Why Gifts Matter

Kathryn is a portrait photographer who is fascinated in the therapeutic power of photography. She specialises in deeply connected, soulful portraiture to help improve her clients mental health and wellbeing. Kathryn’s portraits, devised from her own journey with depression and anxiety, challenge self-belief and offer her clients a different perspective on themselves - one of self-compassion, acceptance, love and healing. Last year she was chosen to be part of the 2020 Vision Project honouring UK NHS and Healthcare workers through the pandemic, is featured on the Uninvisibility project, was interviewed in January by Rankin and has been invited to speak at The Photography Show in Birmingham’s NEC in September.

Find out more about the Core Gift Institute by visiting our website, www.coregift.org

Thanks to Jeff Hoyt at Hoyt’s Greater Community Radio for vocal additions.

Music by Benson.

Like all of us, Katie has a backstory that has led her to this point in her life. In her particular story, she has landed on the doorstep of gifts. Captured by the idea, she has taken the time to learn the craft of Core Gift interviewing, and also think deeply about the connections between gifts and life difficulty, and the promise that gifts hold for healing and having a firm place in the world to stand. But that’s only one of her many interests. She’s a jazz musician, author, personal coach, and the owner of littlechallenges.com which has a mission of helping people to find small ways to make changes in their life that “make the messy business of being human” just a little bit easier. Be sure to check out her website for a wide variety of podcasts, tools, and ways you can work with Katie.

www.littlechallenges.com

Find out more about the Core Gift Institute by visiting our website, www.coregift.org

Thanks to Jeff Hoyt at Hoyt’s Greater Community Radio for vocal additions.

Music by Benson.

Alex Banfield had to make a decision—was he going to keep pursuing a traditional college degree or find something else to do that felt more satisfying. In this podcast, he talks about wanting to simplify his life and work with his hands. “There’s so many things going on in the world, you have to decide what you want to make into beauty.” With the help of Trek Epic’s Andrew Bryan, he got into the Heritage Masonry and Stonecarving program American College of the Building Arts in Charleston, South Carolina. He had the good fortune to meet several influential mentors as he started out at the school, and his passion kept growing. Seeing both the unforgiving nature of the material, and also the beauty that reveals itself as you work with it, it’s pretty clear Alex has found a way to be at home in the world no matter where he is. He’s worked on restoration of churches, homes, and bridges in both the United States and Canada.

Find out more about the Core Gift Institute by visiting our website, www.coregift.org

Thanks to Jeff Hoyt at Hoyt’s Greater Community Radio for vocal additions.

Music by Benson.

Rachel Taylor is an emerging force in the world of eco-activism She is co-founder of Joyality, an international organization providing practical strategies for individuals to build resilience, develop leadership, and take action related to the intersecting crisis of climate, economic and social injustice, and feelings of anxiety and despair many of us have about the state of the world and our future together. They have developed a variety of trainings, dialogues, projects and reflective activities that build strength in individuals and groups. Rachel is an experienced Core Gift Discovery facilitator, and has expertly woven both the theory and the practical application of gifts into the activities of their organization. Find out more about Rachel and Joyality at www.joyality.org

Find out more about the Core Gift Institute by visiting our website, www.coregift.org

Thanks to Jeff Hoyt at Hoyt’s Greater Community Radio for vocal additions.

Music by Benson.

Bailey Smith wants to understand you! She’s an eager learner, both in a traditional way with schooling, but also has a deep fascination for people and what makes them tick. She’s in her late twenty’s, and full of questions, laughter, and a genuine sense of kindness and goodwill towards others. Listen in to our conversation and find out how her gift of communication has traveled with her in her work and personal life, bringing both blessings and difficulties along the way.

Find out more about the Core Gift Institute by visiting our website, www.coregift.org

Thanks to Jeff Hoyt at Hoyt’s Greater Community Radio for vocal additions.

Music by Benson.

On Explosions and Blankets: A conversation between innovators. Mark Ragins, Campus Psychiatrist in the California State College system, has been at the leading edge of promoting radical change in traditional mental health systems for more than thirty years. Wendy Carpenter is the Chief Executive Officer of Penny Lane Centers, one of the largest foster-care agencies in the Los Angeles area. Known for its quality supports since it’s inception decades ago, Wendy is now at the forefront of the organizations radical vision of creating what they call a “heart-centered” culture, which involves intentional use of gifts with both the employees and in the supports their organization offers. Both of them are Core Gift practitioners, and experienced with many forms of healing and transformation. Exploring below the surface, conversing back and forth about gifts, wounds, and how change and healing occur in us, their conversation asks us all to consider how gifts are the tape running in the background of our lives asking to be seen and given. Although their conversation at times focuses on the younger people they are engaged with, both of them are quick to say that the primary youth issues they are focused on—finding direction, staying safe, finding loving relationships— are as relevant to their own growth as they are to the young people they are helping.

Find out more about the Core Gift Institute by visiting our website, www.coregift.org

Thanks to Jeff Hoyt at Hoyt’s Greater Community Radio for vocal additions.

