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

Three Stories about Three Bikes

In the words of Dr. Seuss, “Oh the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won.” Join us this week for a few stories about bikes, and the lessons they taught me about life.

Stories are our lives in language. Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. I’m Lori Lee and I’m excited about for our future together of telling stories, evaluating our own stories, and lifting ourselves and others to greater places because of our control over our stories. This podcast is about empowerment and giving you, the listener, ideas to work with in making your stories work for you. The power of story serves you best when you know how to use it.

A bike is a little like a dog. You are companions. Together you go places, you see things, and though you hopefully aren’t walking your bike too often, you are taking each other out and about for a little bit of exercise and scenery. A bike needs a ride like a dog needs a walk—okay, granted, I’m stretching the simile here. The bike needs TLC: oil and wipe-downs after a muddy day out.  It is through this relationship, this closeness, that I can tell you some stories of exploration, escape, and thrill. Though the bike wasn’t always the same, it is the bike beneath me that allows for the adventure, the experience, and the lesson.

The Traveler’s Bike

Do you believe that if you think about something with enough intent that it will eventually come to you? After my divorce,  I watched the movie, Under the Tuscan Sun and fell in love with the idea of Italy. I’ve learned that I can’t travel to new places without a mountain to climb, a trail to bike, or a river to paddle.  For me to truly feel a place, I need to hear the voice of God in the natural environment-I need to sweat and interact with the land, and so I began to picture myself biking across the Tuscan countryside. I didn’t picture the details of how it would come about, just the nodding yellow sunflowers, the ancient olive orchards, the expanse of leafy vineyards, the rolling Tuscan hills, and century-old, rock farm houses that dot the crests in the photos of Tuscany.

Before long my chance manifested in a writing assignment for a magazine, and  I ran my hands along the walls of the Tuscan Brunello wine cellars, sat at authentic Italian7-course dinners, took elementary language lessons from our Italian guides, enjoyed Italian cooking lessons from Italian locals, and took in the IlGran Fondo de Brunello (which I’m probably totally slaughtering the pronunciation)– a 36 kilometer mountain bike race whose 1021 participants that year, consisted almost completely of men. And instead of getting a t-shirt at registration you get a bottle of wine—so very Italian.

This was Italy. The cars so tiny, the washing machines so tiny. The old stone cities so empty. The countryside so rich and vast and beautiful. This was definitely not America. But, American women cluster the Italian kitchen in our old rented stone farmhouse. We slice tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, beets, parmesan, basil, and cucumber. The soundtrack to Mama Mia plays behind us while Federico Marconi makes pizza, and the deep, reverberating hum of the women all talking at once takes stage front. Corks pop and trays of food are laden with the colors of red tomatoes, white mozzarella, green pesto, and golden breads.  One woman wears a t-shirt with a bike across the chest, another has wet hair from her shower following the daily ride along the roads that pass vineyards drooping deep purple grapes that await their transformation into Brunello. We dance, swing our hips to the music while we work.

Each morning we bike down a steep gravel road that leads from our stone apartments, past carefully groomed vineyards, to the paved road below that winds through the Tuscan countryside. We bike to thermal spas, to old, stone, neighboring cities, to café’s for thimbles of coffee and gelato, to an abbey that hails from 1100 A.D, to wine cellars with grand barrels made of special woods, and back to the steep dirt road and back to the farm house.  One day we found Antonello, the handsome Italian doctor, at the thermal spas where we donned swimming caps and floated in the green mineral waters while looking across the valley at the Roca D’Orcia. In theory, all romantic trips to Italy should include some handsome Italian man. We found one. Clad in his European Speedo®, stretched out in the fading sun his tan body drawing stares. He spoke no English and I no Italian, so over his coffee and my juice we lilted through language lessons and found a few words we understood. I learned the Italian equivalent of 911 is 118. I learned how to say red and green in Italian. I learned how to pronounce valley and river, and that no matter how efficient one might be at witty repartee in their own language the skill evades you when you can’t speak the language of another. When he left he grabbed my face and planted a kiss on each cheek, followed by a purposeful kiss on the mouth.  Ahhhh… Italian gifts.

I do a lot of observing. In Saint Augustine’s words, I read a new page of the world. I watch these women, ages 36-72. They are quirky. Their marital status varies. They are blond, gray, brunette. Some have conservative views, some liberal. Body shapes vary, jobs and experiences are vastly different, and they hail from different parts of the U.S. But what they have in common is the way they pour themselves into this time and place. They are all bright in their individuality and each is richer because of all the variety that surrounds them in their comrades. Over dinner, Rosetta, our Italian cook, tells us her story of young marriage, years of servitude in her in-laws home, a son with cancer and a husband who keeps her young because every day he “brings her the water she needs to be a flower.”  Before she leaves she stands near the fireplace, and unprompted, opens her soul and sings to us in Italian with a voice of power and beauty no one expected. The applause rocks the old restored farm house and we beg for another. I reverently applaud the sharing. The sharing going on between everyone.

Tiger Lily

A bike is made up of an axle, bar ends, bar plugs, bearings, bottom bracket, brake, brake lever, brake shifter, cable, cassette, chain, a chain ring, a cog set, a derailleur, a down tube, a fork… I could go on all the way through the alphabet to wing-nut, but you get the idea. Lots of parts and pieces come together to make this thing we call a bicycle, and then we get on, ride like hell down the mountain, bouncing or jumping over rocks, roots, and logs, hoping to stay seated. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. I have the scars to prove it. When I’m on the road the obstacles are less invasive, unless you count all the cars and bad drivers. One must keep an eye out for stray paraphernalia tossed into the street, for pot holes and ground-hole covers. I learned the hard way that gravel on the road is not my friend. At 10 years-old I saddle up Tiger Lily, (the name written on the side in swooping black letters) and take off from my house, on the one-mile ride to school, racing my father in his old Chevy truck. The wind blows through my long brown curls and my pink bell bottoms flap against the chain cover, my legs like pistons. I am ahead! As my father catches me and pulls up beside me I increased my speed, giving it my last and best effort while I guide my bike off the road and onto the shoulder to let him pass. Here, my tire kisses gravel, meets one big rock that I thought I’d roll over but didn’t. Here, I do my first face plant sailing over the front of my handlebars, body skidding across the gravel, my Holly Hobby outfit dirty and torn, my face streaked with blood and tears. Dad picks me up,—a crushed sparrow–loads me in the old truck and takes me home for first-aid and repair. My days as a bicycle racer screech to a halt.

We learn to fly in different ways. Unfortunately, mine is still often over the front of my handlebars. After the “Tiger Lily fiasco” I didn’t ride a bike seriously again until I was in my 20’s. It was the mid 90’s and mountain biking blazed onto the scene as the cool outdoor thing to do in college. My future husband, two mountain bikes (mine desperately old, his hippy chic with stickers and a collage of parts) and the wide mountain roads pulled me back onto the saddle. He patiently watched me ride my brakes when he could have been speeding down hills, but this push, this faith, this desire not to be the weak link kept me riding for the next 20 years–road and mountain bikes–finally ending up at the place where a good downhill speed run over roots and rocks and switchbacks is the reason I get on the bike. This is where fun and I embrace. But it is also on those tight switchbacks and rock covered trails that I find myself, seasonally, flying over the handlebars and onto the trail ahead. It’s been suggested I must not have the skill to stay on my bike, while I suggest that if they are always astride their bike they must not be pushing themselves hard enough. I’m sure they are right, but so am I. Overcoming fear to feel the thrill of living at the edge of your ability, to feel the wind across your skin, to engage with life. This is mind, body, and spirit engaging in living and there is no other way to do it.  All that being said, given my choice I’d rather stay on my bike.

The Old Red Bike

I wrangled the old bike, too large of a frame for my 5’6” body, into the back of our old van. This guy I knew had an older sister who used to ride, or some such thing, and this old piece of metal and gears was sitting in his parent’s garage unused and unloved. It was a bit antique but appealingly red, and free. A road bike with gears and all the things it needed to work, it found a new home, a new chain, and a little elbow grease.  Nothing here oil and water couldn’t clean up. I hauled the bike 30 miles to the little, rural town my young husband and I had moved to, the rural town that was driving me nuts with nothing to do and people I didn’t know, who knew way too much about me. Population 4371. Maybe the bike was about picking up a new sport, or finding things in common with my friends, but I suspect it was really about escape – escape from that little town on the Idaho border .

On went my black spandex shorts, my less than chic helmet, and off I rode down the two-lane highway, away from Hickville, 30 miles to my mother’s house and the “city”. My husband picked me up there on his way home from work on the days I rode in. “I’m impressed,” he said one day. “I think it’s really cool that you get on that old bike and ride so far. That’s a serious workout.”  And one day he surprised me with a bright yellow road bike, not excessively fancy, but it was new and it fit. No more standing on my tippy toes to straddle the frame, or swinging my leg over before the bike stopped and I accidentally landed a bar to the crotch. I was touched that he was impressed, touched by his support, and touched by the new yellow bike that we couldn’t afford.

