Day 260: Judy Richardson
“So my choice is to live an inspired life. My choice is to have this well-being in my life, and to notice its brilliance and to play with others’ brilliance. If that is my intention and my choice, then it’s also where I give my attention.”
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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Judy, for agreeing to be part of this Project toda,y and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?
Judy Richardson: Thank you, Toni. My name is Judy Richardson, and I am connecting with Toni right now from a beautiful, sunny day in … just outside of Halifax, Nova Scotia, which is in Atlantic Canada. I am a business owner, a mom, a daughter, a new grandma.
Toni: Congratulations of being on a new grandmother!
Judy: Thank you.
Toni: Well, we so appreciate you being here. I want you ask you about that first question around inspiration, and when you think of inspiration, who do you inspire, and how does that happen?
Judy: The question in itself is just amazing. So, that would come back to me, to the way I live in terms of making a discovery years ago, and how I chose to live is … that’s one of it. One point, in terms of how I choose, but also my intention. And I know the feeling of inspiration so well that my intention is to live that kind of a life where I’m inspired and I’m inspiring others, so when you say who … friends and family, clients and colleagues tell me they’re inspired. Others show me they’re inspired. You know, we just loved to be around each other and in the space of each other. How? I think it’s by living an inspired life, by … I’m very lucky to work around the world, so I have inspiring things, you know, displayed in my home.
I really believe that how I speak and dress and something as a simple smile can inspire others. And that doesn’t mean that I have to be walking around wearing $1000 suits, but it’s like if I take a little bit of care, or if I just choose to put a little color on one day, people get that energetically.
I write articles and put them out, blogs, that kind of thing, and I participate with a group where we consciously send inspiration to the world from the field of collaboration.
Toni: Oh – can you give us an example of that?
Judy: Yes, I can. So we have … it’s the Visionary Network, and we literally are around the world, and there’s a group of us. We have free teleconferences. We have a newsletter we put out, but it’s the energetic part that we come into this world knowing as children, and it’s a simple intention with this group to get together, and we believe in evolution. I personally believe that’s why we’re here – to evolve. I love working with businesses and organizations because that’s where we choose to spend a lot of our time, and I believe that’s part of our personal expression.
So if indeed I’m here to bear witness, say, to random acts of kindness that inspire greater kindness in a kinder world, then my focus is that. So that’s definitely a part of my focus, but my other focus is inspiration and actually doing it myself through a meditation, through a practice, through just getting as much enjoyment out as possible … that is possible out of something, and going, you know, to a concert to something, and you listen in a way that brings the brilliance out of the person.
Toni: Now, in being this way and being in that state, and also being in that state with others and the work that you do, give me an example of how that helps other people explore their own potential.
Judy: Wow. In many ways, I start with an intention in any of the work that we do when we bring groups together. I’m very privileged as well to work with First Nations and Aboriginal communities and wisdom traditions around the world, and so it’s almost a form of prayer in some ways. But regardless of who I’m working with, we start with intention. What’s our intention for the phone call? What’s our intention for a leadership retreat? And we go back over that – so even in that intention setting, we put it, you know, kind of in the center of the space with each other.
So when I’m working with a group – and I was working with a group last week and I walked in, and it was a small group and they needed to do some planning and refocusing of, you know, aligning career goals with the corporate imperative kind of thing, and I walked in and the look on their faces were just amazing, because they’re just coming together beautifully. It’s a small team of four, and one was offered a job the night before and took it, so they’re coming to me in grief and in this “Oh no” kind of moment, and we had the intention that this is much bigger than even them working together.
It’s for, but it’s about, all of their inspiration and the bigger work they had to do in the world, and they moved through the day beautifully. And then at the end, you know, the director said “I had this ‘oh no’ moment, I didn’t know where we’re going to go, and now I feel aligned and focused and the person who got the job … we know we have an ambassador leaving us, and we developed this wonderful relationship,” so that’s one example.
Toni: I really … I appreciate that, and I like … the story is fantastic, and I particularly like the phrase that you know that there’s bigger work that they have to do. Is that really at the essence of your work, that there is bigger work that we need to do?
Judy: That’s when … I used the term earlier, if I come to you or come to a group and, you know, earlier in my career this would happen. I was out to fix the world, which meant that I thought the world was broken, which is pretty darn arrogant, when you think about it. I don’t believe anything is broken, so I come from that point of view. I come … when I come to you in this practice that I do to make sure that when I’m working a group, I’m coming from the field of collaboration, so I’m coming by … if you think of a great big field in consciousness that there’s collaborating … the consciousness of collaboration is already there, and it’s waiting to expand and for people to just reach out and touch into. Then I come in a very different way than if I come in, you know, in a smaller way, because you’re doing something wrong and I need to fix you. And so I believe, yes, that we’re all always in every moment operating at that bigger level, we just forget.
Toni: So, Judy, what inspires you?
Judy: So many things. I was walking the dog this morning, and there was this huge tree and I could hear a bird, and there was this tiny little bird that revealed itself right on top of the tree, and it reminded me of the partridge and the pear tree. It was early morning, and I heard the story from one of the groups that I worked with out of New Zealand that they firmly believe that birds’ work is to “sing in the day.” So it was lovely. I just stood and actually brought some harmony to what the bird was singing, and we sang for a while, and I bowed to the bird and kept walking as I was humming.
