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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Ellie, for agreeing to be part of the Project today, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?

Ellie Stoneley: Absolutely, and thank you for having me.  I’m Ellie Stoneley.  I live in England, and I live and work to connect people, to bring people together, and to try and help people have more confidence in themselves, and to work more positively and to achieve their dreams and their goals.

Toni: Well thank you, Ellie.  When you think of that word inspiration, who do you think you inspire, and how does it happen?

Ellie: That’s just the most scary question, and it’s also incredibly humbling.  I often worry that I’m just a complete lack of inspiration to anybody.  Earlier on today, I actually Twittered to that question and said, you know, “Has anybody got any brain waves about this, who do I inspire and how do I do it?”  Somebody came back and said, “You inspire me with your infectious enthusiasm for what you do,” which I just thought was fabulous.  And that promptly made me burst into tears, because he is somebody I really admire, and who inspires me.

It’s also really caused me to reflect on me and how I am and how I work.  I try and live my life to the full.  I saw a film years ago that had the expression “carpe diem” in the film, which means “live for the day.”  And to be honest, I think that’s really, really important.  I think it’s important to be honest in the way that you live.  I think it’s important to listen.  I think that’s so important, because so many people don’t listen.  They’ll dive headfirst down a route without listening to the world around them and the other people and the small voices around them.

I think it’s incredibly important to love, and to be open to love, and I think it’s really important to have fun in what you do and to live life joyfully, so I think that’s all really important.  All that in mind, I hope I inspire my husband on a daily basis.  I hope I inspire my friends and the people that I work with.  That all sounds very cliché, but I think you’re not going to leave any kind of mark on life or help other people through their lives if you live a closed and narrow life.  So I try and give them something, but I also try and learn from them.

I try and encourage people to be reflective.  I think it’s very important to think that inspiration isn’t just a huge thing — inspiration isn’t just Barack Obama and it isn’t just Gandhi.  Inspiration to me is also a lovely old lady called Edna who works in a church that I go to sometimes, and she works tirelessly day in and day out to make sure that the older people in the church or the more fragile people are visited and looked after.  And that humbles me no end, because she works very hard on her day job, she comes home, and she still gives of herself to other people, so that inspires me.

I think what underpins it all is a wonderful song by Bruce Springsteen, who is somebody who inspires me hugely.  His song – I won’t sing it, because I sing terribly – but has the line, “From small things, mama, big things one day come.”  I would urge anybody to rush to YouTube and find a clip of it immediately, because it will make you grin from ear to ear.

And on that … yeah,  just the little things are important.  My husband has been terribly ill recently, but he now is sort of coming back to full strength, but he’s volunteering once a week at a local night shelter, and I find that incredibly inspiring.

So it’s that sort of gesture that I think is important, and I will try and relay that to other people.  Rather than saying “stop the world” and, you know, inspire it all in one go, would just be “Reflect on your day-to-day actions.  Reflect on what you do.  Listen to other people.  Learn from them.  And just think about the small things you do, because they will generate the big things.”

Toni: Ellie, when you live your life that way and you work with the people that you work with, how do you think that helps people to explore their own potential?

Ellie: Oh, crumbs.  I think, again the listening is important.  I think without listening and without reflecting and hearing what’s going on in the world, it’s very easy to just live a very arrogant life, a very uninformed life and a very narrow life, so I think that’s hugely important.

Gosh, a while back I used to run a website, and one day I was very bored.  I was sitting in a conference, and I was listening to a speaker that was just rambling on and on and on, and I was trying in my head to think of an acronym or sort of a way of talking about what we did and a way of articulating the vision in our mission and the way that we worked.

He said the word “anarchy” and I was doodling, and I came up with the acronym RIOTS, and I think that would be how I would help other people, by using this little acronym.  RIOTS – which isn’t at all anarchy, but it stands for Relevance Interactivity Ownership Trust and Sustainability.  I think it’s a really useful little kind of word when people feel their lives going out of control, to help them think about rioting and riots.

So in terms of their goals, they need to think about the relevance of what they’re trying to achieve.  They need to think about the relevance of what they’re doing, whether it’s in the corporate world or whether it’s with their friends.  Is it for their friends, or is it for them?  That sort of reflection is important.

The I is interactivity.  Obviously, that’s fairly self-explanatory with a website, but where it comes to people, it’s really important to be interactive, to be open to input from other people and also to be able to give as well.  A lot of people are very good at listening but not very good at advising or very good at helping, so it’s important that that becomes a two-way stream.