I kept riding that bike until I was writing articles and bike reviews for the trade industry magazine and I finagled a discount on the latest and greatest women-specific road bike of my choice. I road to keep my sanity until I left Hickville. I sometimes still ride to keep my sanity when my children have my insides all tied in knots. But now I mostly ride for exercise, speed, the thrill and the bragging rights. In fact, it’s gotten to the point that if I don’t ride I feel guilty. –I still haven’t figured that one out. It’s come full circle, from Tiger Lily and the thrill of speed to my Specialized bikes and the thrill of speed. But there is something else the bike has taught me. When teaching someone to ride a bike one of the first jewels of information you crown upon their helmeted heads is the concept of looking where you want to go. It sounds simple, but when you’re riding on a thin trail and there is a drop-off to the side, be it 3 feet or 100 feet, don’t at the drop-off. The simple fact is that your bike tire tends to follow your line of sight. If there is a big rock in the trail, for heaven’s sake don’t look at the rock, look at the path you want to take around the rock. Look where you want your front tire to go. Look ahead, think forward, the bike moves fast and your bike will follow the path you focus on, just like life does. If you don’t want to hit the tree, don’t look at the tree. If you don’t want to go off the cliff, don’t look off the cliff. I think this is a universal law that rears its head in every self-help book, video, and workshop on the planet. But with a bike you see immediate, and I mean immediate results.

When I looked for Tuscany I found it—on a bike.  Without a dividing car window I saw the rich eggplant purples, the sunflower yellows, the burnt sienna and baby blue skies first hand, felt the warm Italian air across my face as I peddled through the summer afternoons, touched the cold, hard cobblestones that have snuggled the ground for at least twenty of my lifetimes. My bikes help me push limits, engage with space, time and living. Finding speed, learning to get up when I get bucked off. This is also a way of engaging with life. When I looked for a way to save my sanity I found that old red bike, my ticket to a hundred other days; a hundred other rides; a lifetime of pushing myself over broad expanses of road; and of exhausted legs and lungs that made me feel like I’d done something worthwhile. I’ve learned not to look off the cliff I don’t want to ride off – instead I look at the trail ahead, the one that takes me up the mountain, to the overlook, the one where you can see the sunrise over the world or the view over the valley, or simply the view you actually want to see. The bike is the partner,  the means, the vehicle, the tool. It IS about the bike for me, and it isn’t.

This week I challenge you to look forward – look where you want to go. Stop thinking about the past. Don’t look at the root or rock in the path – look around it. Push yourself a little and enjoy the ride. Have fun out there creating adventures and stories – they are the same thing really. We’ll see you next week on the Love Your Story podcast. Please head to www.loveyourstorypodcast.com and leave us some feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Share your stories – Maybe we’ll use them in a podcast.

Choose Love

Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Darkness can’t drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate can’t drive out hate; only LOVE can do that.” Join us today for a discussion on love. While love is always needed, always in style, now more than ever in our crazy and torn world, we need to talk about love. We need to share stories about love.

Stories are our lives in language. Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. I’m Lori Lee, and I’m excited for our future together of telling stories, evaluating our own stories, and lifting ourselves and others to greater places because of our control over our stories. This podcast is about empowerment and giving you, the listener, ideas to work with in making your stories work for you. Power serves you best when you know how to use it.

Last week we heard from Marvin Cassler – a man who is creating a crazy, out-of-the-box story, just exactly the way he wants it to be. Listen to that episode to see an example of someone who knows how to purposefully write his very own story. This week we’re going to delve into the topic of love. I’ll be honest, writing this podcast stresses me out because love is my favorite topic. It’s my favorite because it’s the answer to everything. It’s one of the things that I really, really believe in and that I’m always trying to do better. So this podcast needs to be good. No, it needs to be great, and that type of pressure makes me want to walk away for fear that I cannot do it justice. I probably can’t, but because it’s important, let’s talk about it, and let’s roll around in some love.

In the book Lost in Translation it says, “Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves. This is a fact of daily experience.”

This daily experience makes Love a loaded word. Meanings implied and created from media, from nurture, from experience. It is the thing we crave more than anything else and it is often one of the most difficult things we engage in. It provides the utmost joy and the utmost pain. A few have had real transcendental experiences where they were filled with the love of God and actually know what that feels like, an elixir they’ll do anything to get more of, but most of us look to one another, a bunch of other imperfect people, who are also looking for love, and then in the mess, everyone tries to feel and be filled. It is the burnished space of this hunger that we all function from, often looking for someone to fill us so we can reciprocate, but this is a fool’s errand. Love begets love. Hunger does not beget love. There are many facets on the diamond of love. Love of a parent is different than love for a friend, which is different than love for a lover. There is the mature choice to love a person when the hunger transitions into familiarity. Love for mankind because of our connection, love of chocolate, love of a dear pet.

When Christ was asked, in the New Testament, what the most important commandment was, he explained that the first commandment was to love God and the second was to love your neighbor as yourself. I don’t know about you, but I’m often thinking about how things will affect me and my family before I consider how it’s going to affect the guy next door. Of course, when the term “neighbor” is used, Christ was referring to all around us – to our other fellow humans here riding this rock around the sun. The older I’ve gotten and the more I practice this, the better I get at thinking win/win for everyone. Coming from a place of love and acceptance without judgment, but it’s something I’m always trying to do a little better. When someone on Facebook really irritates me it’s easy to pass quick judgment. I have to stop and remind myself to love. When I want that parking spot that’s close to the front door and I can make it in before the other person vying for the spot – well, last week I had to make the conscious decision to let the guy who had his blinker on first take the spot, when I could have snaked it. I know, small, but it’s these small daily decisions that define how we live. The other day a friend on FB was really lashing out politically. His content was negative, fearful and attacking. I decided I was just going to more or less because he was really broiled in a nasty swirl I didn’t want anything to do with, but then I was taught a lesson by another joint friend who called him, reached out and showed love instead of frustration and judgment. I learned from her example. From the very mouth of Christ, we are taught that love is the most important thing we can do while we are here. But let me take it a step further. Charity, which is often interpreted to mean giving something to help someone else – like taking someone dinner when they are sick, or giving a dollar to a beggar, is actually much more than that. Charity is the PURE LOVE of Christ. It is a love that fully encompasses us unconditionally. While this is understandably hard for us to do, we get to practice it and try to understand it because truly it is the basis for where we are whole, where others can be whole, where we heal, where we grow, where we become and how we can truly bless.

1 Corinthians 13 Paul clears everything else out of the way when he discusses the importance of love. It says, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity (pure love of Christ), I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And, though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I have my body to be burned, and have not charity it profited me nothing.” Without Charity – which is the pure love of Christ—we are nothing. Not even if we have great spiritual gifts and faith enough to move mountains – those are powerful things! But without unconditional love for our fellow men, we are nothing.  Clearly, real love, the best we can muster, trumps everything else. This is why it’s my favorite. When there are a hundred things I am supposed to be doing right, and I’m overwhelmed with the long list of great qualities I should possess, I just toss them aside and come back to love, because if I can get that one right I can figure out the moving mountains and speaking in tongues thing down the road—and besides, learning how to love is a pretty awesome thing all on its own.

We often think of love as a feeling. A feeling we either have or we don’t have. May I propose that love is not just a feeling, it’s a choice. It’s an action instead of a reaction. Often, when one thinks of love, they think of romantic love. The intensity, the perfection, the rush, the hope. Well, even romantic love gets real, sooner or later, and at that point, love becomes a choice. You choose to love a real person who sometimes irritates you. A person who isn’t always thoughtful. A person who can’t read your mind and address your every emotional need. At that point, when you see the warts and things get real, you choose to love them for who they are, or your don’t.

There is also an unconditional love that can be extended to those around us. I did an extended three month VIP emotional training course with 44 other people from around the country. When we started we didn’t know each other well. We got to work closely in groups, we got to know one another’s weaknesses and insecurities, we got to watch each other fail and succeed. Of course, in a group that size everyone isn’t going to like everyone. There are lots of personality types and there will always be a few folks that you’re going to want to strangle. There will be some folks that you don’t respect very much. There are likely to be a few that you would never interact with in your normal life. People with different belief systems, different levels of effective functioning, it was just people – in all their real and messy glory. Well, part of our motto was that we were looking to create win/win for everyone. No man left behind. We all had a voice, we all were responsible and we all got to play team. This means that I got to be in groups where I threw my hands in the air because I didn’t understand how this person or that person could be so low functioning. I got to resist writing others off, and I got to overcome the desire to ignore others for whom I could see no good coming from the interaction. It was a process, but by the end of that three months, I had learned to accept, love, and reign in judgment for every one of those beloved people. I learned to love. It wasn’t a feeling – it was a choice. It was a choice not to judge, it was a choice to look for strengths instead of weaknesses, it was a choice to allow greater diversity in thinking, life approaches, and personality types. It was lovely. It was powerful.

What does love look like? I took an informal survey – I asked people for a time they remembered feeling loved.

Michael said, “It was in the Fall of 1986.  We sat in a Buick Skylark, and from the passenger seat, she looked at me and sang with the radio “and that’s why I love you”. And that’s why we should always show our true colors. I giggled at him and asked if he was serious. “Totally,” he said.

Michael’s a musician. Music has always been a language for him, and in this case, a language of love.

Mary said, I felt loved when my young husband learned, (in 1974) that I had dyslexia and struggled with keeping a check book and making change, and he was so kind. I hid it from him for years and when he finally found out, he was so kind and praised me for being so incredibly successful while hiding this seemingly impossible challenge.  His understanding and support spoke love.