People inspire me. There’s something so magnificent within each person that when you touch it, they touch it – it takes your breath away, and it brings tears to your eyes, and it’s an intention of mine to see that.
I have a lovely Golden Retriever who inspires me because, you know, everything to him is play. Anything in front of him is just … it’s an adventure and something to play with. So children inspire me greatly. I have, you know, these global people that I speak with. Websites, such as your blog, that kind of thing inspires me.
Toni: Well thank you for that. When you maybe have a day that is, oh, I don’t know, maybe not as inspiring as you want it to be, or you know that it can be – are there tools or resources that you tend to reach for on a consistent basis to help that along?
Judy: Yeah, and sometimes it’s just having something like a picture of Aidan, my little blond, beautiful grandson. Or what often happens is the phone rings — because he’s two-and-a-half now, so he can call me — and there he will be at the other end of the phone telling me that he was at the wildlife park and saw “hiccups” which is what he calls peacocks, because he can’t speak “peacocks”, so that in and of … but the practices that we use also are if I believe … as I believe in evolution, then I believe everything in front of me is for me to evolve.
So even frustration, when I can reframe it and engage with it and come at it with that curiosity, you know, from that bigger field space, then I see it differently. It doesn’t mean I don’t get frustrated and mad, and people don’t cut me off in traffic and all of those things – it does, but I don’t give it permission to affect my well-being.
Toni: So it’s really taking a look at what’s happening in front of you and flipping it, where you can learn from it, or take away.
Judy: Yeah; and everybody’s at a different level, so some people can flip it, but for others it’s simply acknowledging it. It’s in front of me, and I can say … I can push against it and say it shouldn’t be, it’s wrong, and I may have very good evidence that it is, but at the same time, it’s here.
Toni: Now, does choice and intention play a role when that happens to be aware of it, to maybe flip it? Does choice and intention play that role?
Judy: It does; and the language will be different for different people. For me, I know I have a choice in every moment, and sometimes it’s very seductive to be angry for a while. Plus, I also believe very much in quantum emotion and levels of emotion, so I know if I’m in despair, I have to go through anger even quickly to get up there.
So my choice is to live an inspired life. My choice is to have this well-being in my life, and to notice its brilliance and to play with others’ brilliance. If that is my intention and my choice, then it’s also where I give my attention. You know, if I’m spending … if I wake up after an hour or two of my day saying “Wait a minute, you’re down in the weeds,” you know, something will bring me out of it and usually it’s kind of a gunky feeling or something is right in front of my face and it’s like “Whoa, wait a minute, what’s this about?” So something gets my attention, and then it’s how I choose to play with that. But it will be different for different people.
Toni: Have you always been this way? Have you always shown up to the table full of grace, full of inspiration, knowing that this is how you wanted to live your life? You’re very sure about that in a very demonstrative state and that you want to live that inspired life, and for those of us that at are listening and reading your transcript as well, how did you get there?
Judy: It’s so true. To answer your question, yes, I came into the world that way, and I have had many people along the way that have helped that, so I have been very blessed. At one time we lived in the States, and I was on a race relations committee as a child in junior high school with Dr. Martin Luther King, and then was doing some work here in Atlantic Canada when Bishop Desmond Tutu was here. So there’s big … some bigger people come into my life, but there’s also been times when …
I worked in human rights for a while and I needed to leave it, because what I know is aggression breeds aggression, and I was becoming aggressive. I was, you know, feeling kind of that sense of despair, and what I know is I can’t be effective for myself or anybody else. If you’re not being effective for yourself, and it might even feel selfish to remove yourself from something, but you know, if you’re not doing that for yourself, then you’re not doing it for anybody else. So it comes back to, if I’m living an inspired life, then that gives permission for everybody else around me to do the same.
Toni: How do you continue to explore your own potential so you can continue to inspire others to the live the life they want to, and you can continue to live yours the way you want to?
Judy: Well, you know, some of that is being aware that that potential is going to be there until the moment you take your last breath and move into whatever that next life may be, depending on our choices, but I guess imagination is a big one for me. So that includes a lot of, you know, play, a lot of stirring of imagination with, you know, movies, what I choose to read. I’m very choosy about all of that. Voice is big, so it’s kind of humming, singing, what feeds that vitality of voice.
I watch that habitual negative narrative, if I’m telling those stories and get curious about it, to find what that is in terms of where the gems are behind it. I have friends who help me, and I’m choosy to a certain extent. I have lots of friends and lots of people that are in my life at different levels, but you know, if I’m not enjoying something I know it, and it’s easy to be able to tell people about that adventure. I think the biggest one is saying yes and seeing where it takes you.
Toni: And that is a choice, isn’t it?
Judy: Yes. Sometimes I’ll get in the middle of something and say “Okay, I know this is for my own evolution, but how did I do this one?”
Toni: Absolutely! Judy, you’ve been magnificent in this interview, and you’ve given so many things to think about, and that is what is so vibrant about the Get Inspired! Project, is people like yourself and others before you that have come on this Project and said “This is my take on inspiration. This is how I do it, how I live it, who I think I inspire, and what I need” – and we all learn from that. And so for being generous of your time and your information, we thank you so very much.
Judy: Thank you, and thank you for this Project. It’s these types of projects as well that keeps that consciousness of inspiration going.
Toni: Thank you so much, Judy. It has been a pleasure.
Judy: For me as well.
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For more information about Judy Richardson: www.ponoconsultants.com, www.thegeniusgame.com, www.wowingourworld.com
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