The ownership … I think it’s crucial that whatever you’re trying to do and achieve in life that you own that dream, and that you also again in a corporate world, if it’s a corporate mission, you allow the members of the company or the members of your team … or in a family, you allow the family to own the dream.  It isn’t just a closed dream.  It’s something that everybody can feel a piece of.

I think trust … obviously, it’s self-explanatory.  It’s so important that people trust you and that you trust them; otherwise, nobody will buy into what you’re trying to do.

Sustainability is a funny word.  The sustainability for a business … obviously to be successful, you have to be sustainable, so an idea to succeed, it has to have legs, it has to have grounding, and it has to have aims, which again make it sustainable.

So yes, that’s my motto, RIOTS.

Toni: I love that.  I think that is very … I think it’s very relevant as an acronym in today’s world and actually with work that is being done.  You’ve spoken about this a bit with how you believe you might inspire others, but Ellie, what inspires you?  In addition to what you’ve spoken to, what inspires you?

Ellie: My … I’m sure a lot of people have said this, but I’m very, very fortunate to have been inspired by my parents.  I find this a very emotional thing to talk about.  My father died a year-and-a-half ago.  He died of cancer very suddenly, four days before my wedding.  He died, then we had the wedding, and then we had the funeral all in the space of a  week, and that was the hardest period of my life.

After that happened, I was helping The Times – the English newspaper The Times did an obituary on him.  He was an amazing man, an Antarctic explorer who was very humble, very gentle.  He was a geologist, and he was very impressive.  He did everything for other people, and I was researching for his obituary, and the more I read about him, the more I just thought – and again, I’m sure it’s a cliché, everybody has the same feeling when they lose a parent – but I wish I’d known more of this when he was alive.  He was an inspiration but is increasingly more and more of an inspiration.

My mother is 83 now.  From a day-to-day basis, I never know where she is.  She might ring up and say, “I’m in Switzerland today” or she may – she lives in Cambridge – and she may ring up and say, “I’m covered in mud.  I’ve just fallen over in a patch of nettles, but I’ve planted the most wonderful tree.”  She’s just incredible.  Every day for her is different.  Everything she does is different.  So that sort of inspiration is important.

I think the real importance of inspiration is to be open to the world and open to opportunity.  Funny story, which led to an interesting story … I was in the hospital last year.  I have a really revolting autoimmune disorder, which isn’t good when it flares up, but I’d just come out of the hospital, I was wearing my father’s old overcoat.  I looked like a tramp.  I was on crutches, and I was very wobbly, and I took my mother to the theatre to hear a radio speaker.

At the end of it, he mentioned the charity that he has, and she was queuing up to get his autograph.  I was standing at the side looking like a scruffy tramp, and mummy asked for his autograph, and she said “Is it on the website?  Have you got a website?”  He said, “Yes, yes” and gave her the website address.

And then she just looked at me very pointedly, knowing I work with the internet and said, “Is it on Twitter?”  And this chap spat red wine all over my mother – and he’s a very eminent British broadcaster – then sort of looked at where she was looking and saw this scruffy individual in the corner, and just … you could see him looking for his security thinking, “Help, she’s mad!”

And he just sort of sat back and said, “Actually, it’s not on Twitter, and it really ought to be.”  The sort of the long and the short that came out of that story is – his name is John Humphrys, he’s a very famous British broadcaster – his charity, The Kitchen Table Charities Trust, helps tiny little charities achieve incredible change in people’s lives in very, very poor countries, and I’ve ended up doing all the social media for him and for his charity.

Based on that, I was bullying him saying I needed more information one day, and he put me in touch with somebody else.  He sent me a photo of Madagascar of a project, a little school that had been helped.  I just said, “Gosh, if you need anybody to hand over a check or to cut a ribbon or anything, you know, I’m your man.”

The next thing I knew, a month later I was on a plane to Madagascar thinking “What on earth have I done?”  I was just sitting on this plane thinking “How on earth did I get to this point?”  I think it was just purely the fact of being open to opportunity.

And as a result of that, I went there, I social media-ed my whole trip.  I worked with a very small charity out there.  I helped them to fundraise.  We started dramatically changing the lives of hundreds and hundreds of school children and bringing water into villages where they never had them, and all of that was because A) my mother was cheeky, and B) I let myself be open to the opportunity.

