This is a really important topic to me because I spent so many years of my life being miserable, absolutely miserable. And you know, when you’re miserable, you don’t really realize how miserable you are until you move into a place of joy.

This happened for me when I was about 51 years old. At 51, I ended up hiring a life coach and my life coach helped me to unlock a bunch of different things about myself in discovering that I wasn’t happy. I was actually absolutely miserable and that I didn’t even know what joy was. Sometimes you hear these words, joy. I’ve got joy. I’ve got, I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart, down in my heart, down in my heart. I got the joy, joy, joy, joy. That’s a song we used to sing when I was young. Um, I don’t remember if it was going to church or not. ’Cause I hardly ever went to church. Our family just wasn’t into church, but I do remember that song and I remember singing it and it was always a fun song to sing, but did I really know what that meant? I got the joy in my heart. I don’t think I had any clue what that really meant.

And do you? If you don’t know what it means, please go back and listen to the previous episode with Anne Scottlin, because she talks about joy. Talks about living a joyful life and moving into that place of joy. So go back and listen to her episode. She’s going to talk to you about joy.

But what I wanted to talk about is my journey of discovering joy and what that means for me. So joy to me is a feeling that when something happens in your life, you can feel it resonating inside of your body. Something that really makes you like squeal. There’s a saying, Oh, my God. You squealed with joy. That’s because it’s so filled with excitement that, it brings a tremendous amount of joy to you. And that for me is what joy is all about.

And I really couldn’t experience joy until I learned to love myself.

I couldn’t really experience joy until I learned to love myself. And this is one thing that my life coach helped me with. And I talk about my life coach a lot. Why? Because she literally opened my mind, my heart, my eyes, my soul. She opened everything for me to see what was truly there for me. To see who I really am. What I’m all about.

You know, before I met her, I literally thought I had no value, zero value on this planet. I was 51 years old when I met her. I lived 51 years thinking I didn’t have any value. Now I was just living my life on a daily basis. You’re going here and there and doing this and that. I did some fun things and did some exciting things, but I never really felt like I had an amount of value. And what’s crazy about that is my husband, who I’ve been with for 32 years, he’s always telling me how amazing I am, how incredible I am, what a wonderful person I am, but I didn’t believe him.

And I think this is where the distinction comes in for loving yourself and loving others. Because until I loved myself, I wasn’t able to hear what my husband was saying about me. And all of this started, all of this started, this pain and misery started when I was a child.

At five years old, I ran away, I was gone for an entire week. I only went to the neighbor’s house, but for all intents and purposes, at five years old, my plan was to be gone forever. I never wanted to go back, but after a week my mom brought me back home. She knew where I was and she brought me back home. But what happened was while I was gone for that one week, something got locked in my mind that my family doesn’t love me, they don’t want me around. I have no value. And I carried that around with me for decades to come, 46 more years to come, until I was 51 years old.

Lynda Sunshine West: Here we go. Another amazing, amazing episode of Women Action Takers Podcast. I am excited about today's topic because, as many of you know, I faced a fear every single day in 2015. So what's the opposite of fear? Joy. So what if you could discover the power of joy in your life and live that on a daily basis?

I want to welcome my guest today, Anne Scottlin. Anne has a diverse background. I mean, absolutely amazing. I love the things that she's done in her life. And she's got an Instagram and Twitter following of millions of views a month. And I got to talk to her a little bit about that because that is... how do you do that, Anne? We'll get into that.

As a diversified entrepreneur, she's a motivational coach, an author, and a podcaster. She's passionate about helping you discover the power of joy in your life, your work and your world. Living to the fullest does not have to be hard. You already are closer than you think.

I want to welcome Anne. Thank you so much for being here. I'm super excited to interview you today and find out how did you get into what you're doing? All of the things you've done. I know you're an actress as well. You just have done so many different things. I want to know, like where did it all start? Were you always joyful?

Anne Scottlin: Oh, thank you, Lynda. Thank you so much for having me here. It's been such a delight to get to know you and I'm thrilled to be here on your show. I think the work you're doing is amazing all around the empowerment, all of that. Just super thrilled to be part of your, part of your work here. Yeah, that point, that's a loaded question. I think I think we, most of us were joyful when we were very, very young when we were toddlers, young children, unless someone was unfortunate, in that age they were in a very traumatic situation and some people are, but I think most, most of us before we really understand what the world is all about, we have sort of that natural ebulant, joy, just sort of we get excited at the simplest things and we, we, we talk about how that, Oh, it's just cause just cause she's a baby, just cause he's a little kid, but I think it's really, actually something much more deeper and organic to who we really are before we learn all the programming, before we take all the hits before we carry the scars before we, we have that sort of joy deep within.