Constance said, “When my Dad passed away and my husband’s law enforcement brothers/sisters all showed up, even though none of them knew him. They did it just out of love and respect for us!  Support translated into love.

Sally shared, “Last year after my husband passed, a lady in my church gave me a hug and asked if I were OK. She told me how important I was to the congregation and if I was sad they were all sad. This beautiful lady passed away two weeks ago but will always hold a dear place in my heart.”  Her words – if you’re sad, we’re all sad, show a willingness to walk with the down-trodden, to share one another’s burdens—this is love in action.

In our crazy, chaotic world today there is a lot of active resistance to love because fear has become a huge dark cloud rolling over the United States, as well as the other countries for which the policies of the US have great effect. Now more than ever we need to release resistance. Return to love. Release old thought systems that don’t come from a place of love, and surrender to new ways of being. Surrender to love as often as possible, like Martin Luther King said, hate can’t drive out hate. Let love overcome fear.

I say this because fear is a real power. Fear generates hatred. It creates reaction. Fear stops the creation of connection; fear stops love. And there is a lot of fear going on right now in our country.

We all long for connection. Marvin Cassler talked about it in episode 23 – how on the trail or at the game as a Super Fan, the meaning was often found in the people he met. In episode 19 we talked about how vulnerability allows us to create connection with one another. In many episodes we’ve talked about fear and how important it is not to let it hold us back from becoming our best selves. Well, all of that rolls into a space we must stretch into, which is to try to understand people and cultures we are not familiar with, and to which we might have fear. In the interview with Lynne McNeill – episode 16, folklore professor at USU, we talked about how an outsider must listen to the stories of other cultures and peoples, other families, and groups of people before they can ever hope to understand where they come from. How important it is to be so very careful with allowing judgments to close off our hearts.

Well, I have some great news! Not one of us has to pass judgment on or decide on another’s worthiness. God has said, judge not that ye be not judged, and he’s also said NOTHING is more important than loving each other. How wonderful is that?! He’s taken the dirty job out of our hands and given us the job to find the beauty and light in each other. He’s told us to cultivate love and acceptance, even as we would have for ourselves.

We are all heroes finding our way through our story. At different times we each stumble, at different times we excel. But if we are there to give a hand, to bear one another’s burdens during the stumbling, and to celebrate with one another during the exultant times, we will move farther and faster and more joyfully together. And, thank God that you don’t need to be anyone’s judge and jury. Just their friend. It makes life a whole lot easier.

While Hollywood weaves tales of passion, and movie stars and sports heroes discard spouses as convenience and irritation dictate, our models for love are often terribly flawed. When children get to watch fathers and mothers and other models choose love, choose selflessness in caring for another, they then have options beyond the stories told in the tabloids and on the movie screen. I’m not suggesting that choosing love is always easy. It often is not. But I am saying it IS a choice to choose. To act rather than to react, and that is in your control. You don’t “feel” the love anymore? Our thoughts generate our feelings. It’s so hard to take that much responsibility sometimes, but if you’re not feeling the love, try extending love – finding genuine things to compliment your beloved, on non-beloved, on. Try appreciation. Try encouragement. Try understanding. Love creates love. Gentleness and support, selflessness and mercy go much farther than critical or condemning words. Keeping score how about who did what is more of a business move than a loving move. What if your beloved showed you mercy rather than insisted on justice. How would that make you feel? Can you extend that to another? What if your neighbor reserved judgment and extended genuine friendship and support? Can you do that?

It’s true that love is a balm and a roller coaster and a mountain to climb. Love is speed. Love is a calm day. Love is a choice. Love is an anthem for the soul, love is a hunger, a knife, a space of giving, of bravery, of opening. Love is the greatest work of the heart. Love is not for the weak or the cowardly. Love is God and God is love and you and I are part of this very stuff, and in a way are we not then just trying, day by day, to know our true selves better and in so doing see the face of God and know our neighbor, our lover, our child, our parent, our friend, a stranger?

Go out there and love someone today. Don’t wait for someone to love you – love them first. Love begets love! Get YOUR LOVE OUT INTO THE WORLD! Reserve judgment. Allow for other ways of thinking and being. Find the strengths in those around you, not the weakness. Extend mercy, appreciation, and maybe just sing a love song to someone. Because you can, because that’s your true colors!

See you next week on the love your story podcast. Have a good time creating some loving stories. And, please – go to www.loveyourstorypodcast and give us some feedback. We want to hear your thoughts and stories.

Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. I’m Lori Lee, and I’m excited for our future together of telling stories, evaluating our own stories, and lifting ourselves and others to greater places because of our control over our stories. This podcast is about empowerment and giving you, the listener, ideas to work with in making your stories work for you. Power serves you best when you know how to use it.

Today, episode 23, I want to introduce you to Marvin Cassler. I found Marvin sitting at a booth representing the Pacific Coast Trail – also known as the PCT. This trail starts at the Mexican border and climbs straight up the US to the Canadian border. Endurance. Perseverance. Perspective. These are at the heart of every Pacific Crest Trail journey. It’s a place where people discover not only the trail, but what they have inside themselves. And, as it turns out, Marvin has not only hiked 1025 miles of this trail, but he’s also hiked 3200 miles of the Continental Divide Trail, 800 miles of the Arizon Trail, and 500 miles of the Colorado trail. He calls himself a section hiker and today he’s with us to talk about the very purposeful creation of the exact life he wants to live. Hi Marvin….

So you are known by a lot of names: Marvin Assler, Mr. Cassler by your 3rd graders (Oh ya, he’s a third-grade teacher too), Maverik is your hiking name, and KoKo – why so many names?

Listen to the podcast for the rest of this interview…

If you’d like to get in touch with Marvin Cassler you can find him on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/cassler

Go to www.loveyourstorypodcast.com and share your thoughts and stories.

Interview with Becky Andrews – Brave and Afraid – Choosing Empowerment over Fear

Today we have the privilege of speaking to Becky Andrews. You may have seen her on our Instagram campaign, or you may know her from her super-human feats of tandem biking thousands of miles around the Western US, running the Boston marathon and the NY City marathon, or you may know her as a licensed clinical mental health counselor…and while she is a mom, a wife, a business owner, a life coach, and has all the education to back that up, Becky is also blind.

Her story is particularly powerful, because in order to accomplish all I’ve mentioned, and much more actually, she’s had to overcome fear. She’s had to take a look at her story and reframe in spaces, just as we are always talking about.

If you want to get a hold of Becky after listening to her interview or to purchase her book:

Resilencesolutionsinc.com

[email protected]

(801) 259-3883

Book: Look Up, Move Forward

Rusty tells a story of how his father tried to sacrifice him, as a child, like Abraham was called to sacrifice his son Isaac. After his mother escapes with her two children Rusty’s life gets even more interesting and tragic, and he intuits, at a young age, that his story and his ability to rise above it will create his purpose.

Rusty is the Vice President of HCM Strategy and Thought Leadership at Bamboo HR where he focuses on helping organizations discover and increase employee value. He is a public speaker who is focused on human performance engineering and he is passionate about helping people reframe and rise above the self-imposed limitations of their past and the stories that come along with it.

If you would like to get a hold of Rusty after listening to his interview:

[email protected]

His book, Escape Velocity, is scheduled to be available December of 2017

Lean into Possibility

Rumi said, “You were born with wings.”

To fly you have to jump. To jump means you have to risk. But without risk and leaning into possibility, without being off-balance at times, you are nothing but rooted to the ground, your wings unused.

Stories are our lives in language. Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. I’m Lori Lee, and I’m excited for our future together of telling stories, evaluating our own stories, and lifting ourselves and others to greater places because of our control over our stories. This podcast is about empowerment and giving you, the listener, ideas to work with in making your stories work for you. Power serves you best when you know how to use it.

Our comfort zones are very comfortable places to be. They don’t require vulnerability, because vulnerability by nature is generally uncomfortable. They don’t require risk, because real risk, the risk that pushes you past your limits is also not comfortable. Our comfort zones don’t require discomfort and so we love them – they are the happy place, but they are also the places that don’t require growth, adventure, and possibility. The only stories you are going to be telling from your comfort zone are ones you’ve already told a dozen times before.

Now, possibility is the flower born from the seed of risk, getting out of your comfort zone, and leaning into the unknown. Possibility is where dreams and answers lie in wait, where the unknown waits for you to pull back the veil. Possibility is the mystery that awaits you. That’s where we are going today!! What is possible for you!?

When we get dedicated – really serious about our lean, in fact so serious that we actually lean so far that we jump off the cliff and start using our wings, the universe creates a wind that blows up from the canyons below us and supports our faith.

German poet Goethe said, “Concerning all acts of initiative, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings, and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.”

And, Christ said, “Be it unto you according to your faith.” In other words, when you believe enough you can fly, or in his case, walk on water. This podcast episode is really about bravery. Bravery and belief in possibility and things yet unknown. It’s about how we get to create our bigger, better life story by making sure that the stories currently raging in our minds are not holding our feet firmly to the ground while our wings ache with lost opportunity. Some of those stories look like, “Well, I have a good life. I’m fine with the way things are.”  “I can’t go after THAT dream, it’s too bold – who am I to deserve that?”  “My voice doesn’t matter, who cares about my story?”

