The Power Project

My great uncle, Mike, and his wife, Aunt Harrilyn share their life story. It is absolutely incredible! They speak about their childhoods and young adult lives. They share found memories of how they built a life together and how they truly work as a team to navigate through hardships. From creating a beautiful family and career to a devastating life changing accident, Uncle Mike and Aunt Harrilyn’s story is truly inspiring. I am beyond grateful that they want to share their life experiences with me and with you. I admire them both dearly. Please enjoy! Amazing story right?! Aunt Harrilyn’s advice about how we truly know nothing has changed my perspective on life a bit. Of course we all can use our own past experiences or other’s past experiences to help dictate the way in which we perceive the future and how to act accordingly, but we live in a world where there is much less uncertainty. We have access to so many more resources and a lot more information. I believe this naturally comes with a perspective of certainty. I have started to focus more on what I think is best for me without feeling like I am immature, stubborn or naive, of course after talking to different people and taking various opinions into account. It has made me feel more confident and happy as an individual while taking a lot of pressure off myself.

This episode is about an amazing woman!! Shireen, mother of six, speaks about her current journey of becoming a nurse. She creates a detailed picture of the path she has taken from being an athlete to a premed college student to motherhood to now being a nursing student. She explains her science passions and medical experiences that gave her the inspiration and motivation to achieve her career goals. She embraces the challenges and perseveres to accomplish her dreams with such determination and grace. Her story is truly powerful. Please enjoy! I have struggled with finding the best study technique when it comes to efficiency. I am a hard work, but I’m not necessarily a smart worker. It is so tempting for me to tell myself that I will just sit for 6 hours straight and get a lot of work done. Of course that is with the assumption and expectation that I will be productive the entire time. I adapted Shireen’s suggestion of the 45 min on 15 min off 3 cycle strategy. I used it to study for the GRE and it really helped me! I Highly recommend! Simple and effective!

How often do you tell your friend about a weird dream you had, but never thought about dinging deeper because dreams are just not real? What if dreams are real? How would your deeper interpretations transform you? And what answers would you find about yourself? I talk to my uncle, Azeem, about his interests and experiences with dreams, all types of dreams. Dream recording, dream interpretation, and dream philosophies! I was exposed to a whole new world and one that should not go by unnoticed as we also talk about how dreams hold a therapeutic power to them. I loved our conversation and I hope it can provide you with wider perspectives and deeper meaning. I have been trying to record my dreams every few days, I admit I’m not the most dedicated. Sometimes to make it easier than writing them down, I’ll voice record them when I wake up. It has really helped me remember more of my dreams which allows me to have more content to work with when interpreting. Azeem recommends Robert Monroe’s and Robert Moss’s work for interpreting dreams, so that is the next step for me on my dream journey. Honestly I do not feel the need to record my dreams, but I’m very curious where it can lead me over time. I think there is a lot of untapped energy and creativity that somehow narrows our line of vision in terms of our thoughts and beliefs. I prioritize new perspectives in the hopes of allowing myself to be more open in “understanding” the greater system we exist in. I believe this world offers a multifaceted approach to better understanding ourselves and our world. I am exploring dreams to get closer to that transformation of appreciating all aspects of that god has created.

I’m so psyched to share Amir and Amenah’s story with you! For me, they represent the power couple I hope to embody! Amir is a MD/Ph.D now working at the University of Toronto and Amenah is a chemical engineer who has worked for some of the most well known companies like Pepsi and Gatorade. They share their story of hard work, belief, love, struggle, happiness and so much more! We talk about the common tricky balance between career interests and financial pressures. I really look up to both of them and I think people especially starting out in their academic and professional careers will find much guidance, I know I did! The biggest thing I took away from our conversation is that life is not all about living along a linear line, moving from one life requirement to another in a specific order, but rather to build a circular support system starting from the center, starting from you as an individual. It then expands into ripples and layers of support systems that not only help you to stay true to yourself, but also to help you achieve your personal goals while simultaneously satisfying your professional/family and/or other life goals. Of course navigating through life strains some aspects more than others, but sustaining and prioritizing the nourishment of intricately intertwined systems can be beneficial. Life will be filled with hard decisions in which you need to balance the needs of yourself with the the needs of others. How I try to incorporate this into my life is that, as I mentioned in my introduction I make pros and cons lists when trying to make a hard decision. Now what I do before starting any of my bullet points of pros and cons, at the top of the page I write down what is most important to me as a person. This may include certain personal commitments that you do not want to compromise on or certain loved ones that you refuse to let down. But it basically outlines what is most important to me so when I do weigh my pros and cons it provides me with a visual safety net of what really matter to me. I have used this technique a few times and I find it to be extremely helpful!

Ahhh! So excited to share this story, super deep empowering stuff! I am so honored to be hearing the stories of my great aunt, Beth Osnes who is an associate professor of theater and environmental studies at UC in Boulder. She spreads her love and passion over areas of change, especially when it comes to today’s youth regarding topics like climate change and awareness. Her beautiful skill of using theater, creativity and laughter to drive policy change and inspire others to use their voice is incredible. We talk about her work, but we also talk about how we as individuals can embrace our voices to make change and how we can concur such steep societal obstacles. I’m so grateful for the opportunity of recording this podcast to continue my family’s legacy through my “Family Power” podcast series.The Family Power series to be document my family's legacies and stories. If you want to do the same with your family shoot me a message or email me at a1680003@gmail.com :)

Welcome to The Power Project! GUYS! Today we will be hearing the story of Robbie Ventura, a former professional cyclist and currently a phenomenal coach who works with all athletes to help them achieve their goals through his company, Vision Quest. He built his business from scratch over 20 years ago, and continues to grow. His clients range from individuals training for sprint triathlons all the way up to professional cyclists. His belief in others is empowering and quite frankly contagious as he continues to motivate others and himself to live a happier healthier more impactful life. He still competes to not only push himself, but also his clients and other riders to support and reinforce the untapped strength we all hold. We are capable to concur our goals and aspirations even when it seems difficult or unlikely, Robbie knows first hand. I find Robbie’s story to be extremely inspiring and it pushes me to not only set personal future goals like wanting to complete an ironman race one day, but it also pushes me to be the best version of myself outside sports. Robbie’s journey is relatable and powerful. Enjoy!

I want to share my story and explain how I decided to start this podcast and why I believe it is so important. By focusing on smaller daily goals, living in the moment and being easy on myself I have come a long way regarding academic confidence and believing in myself. I want people to believe in themselves like I have learned and continue to learn.