So I'm one of those people who remembers my childhood all the way back to two and three. Yes, it's kind of scary actually. So, I remember stuff clearly from clear back that I remember what it felt like to have that kind of joy. So I guess I've been fortunate in that way to have that something that you can kind of compare it to. And as a young kid, I probably had it until I will kind of have some version of it. Life was getting more serious, but probably till I was seven or eight and then I kind of was like, Oh, this is the world. I came from a strange background. I know you came from a very difficult background. Mine was different in a whole other sense, probably really story for another day, but basically grew up in an extremely conservative religious environment.

Very, very, very isolated from everything from TV, from fiction, from radio, from most people, from anyone outside of this very small sort of religious group. And so it was a very strange place to grow up and you know, you really buy into everything you're taught because you literally don't know any different, you don't have other friends your age, you don't have other adult role models. Other than those who kind of are in the same philosophy as say your parents might be. I'm a very people person and I love people.

I’m excited to be here because you know, our story, this is how we relate to people. But my story — I sometimes forget how tough my childhood was because of what I’m going through now. And I’m sharing that because I think it’s important for us to really remember our childhood and how it makes us become who we are today. I was just chatting with a friend on Facebook — just now I was just chatting with her and she said, I just love how strong you are. And it reminded me that I didn’t have all that great of a childhood. I’m going to go into a little bit of that in a little bit here. But Jim Rohn, you may have heard of this gentleman named Jim Rohn, and he says, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

So who are you spending your time with? Are you spending your time with people who are making you feel small, making you feel dumb, making you feel ignorant, making you feel like you’re never going to be successful? Are you spending your time with people who are uplifting and inspiring and motivational, and they’re going to keep you going and they really have your best interest at heart. Who are you spending your time with? I would love for you to share in the chat who is it that you’re spending your time with? How do you feel right now? How are you feeling right now? Probably you listening to Lois and then listening to Lynda Sunshine West. By the way, that is not my given name. That’s the name that was given to me by people within the last just couple of years. And it was interesting, as I say that I’m 57 years old and at 57, I look at that and I say, how come nobody called me Sunshine the first 55 years of my life? You know, it, wasn’t only until just the last two years that people started calling me Sunshine. And I realized it was because I have completely changed my life. And as Lois stated in 2015, I faced a fear every single day, every single day. I want you to think about that. You’re putting yourself out there to face a fear every single day. Well, why did I face a fear every day is one of the questions that I get asked often. And the reason I faced a fear every single day is because I had so many fears, but it wasn’t until 2014 when I hired a life coach who helped me to even realize that there were a lot of fears that I had, that I wanted to face, that I wanted to break through, that I wanted to change my life.

And so I went on this path. So by working with my life coach, she helped me to unlock so many challenges that I had from my previous life. You know, my childhood mainly is I carried all this baggage around with me for years, but she helped me to realize who I am and what value I have on this planet. B knowing the value I have, that is what set me on a path on a trajectory like no other.

Now, during that year of fears, when I faced a fear every single day, I didn’t jump out of any planes. I didn’t eat any bugs. I didn’t do bungee jumping. I didn’t have fears like that. I mean, I do have fears like that. Don’t get me wrong, but my fears were so deep-rooted in one thing, mainly one thing. And that was the fear of judgment. Many of us have the fear of judgments. Actually, it’s the number one fear.

If this resonates with you and you'd like help getting over your fear of judgment so you can live the life you truly want to live, let's hop on a call. Go to www.womenactiontakers.com/30

I’m super excited to introduce you to a very innovative, amazing, fascinating woman, Teresa Snider. She’s going to give us some really great tips and tricks of things that you can do in your business and your personal life. I’m not sure exactly where we’re going to go with this. It’s going to be exciting to see where we do go, but it’s something that you can do to take action on today tomorrow, or next week that’s going to uplevel you either in your personal life or your professional life. Teresa, welcome to the show. I’m excited to have you here.

Teresa Snider: I am so excited cause I just love who you are, the things that you’ve been creating inside of your Women Action Takers and the fact that you’ve found your love for what you do definitely is a draw for me.

Lynda Sunshine West: That’s cool. You know, it is true, right? When we find what we absolutely love to do, it’s really important to do that. And have you found your thing, like the thing that you absolutely love doing?

Teresa Snider: Yes. It’s kind of a two-fold thing is that I really love having conversations via interview, just like this. Even if it’s me being interviewed or me interviewing someone else. And it’s really a level of conversation because I think there’s some unique intimacy level that goes deep whenever you’re really in a situation where you’re conversing back and forth and you’re also providing content.