So I think – sorry, very long verbal answer to your question – but you need opportunity and you need to be open to it to be inspired, and that’s what inspires me.

Toni: Ellie, it wasn’t a long rambling story, it was an absolutely wonderful story about really being open, but also synchronicity at play, and it really …

Ellie: Yeah, that’s very true.

Toni: Just amazing; it’s really amazing.  When you find yourself needing to be inspired, what do you reach for?

Ellie: I go the opposite way when I need to be inspired.  If I’m having down time, I go the opposite way.  Sometimes I think for me I need adversity to inspire me.  I’ve achieved the things that I’m most proud of in my life as a result of illness or as a result of grief, or as a result of trauma in my own life.

I firmly believe that when people are faced with disaster … there’s a poem about treating plants and disaster just the same, but I think if you can survive disaster, you will always rise up stronger.  And so I worry for me sometimes that I sort of do my best after adversity.  But I think also I need discipline imposing on me, and so if I do feel myself floundering and I have an uninspired day, I will give myself structure, I will set myself goals, and I’ll also … I have people in my life that I can turn to that I know will reflect other people’s work back to me or will hold a mirror up to my own behavior, or I can just sit and listen to them in wonder.

Again, I don’t necessarily mean the amazing public speakers or the huge celebrities.  I might mean … I have a very wonderful, gentle friend called Suzanna.  She’s very shy, she’s very humble, and she’s the most genuine person I’ve ever met.  If I’m having a day of feeling sorry for myself or feeling low or feeling that I’m less of a person than I should be, I’ll phone her, and just her pragmatic approach to life and her very gentle approach to life is a constant inspiration to me.

So I’m very fortunate that I have these people around me, and I’m also fortunate that I can recognize it myself when I need a kick up the butt and I think I must pull myself together.  And I know how to help myself in that, so I think that’s important.

Toni: How do you explore your own potential?

Ellie: With other people.  Often as part of a team, I will sit down and consider as part of a team what we could achieve and then what I could do as part of it.  And then as an individual, I often go for a walk or just spend time alone and consider where I’ve got to in my life — again what’s important, what isn’t important.

Having been through a very serious illness, it really causes you to realize that life is short and life is very, very precious and that you want to be able to give the most of yourself that you possibly can.  I read, I reflect, I listen to music, and yeah, I’ll just generally go for a walk and just try and look for little moments every day, whatever you’re doing, whether you’re on a tube train and you see somebody standing up for a pregnant person or whether you see a whole group of people not standing up for an old lady.

It’s very easy to see inspiration or where inspiration should be, and it’s also very important, I think, to kind of look around you and realize that there is so much good in the world.  Because the media has a very negative approach, and it’s very easy just to see the world as a bad place, but I think a very important thing is to see it in a positive and the good news stories, so that’s the way I always help myself.

Toni: Ellie, you have given us such a wonderful interview today, you really have.

Ellie: Thank you.

Toni: I feel as though I have just sat with a very good book, and you could listen to the stories, how you tell the stories, the gentleness, and the honesty that you’ve spoken about.

I wrote the words “living legacy.”  I can imagine the way that you live your life or try to live your life would be to live the legacy that you want to leave, and that’s … I don’t know, that’s what I’ve gotten from you, and just … it’s a very gentle yet very powerful interview you’ve given today, and I thank you for that.

Ellie: I really hope so.  If I was nearer, I would be giving you a huge hug — that is also one of my trademarks.  I think there’s a lot to be said for hugs.

Toni: I agree with you.  Consider it done, and thank you so very, very much, Ellie, for being part of the Get Inspired! Project.  Take care.

Ellie: I’m absolutely thrilled to be a part of it.  Thank you.

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For more information about Ellie Stoneley:  www.justgiving.com/elliestoneley, mymadagascarblog.wordpress.com

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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Tony, for agreeing to be part of the Project, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?

Tony Lobl: Well, hi, Toni.  Thank you for having me on for this interview.  I’m a Christian Science practitioner and also a representative for the Christian Science movement to the media and legislatures in the United Kingdom and in the European Union, and I also contribute articles to inspirational magazines.

Toni: Well, Tony, we’re pleased to have you here.  When you think of that word inspiration, who do you inspire, and how does that happen?

Tony: Well, it’s been interesting thinking about that.  Can I just read a quote actually from Desmond Tutu …

Toni: Sure.

