligent conversation, stand up, or drive. I was bored to death watching drunk people lay around and throw up. So, I found new friends. It wasn’t easy…it was a big move in high school to change out friend groups almost entirely, but after awhile I had made the transition.  Sometimes our stories are warning stories of what not to do as well. Stories of how we did the wrong thing and what we learned from it.  This is the power of story at work. Our stories allow us to illustrate real-life situations. They allow us to warn. They allow us to teach and even take stock of ourselves.

When a business defines it’s company values this it is the jumping off point for how they will treat others, how they will treat those inside the company and what they will expect from themselves and those who work with them. If you know your company value is centered on providing the latest technology for your clients – you’ve said it, you’ve put it on paper, you’ve discussed it with your people, you start looking for ways you can make this happen. You go to trade shows and stay on top of the trends, you know where you’re coming from and you’re all about new technology – you dig for it, you’re hungry for it, you market around it, you share it with your customers. It always starts with deciding what you’re about, then developing those ways of being on purpose. And guess what happens? You start to collect stories of you in action doing exactly what you said you would do. Showing what you are about.

It works the same way in our personal lives.

If one of your personal or family values is honesty, and you can’t think of any times where your honesty really stood out, is that truly one of your values? On the other hand, when you start living that value full force, you’ll quickly accumulate stories of honest interactions, even and especially in tough situations, that will illustrate you living up to that value. Then you start collecting your stories.

If you determine that IS your family value, then when small and large circumstances come up you know your course of action ahead of time – and so do your kids. Maybe that means you don’t piggyback off someone else’s wi-fi, maybe that means when the grocer forgets to charge you for the cereal that you return and let them know. Maybe when you get in a tiff with a neighbor and you later find out you were in the wrong you fess up and apologize. Maybe it means that you take losses at work in order to be fair with others. Maybe it’s much bigger, but the decision to base your life choices around a certain value help determine your course of action ahead of time. That works for adults as well as kids. I think we, no matter our age, might all just be kids working on hard things at different levels.

Ayn Rand said, “Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values.” And isn’t happiness what we’re all trying to create in our stories? I know I am. I also know that when I’m not living up to my values and the things I profess to believe, that those are the times I am definitely the most unhappy because I am at odds with myself.

So, one of the reasons to define your values and to collect stories of you living those values, as a parent in particular, is that the stories will allow you to illustrate what those values really mean to you and thus allow you to teach your children through the use of story.

Values are subjective. To one person, integrity means doing what his boss or parent or authority figure tells him to do. To someone else, integrity means saying no when it doesn’t feel right, even if it costs you your job or your good standing or your relationship. If you want to encourage a value or teach a value you have to provide a demonstration by telling a story that illustrates in action what that value means, behaviorally, or acting on that value and defining it through the action —which then provides a story, of course.

Like the CEO – he SHOWED his employees what it meant to put the customer first.

One of the values I felt was important to teach my children was that of service and thinking of others rather than of themselves. This is, of course, an on-going process, but from the time they were quite young, we would embark on service projects. We once created a group called the Secret Service Agents and we’d go out and haul in people’s garbage cans, or rake leaves. That lasted for a few months. Then we’d work at the food pantry filling bags or sorting bins. We’d walk dogs at the dog shelter. We made pillow and blankets for refugees. We collected clothes and toys to send to the Philippines, we made hygiene kits by collecting, buying, and sorting all the needed supplies and putting them together to send through a woman who sent big boxes back to the Philippines each year. We’ve walked around Salt Lake City and given burritos to the homeless – through the Burrito Project. We’ve sent cards to cancer patients through Girls Love Mail. We’ve collected blankets for the homeless, books for charity, donated time to fundraisers for breast cancer and relay for life. We’ve painted garbage cans in Yosemite and helped with Eagle Scout projects. Do my children know how to do service? I hope so. Do we have stories? We’ve got a few, but mostly I have a list, the one I just read off, that makes me feel like I did okay as a mom helping my kids learn, through action, to think outside their own needs. Did I show my kids I was serious about service? Every time I proposed another service project, they knew we were about doing good in the world. It was a value I put into action.

So, here’s a recommendation

So, in closing. This week your challenge is to follow these first 3 steps – decide on your values, write them down, start to live them ….this will help you to start collecting your value stories. Have fun out there creating the life story you want.

Don’t forget to share this podcast with someone you know who could use a little empowerment today. Share the love people.

Also, go to the website: www.loveyourstorypodcast.com and sign up for the 21-Day Challenge to create more love, connection, and possibility in your story over the next 3 weeks.  See you next week.