And so that’s something I also like to do is provide content so that’s what I love. And then the other thing that I love that I’ve always had a passion for is being in the fitness industry, is that now knowing my niche market is women, women that are 45, 48, 50, 55. So many people told me, Teresa. Like when I was coming, getting ready to come to the red carpet, I had a friend call me and she goes, Teresa, you’re too old for this, like stop it.

Lynda Sunshine West: That was a friend? I’m sorry.

Teresa Snider: Yes, yes, yes, it was. And, and you know she was saying it from her place of concern or whatever. And so, yes, I was hurt and yes, we are taking different paths at the moment. I still love her as a friend, but you know, that’s what happens I think with women or friends or people, as I see and I’m really going for something. And I think, you know, even my parents were like, are you going to get a job? Like you might want to think about getting a job. So I think people, when they don’t understand and they haven’t been in these intimate conversations and they don’t know what it’s like to really find their passion, then they do question what it is that made us.

Lynda Sunshine West: It can be scary for people, right? Those other people in our lives that have known us our whole life and known as, as you were. And then I don’t know about you, but for me, I didn’t like flip the switch until I was 51 where I started embarking on this journey of just doing different things and taking action in my life. I had been in pretty much action-less kind of person. And I didn’t know what passion was until just recently.

So, you know, discovering your passion. What puts you on that path and what kind of a tip would you give maybe to the audience about if they’re like, you know, I don’t have a passion. I don’t know what my passion is. What kind of tip would you give them to help them to maybe discover their passion or at least move along that lines?

Teresa Snider: Totally. Because I would say that really first and foremost, everyone has a passion.  Read the rest of the transcript here.

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Man. It was decades ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. I was attending a military ball and it was with an officer. So it was an officer's ball. And I had met this guy through a friend of mine (this was before I was married by the way), but I had met this guy through a friend of mine and I was all excited. It was going to be a blind date. I was going to go to this military ball and I was about 22, 23 years old. And I decided that I was going to go all out. So I went out and I rented a gown, this beautiful blue gown. It was so pretty. It had sequins on it and pearls and it was just so beautiful. And then I went out and I paid to get my hair done and I paid somebody to do my makeup.

I even rented some really fancy shoes. Like my whole outfit was probably about $300 or $400 and this was way back in the 80s. So that was a long time ago and that was a lot of money. That's a lot of money today. But back then it was like an extra lot of money. And I showed up at the military ball. I met the guy. I don't even remember his name or anything, but I met him and we hit it off, you know we were cordial with each other, but as time went on, it was time for me to meet people. I’m the kind of person who would prefer to walk into a room and just kind of sit down without talking to anybody. I'm very shy person when it comes to meeting people. Once I get to meet you, I'm okay.

But getting to meet people is a really tough thing for me. It still is. Even though I faced a fear every day, you know, in 2015, I faced a fear every day and meeting people is still something that I am having a struggle with. So anyway, here we were at this event and he was taking me around and introducing me to people and it was really a weird time for me because at that time I was working in the court system. I was in the jail system, even really, it was at the jail, not the court system. I was working in the jail and I was a booking clerk and I was embarrassed of my job. I was really embarrassed of the job that I did, but it was the job that I did. And so here I was with these people who were military spouses, as well as the military officers.

And they were all officers, cause it was an officer's ball. And I felt like a frickin’ imposter. Like, what am I doing here? 

Read the full transcript at https://womenactiontakers.now.site/podcast

Today I have a special, special guest, Paola Rosser. Paola is the host of the podcast Journey of a Fearless Female. Go follow her over there. It's absolutely amazing. It's a podcast that took her a year to start because she allowed her fears to take over. It wasn't until her friend announced that she was going to start the Fearless Female Movement to an audience of 300 that she was forced to start the journey of becoming more fearless. She believes that women can learn from each other because when we sit in each other's darkness, we can form compassion for one another.

Today, Paola has interviewed over 15 women with stories filled with triumph, success, hurt, and so much more. All the women on the podcast have left Paola with wonderful nuggets of wisdom. She is inspired by all the women and has learned so much from them. Her hope is to continue to share the journeys of fearless females everywhere in order to inspire and empower more females, to recognize our power. Welcome Paola to the show. I'm so excited to have you here.

Paola Rosser: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be on your podcast.

Lynda Sunshine West: You know, I remember the first day I met you. We were at the Del Mar Fairgrounds and it was the horse races. I had seen you before, but I had never talked to you and it was so cool because, you know, I had this, for lack of a better term, you know, that term man crush, you know, there's like a chick crush, right? I'm like, cool. She's so cute. Look at her. She's so bubbly. She's so awesome. And I was so excited to meet you because of your personality. I've gotten to know you a lot more since then. And so, Pay, why don't you share with us why you decided to start a podcast. Cause there's so many different things you could do, but why a podcast?