Tony: … which means a lot to me.  He said, “During the darkest days of Apartheid, I used to say to P. W.  Botha, the President of South Africa, that we have already won, and I invited him and other white South Africans to come over to the winning side.”  He continues, “All objective facts were against us.  The past laws, the imprisonments, the tear gassing, the massacres, the political activists, but my confidence was not in the present circumstances, but in the laws of God’s Universe.”

I just love that quote.  In a sense, what Desmond Tutu was doing on the national stage there is what I feel I’ve been given the opportunity to do person by person with people who ask me for help or who I encounter who I can help along the way.  And it’s that sense that in the midst of whatever problem you’re challenged by and you’re struggling with, there are these laws of God’s Universe that we can just focus on and bring to light and that can bring solutions forward.

So in a sense, that’s my appreciation of how I can inspire people.  The range of people in my experience is something I’ve just been enormously grateful for.  Just through my particular work, I’ve had the opportunity to travel on all the continents apart from the Arctic and Antarctica, and I’ve met truly wonderful people.

The other thing is, in meeting these people, you know, I’ve come up with this sense and my own experience that there is no such thing as being an inspiration without it being mutual.  I’ve really been inspired by all the people I’ve come into contact with, and to the degree I’ve been able to help them I’ve been really grateful.  But in every individual there’s something there that inspires me as well, and I’ve just been grateful for that kind of mutuality.

Toni: Now when you … the work that you do, can you give an example, Tony, of what it is that you do?

Tony: Yeah; it can really vary.  In terms of the actual practice of Christian Science, it varies as much as people’s problems vary and, you know, even in one life you can have so many different problems that you’re just trying to sort through.  Yes … just an example, before this call actually I got a call from someone whose child was just having a coughing fit at night and the parents were trying to calm the child and it wasn’t working.  And this wasn’t in any way a life-threatening thing – it’s just they obviously wanted to see their child comfortable and they wanted to feel comfortable, and they asked me to pray.

I did exactly what Desmond Tutu said, really, just gave them that sense of comfort that there’s this underlying law of God to support harmony, to support peace, to support everyone’s well being.  And as I prayed for them, I got a text message back saying all is well, the child stopped coughing, went to sleep, and they did, too.  It’s just that sense of restoring harmony to every situation through seeing things a bit more spiritually.  So it comes in a number of different packages at different times.

Toni: What a lovely story.  And the work that you do, Tony, how do you help others to explore their own potential?

Tony: Well, it really goes back to me to this idea that we all do have infinitely more to us than we ever realized, and sometimes it takes someone to be seeing you objectively through this sort of more spiritual lens that can help bring out your own recognition that you have potential that’s either there and just not being acknowledged or sort of feeling latent that can be brought out.

And so what I’m really trying to do when I encounter people – and this isn’t necessarily only for people who ask for help, but just in my day-to-day interactions with people – I’m just trying to seeing through to that spiritual individuality that I feel is the core of everyone.  And that as we recognize it for ourselves or help each other recognize it, we find that we have a purpose, we have a meaning, and we really matter, and that that’s a global truth for every individual, and that it sometimes takes us to help each other see it, but it’s already there.  We’re already the complete package, and we just sort of need to sort of come alive to that.

Toni: It’s really amazing to me how the unintended outcome of this Project has been the dialogue around passion and purpose.  And there’s a lot of people all over the world that don’t know how to bring that purpose alive and, as you’re stating, everyone has a purpose.  It’s bringing that … it’s awakening that purpose, but how does that happen?  And this is a very short time frame to even pose that question, but it’s so important.  It just keeps showing up as a question.

Tony: Well, maybe I can share an experience in my own development, because this is kind of crucial to me.  I actually took a course in a sort of nursing program that I was hoping to move forward in, but I wasn’t sure that I had made the right decision for me, that it was where my purpose was actually meant to be.  But you know, like everyone, I had responsibilities.  I was married, and I needed to get some work.  I needed to bring home a paycheck.

This job came up that seems to suit the qualifications I’ve got, and I applied for it, but I still felt uneasy.  And I went forward with the interview, I waited for the outcome, and one day I was walking down … I remember, I was in London, it was raining, and it was sunny at the same time and this rainbow came out, and it had a lovely spiritual feeling about it.

