Master Your Story

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it - Nelson Mandela

In this week's Master Your Story podcast we speak with Megan Crume. Megan has overcome many fearful struggles in her life and is now an entrepreneur who owns her own mobile ice-cream business. Join us as we discuss how Megan faced those fears applied proven processes and became successful.

Fear can be a roadblock to finding your story. In chapter 13 of Master Your Story, It Matters, we take an in-depth look into ways to over come your fears. What you can accomplish in life, what you are capable of, depends on your ability to overcome fear. In the book we look into the following process to overcome fear:

Phase One: Acceptance. Take the time to really accept the fact that fear is always going to be there. It won't go away.

Phase Two: Feel the fear. Most people think if they ignore the feelings it will go away. It doesn't. It merely sinks deeper into you and the next time it comes up again its harder to face.

Phase Three: Identify it and turn it into courage. Look at your life. You're day-to-day activities. How and when do you feel fear? Use those smaller times to turn the fear into courage.

Phase Four: Face it and move through it. The next time you have a fear sneak up, imagine yourself turning around, standing strong in your self and facing that scary thing head on. Practice in your thoughts. Imagine your self facing it.

Phase Five: Practice, practice, and more practice. Through practice things seem less dramatic and easier to handle. Give it a try.

For more in-depth understanding of dealing with your fears to find your story, sign up for our email list. Its easy just click over there in the right column here on the site and send us your email address. The book is coming out very soon and we will make sure you are one of the first to know about it. Or if you can't wait contact us via this page and we can get you on your path to #MasterYourStory.

A segment from Chapter 5 of Master Your Story When you're talking to a five-year-old about going to the dentist, the conversation would be about defining what each part of the dentist office is, who the assistant is, who the dentist is, what the machinery looks like. You would be describing the tools that they would use, and many of the things that they would need to know to be comfortable when they arrive at the dental office. You would not be speaking of the gas, or the shots, nor the painful things that a dentist office would be to a five-year-old going for the first time. Preparation is an important part of going to the dentist. Audience preparation would be the same. They do not need to understand, as a brand new salesperson or a brand new person, how long a labor's going to be, how long it's going to be before they make a million dollars. That's not going to solve their problem, nor is it going to encourage or empower them to take one single next step. However, if you can paint the picture that allows them where they are to have an answer, to have encouragement, to have empowerment, to have a process, to have a how-to, then you've truly given the maturity of the audience hope, that they can enact change in their lives and others. If you skip three to five steps and start talking past things they've ever experienced, or can reach to envision, you have just taken them to a place of perhaps pain, or shame, or less than, or inability to be enough. You can see these powerful emotions would have effect on how the audience receives what you had to say. This is something most speakers and storytellers, in the beginning, do not consider, or they are worried about how they look, how the story sounds, if they're dressed well, and if the audience will even show up. The professional story is exactly that. It's a prepared story with intent, with an outcome to deliver with absolute professionalism.

Th rapidly growing cyber threat to our critical industrial, consumer and community infrastructure needs a new approach to cyber defense.

From the time we are born to this present moment, milestones are a part of our DNA. Beginning with our very first birthday to a long awaited 50th wedding anniversary and all the significant dates in between, historical markers not only provide us with a sense of accomplishment but also showcase great accomplishments. It is with joyful celebration that we announce Master Your Story has made it to it first anniversary. The team has accomplished 52 episodes and we are still going strong. The podcast was designed to be part of the full Master Your Story experience. Over the coming weeks we will be rolling out new portions to the program such as webinars, lectures, workbooks and yes the long awaited book. Today we take the time to pause, revisit the meaning of Master Your Story and to thank all the great guests we had this year! We would also like to thank the companies and people who have made this program a national success. A huge thank you to Matthew Siess who has diligently handled the operations of guest management, bookings, details and more details. We are so grateful to you Matthew. A special thanks to Steve Mittman owner of Steve Mittman Social Media who is the shows producer and adds in the exciting music and fanfare to highlight our show. Without Steve no one would hear us. Steve a heartfelt thank you for all your work and great technical capabilities. We'd also like to celebrate Sweetie Berry, not only for being our first guest, but for being there to lend support and share information to enhance our efforts. Thank you Sweetie. We would also like to thank the team at Sahl Communications, Inc. They have been the financial support helping make all of this come together. Thanks SahlComm. We also want to thank our close group of supporters The Master Your Story Tribe. They have been with us since the beginning and still support all of efforts. Most important we want to thank you, the listeners and readers, without you there would be no story. We appreciate you and thank you for tuning in each week. And now without any further ado...enjoy the show and "Enjoy your cake"

We Need To Celebrate By Kim I. Plyler Ten years a go, a client of mine who is very successful, has a family, runs her own business and is the person who has an answer for every question, once shared with me her fear of celebration. "Fear of celebration, I thought wow how can you fear that?" After much discussion my client's fear turned into a quest. A quest for her to celebrate and enjoy it. Too many of us run on the need to be super humans, as if we are in a life challenge. We are constantly competing to be better instead of just being. This type of behavior stems from a lot of different reasons. But its time we move forward into taking care of ourselves, and taking the time to just be and to celebrate it. As a recovering super humans, we can all take time to breathe and celebrate life's milestones. This is why for the next few weeks the team here at "Master Your Story" will be celebrating our one year anniversary. Hard to believe but we launched our podcast 52 weeks ago. We have had guests from all over the world and over the next few episodes and in our online information, we will highlight those people. We would also like to celebrate you, the MYS Fan, for continuing to read, listen and share our guest's wisdom. It is in the creative power of the human story that we will heal the world. Thank you for being a part of this growing project. On behalf of the team and from the bottom of our hearts, thank you.