For those of you who don’t follow extreme sports – sports like skiing, sky diving, surfing, motocross, etc. there is a phenomenon in human performance taking place over the past 20 years or so that is unprecedented. In the book, The Rise of Superman Steven Kotler tackles the question of how it is possible that suddenly, in the matter of one generation human feats of possibility have surpassed, often quadrupled in a matter of a very few years, what was ever considered possible for the human body to do. It is a book about the impossible and how it is happening. Using some examples from the book I’ll show you what we’re talking about. Twenty-five years ago the 360, a complete rotation on skies off a jump, was THE trick skiers were throwing. It was the cool thing in the Warren Mill ski movies. I can attest to this truth – I was there. I practiced them season after season. They were the trick that announced you were in the top posse on the hill. Now, just two decades later, kids – like 6-year-old kids– are landing 360s and they are considered an entry trick. In 2011, only two decades later, “Bobby Brown threw the world’s first Triple Cork 1440 – which is four spins and three flips, and all off-axis.”  That is almost unfathomable forward progress in possibility just from a matter of degree comparison. World records are broken almost as fast as they are created now, which from an evolutionary standpoint is unexplainable. The rate at which physical prowess evolved in what was possible was never something that could be measured within a generation.

Another example Kotler uses, and he shares many, is how not long ago Evel Knievel decided to try the harrowing attempt of jumping a motorcycle over a line of buses. It was such a huge and unheard-of undertaking that people across the world tuned in to watch him risk life and limb.  “These days, on any given weekend, in arenas all over the world, you can watch dozens of riders jumping similar distances – only back-flipping as they go.”

Kayakers are another example. In 1997 Tao Berman blew minds when he dropped a straight drop waterfall of 83 feet in Vera Cruz, Mexico. In the following decade the record was pushed to 98 feet, then 127 feet, then kayakers entered the water at greater speeds and just over a decade later Tyler Bradt plunged 189 feet off Washington State’s Palouse Falls having more than doubled the incredible record that pushed the boundaries of what we all thought was even possible for the human body to live through. And this evolution within these extreme sports is happening at an unprecedented rate of advancement. Many more examples are shared and a much more thorough groundwork is laid in the book, but here’s the spoiler – as this extreme speed of human physical and psychological progression is being studied it has been discovered that this type of peak performance is possible because of “flow.” Flow is basically a state of meditation, mental focus, it is believing in and entering the “zone,” and it is allowing humans to redefine the impossible into possible. To do what often appears to be defying gravity and often death.

In Wayne Dyer’s book Wishes Fulfilled, interestingly he discusses a very similar topic in a completely different way. Dr. Dyer is famous for his spiritual leadership of teaching others the power of the mind to create the life, health, abundance…whatever they want. He says, “There’s a level of awareness available to you that you are probably unfamiliar with. It extends upward and transcends the ordinary level of consciousness that you’re most accustomed to. At his higher plane of existence, which you and every human being who has ever lived can access at will, the fulfillment of wishes is not only probably—it is guaranteed.” Dr. Dyer is talking about the power of the mind to create and remove boundaries for ourselves. He is stating, from his personal experience and many he has worked with, how we have the power within our own minds and hearts to create, through faith and action, all the wishes of our hearts – our peak performance.

Neville Goddard, one of the pioneering fathers of the Laws of Imaging said, “Health, wealth, beauty, and genius are not created; they are only manifested by the arrangement of your mind—that is, by your concept of yourself, and your concept of yourself is all that you accept and consent to as true.” In other words – what you believe. Who you believe yourself to be. What you believe you can do. What you believe you are worthy and capable of. It’s about belief.

So, what is your dream? For one minute I want you to suspend all the disbelief you’ve built up, get rid of the stories about why it’s not possible, or why you aren’t moving forward, and just imagine that nothing is in your way. What would you do? What would you want to be? What is your dream career or way of living? What would your dream relationship be like? What does real fulfillment look like to you? If money was not an option what would you be, or say, or do?

Say it out loud!

Now, what if you just went for it? What if you moved into 100% possibility? You may not know where it will lead, or where the path is even taking you, but what if you took the first step? What is the worst that could happen? What is the best that could happen? Take a moment and think about the answers.

This is where, like we discussed in episode seven, the heroes get in the arena and face the fears, the fear of failure, the fear of wasted time and money, the fear of looking stupid. I get all of these fears. I understand the fears, but we aren’t focusing on those. We are focusing on what’s possible when you stop looking at the fear and you start looking at the prize. There is a saying in mountain biking – look where you want to go, not where you don’t want to go. Interpreted it basically means, don’t look at the rock you don’t want to hit, and when you round a bend and there’s a drop off, don’t look down the drop off, look at the line around the rock, look at the trail that rides past the drop-off. See the path ahead, not the things that could stop you! When you start living in 100% possibility you get to start living big! And that is 100% possible, unless you tell yourself it isn’t.

Whether you tell yourself a thing is possible or impossible, you are right. Your mind is very powerful. Back to Christ’s saying again – “Be it unto you according to your faith.” I really believe he was giving us a key to universal law. A key to the power inside us.  I want to tell you that if you will step into action, if you will step into belief, if you will allow your inner voice and the things you intuitively know about what you are here to do, to take control and push past all the stories that stand in the way, you get to use your powers, to manifest into being, the things you want most.

Here’s where some story technique comes in. If you want something different than what you’ve been getting, you first must change your belief about what is possible for you. If you change what you believe, you will change what you do. So what do you believe about your potential, about your dreams, about your life?

There is no doubt that most of us are not the ultimate athletes that are currently challenging the concepts of possibility. We are not all spiritual powerhouses dedicated to the life of developing spiritual powers that take us beyond the realms that most ever access, but these folks show us what is possible. Show us the power of our own minds. They blaze the trail, create a model, and say, “look what you can do, if only you believe.”

While we are all at different levels on the path of understanding and using the powers of our own minds, and most may not be a Dr. Dyer, a Neville Goddard, or one of the extreme athletes mentioned earlier, we are people with dreams and lives to live. Those dreams matter because I believe the things we are drawn to, the things we dream of being and doing are the voices of our destiny and potential calling us. If we ignore them, we ignore our own longing to become. And what if you are the next great (fill in the blank). You probably are. But we are also people who fight diseases, who struggle to feel acceptable, who fight against shame, who get to work and put food on the table, who take care of aging parents and young toddlers. We are people who have brilliant lives to create and tragic trials to overcome, and understanding the power of our own minds, and using it, like a muscle, over and over until we are stronger and more capable, is our evolutionary and even spiritual heritage. But first we need to know we have this power, and then we need to believe in it.

Last night I sat across from a woman who has spent the last year battling cancer. This is not an uncommon story. Anymore it is more uncommon not to know someone taking up this battle. But I share her story because it’s one of those that doesn’t make sense to the doctors. A year ago she was diagnosed with a ten percent chance of living. She refused to die. Prayers went up for her across the country as her tribe banded together. There was a battle afoot and it was fierce. She submitted to the severe treatments, mutilating surgeries, and in her mind she simply refused to die. Her doctor told her that he would do all he could, but that her attitude would make a tremendous difference. Last night she sat across from me, in remission, doctors in the top cancer centers now studying her case, and while she attributes God answering the many prayers sent in her behalf, she also is very clear that her mindset- the way she never let the disease be a part of her in her mind, the ferocity with which she fought…these are also part of her outcome.

Now, let’s be clear. No one is saying that breaking the barriers of what “seems” possible is a cake walk. Kotler, in The Rise of Superman, shares the story of Danny Way, the first skateboarder to jump the Great Wall of China. I don’t have time to lay out the whole scene, but the MegaRamp was steeper and crazier than anything someone would consider skating down. When he did the trial run shoddy ramp construction sent him into the mountain. His ankle was shattered. He was rushed to the hospital with the ankle fracture and his torn ACL, but he left before they could diagnose him because he didn’t want to know the extent of the injuries. Barely able to walk, the next day he climbs ten flight of stairs to get to the top of the ramp. More than 125 million Chinese people are watching him, but this is not just a skater shooting down something like a ski ramp on a skateboard, planning to launch further than anyone on a skateboard has ever done, but it’s a feat that will require absolute precision of his ankle and knee. If they give, by even a fraction of an inch, he’s going to fly off the side and die. Kotler points out that most people can’t even stand on a broken ankle, but when all was said and done Danny not only stood on it, without give, but also withstood four Gs of pressure going into that quarter-pipe on the landing. One G is the force of gravity. Formula one drivers pull two Gs when cornering. Astronauts on take-off suffer three Gs. Most people black out at 5 Gs. What Danny Way did was so extraordinary it defies explanation. Danny Way is very clear when he says, “You want to know how I did something like jump the Great Wall on a fractured ankle,” he says. “I can’t really answer that. All I can tell you is what I already told you: When I’m pushing the edge, skating beyond my abilities, it’s always a mediation in the zone.”

