Monday Maxim with Amy 2018:

It’s your mental Vitamin B. Each Monday I share a little motivation & insight to start the week. You’ve got a lot of people depending on you. There is big work for you to do. So here’s a maxim for you, the smart, ambitious woman, to help you SHINE.

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ― Howard Thurman

"If you are calm about your ambitions, you become confident of achieving what you set out to do." - Shiv Nadar

Have you felt like you're taking care of everyone around you and you're nearly burnt out?

Or, have you felt like you haven't done anything new in weeks, maybe even months?

This episode is just for you.

The lifelong friend of mine joins us today.  This conversation with Mandy Green was pure delight.  She loves being a mother & wife, yet had a strong desire to do something more.  You won't believe what that led her to do.

In our conversation, we uncover three steps to enriching your life.

Today's highlights include:  

• How her parents raised the strong, creative personalities of Mandy and her siblings.
• The influence of Mandy, and our friend, Erika, to live fully in the moment.
• You're empowering everyone else around you when you are full of light.
• Every smart, ambitious woman needs a group of friends like ours.
• Learning Hebrew was difficult for her to grasp.  Mandy's solution? Attend Hebrew U in Israel.
• The power of travel in her life.
• Mandy explains the process of how she gained the support & favor of her family before she left.
• Her husband, Brent, in Mandy's words is "The shore to my raging sea."
• When you feel that call and you feel that this is something you should do, it takes courage to step out.
• The pivotal moment in prayer to decide to stay or go back home. 
• Throughout her travel, this quote kept her aligned, "Don't be afraid of your fears.  They're not there to scare you. They're there to let you know that something is worth it." - C. Joybell C.
• "Scared is what you're feeling.  Brave is what you're doing."  "It takes courage to grow up and become who you are meant to become."  - E.E. Cummings
• There are three steps to enriching your life
  • You notice it within, a crisis of character. Loss of individuality, your Spirit is empty, and personality suffers.  Something has to change.
  • This moves you to the phase of curiosity.  You are looking.  So many people are in this phase. They begin studying and learning so much more about a creative outlet.
  • After you've been learning for a while, people come to you and ask to learn.  They do this for 2 reasons.  First, you have knowledge. You have become an expert, you just didn't notice. And second, you are lit up. 
• Her experience in Jerusalem has helped her gain perspective and conquer fear. After living in this situation, she knows her life has a purpose.
• Something bigger guides your life. There's power in consciously choosing to do what you do.  
• See humanity to support one another.
• The term helpmeet translated in Hebrew means, "The exact, but the mirror image."  
• The hymn of the pearl.  The pearl is yours, and yours only. The explosive, exponential force that comes from 2 people who know their purpose working together. 
• Marianne Williamson's quote, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves,'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. It takes to courage to endure the sharp pains of self-discovery, rather than choose to take the dull pain of unconsciousness that would last the rest of our lives."  
• Click on the link to learn more from Mandy online. Giovanni Giocando, Christmas Eve, 1513: "Life is so generous a giver, but we judging its gifts by their covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering and you will find beneath it a living splendor woven of love by wisdom with power. Welcome it. Grasp it. And you will touch the angel's hand that brings it to you. Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty, believe me that angel's hand is there. The gift is there. And the wonder of an overshadowing presence are joys too.  Be not content with them as joys. As joys, they to conceal diviner gifts. Life is so full of meaning and purpose. So full of beauty beneath its covering that earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage then to claim it. That is all. But courage you have and the knowledge that we are pilgrims together, wending  through unknown country, home." Just stay open to the open to new opportunity.
• From Hamlet, "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in mere philosophy, Horatio."

Find more about Mandy Green.

Thanks for listening!

Let's connect on Instagram.

Today's interview is with the long-time friend of Amy's, Kevin Clegg.  Kevin is a successful businessman, father and serves on the Board of Directors at A Child's Hope Foundation.

Be sure to like A Child's Hope Foundation on Facebook.

Particularly today, as you listen, pay attention to:

• Specific feelings in your heart
• What your mind tells you to do next
• Then, be sure to write that down for guidance on your personal journey.
• Be sure to share your feedback with me

Show notes: 

Finding a way to give more to the community and the world is a way to discover more of your talents and gifts to the world.

