The Voice of Choice

Shelli shares her story about how 25 years ago she was hired as her city’s first female firefighter and made the choice to say yes to her truth. She was brave enough to rewrite her story and today she’s a coach, speaker (with a phenomenal TED talk), and author teaching others to say yes to their truth. Here are some of the highlights, but you'll definitely want to listen to her whole story. 1:  The world had labeled her an artist but it wasn’t fitting. [01:41] 25 years ago Shelli was a 108-pound manicurist ending high school and trying to figure out what to do with her life. She shares how it wasn’t until she shed the label of “Shelli the artist” to one that was “Shelli who likes art, and whatever else Shelli feels like liking” that she became free to explore other opportunities. 2: Three words that changed her life. [06:16]  She was intrigued by firefighting, but she thought, “I’m not big enough, brave enough, smart enough, and strong enough. There are no girls in firefighting.” But her friend who was a firefighter challenged her saying: “There’s going to be a girl one day. Why not you?” The words “Why not me?” reverberated in her thoughts. A switch went off. She spent the next 1,162 days hacking and learning every single thing she needed to learn to succeed. 3: Forget logic, learn how to hack possibility. [12:56] Shelli talks about the times that sucked as a firefighter, but how they were the times she grew the most. Today she coaches people on their internal story – the story that keeps you small. She shared with me her five pillar system that helps people hack possibility – foundation, alignment, courage, expertise, and community. My heart leapt when she said, “And to accomplish anything lofty or worthy of your time and your greatness, you cannot lead with logic. You have to lead with possibility.”   4: Everything is possible when… [26:35] Shelli explains everything is possible when you learn to tell yourself a better story. When you do, you not only heal yourself but you can change the world. On the other hand, not managing your story can be catastrophic to your emotional health, to your mental health, and to your physical health because it’s not living in your truth. 5: Reframing your story is not for the weak of heart. [30:43] Shelli had some profound insight on reframing your story. She said you have to be brave because the stories that are holding you back also serve you in some way. There is the payoff for believing the old story, otherwise, you would let it go. So you have to drill down and see where you’re out of alignment and that requires you to step into something that’s not comfortable.

I was heartbroken when I learned that my friend Jane’s 90-year old mom was in hospice. I’d had the pleasure of spending a few days with Ruth at her home in Florida a few years back and I was touched by her zest for life, her humor and her overall kindness. Jane shared with her community that she’d be honoring her mom’s request to slow down and would be taking a sacred sabbatical. There would be no weekly emails or offerings. Instead she’d focus on her own rest and rejuvenation. During our conversation Jane shared that it was her choice, made over 14 years ago, to stop playing  small that set her up to take the time off she needed to grieve, heal and rejuvenate. As Jane shared her story, I felt full body chills as her words about stepping out and playing bigger hit home. I’ve been hiding, keeping my work and message hidden. And, in honor of Ruth’s beautiful memory, I’m making a similar choice to stop playing small. Please listen to Jane’s words, see how they impact you, and what they inspire you to do for yourself. Click here to learn Jane’s steps on taking a sacred sabbatical. To connect with Jane directly, click here. To subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, visit this page.

Bill Donaldson is a veritable Clark Kent. Financial consultant by profession and founder of the non-profit Love Has a Home by passion. In October of 2017, Bill made a choice to bring a positive message of love to the world. He came up with the phrase “Love Has a Home Here,” and created  the logo printing it on various products such as t-shirts, lawn signs, hats, car magnets and other items that will spread the message wherever the product is seen.  Here are a few highlights from our conversation. [02:34] Bill shared how his inspiration came to him while he was driving. (So many people have told me that’s when they get their best ideas!) He noticed a lawn sign with a great message about non-hatred. But what struck him was the very word that the sign opposed was there; front and center. He wondered, “Do we really need this negative approach to solving problems?” He made the choice right there on spot to do something and shortly thereafter the phrase, “Love has a home here,” was born. [07:19] Bill shares how his connections got him to the next level with sharing this important message. I love how that happens. When you have an important message so often the right people show up to help you share it with the world. [11:19] Bill works as a financial consultant and he’s a dad so I asked him how he’s juggling everything and fusing his new mission with the other parts of his life. I loved his answer, “The truth is no matter what I’m doing, I’m bringing it with me.” He speaks about how his choice filters into every part of his life. [16:40] Then we got into how fear can hold us back. But according to Bill, when you do what you love, you let go of the outcome. He says about our choices, “Don’t worry about what might happen. You just trust that what you’re doing is good work and let it go from there. Let higher powers take it from there.” [23:15] When you have a very big, amazing idea it’s overwhelming at times. Bill acknowledges all the work that goes into our ideas and how to makes space and get support for your labor of love. Don’t go it alone!