To stay comfortable is to stay the same – your thinking stays the same, your actions stay the same. Living your best life and creating possibility means facing some fear and discomfort… jumping out of the comfort zone. If what you have to do makes you uncomfortable, you’re on the right path. Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Do one thing every day that scares you.” She didn’t say that because she thought it would be funny to have a country full of scared people, she said it because she knew that fear holds us back from so much living. Because she knew that the great men and women of the earth are facing fear everyday – it’s how they make the big things happen. When I started making this podcast I was afraid of looking stupid. I was afraid of wasting my time. I was afraid of failure. But if I hadn’t pushed past everyone of those fears, over and over, I’d still be a woman, at home, comfortable with all my extra time watching TV, living with a buried idea that felt too big, and having no idea what I was missing. Every podcast I write I’m putting my work out on the table. I’m telling stories that are often very personal and vulnerable to me. But without the vulnerable stories you wouldn’t really connect with the content. So, I keep it real, and vulnerable, and I keep leaning into possibility.

We had a training meeting in my office the other day, and the speaker shared a great insight I hadn’t heard before. He said when there is something that you don’t yet know how to do, or you aren’t good at, add the word “yet” to the end of the sentence because that one word opens the door to possibility.

So it looks like this: I don’t know how to set up an email campaign “yet.”  Or, I don’t know how to ride a bucking bronco “yet.” Or, I can’t juggle jello cubes “yet.” You see how it opens the future to a time when you will, if you want to. I love it! Next time you find yourself making statements about what you can’t do, add that “yet.”

More and more we are coming, as a people, to understand that there is a great deal we don’t understand about the human mind. That we are powerful beyond what we understand. But we have tremendous models showing us that we have power to create, to overcome, to be, and that these dreams, milestones, achievements, possibilities for business ventures, for relationships, for personal performance, for creation of all types begins in the mind, begins with the stories we believe about ourselves, our power, our possibility, our worthiness. This is the key, now insert it in the lock and release the stories that limit your life. Then get ready to work and blow the world away with your power to make the difference you want to make in the time you are here. Go big because you can. Because you have the power to dream, declare and deliver, if only you believe.

Have fun out there creating great life stories and telling the ones that make you strong! Your challenge for the week is to take a minute and journal about the questions I proffered earlier in the podcast: If you went for it, if you took action and started living and moving toward your big dream, what is the worst that could happen? What is the best that could happen? Take a moment and think about or journal about those questions. Remember, whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you are right.

Go to www.loveyourstorypodcast.com and sign up for our weekly inspiration email, and pass this podcast onto one friend. Thanks and I’ll see you next week on the next episode of Love Your Story podcast.

Vulnerability – the key to connection and possibility

Brene Brown said, “I believe that vulnerability – the willingness to show up and be seen with no guarantee of outcome, is the only path to more love, belonging and joy.” Today let’s explore how vulnerability creates possibility.

Today let’s explore how vulnerability creates possibility.

Stories are our lives in language. Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. I’m Lori Lee, and I’m excited for our future together of telling stories, evaluating our own stories, and lifting ourselves and others to greater places because of our control over our stories. This podcast is about empowerment and giving you, the listener, ideas to work with in making your stories work for you. Power serves you best when you know how to use it.

As adults, we accumulate experiences. Experiences that at best dull our passions and create a guarded participation in our feelings, and at worst shroud our hearts in layers and layers of armor to keep out any more of the hurt life dishes up in all its varieties.  “I want to feel passion again,” is a common refrain. Or “I can’t remember the last time I laughed really hard.” There are also all the hidden dreams we don’t dare embark on, and the relationships that die because we aren’t open enough to risk our feelings and our authentic selves. In stories, these are often the issues the protagonist is working through. We celebrate when someone overcomes an obstacle and lives their dream, when the hero finds hope and joy again when the protagonist transforms a relationship from weak and dying into something fresh and passionate. Think about the stories we watch in the theater and read in books. We are always rooting for the characters to be honest and open, to share and connect.

What does that mean?  For me, the big emotional work of my later life has been around finding the desire and the courage to strip off the layers of armor I have so carefully placed around myself over the course of my life. I have on a breastplate, a helmet, a nice piece of heavy mail underneath the outer layers. I have a shield…I have it all. I only know this because of how hard it was to get it off. Stories carved from our pain, these are the tales we often hold close to the chest. In our careful protection of our lives, we suffocate a past and a future, hold hostage the creator – ourselves.

The dictionary defines vulnerability as:

Now none of those definitions make me want to jump into vulnerability, but I learned a thing or two this year. Namely, that vulnerability is power. That seems like an oxymoron, but it turns out that it’s true. When we are real, authentically who we are, this is the space where true connection is made – or that the possibility of it even exists. One of the things that I have learned in my writing is that when I share real stories, not crafting them so they sound good, but the raw, real stuff; the stuff that makes me vulnerable, this is the space where people are touched. This is the space where readers can relate. This is the space where writing is not life as it should be, but rather, life as it is. And this makes connection. Writers help society understand the connections that bind us, and this is done, often, through realness, which requires vulnerability.

In my Next Level workshop there were many people who were striving to find their own vulnerability. Men wanted better relationships with their wives and they weren’t sure why they were hitting a wall. Vulnerability was completely foreign to them. That space where you share yourself, your feelings, your fears.  Fathers and mothers wanted to reconnect with children, children wanted to reconnect with parents. They wanted to heal relationships. They needed a key and the key was vulnerability. Stripping off the armor that we have so carefully placed over our hearts and heads is no small feat. In fact, it’s not something you just do. It’s a practice. It’s a way of being. It’s facing the fear every day when your next encounter could be made better by showing up open, by sharing feelings, by being your real self. It’s only when we are brave enough to risk, to be open, that possibility is created, that real connection can take place. And so, we practiced.

I received a note from my friend Rick. This is what it said:

Lori,

You are one of the most persistent people I have ever met. Your determination is inspiring. When you open your heart you are also one of the most gentle people I have ever met. The world knows how strong you are, but vulnerability is the key to your power and everything you want in life.  Love Rick

The first word I want to point out there is “when.” “When” you open your heart. This indicates that I have a hard time of it. That I protect my heart. The second thing I wish to point out is the line, “the world knows how strong you are, but vulnerability is the key to your power.” I read this to say that while my individual strength is already established, it’s not my power. The thing we often think of as power – a synonym  – “strength” is not really where our power lies. Then he reveals where the power lies – in the vulnerability. The minute we have one of those conversations where we are open and explain what we really feel and where we are coming from, when we drop the façade of having it all together, then people can see themselves in us. This vulnerable space allows connection and authenticity. It allows for empathy and understanding when needed. It creates space for relating. Armor keeps you safely untouched, disconnected, and ironically out of touch with your power.

Brene Brown, author, researcher and academic specializing in vulnerability and shame said, “Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”

One woman said, “I think there are many types of vulnerabilities, and all pretty unique to the person. For me, one type is knowingly placing myself in a position where I can be rejected. Sharing my story in a writing class was a big one for me. It was not only sharing my writing, but also sharing a very emotional response to my relationship with my dad. I almost didn’t do it.”

When I asked her if it was worth it, in hindsight, she said, “ It was absolutely worth it. I didn’t share the whole thing with the class, but I ended up writing about when I was molested by a neighbor boy. It was the first time I’d ever written or talked about it. It was an extremely emotional experience finally writing it down, but it’s changed my life for the better. It’s also made me more open and vocal about sexual assault…which is what I’m hoping to write my dissertation on.”

I want to point out a couple things I notice about her answer. The first is that it took great bravery to first, face an event in her life that was traumatizing. Just writing about it was vulnerable. Then, she shared it,  she said it out loud and removed the curtains and shame so they could no longer keep her in the dark. Now, this alone is beautiful and brave, but it created possibility. The possibility I see that her vulnerability and bravery created was the discovery of her dissertation topic. For those who have sought advanced degrees you know that often finding that area of research, narrowing it, it a painful and involved process. Her bravery and vulnerability paved a way for her to find that topic. If she had not been able to face that part of her story she would still be hiding from it, and certainly would not be sounding a voice and creating research to stand up for things important to her. This vulnerable space is where possibility was created.

Another woman shared, “As an actor every time you get on stage your vulnerable. Whenever you put yourself in any spotlight you’re opening yourself up for others critiques about you. If you aren’t really honest on stage the audience can tell. Dance is that way too. In my choreography class, we had to choreograph a piece for our final concert. It was such a beautiful concert because people really dug deep and put themselves out there, myself included. It was terrifying because a piece of me was on that stage being graded by other people.”

I’ll give you another example, she said. I became terrified to gain weight and would only eat a pop tart or a granola bar a day. When I realized that I was headed down a slippery slope I told my roommates and close friends what I was struggling with. I was scared because I was worried they would judge me or not take me seriously. They were amazing though and really helped me through it. I think vulnerability is not only sharing your true self with others but also letting others share with you.

I asked her – so is it your experience that when you come from a vulnerable place, that you can connect more authentically with others? Her response, “For sure. When you’re not willing to be open and vulnerable then it’s a lot harder to connect because there’s some sort of block there.

Another woman, a sports writer, shared a vulnerable piece she wrote about the domestic violence cases in the NFL and how the public needs to be more open about the conversations about domestic violence. In order to do this, she divulged in this article her own experience with domestic violence. Do you think that was vulnerable? When you submit a piece like that there is a weight in the pit of your stomach as you hit the send button. It’s fear letting you know that this vulnerability stuff is scary, and it’s pure courage when your finger pushes the send button anyway.