Kevin's request on Giving Tuesday... and the surprise from others that came from that!

How Kevin and his family found the organization and how that changed his family's perspective on holiday giving.

Why Kevin talks about "The Kids" over again. 

How the Clegg family began to make repeat visits regularly. 

The timeline of the trips to make and travel looks something along the lines of... 

1. Tuesday night travel together.
2. Wednesday- Friday schedule.
3. Saturday family fiesta time!

How you can help even if you have no idea how to work with construction/industrial tools.

The main goal is to engage in the role of aunt/uncle or cousin of the kids in the orphanages to help.

The recommended age to bring your children to help and have a complete experience to serve and give in the projects.  Kids connect can throughout the entire week.

The group of family friends, like-minded people, that becomes friends and has reunions.

How Paul Cook started the organization with a group in Haiti.

The story of one man helping over 1,200 kids. 

The vision of the organization: Connecting kids with families. Back to their families, to a relative, adopted to another family, or giving them the best family experience within the orphanage to be able to have a good life afterward. And how they are bringing this vision to fruition.

Why money isn't always the solution to this situation.

Relationships are a critical component of the effort.

One of the challenges they face is: "Who can give what to help these kids?"  Matching the right person with the right opportunity.

They are completing over 25 trips with over 1,000 volunteers this year.

Why Kevin is so lit up to talk about this.

How the energy he receives from giving in this capacity overflows into other areas of his life.  He has seen this evidenced in his own life. 

The passion that he has seen throughout this experience.

"Goodness happens when you're trying to give to others."

People want to learn more and are attracted to your energy when you have that passion.

"It's never exactly what you expect either."

"Connecting orphans with the givers who will help them thrive."

Why they work to make it affordable to give. It's about making sure to help families have this experience.

This is not a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We want you to come back again and again.

You can get your questions answered at ACHF.org.

Closing:

Find a way to have an experience, give more to the world, and come alive.  

When you enrich a woman's life, you impact her entire circle of influence.

Monday Maxim with Amy 2018:

It’s your mental Vitamin B. Each Monday I share a little motivation & insight to start the week. You’ve got a lot of people depending on you. There is big work for you to do. So here’s a maxim for you, the smart, ambitious woman, to help you SHINE.

You are glorious.

Jody Maberry shares how a business focuses on what makes them unique in his podcast.  Imagine if we all did the same.

How to Stretch Yourself to Become Your Best

This week I'm delighted to have Jon Stolpe on the show.

We discuss:

• How we connected. 
• Why STRETCH is such an important term in Jon's life.
• He's helping men around the country help improve their commitment to fatherhood, family, faith, and work challenges.  See the Stretched Men Group for more info.
• How Jon first got to Guatemala.
• The big confirmation that allowed him to go there.
• Jon and his blog audience brought the finances available to build houses.
• His book, Rooftop Reflections.
• How the book, Wrecked, for something good, as Jeff Goins described.
• The socio-economic status of families in the Guatemalan culture.  How widows struggle amidst the situation.
• They have built multiple homes in Guatemala to help families of widows in Guatemala. 
• Jon's vision to build 100 houses in Guatemala before he passes away. 
• The next step in his journey to impact families and involve the community in the process.
• What Jon and his family would like from you.
• How much it costs just to build one house for a family in Guatemala.
• The life change his family experienced through this.
• Jon & his wife chose to sell their home to have more margin in their lives to live, give, and save.
• How they have chosen to live differently to make a greater contribution.
• "Do for one what you wish you could do for everyone,"  Andy Stanley.
• "You can be extraordinary right where you live with the people you rub shoulders with every day."
• Do a little better.  Stretch yourself.  Make an impact.
• How difficult it is to translate what that experience was like.
• The Hobbit's parallel and how hard it is to come back to regular life.
• You are not ordinary.  You have an amazing opportunity right in front of your eyes.  You can change the world for someone else and yourself.
• Do something today. Cause yourself to stretch.  Become your best.