After having her son, Althea made the courageous choice to blow up her life as she knew it and raise her child on her own. Her deep inner knowing allowed her to move forward with her choice. 

In this episode I'm taking you behind the curtain to my process in creating a new class that's evolved from my journey of exploring choices. My vision for Finding Our Way Back: Healing the Rift, is to give you the tools to listen without judgment and speak without anger to those you're in relationship with, who matter to you, whether it be a child, sibling, romantic partner or friend. It's for you if you care about the relationship you’re in, but it's not where you want it to be, and you crave a way to get there. In this episode I invite you to listen to a conversation I had with my writing coach, Elise, who supported me to pull the brilliance from me by asking intuitive questions and allowing me space to answer. If you've considered creating your own class or product, this process will hopefully be helpful to you.  A little back story on how this class came to be. It's  evolved out of my journey of writing my upcoming book, The Alchemy of Choice.  As I've been doing in-depth explorations about my key choices and taking responsibility for my actions, I've had incredible healings with both my mother and my daughter. I now feel so much more peaceful and at ease with each of them that I'm able to speak much more honestly and lovingly. With my mother, we ended our relationship years ago after being so at odds and disconnected. Through an extraordinary healing experience, that opened my eyes to how special she is, we found our way back to each other. Fortunately for both of us, we're now connected, aligned and able to provide a united front in caring for my father, during his degeneration from Alzheimer's, without the added burden of our previous detachment. With my daughter, after a rocky fall semester, where I dreaded her coming home for winter break, and also felt guilty for that dread, we went through a process that allowed us to find our way back to each other. As I got to the airport to pick her up for her spring break, I realized the difference in a few months, and how excited I was for her return. Here's an excerpt about our experience from my upcoming book: During my daughter Tasha’s first semester of her sophomore year in college we went through a challenge in our personal connection. She wanted a level of independence that was likely normal for a 19-year old and I was finding my way with how to give it to her while also wanting to stay involved as her parent. It seemed no matter what I did or said we clashed, and our communication was stilted and tenuous. I could feel her eye rolling through the wifi of our phones. When she returned home for her winter break, we spoke of the pain of our growing disconnect and I suggested we do a map together so we could explore our choice to find our way back to each other. "I'd love that," she said, "I've missed you. How should we begin?" "Let's start with you sharing what caused you to lose your way, and then I'll share what happened for me." As we sat in the quiet of the kitchen, and she shared details of what caused her to pull away from me, I captured her words in the branches of a new map. She described how she'd changed a lot during sophomore year and had begun making decisions on her own. She explained how she’d developed a deeper understanding of her pain from our divorce and that she was making sense of how it affected her behaviors. The specific details she shared were uncomfortable to hear. I refrained from getting defensive, kept listening, and continued asking probing questions to better comprehend the nuances of her experience. Capturing her words in a map allowed me to see, plainly, the parts of our conversation that required expansion. I noticed where I needed to ask more questions to fill in blank spaces, and just listen. No judgment. After an hour of what felt like an incredibly deep therapy session, listening to her speak with great candor and incredible wisdom, she asked, "Will you tell me about you? I want to understand why you pulled away from me." "I definitely want to share my experience with you but let's wait for another day. Let's sit with what you've shared. You're home for a few weeks and we've got time to address our experience in stages so we can come back to me later on." The following day I noticed that the heavy energy, which had existed between us for months, had dissipated, and there was a playfulness in our communication. "Do you feel a shift in us today?" I asked. "Yes, I do, it feels so much easier to be with you." "What do you think caused this?" I inquired. With great insight she said, "You listened to me without judgment and didn't try to fix me, and that felt really good." Listen without judgment. So simple, so textbook, yet so hard to actually do, but such an incredible gift to both of us when done. Giving her the space to share her fears and upsets, no matter how dark, without providing my typical parental solution for how to make them go away, was what she needed. Wanting to ease her pain, and fix her problems, I was inadvertently taking away her ability to find her way and develop her own process. During Finding Our Way Back, my goal is to share with you how to put a voice to issues and experiences you might not have in the past, as well as how to put the pieces together of what the other’s been experiencing so you can have greater compassion and empathy. I'll share the tools I discovered, and support you to use them in your key relationships. I’ve always believed I teach best what I’m currently living and learning, so now’s the time for me to teach this work. If what I’ve shared resonates with you, please reach out to me privately so we can speak further. xoxo