There are numerous ways to be vulnerable. Another woman, a martial artist brought up the physical vulnerability of training with men. She said, “As a woman who does martial arts with men vulnerable happens almost every time I train. When I train with men I don’t know, I am putting myself out there. They could be full of themselves and want to dominate, or they could be brand new and go all wild and out of control on you. However, off the mats, I feel just opposite. I am empowered, strong and confident and know that I can handle myself if needs be. And that is so invigorating!

Despite that feeling of vulnerability on the mats, she creates the possibility for her empowerment off the mat by accepting and working through that vulnerable state during training. If she let her fear keep her from the mat she would be neither accomplished nor empowered. Courage – every time I see these examples of vulnerability I see courage! Courage to write, courage to speak up, courage to train, courage to dance, courage to share secrets that feel shameful. Courage to risk. And it is that courage that creates the possibility for richer experiences.

For my vulnerability work, every day I remind myself that I am open. I walk around with my body posture open. I don’t dismiss people, I engage with them. I stop using my armor to hold people out and instead I remind myself that I am surrounded by great people and I want to get to know them. But, I will not lie to you, I have to remind myself to do it. Sometimes I just repeat to myself “I am open.”

Sometimes vulnerability looks like moving forward into things that might cause you pain or loss, but doing it with your heart open. Another woman who shared her vulnerability said, “Tomorrow marks 7 weeks since the doctor told us Tracy’s liver would fail in 6-12 weeks without treatment. In that short time, I’ve gotten even more comfortable in the uncomfortable. More importantly, I’ve learned to walk in the “and” rather than in the “or”– meaning that despite the outcome (the or), we still get to plan for and live our vision for however long we can AND I get to be okay with creating and living MY vision no matter the outcome. It’s like living with each foot in a different world but walking ahead anyway in the same direction.”

While the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted; how we love, and how we lose; how we grow and how we fail is never a new one, it’s a story full of other people. These people, by themselves, lead lives full of the same things, on their own terms, so the space for connection comes when we chose to acknowledge the realness of the journey, to be vulnerable and trust that being open holds more joy and possibility than closing down.

Brene Brown says that vulnerability is THE work of living a whole-hearted life. And, she couldn’t have been more right in my case when she said, “hiding out, pretending and armoring up against vulnerability are killing us: killing our spirits, our hopes, our potential, our creativity, our ability to lead, our love, our faith and our joy.”

I feel better when I’m open. I meet people I wouldn’t have met. I create exchange and possibility.

As I watch others work on their vulnerability, sharing feelings and addressing issues that have been avoided, trying things they have put off for fear of looking foolish, daring to step up and try for their dreams while fighting off the tidal wave of fears that always accompanies a step like that: fear of failure, fear of looking foolish, fear of loss, fear of _________ fill in the blank. I noticed again, how universal fear is. It’s the dragon on every shoulder, and yet when I look at these people I so clearly see their potential, and I can clearly see that they need not fear. They are bright, powerful and beautiful and if they can contain their fears, shut them down, or simply replace them with another voice, then their vulnerability opens up possibility. Possibility for everything.

Fear is a monster, fear is a voice, fear is a dragon, a mega phone, a canker. Fear is a hole, an empty stomach, and old rose bush that won’t grow roses. Fear is a tongue that lashes out, a strangle hold, a knotted rope. Fear is a stop sign, a darkness we can’t see through. Fear is an animal with bared teeth. Fear is not love, or hope or possibility. Fear is a wrench when you need a flashlight, a hook when you need a spoon. Fear is why we armor up. Fear is why we do not make ourselves vulnerable.

Vulnerability is the key to connection, to your greatest power; and fear is what keeps you from it.  Exploring and testing your own vulnerability, your own real heart, this is the path Brene was talking about – the one to more love, belonging, and joy.  The more of your authentic self that you offer to something – a hobby, a person, a dream, a workshop, a challenge, a race, your job, your children…the more you are going to get back. When you allow the space of vulnerability to create possibility, …

As you create your story, look at your life. How often are you in your comfort zone? If you’re in your comfort zone you probably aren’t stepping into vulnerable places, you aren’t creating possibility the way you could. What about your relationships. Could they be better? Could opening up some of those vulnerable sharing spaces help you bridge spaces between you and your loved ones? This week your challenge is to find a space in which to be brave and vulnerable. See what possibility it creates when you tell someone how you really feel; when you open up and share a talent; when you bravely step forward despite possible pain and loss; when you ask for help.

Have fun out there telling your stories this week, and creating bigger and better possibilities because you are open to vulnerability. Embrace your vulnerability by sharing your story on our Facebook page or www.loveyourstorypodcast. See you next week – every Wednesday a new episode comes out – on Love Your Story podcast.

Gratitude, Abundance and Prosperity – The seed and the plant

We all want abundance. We all want prosperity. The key to open the door is as simple as gratitude—it shows you what you already have, how prosperous you already are, how supported you are by God and the universe where it really counts. And once you truly feel that in your soul, you open for even more to flow into your space of being. The stories we tell about our abundance now set the stage for what will come. Welcome to episode 18 – where we are going to talk about the seed of gratitude and the plant that grows in to abundance and prosperity.

Stories are our lives in language. Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. I’m Lori Lee, and I’m excited for our future together of telling stories, evaluating our own stories, and lifting ourselves and others to greater places because of our control over our stories. This podcast is about empowerment and giving you, the listener, ideas to work with in making your stories work for you. Power serves you best when you know how to use it.

We’ve just been through the holiday season. Thanksgiving is a time when we focus, for a moment on what we’re grateful for, while Christmas, quickly on its heels is a time when we shift gears and start thinking about what we want – what gift we will ask for. With January we start planning for what we want to create that we don’t yet have – a flatter stomach, a promotion, more patience, something different than what you have now. I’m all for progression and forward movement, but I’ll let you in on a secret, before we get more, we need to appreciate what we have in the now! And that’s what today’s podcast is about, how gratitude leads to abundance. How being present in the now, and grateful for what is around you at this very moment, is the key to opening more peace of mind, more abundance, and greater prosperity. Let’s get started, because there are really good reasons why life will get a lot better if you make gratitude a constant way of being. Namely: It makes for the very happiest stories.

You’ve heard the saying “You have to know the bad to know the good?” The idea of contrast as a teacher is nothing new, particularly when it comes to gratitude. The moments when the sound track on our lives intensifies because the trauma and drama is about to get amplified is not when we are thinking “Oh yay! I’m about to learn something wonderful.” But, with pain comes the other side of the coin, which is the appreciation for when pain is not present. Let me tell you a story.

When I met death and he stood close enough that his breath was hot on my face, I was left somehow different.  With his retreat he took me, with his bony fingers, past the point of the invincibility of youth.  I arrived at a place of realization, a state of understanding limits in a way that had previously escaped me.  As I lay, unable to move from the pain of broken ribs and punctured lung, fractured skull, deep puncture wounds in my arm, knee, scalp, a broken ankle and fingers, suddenly I was excruciatingly aware of the blessing of a whole body.

I used to rock climb multiple times a week finding a deep fulfillment in disciplining my mind and body to take me one step further than I’d gone before; to feel the rock, sometimes cold, sometimes hot, the finger pockets, the ledges, my aching legs and forearms, the chalk on my fingers and the sweat soaking through it – the adrenalin, the now.  You trust your belay partner or you wouldn’t climb with them, so I never imagined I’d lie at the bottom of a cliff victim of human error, ambulance racing to my broken body.  These are not the things we plan for.

I had weeks to lay and wait for the world and time to pass me by as my body tried to piece itself back together after the 100-foot fall.  This provided thinking time and a profound understanding of a few things I took for granted.

Not being able to lie down or breathe well from the injuries, my head swimming with vertigo when I tilted it back on a pillow, not being able to hold by son because of broken fingers and a broken hand; not being able to stand or walk well due to a broken ankle stripped of ligaments, made so much sweeter the chance to dance, when I finally could, to shower myself, to drive, to walk, to get up off the couch without help. This trauma taught me how much I love my body – how grateful I am for it.  I learned that when whole and healthy it functions smooth and beautiful and that I love to breathe.

While contrast, knowing the bad so we can fully appreciate the good, is one way to become grateful, I’m going to suggest that gratitude can become a habitual way of thinking and need not only come when compelled through comparison.

At its core, abundant living and gratitude is a way of seeing the world. It’s picking the good things out of our stories instead of the bad. I have learned that when we do this, we see and we create more good things! It’s a little like magic.

My story of my climbing accident could focus on the trauma, I could relive and relish telling about the pain and long recovery. I could focus on the belayer who dropped me from the top of the climb and the betrayal and incompetence shown. I could get lost in blame. I could focus on the scars, or I can focus on what I learned. My body has always been a loyal, healthy, beautiful, smoothly functioning friend. It has and continues to serve me well and takes me to physicals heights of exhaustion, ecstasy, and everything in between. I get to focus my story on how I really learned to appreciate the gift of a healthy, functioning body.

I challenge you to find those abundant gifts you take for granted every day and celebrate them!

Let’s talk about the first and most obvious reason why gratitude as a way of living rocks! First and foremost when you start off the day being grateful that you have hot water to shower in, food for breakfast and heat warming your house during the cold winter months, you begin the day with a mindset that allows you to feel supported, happy, fortunate. This mindset is a powerful one to step out on.  Always start with gratitude because it makes you happy, and what better reason could there be?