But the anxiety about this whole thing about what I was going to be doing came to a head with this lovely thought that just kind of wafted into my thinking, which was, “The certainty is in Him,” and that meant to me Him with a capital H, God.  That God knew what I as an individual was meant to be doing, and that I didn’t need to struggle to make that happen.  I just needed to sort of yield to the recognition that it was going to happen, and that I would recognize it when it did.

And right after that, I got a call from the job that I’d applied for saying they turned me down, and that was fine.  And very soon after that, literally in a number of weeks, I was asked to do a totally different job that used writing skills and other creative skills that I kind of almost put to one side to follow this other course.  And really, I’ve been doing that for the 15 years ever since and love doing it.

But the clincher to me with this whole experience was I learned who had gotten the job that I hadn’t got, and I’ve actually gone through training with her, and I knew she was perfect for that job; you know, much better than I could have been.  Same skills, but just different qualities which were so much more suited to it.  And so that really was like the, you know, the exclamation mark to the experience to me that God knows everyone’s place, and that we can come alive to that.

Toni: I think that is so important.  This coming alive to it is just this open-ended search.  It’s just the search that people are going through.  What inspires you, Tony?

Tony: Well, a whole range of things.  I would say … I have, you know, a day job that’s like everyone else 40 hours a week or whatever, but I always kind of feel I’m on holiday.  If I walk down the road, I just love seeing whether it’s sunlight or just people.  I love people particularly.  They inspire me more than anything else.

One thing I have to say … in order to gain inspiration – it’s a bit paradoxical – but I need two things.  One is total solitude and the other is company.  And I don’t think … when I look at … to me, Jesus is the central figure in my sort of spiritual life.  That’s where I look to for inspiration.  And in the Bible you read that Jesus went up to the mountains, and clearly this was solitude.  It was him alone with his thoughts and just meditating on spiritual things.

But then you read he came down from the mountains and that’s when he’d heal people; you know, you read of crowds and multitudes.  To me, that reflects the right balance, that I do need time alone to refresh spiritually, but I also need time with people both to express what I feel I’ve gained through that time of quiet contemplation, but also as I said earlier, to feel the inspiration of a lot of other people and the individuality and each one that really means so much to me.

Whether it be a world leader in the news like Desmond Tutu – he’s a constant inspiration to me – or just an individual down the street.  I think some of the greatest moments in your life are when you are walking down the street and you exchange a look with someone and you break into mutual smile and you never find out who that person is.  You never stop to ask their name, but you’ve both felt that connection, both I think with yourself and either with something higher that I would call divine love.

Toni: How are you exploring your own potential, Tony?

Tony: It’s a good question.  I like the reminder that we should never stop doing that.  I think it’s really important.  I would have to say … I’ve mentioned the Bible of course, but as a Christian Scientist, I’m also very grateful for a book called Science and Health that keeps the scriptures, written by Mary Baker Eddy.  That’s a book that to me helps me focus my thoughts on the spiritual dimension of life and helps remind me that my everyday thought is meant to be about how to grow in grace, in forgiveness, in love, in living not just for oneself but for the greater good of all.

Also, it provides me real ideas about the nature of God and about the nature of each of us as God’s creations that give me these insights that I feel equip me to help other people when they ask me to do so.  So I think that’s kind of like the fuel.

And then the journey is just really being open to a greater willingness to be there to serve others when the opportunity arises.  And for me that varies from these one-on-one contacts to opportunities to contribute these inspiration articles that might reach, you know, tens of thousands of people or occasionally I address meetings, which even reach more people.

So it depends, but to me they’re all equally valued and all equally precious, but I want each one to be the right thing at the right time.  And if I feel that, then I feel that I have the way to grow individually so I can do a better job of helping others, too.

Toni: I love the way that you put that, that it has to be the right thing at the right time, and only you will know if that is where you’re at.  And I think that that is so important for people to really hear that statement.

Tony: It’s crucial.  I mean, getting into judging other people and their choices and decisions is … it’s walking on very thin ice.  And I’m always grateful … not that I’m totally without judgment, I mean, it does challenge me, but I’m grateful to see in the examples that are precious to me that that ability to get over that and love people where they’re at and trust their ability to hear what’s right for them.

Toni: Tony, you have been absolutely wonderful in this interview, and you have … your thoughts are very, very inspiring, and I know that a lot of people are probably going to be listening to your audio a couple of times, because there were some…

Tony: Oh, absolutely.