Tova Mirvis, the author of A Book of Separation: A Memoir, made the choice to both divorce and to leave her orthodox faith and her community. Raised in an orthodox Jewish community in Memphis, Tennessee she grew up feeling like there was a set path for her; one that her family was part of and one that was always expected would be her own. She knew from a young age that to stay inside a religious community meant she’d always have this sense of community and identity of who she was supposed to be in the world. Trying very hard to be that person, she married at a young age, had children, and was part of a very religious community where every choice was mapped out for her. Yet, she had a quiet whisper of doubt for many years — Is this what you really believe? Is this who you really are? Afraid of what might happen if she let herself answer those hard questions, and how she’d change, she didn’t. Until she did. She experienced a growing awareness that who she was on the outside didn’t match who she was on the inside and it became impossible for her to navigate the feeling that she was two separate people She wasn’t living a life she believed and it was inconsistent with who she thought she was. And so, she made a change to live differently than she had before. During our conversation she discusses how whenever one of us in a family dynamic changes, it changes everyone around us. She couldn’t stay a person who wasn’t going to think about hard questions and pretend so she could belong. Part of making a change is accepting that pain and responsibility, and feeling the sadness and sometimes the guilt that goes along with knowing that you’re the one who changed something. Would we ever want our children to not change and to feel like they are incapable of change? Choosing to change affects those around us, but is that a bad thing? Listen to Tova’s wisdom about change, identity and belonging. The common thread amongst those who’ve reached out to her, from many religious backgrounds and communities, is they weren’t living the life they felt they were meant to. 

Christa and her husband Mike chose to market their business while doing good. Instead of spending their marketing dollars to promote their business, they connected with their network and asked them to Check in for a Cause, so each time members of their gym Tuff Girl Fitness share their gym experience on social media, Christa and Mike donate to a local charity. For their first month, their innovative marketing efforts coupled with their desire to do good, will allow them to present a check to the Hamden Food Bank. 

At 43, with two young children, Rebecca was told she had Stage 4 Metastatic breast cancer and had 3 years to live. She feared for her kids and how they'd live without her. A month after her diagnosis she was "upgraded" to Stage 3 and could begin to seek a cure. But what about all the women she'd met who had Stage 4? What would happen to them? Her choice was to not leave these women behind. She stopped her neuropsychology practice and now devotes her time and energy to The Cancer Couch Foundation. Her choice has led her on a journey to partner with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York to generate funds for research projects specifically focused on Metastatic Breast Cancer.     

Eric, and his wife Amy, consciously seek out opportunities to help others by making an anonymous donation each year. They envision creating a book for their grandchildren that chronicles the stories of their random acts of kindness, hoping their book will be a family legacy allowing future generations to be bitten by the giving bug. After Eric learned that a single mom, who the family knew distantly, had to spend her scrupulously amassed Christmas savings to replace a totaled car, he and Amy filled an envelope with money. On Christmas morning, a trusted friend knocked on the woman’s door, handed her the stuffed envelope, wished her a Merry Christmas and walked away. Eric never heard anything more about the donation, but hoped he’d given the women great encouragement in a tough time.

Knowing she was meant to have a great impact via speaking, Patty Lennon chose to take on a challenge to speak 50 times in 50 weeks. In that process she overcame resistance to her fears, encountered all types of speaking experiences, and ultimately embodied that she's fully here to serve and can speak her message anywhere. Patty's choice to speak has led to the ripple effect of her now teaching others about the power of the transformation that will come for them when they take the leap to speak consistently, regardless of the hurdles.  Here are some timestamps for you so you can easily check out a few of her highlights. Make a tangible choice when life feels out of control. [00:05:57] Patty made her choice to do 50 speaking engagements in 50 weeks at an incredibly challenging time in her life -- she was helping her mom get through cancer treatments, supporting her husband who'd lost his job, and raising two toddlers. I was curious how making her choice gave her an element of control, and she responded that she'd never thought about it in that way, but looking back she now sees that stepping into that huge choice was exactly what she needed at the challenging time. Should you listen or ignore your inner resistance? [00:09:39] I went on to ask Patty about the transformations she experienced as a result of her choice and she shared her “aha” about a previously held belief regarding resistance. She used to believe that resistance is your soul telling you to slow down, but shifted her belief to acknowledge that sometimes resistance is your ego keeping you small. Listen in to her share the fastest way to break through that kind of resistance. You already have what you need to succeed, and other lessons learned as a result of her choice. [00:27:25] She shared that when she became an entrepreneur, she felt like she lacked the knowledge or skillset that other, more successful, entrepreneurs had. But after following through on her choice to speak 50 times in 50 weeks, she realized that she already had what she needed inside of her… Learn more about Patty.