Real, heart-felt, deep-soul gratitude for the people, conveniences, opportunities, comforts and possibilities in your life is the key to joyful living. Bringing this into your life every day is well-worth the effort. How? In an early episode I shared how I say and gratitude prayer every morning. This gives me a moment that draws my attention to the hot water in my shower, to the health and strength of myself and my children, of the joy in my puppies gait as he hops down the street on his walk. That’s one way. Some people keep a gratitude journal, writing each day a list of things they are grateful for that day. I have found when I’ve done this that going back and reading the entries from the past is the most powerful part. Things I had already forgotten about are there, written on the page for me to relive again. I’m sure there are lots of ways you can bring yourself to a more habitual state of gratitude, find one that works for you BECAUSE…

when you buy now you will also get the extra bonus of ABUNDANCE. Living in abundance is most everyone’s goal to some degree or another. Most people don’t enjoy living in a state of lack. But many people spend a lot of time thinking about lack, and so more lack shows up in their lives. When we focus on what we don’t have, what we don’t have stays as a permanent state. After all, it is what we are focused on. Abundance, on the other hand, is also a mindset! It’s a way of thinking. It’s a magic way of thinking that helps you realize the abundance you currently live in and attract even more of that abundance into your world. Abundance thinking isn’t just about money. It’s about what we’ve been talking about – it’s about gratitude and rolling around in the beautiful abundance that is already available in your life. This looks a little different for everyone because everyone’s circumstances are different.

If you have someone to love, your health, your freedom, and the opportunity of just being alive, you are rich. If you have comforts like all the food you want, friends, indoor plumbing and the occasional night on the town, you have more than many people on this planet. You won the lottery. Of all the people who have every lived on the earth, and of all the people currently alive, to be one that has enough food, the opportunity for education, freedom, clothing, and a roof over your head puts you in the top percentage of abundance, and many of us have even more than that to be grateful for.

Chris Lee, trainer, transformational coach, and author, says in his book Transform Your Life, 10 Principles of Abundance and Prosperity, that when you join your wisdom, talents, and experience with others that you are creating abundance within your relationships and co-creating a network, a community you can draw from and contribute to, and that this is another type of abundance. Do you have a support network, friends, associates? Don’t forget to count that blessing.

There was a time when my kids’ father and I took a trip in a travel trailer for six months through Mexico and the Western United States to see places and make adventures. In a travel trailer you have limited water, electricity only when you plug in, and you have to empty your own black water – no easy flush of the toilet never to see your dinner bi-products again, no you have to empty your own toilet tank, hose out the tubes, and generally get a whole lot closer to the sewer than one is generally used to. When I brushed my teeth I had to get my toothbrush wet quickly then turn off the water because of the limited water. Before this adventure, I often bemoaned paying the utility bills. I was newly married and utilities like power, water, sewer just felt like unalienable rights a person should be given without having to pay for them. Ahhh youth. At any rate, when we returned from six months of life with intermittent utility privileges I was more than happy to pay those utility bills. Those utility bills meant that I had a telephone, and a warm house, and running water and a toilet that took black water far from my thoughts with the flick of a wrist. If you have a place to live and utilities, you are blessed.

I encourage you, even on the hard days-maybe especially on the hard days, to remember that you are abundant now! We have life, we have breath, we have our own set of abilities. These things are the foundation for creation and we get to pick the ball up from there. We would never trade these things for money, any of them. Everyone can begin to live in a state of abundance through gratitude – right now, no matter how much money you have or don’t have. There’s no waiting until you’re super rich, or until you have the new car or the latest and greatest (fill in then blank). That’s missing the point entirely. Abundance is a state of mind, not a stack of things you own. Let me repeat that: Abundance is a state of mind, not a stack of things you own.

Chris Lee is clear that abundance is a state of consciousness. He says that “true abundance has everything to do with how you see the world,” and that “when you live from a place of gratitude and appreciation, you can shift your consciousness quickly from a place of scarcity to a place of abundance.”  He goes on to acknowledge that it sounds too simple, but, he says, “I’m here to tell you that I know it works. You cannot have what you want until you are grateful for what you have…the state of abundance IS gratitude.”

Eckhart Tolle basically shared the same truth when he said, “Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”

So, on your road to abundance, the first and most critical step is gratitude.  And why not? It’s also the key to happiness.

The bubbling water around me was getting in my ears and the fat hairy man sitting next to me in the Jacuzzi was blocking my view of the moon from the Whistler Resort Hotel in Whistler, British Columbia.  Straining up in my outdoor seat on this April night I attempted to keep the water from spraying in my face and still keep the view of the moon sliding behind the foggy white clouds and coloring them with the eerie light of muted daffodil and a hazy, seaweed green. From the outdoor deck in which we sat cooking ourselves in the hot-tub, I finally gave up trying to see around him and sat back, but his body made the spray of the jets splay up and out from the water’s surface and I succeeded only in getting another face-full of water.  Moving to the other side I found a spot to lean out and over the side, my arms folded over the edge. Finally, I let my mind relax, being massaged by the night sky, by the moon in mystic dance with the clouds, painting them with its borrowed light.  I basked in the exposure of crystal stars while my body was massaged by the warm water.

This snapshot of 30-minutes in British Columbia is a super simple example of the take-away technique. In this tiny story I get to either focus on the man blocking my view and spraying me with water, focus on the irritation and discomfort, or I get to focus on the humor, the gorgeous night sky I was so privileged to sit under, and the great fortune of getting to relax in a hot tub after a day of skiing. That’s a super easy one, but I’ve known people who find the negative in every situation and amplify it by complaint until they and everyone around them is in a miserable funk. Who wants to be that guy? I know nobody likes to be around that guy.

Chris Lee says, “Abundance is the mindset – prosperity is the result.”

We live in a time and culture where everything we could possibly imagine is available if you have enough money. You want to travel across the world and see exotic things – all you need is money. You want a maid, a race car, surgery to rearrange your face into someone else? All you need is money.  We live in profusely prosperous times, but it’s only available for those who have the money, so everyone wants money, seeks abundance, craves the power and freedom allotted by the almighty dollar.

Here’s a quick little reminder from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology proposed by Abraham Maslow in 1943. It basically shows a triangle made of 5 tiers. Starting from the bottom, each tier lists a set of human needs that needs to be taken care of before we will focus on the next set. So, the bottom tier shows that we need food, water, warmth and rest. Once we have those things we will seek to find security and safety (the second tier), once we have security and safety we will seek out the third tier, intimate relationships, belonging and friends. The fourth tier is seeking after privilege and feelings of accomplishment, while the fifth tier is self-actualization and focus on achieving one’s full potential. I bring this up in conjunction with a study done in 2010 of 450,000 Americans, by Nobel prize-winning scientist Daniel Kahneman and colleagues at Princeton University. One of the things this study points out is that for those who suffer for food, water and shelter, an increase of money most certainly makes them happier, but past a certain point of income, when all the basic needs are taken care of, then a continual increase in money is NOT the key to happiness. More money does not equate with greater happiness. The goal to make six-figures might be something you want to shoot for, but don’t do it for happiness sake. Happiness is living in that state of recognizing the abundance that surrounds you, and while money opens many opportunities and provides security, at some point you must look at what you are sacrificing for the money. If the acquisition of your money comes at the price of your relationships, and you are past the point of having all you need and more, perhaps your best life move is to cut back on attaining more money for the sake of supposed happiness, and enjoy the prosperity and abundance you have created, and nurture the relationships you are so blessed to abundantly have.

Melanie Greensberg, Ph.D., a practicing psychologist, wrote in her article, Is Money the Secret to Happiness, that “Of peoples greatest regrets at the end of life, not spending more time with their kids when they were young, is one of the most common. Overall, money to meet basic needs is necessary, but not sufficient for life happiness. It is a piece of the pie in overall life satisfaction, along with relationship satisfaction, meaningful work, health and spiritual well-being.”  These are the pieces of life that we get to see abundantly and with gratitude, starting where we are in recognition of the wonderful abundance around us, and creating from that state of abundance.

Ralph Waldo Emerson takes it a step further, he goes beyond just being thankful for the good things.  He says, “Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”

Gratitude, abundance, and prosperity are to each other like a seed and the plant. Gratitude plants the seed of abundance in your life, and from the daily watering and care sprouts happiness and increased prosperity, because focus on the good brings more good blooming into your life. It’s that simple.

This week’s challenge is to go through a couple of your life stories, maybe even a couple of the tough ones, and find the parts and pieces of those stories that give you something to be thankful for. Find the gratitude. Find that state of abundance from which to stand and bask in the ways life is supporting you. Find the night sky instead of the obstacle blocking it. Find the lesson instead of the regret or blame. Find the light instead of the shadow.

Have fun out there telling your stories and I’ll see you next week with the next episode of Love Your Story podcast. We’d sure love it if you’d go to www.loveyourstorypodcast.com and sign up for the weekly inspiration/challenge so we can stay in touch with you.

Episode #17       5 Challenges for 30 Days

Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.”

What stories do you habitually tell yourself? What stories can you reframe to create better habits and ways of being? Today I’m going to give you 5 challenges for the next 30 days! Easy, but life altering if you let them in.