This episode was produced by Laura Byng, with music by Benson.

Michelle is a physiotherapist and health coach specializing in women’s health. She works in direct clinical service and also leads her “Choose to Thrive” workshops for women. She describes her earlier years as following the traditional definitions of success in schooling and jobs, but also having a deep sense there was something “more” she could tap into. Her all-inclusive description of gift-giving includes her deep love for her children as well as her commitment to her work serving others. Her story is a story of all who choose to follow a gifted path—slowly unlocking a deeper core to who you are, and having the courage to follow it. An immensely humble person, she shows us the gentle, yet decisive, ways that a person can slowly become who they are meant to be.

Find out more about the Core Gift Institute by visiting our website, www.coregift.org

Thanks to Jeff Hoyt at Hoyt’s Greater Community Radio for vocal additions.

This episode was produced by Laura Byng, with music by Benson.

In this episode of Why Gifts Matter, Bruce Anderson talks with Michael MacKenzie, who currently works at Montage Support Services in Toronto helping people who experience disabilities find meaningful career paths through a program he designed called Making Work Work.

Having experienced an unusual number of career twists and turns himself, he’s very adept and helping people to see the path they are on and the gifts they want to bring. Known for a keen ability to see the gifts in others, he has story after story of seeing gifts in others and then helping them to find often unexpected ways for them to give those gifts.

He’s very clear about his Core Gift, which he remembers coming out at a very young age. One example is about wandering the Inn his great-grandmother ran in the Scottish Highlands and interviewing guests about what they were good at! Then he’d ask them to contribute that at the Inn’s evening social hour.

Michael has no limits in his creative thinking about what is possible, and asks us to stretch our assumptions about what both gifts and work really mean to people who often have life stories of feeling like they don’t belong.

Get ready for the ride! Michael has a lot to say, says it quickly, and gives us a window into what happens when we assume everyone is gifted.

Find out more about the Core Gift Institute by visiting our website, www.coregift.org

Thanks to Jeff Hoyt at Hoyt’s Greater Community Radio for vocal additions.

This episode was produced by Laura Byng, with music by Benson.

Over the course of his career and in his personal life, Dan has followed one simple rule: Do it different. Whether it’s working in the edges of community helping people’s voices be heard, raising Llama’s, coaching leaders, or studying guitar riffs from the masters, he is always looking for a unique approach. Never one to back down from a challenge, he’s found himself in a unique position to develop a wide range of wisdom over the years.

In his professional life as a leadership coach, counselor, and organizational development coach, Dan builds on decades of study and experience. Following in the footsteps of his teachers like Bob Kegan, he has worked to develop holistic, blended models of personal and organizational development. He brings a savvy to his work that quickly reveals the depth of his understanding of what it really takes to help transform people and organizations.

For leaders, he believes speaking from the place of your gifts creates a powerful opportunity to connect with others by helping them to connect with the deeper parts of who they are, too.

And that, for all of us, the bottom line is that gifts are worth pursuing as we work towards a life worth living. Don’t ever give up on your own gifts, and don’t ever give up helping others find their gifts. We all move forward together as we exchange our gifts.

Although they are in completely different professions, this conversation with Dan follows many of the same threads as our last podcast with architect Monica Adair from New Brunswick, Canada. Both of them believe in the vital connection between creativity and usefulness, and the essential role gifts often play.

You can contact Dan at [email protected]

Find out more about the Core Gift Institute by visiting our website, www.coregift.org

Thanks to Jeff Hoyt at Hoyt’s Greater Community Radio for vocal additions.

This episode was produced by Laura Byng, with music by Benson.

In this episode of Why Gifts Matter, we’re talking with Monica Adair, founding Partner of Acre Architects. In the midst of growing the firm she and her husband, Steven, started, The Acres has already garnered a long list of prestigious attention and awards.

Twice named one of the top design firms in Canada, their innovative practice, Storied Architecture, believes that every design idea springs from a unique story. She notices that often clients come to them initially with ideas for design that are “borrowed” from other people or buildings they have seen and aren’t really their own. This leads them to approach their work from the creative perspective of helping clients develop a future story they want to live into and, out of that story, the vision for the building design emerges. They liken it to creating a myth—a naturally emerging process of story creation.

Throughout this interview, Monica keeps coming back to the connections between gifts, story and purpose—not just in the design work they do, but also as an important part of each of their employees thriving at work. She has a keen eye for the gifts each employee is bringing, and why their organizations success is based on each person’s unique contribution to every project they engage in.

A person of boundless energy, enthusiasm and interests, Monica is clear about how an awareness of her Core Gift keeps her focused on what matters in the midst of a fast-moving life.

Find out more about Monica and Acre Architects:

www.theacre.ca

Instagram: theacre

Find out more about the Core Gift Institute by visiting our website, www.coregift.org

Thanks to Jeff Hoyt at Hoyt’s Greater Community Radio for vocal additions.

This episode was produced by Laura Byng, with music by Benson.