Paola Rosser: Well, going to my first years of college all of my sisters were teachers. And so I remember my freshman year my sisters were like, you had, you know, start liberal arts major and claim that. And I was, like, I don't want to be a teacher. The thought of being in a classroom full of 30 children gives me anxiety. But there was one particular course that I loved and it was communications. And when they told me that I can major in communications, television, radio broadcasting, it really lit something up inside of me. Because when I was little, I used to carry around a recorder and I used to record myself doing the news because I really was really big into Rick Dees, who was a radio host for in the morning. He was the original host and I just was -- I wanted to emulate him and I would carry on a little recorder and record my voice.

And so when I decided to claim my major, I claimed communication, television, radio broadcasting. When I graduated, I went to go work for two different radio stations. I immediately moved down. They told me it was a man's world and that there was no room for females that I was too pretty to be on the radio and that I should go be like a salesperson. So they gave me a notebook and they said, go sell air, basically commercial space, for their radio station.

Lynda Sunshine West: How did that feel? 

But wait, there's more......

Lynda Sunshine West: Let's hear it for Forbes Riley. I'm so excited to have you because you know of action takers, really, YOU are an amazing action taker. And we were just talking about something, talking about starters versus finishers and how important they are in our lives, right? That we need starters. We need finishers, but you know, Forbes, why don't you share with us. What is one thing that really, really got you started at the very beginning because you just do some amazing things.

Forbes Riley: I'm working on my eighth book at the moment. And I was writing since four o'clock this morning and I found myself actually revealing something very personal to myself about how geeky and awkward I was as a little girl and, not a joke, it was in the privacy of my own house. I wasn't on stage talking to anybody. I actually felt myself saying I was qualified as a genius when I was a kid, but I had a broken nose and hair and I was overwhelmed and I was awkward.

And I didn’t have a lot of friends just because when you are that smart, it's not fun. Nobody wants to talk to you. You don't relate to regular people. I didn't relate to kids. I didn't play with any. It was weird. But then I found myself writing a sentence -- I think everybody should journal and write. That said, that was in public. And then something I've never revealed to myself until this morning. So you're the first people to hear this at home. I was like a princess. My mom and dad adored me. They loved me. They understood me. I didn't have to explain who I was. My dad was a bigger geek than I was. We built a computer when I was eight years old, we did magic tricks, we used to take apart and tinker with things and we were together. And that was okay.

But they loved me. And they were also kind of weird. None of us had a lot of friends. We were just a really tight-knit, crazy family. We talked on the CB radio. We used to shoot guns in the garage, really crazy stuff. But I spent a lot of time trying to make them happy. One of the things I also revealed, and I do think that you have to do some recovery. Your journey is to figure out who you are and your place in this world. If you want to help others, you do have to put your mask on first. And when I was four years old, my youngest sister had just been born. My mom was an only child of immigrants from Russia. Her dad was a butcher. Her mom was five-foot two, this tiny little thing. Who, from what I understand, I don't really remember her.

She was a bookie. She raised Bulldogs and she was in the diamond industry. Do you imagine the spoken a little, this woman and my mom, they give a lot of money. My mom was five-foot nine and she slept on the couch. Never had her own bedroom. She was an only child. I walked into the bedroom and I'm four years old. My grandma and I shared a bedroom and my grandma was gone. She passed away in her sleep. And I remember my mom with this really precocious four year old. And I started here, but I remember my mom quite a lot. We used to go to the cemetery and visit her parents and cry. She was never as happy as she was before they passed away. And she always used to romanticize that my grandma died of a broken heart because my dad, grandpa, had just died of leukemia.

So I actually think I spent most of my life trying to make my mom happy because I love her so much. And we grew up in the kitchen. And one of the problems with that is everything in our world was about food. We ate, we ate, we were happy with food.

But wait, there's more......

I decided that it would be a lot of fun to recap each episode after the episode. So today I'm going to be sharing with you my thoughts on the interview that I had of Forbes Riley, an absolutely amazing women action taker. Please go listen to her episode. She's episode number two. So go back and listen to that one after this, or go listen to hers first, and then you can find out what the heck I'm even talking about here.

Forbes mentioned some things that I thought were really interesting. I took some notes here and these are the things I'm going to be talking about today. One is that, you know, Forbes spent a lot of her life pleasing her mother or trying to please her mother. So if that's you, you're going to want to listen to this episode and also go back and listen to Forbes’ episode. I have some thoughts I'm going to share on this.