Stories are our lives in language. Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. I’m Lori Lee, and I’m excited for our future together of telling stories, evaluating our own stories, and lifting ourselves and others to greater places because of our control over our stories. This podcast is about empowerment and giving you, the listener, ideas to work with in making your stories work for you. Power serves you best when you know how to use it.

Think about something you do habitually. Something that might have been hard to learn at first, but after practice, you can do it without even thinking about it. Your brain has set up a pattern and you will do it the same way every time. We set up patterns of behavior by repeatedly doing them until the body and brain go on autopilot and can do them without much thought. Since we become what we repeatedly do, and we do what we repeatedly think about it makes a great deal of sense that we purposefully create thoughts and habits that will help us become who we want to be. Habits that create the story and life we want for ourselves and our loved ones. Habits that strengthen, build and empower us. Often these habits are very linked to the stories we have going on in our minds.

The challenge I am throwing out to you today is to take the five simple things I’ll share and implement them into your life for just 30 days. No year-long resolution, no, just try these for 30 days and see what new habits you might form and how those transform your life and your way of seeing and thinking about things.  So, let’s get started…first, eat chocolate cake everyday…just kidding.

 1. Address and acknowledge the lesson in inconvenient situations – look at the stories.– There are lots of ways to look at life. We acknowledge all the time that our stories are filled with challenges – people we clash with, lost love, situations and people who require the very depths of our patience, health and body issues, disappointments, lost jobs, no job, that lump of coal you got for Christmas, the state of the world, the definning of shark. Of course there are also the moments of beauty and miracles, but this challenge is about the habit of how we deal with the disappointments and challenges. One of the ways we can approach life is with the idea that everything is a life lesson.  Everyone you meet, everything you encounter, they’re all part of the learning experience. So, here’s the challenge: Acknowledge the lesson, especially when things don’t go your way.  If you don’t get a job you wanted or a relationship doesn’t work, it only means the right thing for you– is still out there waiting, and the lesson you just learned is a step toward it. It’s easy to start making up stories about ourselves and others when things don’t happen the way we want: I’m not good enough; that person had it out for me; my boss doesn’t really like me; my friends always let me down, they must not respect me. None of these are helpful stories, even if they seem real. Remember that you get to choose your perspective of any situation: Attitude determines experience. When you try to find the lesson and glean a little something from the experience, and focus on that, there is less room for the one-liners to eat away and create a bad headspace for us. Every day we choose our state of mind. Try to find the lesson that comes with each challenge. Find the take-away – the thing you will ponder on, learn from, and focus on whenever you revisit that experience. It will change your story completely because you give up victimhood, blaming, bitterness…

 2. Success File – what was the day’s story? At the end of the day I do what is called “success file” which is a play on sounds – “successful.” I go through and list in my head all the things I got done, instead of all the things I didn’t get done. This includes everything, even getting out of bed, taking a shower, doing my make-up. Because sometimes that’s harder than others. Some days my list is longer than others, but it always shows me that I’ve created SOME successes. Maybe my list is: I got dressed and ready for work. I made breakfast for the kids. I did morning meditation. I walked the dog. I went to zumba. I took a client out on showings. I fixed dinner. I had a great conversation with my son.  Maybe instead it looks like: I got out of bed. I enjoyed a cup of tea. I read a book I’ve been wanting to read. I talked with a friend. I ate a healthy lunch. I processed some paperwork. Maybe it looks like this: I slept in late and got some extra needed ZZZs. I washed the car. I wrote a podcast. I went to a listing presentation. And that’s it. Every day is different for each person but it’s invigorating to file your successes instead of focus on the things still sitting on your List of Things To Do. Try this every night as you lay in bed before falling asleep. It’s a nice note to go to sleep on. It’s a nice way to frame your story with what you did, instead of what you didn’t.

3. Let Go: Get rid of one thing a day for 30 days.– We have so much clutter surrounding us at any given moment (at the office, in our cars, in our homes) and often we’ve become so accustomed to it that we no longer notice how it affects us.  If you start cleaning up some of this external clutter, a lot of internal clutter disappears as well.  When we sold our house and packed all our belongings in storage units and went off to travel Mexico I can verify that there was an energy draw to the things I owned in that storage facility. The things we own, even if they aren’t near us, tie up our energy. Choose one needless item each and every day and get rid of it.  It’s that simple.  It might be difficult at first, so expect some resistance.  But after some time you will begin to learn to let go of “things”, and your mind will thank you for your efforts. Take a box of old clothes to Goodwill. Get rid of a vase that you’ve never really loved. Throw out those water bottles clanking around in the backseat of your car. Take down that picture you’ve had on your wall for 20 years and find something new and fresh that you love, clean out your music collection, sell off the DVDs you no longer want. This can be fun. Let Go! – Pay down a debt. Get rid of a bad relationship that causes you pain. Your options are many. Your surroundings are the stage in which your story takes place. Make it a place that you love – a place that feeds your energy, not drains it – a place where your best stories can play out.

4. Give the benefit of the doubt – My father and I got in a spat over politics. On the way home from his house my son and I were discussing the issue, and as I shared my frustration and lack of understanding as to the party my father supported my son reminded me to give him the benefit of the doubt. While it may not make sense why so many people voted in a direction I thought was completely amoral, my son reminded me that I had to give people the benefit of the doubt that their reasons for voting that way were not based on a complete lack of ethics, morals and intelligence. Maybe they are focused on only one part of the candidate rather than the whole package…or some such thing. Sometimes, especially when we don’t understand something, giving the benefit of the doubt can be the only way.

I’ve been told that my communications via e-mail and text are often too direct, without emotion. This stems from the fact that I’m not generally a flowery person, more straight to the point, but without facial expression and body language it can be interpreted as stark. I begged Matt, my podcasting partner, the other day to give me the benefit of the doubt in our communications because I don’t ever mean to offend, but I’m not great at adding heart emoticons and smiley faces. In fact, sometimes after I write an email I have to back to the top and add in all the “How are you” lines that one would generally exchange in person. I really appreciate it when people give me the benefit of the doubt that I’m not being a jerk.

There are always places where we can take offense. People rub up against each other (metaphorically speaking), it’s what we do. There are rubs and irritants, and miscommunications all day long. But if everyone gave one another the benefit of the doubt that they meant well, that they are doing the best they can in their current state of understanding and in their current situation, I suspect life would generate a whole lot less friction and we would create grace for others. I know I’m always grateful when people afford me a little grace and create stories that are generous and kind rather than being quick to take offense.

5. Meditate – Meditation is quite the buzz word. On Entrepreneur on Fire podcast, the top entrepreneurs very often talk about how meditation helps them be the top performers they are. In The Universe has your Back by Gabby Bernstein, she goes into great detail about the power of meditation. It’s a key spiritual practice for her. I’m trained in Transcendental Meditation and I notice that often when I am meditating, slowing my mind down for 20 minutes, that it is these moments when very needful things that have been lost in the hustle of my mind pop up to the surface so I can take care of them. I find it also rejuvenates me for the rest of the day. I sometimes even fall asleep – and that’s okay too, frankly. Aside from what I find, or what Gabby finds, or the what the EO Fire entrepreneur’s find, science also finds that meditation improves your health, both mental and physical. It calms, clarifies, creates flow. So, even though you are busy, I highly suggest you find 10 minutes every day to sit in a place where you can be alone, close your eyes, and focus on your breathe. Try to get your mind to place of quiet – this is why we focus on the breathing – on the present moment of the body, not on all the tangents the brain can conjure up. Use any technique you like, but notice the difference and create the possibility of calm, of communication with ideas and spirit, of just taking care of yourself. It’s a worthwhile investment that can put a whole new spin on your story.

That’s it! My five suggestions. Do these 5 simple things for 30 days. Write them down and put them where you can see them every morning. Ready:  1. Find the lesson in difficult situations. 2. Success file  3. Get rid of one thing a day for 30 days. 4. Give the benefit of the doubt. 5. Meditate.

Make it fun! Be consistent! And see how different your perspective, your relationships, your home and space, and your mind-set is in just one month! It’s exciting to think about. Then hop on www.loveyourstorypodcast.com and share your thoughts, your experiences, and your results with me. I promise to respond to every post. I am excited to hear from you. And one piece of advice. Don’t be hard on yourself. If you miss a day, start again the next day. If it’s difficult at first to give someone the benefit of the doubt, just practice it, do what you can. That’s why we have 30 days to practice, because new behaviors and ways of thinking take practice and you won’t get them right all the time. And that’s okay!

See you next week on the next episode of Love Your Story podcast. Please share this podcast with a friend and sign up for our weekly challenge on www.loveyourstorypodcast.com.

Stories are models of how to live.  We often look to how others do things in order to determine how we should do things. Stories are often the vehicle in which these models are exchanged. Today we learn that when our life stories don’t turn out in a way that fits our cultural models we can listen to stories from others to find additional worthwhile ways to create our lives. Today I interview Lynne McNeill, a professor of Folklore at Utah State University. Come along and listen to her considerable expertise in story and what we can learn from becoming aware of our stories, the stories of those around us, and the co-creation of meaning that results.

Podcast Interview: Lynne McNeill, Utah State University, English Department

See her TEDx talk here: http://tedx.usu.edu/portfolio-items/lynne-mcneill/