We are beginning to enter a time of change in regards to media and how we consume information. While many people think that we are stuck in the time of social media, I believe that we are actually entering a new realm of the social media world – one where transparency and popularity govern what is said and what is being pushed out to large audiences. Mainstream social mediums, such as Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram will always appeal to a large group of people, but how will our discussions on social media sites change? We are seeing glimpses of this shift already with major blogging websites that make sharing ideas, articles, and information incredibly easy, taking away from traditional blogs or traditional media. Blogging sites like Medium or Steemit allow for the most popular articles to be pushed to the top of the page, or even to make money for individual bloggers – this is change. The key to this social media shift, if you will, is finding how consumers and companies can use social media to their benefit. What social mediums will work for your particular business? Maybe Twitter, in Elon Musk's case. Maybe Instagram, or Medium for more traditional blog posts or pictures, but also maybe Telegram, or Reddit for an incredibly transparent approach to the business. This is the path that must be studied because the times of every business going to Facebook are passing. People are starting to find the most efficient ways of talking to their communities, leaving behind aspects of social media that have been created in this era of Zuckerberg.

As the late Spanish philosopher, poet, and author put it best, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it". The point of research is to understand the past, to learn from it, and to apply it to whatever it is you're doing. Weather this is to either mimic past successes, or not to repeat failure, researching is key. Without doing it prior to the task you are working on, all your hard work could end up in failure. Research does not have to be limited to learning from the past however. For a business, research is crucial to keeping your company competitive and at the top of your fields industry. There is a reason that companies around the globe invest heavily into research. That reason is so they can keep their advantage over rival companies by offering the best product that they possibly can. However, the main reason why research is invaluable is that you do get to learn from the past. For instance, I was involved with a new project at my internship. We were tasked with finding out about what others have done with very similar projects to ours. I went online and did research about these past projects and I was able to come across a report that showed the economic impact of the project. This was a crucial find because it helped us to figure out what the next steps were in our project, and what the possible economic benefits could be in our area after the project is completed. If no research was done, we would have no way of knowing just how important, and how much of an impact the project would have in the community. Lastly research is crucial to finding the validity of facts, statements, or just about anything you want to know. In today's climate of "fake news", it's becoming even more crucial to make sure that everything is true. By doing research on a topic you can make sure that everything that is being reported on is 100% valid and it saves you from looking like a fool if somebody finds out that you are stating false information. While research may be viewed to some as a time-consuming process that yields no results, they simply cannot be any further from the truth. If you take the time and deeply research information about your projects, both in business or school, you will be greatly rewarded. Not only will you be exposed to a wealth of new information that can only help you later in life, you will also set yourself up in the best possible position for success.

Life is a journey that provides various experiences, highs & lows, opportunities & challenges, stagnation & change. Things happen. However the question is not whether we can or can't, it is "how to". Each of us has our strengths, talents, dreams, potential and challenges. We have situations, limitations, idiosyncrasies that we would like to overcome. We need to understand our many facets and the various factors that contribute to who we are. Understanding ourselves is the starting point for determining the "how to" for our next steps in life, whatever the goal or outcome that is desired. We may not be able to do whatever the way we have seen it done, but we can figure out a way they we can do it. With my background in rehabilitation counseling and being a multi-talent, I facilitate others in developing and experiencing their potential with "disabilities" or with characteristics of a high intellect and creativity. It is a process of understanding, overcoming, developing, expressing and connecting. The understanding comes from identifying, recognizing and acknowledging all the facets that contribute to who we are and what our individual norm is. No one is normal – meaning fitting the cookie cutter average which defines the statistics for what we are to be in whatever context. The first step is to clarify our uniqueness and our expression of that uniqueness. Decide what works and what doesn't work with our desired engagement in life. What works, continue to develop. What doesn't work, figure out the strategy for managing that dynamic so it becomes an asset versus a liability. Knowing our whys (values, what is important to us) guides and motivates us towards our desired expression or experience (our dream, goal). To engage fully we need to connect with our self, others like us, others in general (people we interact with day in and day out), and with our big picture. Living life fully is experiencing all the emotions to their extremes, flowing through the experience, and not getting stuck. Understanding our self includes knowing our center so that we can return to center for balance and rejuvenation. Emotional exhaustion requires our attention just like physical exhaustion. Self-care is the grease that keeps the wheel of life moving more smoothly. Engaging in life fully means the full ride of the roller coaster with its ups, downs, and plateaus. The "how to" is with awareness, understanding and choosing in the moments from our center with the guidance of what is important to us in life (our values, our purpose, our dreams, our connections). The question is not whether we can or can't, but how to.

Cheyenne Bennett is the Leadership & Talent Coach of Compass Point Consulting, LLC. She is a leadership trainer focused on serving family businesses. She helps owners and their leadership teams grow their self-awareness with the purpose of cultivating high-performing teams and driving organizational culture. Her focus on self awareness, communication, healthy conflict, and teams gives organizations the ability to create and live by a value-oriented organizational culture while meetingthe demands of daily business.