Another thing she said was that if you find your truth, life is better. Boy, is this a truth or what? And I've, I'm going to have something to say about that as well. And then she asked this question, a question to ask herself is how much fun can I have. We're going to talk about that. And I'm going to share with you my idea of -- not my idea of fun, because that won't matter for you, but how I found out how I could have as much fun as possible in my life. And then things happen. People say, things happen for a reason, but she says, life happens for you, not to you. And that things happen. And you find a reason. I thought that was a really interesting point she brought up.

Then she says to stop the bad self-talk and just get happier. People just get happier. We all have bad self-talk, but how can we work our way out of it so that we can do more, be more and have more in life.

And then I'm going to ask you this question. Do you doubt yourself? And if so, why do you doubt yourself? What kinds of things have happened in your life? And I'm going to start right here. 

Connect with Lynda Sunshine West

Sometimes taking action is scary because it means you're doing something you're not used to doing. BUT....oftentimes taking action is met with a tremendous feeling of accomplishment. In this episode, Lynda Sunshine West introduces you to why she created the Women Action Takers™ Podcast. We hope to provide inspiration and motivation to help you achieve the success you want out of your life.

Two weeks before Lynda's mom died, she said, "Lynda, I've lived my life with so many regrets. Go out there and live your life with no regrets."

This one phrase put Lynda on a path to doing what she wants and not looking back. Every moment is a new opportunity to live YOUR life with no regrets. Let's do it together!!

It's time to take action on everything you want and to turn your dreams into your reality.

REMEMBER: Nothing Happens Without Action

By the way, we're always looking for amazing women action takers to interview on the show. If you'd like to be part of the show, go to www.WomenActionTakers.com/WATPodcast

There's a great saying. I wish I knew then what I know now, but the reality is we have to go through these challenges on our lives. You know, there's challenges that come up in life, in business and our personal lives, our family, work, wherever we are, there's challenges we're gonna face, but you know what the bottom line is, how do we come through them? That’s what really matters.

I remember when I was young and as I was growing up I was very pigheaded. You know, I had a chip on my shoulder and I really thought I knew everything. And I didn't realize until I was much older that I really knew nothing. And you know, as I'm going through my life and going through a personal development journey that I've been on for five years, and my hope is that I'm on a personal development journey for the rest of my life, because that means I have an open mind and am continually wanting to learn something.

The other day I was attending an event and there was something that Brian Tracy said, he spoke on stage. It was really awesome. What I really liked about it is he showed up with his notes of what he was going to talk about. And he started speaking and he felt the audience. He felt something about the audience and he just put his notes away and started speaking from his heart. But one thing he said was no matter how long you have gone down the wrong road, turn around, man.

That hit me hard because I feel that sometimes my pigheadedness, my desire and drive for wanting to be right sometimes continues down the wrong path. And that right there helped me to see how it's not about being right. It's about doing the right thing. You know, not that I'm right or wrong, but it's about doing the right thing and the right thing that gets the results that you want.

So if you're going down the path and the path is taking you to the wrong results, it's okay. Just turn around and go down a different path.

And it got me thinking about ruts. You know, in the old, old, old, old days, when they had horse drawn carriages, these horses would be hitched up to, you know, like, like the Wells Fargo stagecoach. I like to sometimes imagine the Wells Fargo stagecoach that I'm driving or not driving, but riding in the Wells Fargo stagecoach, and like it's very prestigious and what have you. And I realized that because of our modern conveniences, that that would not be all that comfortable, but imagine yourself, you're back then in the Western days, and you're in a horse-drawn carriage, and you're a driver driving down these roads that have been created through the ruts of the wheels, like ruts have been created in the ground from the wheels of the wagon.

And these ruts are so deep that there's actually some places, at least here in San Diego County where I am, some of the older areas where the, um, you know, the Wells Fargo wagon train used to ride through those ruts are still there. Hundreds of years later, a hundred, 200, almost 200 years later, those ruts are still there.

And that's just like life, just like life. When you are a child and you're growing up and you had some negative things happen in your life, they caused a rut and then something else negative happened and the rut got deeper and then something else negative and the rut got deeper and the ruts kept getting deeper and deeper and deeper until you're at an age where you are now. And you say, you know what, my past doesn't define me. What happened to me as a child doesn't have to define me.

And so for me, for example, it wasn't until I was 51 years old that I decided that there must be something more on this planet than what I was doing. And I looked for somebody to help me and this life coach came into my life. Her name is Liz. Liz came into my life at exactly the right moment that I was looking for someone. 

Connect with Lynda Sunshine West