What does a successful life look and feel like to you? For everyone it’s going to be a little different. For Dr. Jen Faber, my guest today, she had built a six-figure wellness practice and was a thought leader in her industry, but despite all she had created in her professional life she felt like a version of herself was trapped inside and was screaming to break free.  Jen had to redefine what a successful life meant to her. She took a hard look at the fact that a good life for her was about doing what made her happy, living in a thrive mode and feeling alive every day. So, she made changes…she sold everything she owned and became a digital nomad. Stay tuned as we get a peek into someone who has taken the refrain we so often talk about – of creating your life on purpose – and let’s watch how she did it.

Dr. Jen Faber is a lifestyle entrepreneur and author of “The 90 Day Life: How to Live More in 3 Months than you have in 3 years.” Her purpose is to empower people to break away from burnout to living the life of their dreams. For the past 15 years, Dr. Jen has focused on the fields of health and wellness, neuroscience, psychology, and motivation. She was awarded the Hilldale Research Fellowship in Social Psychology and was a teaching assistant in Experimental Psychology. She received her doctorate of Chiropractic in 2006. She worked in Morocco, New Zealand and then returned to the US and transitioned to coaching.

Tune into the podcast for the interview with Jen Faber and almost a full hour of how to create your life on purpose.

One of the main mantras of Love Your Story is the control we each have, that YOU have to create your own life story on purpose. Sometimes that’s just cleaning up your past stories so you can create the future you want. Sometimes that’s making small changes that add more connection or peace to your everyday life, sometimes that might look like a major overhaul like Dr. Jen shared with us on her life path. Whatever it is for you – please accept that YOU have the right, responsibility, and power to create your life on purpose. Does it take courage to make changes – sometimes A LOT. Does it take vision – a burning vision! Does it take vulnerability and a willingness for some adventure – YOU BET! But you only live once. What story will you create? What story will your life tell?

There was a poem I used to have on my wall years ago:

If I had my life to live over,

I’d dare to make more mistakes next time.

I’d relax, I would limber up.

I would be sillier than I have been this trip.

I would take fewer things seriously.

I would take more chances.

I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers.

I would eat more ice cream and less beans.

I would perhaps have more actual troubles,

but I’d Have fewer imaginary ones.

You see, I am one of those people who has lived sensibly and sanely,

hour after hour, day after day.

Oh, I’ve had my moments, and if I had to do it over again,

I’d have more of them.

In fact, I’d try to have nothing else.

Just moments,

one after another,

instead of living so many years ahead of each day.

I’ve been one of those people who never goes anywhere

without a thermometer, a hot water bottle,

a raincoat and a parachute.

If I had to do it again, I would travel lighter than I have.

If i had my life to live over,

I would start bare foot earlier in the spring

and stay that way later in the fall.

I would go to more dances.

I would ride more merry-go-rounds.

I would pick more daises.

Create your best life on purpose people! Whatever that means to you. Love Your Story is here to remind you and empower you to live and create a story you will love! Share this podcast with someone you think needs it and as always – just a reminder to head to the website

www.loveyourstorypodcast.com to sign up for the 21-Day Challenge for life hacks on living your best life.

Until next week –

Links for Jen Faber

[email protected]

to get Dr. jen’s book, go to: 90daylifebook.com

Jen’s website: drjenfaber.com

To follow Jen on social media: facebook.com/drjenfaber; instagram.com/drjenfaber

Episode 86 Interview with Jennifer Anderson – Chief Inspiration Officer

Welcome to the Love Your Story Podcast, Episode 86. Have you ever woken up at approximately 3:00 a.m. in the morning? It’s weird. For years I would wake up between [3:00]- 4:00 a.m. and often at exactly the same minute regardless of when I went to bed. This went on for so long that I started to think it was some sort of weird sign, but then I was listening to Wayne Dyer who talked about waking up at 3:00 a.m. and how he felt great inspiration at that time – how he would write so much of his acclaimed work during those early morning hours. Then one day, Jennifer Anderson stood up and announced that she had created a journal called 3:00 a.m. with God, specifically for recording the thoughts and inspirations that she feels so distinctly during this all too common phenomenon of waking up at 3:00 a.m.

Jennifer Anderson is well established in her career as a national and international consultant. She is a strategist that helps companies retain their top talent and she is a sought-after speaker about career management. She has made guest appearances on KSL News, The Matt Townsend Show, various podcasts and the Deseret News. She is published in Forbes and ranked as a “Top 40 to Follow” on Twitter.

Listen in for the actual interview where we talk about how to recognize inspiration and the story of how and why she created the 3 a.m. with God Journal

If you’re one of those 3:00 a.m. risers – this may be just the ticket for capturing those fleeting nighttime thoughts, inspirations, and dreams.

Leave comments on the website – and if you’d leave a review on iTunes I’d sure appreciate it. Share the love people. Share this podcast with a friend! See you next week.

To contact Jennifer or get a journal:

facebook.com/3amwithgod

instagram.com/3amwithgod

[email protected]