When I first made the choice to seek out others who’d made a choice that created a ripple effect, Pamela Wible, a family practitioner, was my first connection.  She’d became disillusioned with the industrialization of the healthcare industry and assembly-line medical care and chose to create an ideal medical clinic where she could put the patient in charge. Pamela Wible is a physician who was disgruntled with the traditional medical paradigm. She chose to follow her dream and asked her patients how they'd like to be treated. The results were her creating of an ideal medical clinic that is now inspiring other medical professionals and becoming a grassroots movement across the US.  “I’m opening a clinic that’ll be designed by you.” she told her patients. “Tell me what you want, tell me your wildest dreams.” And, they did. One hundred testimonies worth. Pamela brought their dreams to life in the first ideal medical clinic in the US where she began providing her patients with a human scale experience. Her choice led to a movement where other doctors are applying her model to bring ideal medical care to their patients across the country. Here are some snippets of our conversation and you can listen to the full podcast here. What was it about your past medical jobs that caused you to feel disillusioned with the medical industry? Over the years I worked in a variety of medical practices from a community health center to a multi-specialty group to a small private practice to a hospital-owned clinic and they were all assembly-line medicine – meet with a patient quickly and get them out the door to meet with the next. I hated the insanity of the medical system. No matter which job I had, it was too much for my soul to take. I was frustrated, as were my patients. I’m very creative, a great doctor and ready to go but the system destroyed my mental health and stole my soul and my dream. What led you to make the choice to create an ideal medical clinic? I was deeply depressed, frustrated and suicidal about ten years ago. The gift of being suicidal was that I could surrender because I didn’t care if I lived or died. It was incredibly painful to be a healer who couldn’t heal. I had a key moment of awakening when I realized that I didn’t have to do this by myself, I couldn’t solve this big problem on my own. So, I put the end user, my patients, in charge. What did that look like for you? I invited them to design their own medical clinic. I said “I’m opening an ideal medical clinic next month and it’ll be designed by you so tell me what you want. Tell me your wildest dreams.” And, they did. I got over a hundred pages of testimony and their resounding request was that they wanted a human scale experience. They wanted to be loved and nurtured by someone who felt like their mom but was a doctor. They wanted attention. Nothing they described was what we have now. No one asked for phone trees, or physician’s assistants, or being a number or having to deal with insurance cards. Tell me more about what transpired after you made your choice and began your clinic. As I had a healthier job, I could model healthy behavior. I’ve encouraged other doctors to open clinics, it’s becoming a movement. My clinic is like the underground railroad, it’s giving hope to other suffering doctors. They feel liberated and deserving of creating their own clinic, and to date there are over one hundred across the country. I’ve spoken a lot and developed a cult following with my grassroots efforts and now my goal is to really create a mass movement and a paradigm shift. I want ideal medical clinics to be the norm in the medical industry. What are some of the challenges you encounter as you look to create a mass cultural movement? It’s very challenging when doctors are disempowered. There’s a growing suicide rate amongst physicians and I’m bringing awareness of this issue into the light. People need to understand how hard it is for a doctor to deal with their pain of seeing suffering while working in a medical assembly line. The other issue is that people are apathetic. Just having the information doesn’t make them take action. What are some of the actions you’re taking to get even greater visibility into your efforts? Well, I speak all the time. I speak to medical students and get standing ovations. I now lead retreats where I teach doctors how to design their own clinics. I also educate doctors about the business side of medicine. Truth is I need a bigger following. I’ve created a ripple effect, I just need a giant wave. Check out her TED talk.

Josh Yandt is known as The Doorman. As a young man, after being depressed and bullied, he chose to not be invisible and began holding open the door for friends at his new school.  He took the “small” action to hold the door open for all the students. At first the kids at his new school looked at him quizzically, unsure of his motives. But then, as others grew comfortable with his actions, and greeted his open door with a smile, his simple act of kindness changed the culture of his school.