Toni: … very salient points here.  Thank you so very much  for taking time out of your schedule to work with us on this Project.  We cannot thank you enough, and we will have your website at the bottom of the transcript so that people can learn more about what you do and benefit from it as well.  So thank you very much for being here.

Tony: Well, it’s … as I said, I believe in mutual blessings, and this has definitely been one of them.  I’m very, very grateful to you.

Toni: Thank you.  Take care.

Tony: All right.  Goodbye, God bless.

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For more information about Tony Lobl:  www.christianscience.com

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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Sharon, for agreeing to be part of the Project today, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?

Sharon Mast: I’m Sharon Mast, the Director of Volunteer Engagement and Youth Development at the United Way of Berks County.

Toni: Well thank you for taking time out of your schedule to be part of us.

Sharon: Thanks!  This is awesome.

Toni: So Sharon, when you think of that word inspiration, who do you inspire, and how does it happen?

Sharon: You know, when I first heard that question, it was really difficult for me to think about that because as I was growing up, I was always a very happy, outgoing child and a good student, and I got along with everyone.  And really, you know, my parents taught me to treat everyone fairly, but you know, I was blessed with so many good opportunities.  However, my father was very strict, and you know, if I got kudos for doing something from a teacher or an award or whatever, he would sit down and lecture me on the virtues of being humble.  And he did that because, as he said, he didn’t want me to get a big head.

So for years, you know, I never thought about inspiring anyone.   I just was me and just being who I was and took those positive risks and opportunities.  And I don’t think it was until I got married that friends would say to me, “You know, you’re such an inspiration.” I’m kind of like, “Why?” and they’d say, “Because you have such passion and you have such a sense of hope for the future and you give people hope.”

And I thought, wow, I just kind of never really thought about it that way.  It was just being who I thought, you know, I really needed to be.  As I was, you know, kind of going through that process, then, you know, one day I sat down with my son and he said something to me about what an inspiration I am to him, and again I just kind of looked at him funny and asked why.  He said, “You know, nothing was ever easy in your life, and yet you always had this happy face.  You always made things work.  You always made it look easy, and you never said ‘no’ in terms of helping people.”

I didn’t have the luxury of going to college as a typical college student at 18 and going off in living in a dorm and so forth.  My parents didn’t have, you know, the affordability to do that, and so, you know, even though I was accepted at five schools, I worked full-time and went part-time.  I started with an Associate’s degree and a Bachelor’s and finally a Master’s.  Along the way as I had staff in different positions that I was in, they would say the same thing.  It’s like, “You help us see that even people who are, you know, have adverse situations in their life, they can overcome them.  They can come out on top if you don’t look at things as a victim.”

I never played that role well, the victim role.  I never felt that was my color, you know?  I would always see … you know, people would say to me, “You see possibilities in everyday relationships and experiences,” and I guess that’s something that I pass on to others just in my own behavior and in my own attitude and hope that, you know, those are things that they then carry on and pass on to other people.  You know, kind of like a pay it forward type of thing.  So I think a lot of people have done that for me.

Toni: By being this way, Sharon, and living your life this way and getting that kind of feedback … first of all, to get that kind of feedback is very cool …

Sharon: It is.  It is.  It’s very humbling.

Toni: Yeah, absolutely.  And so I’m wondering how do you think by being that example allows other people to explore their potential?

Sharon: Well, as anyone who knows me knows I’m a great talker.  I’m a relationship person, a people person.  I love to engage with others, but I also love to listen and that’s feedback that I’ve gotten as well over the years.  What I’ve realized, how critical a skill that is, and how important it is for all of us — whether it’s personal or professional relationships — is to really listen and not from our own perspective, but what … you know, having that sense of empathy.  Where is somebody else coming from?

And so, I’ve really tried to hone in over the years of reading people’s body language, listening to their tone, their hesitations, their choice of words, and facilitate discussions.  So I think, you know, that I explore their potential … help them explore their potential, because I … I ask a lot of questions.  I’m curious by nature, and with my counseling background, you know, really able to ask sort of pondering questions.  Not so much to have them answer for me, but to have them go deeper inside themselves and explore possibilities, explore opportunities, explore where, you know, there’s sticky points that they have where they may not understand something.

And that day that we’re talking, they may not understand, but you’ve created a space, an openness for them to … and in a sense planted a seed for them to begin to mull over what you’re talking about.  And I can’t tell you how many times people have said to me, you know, I’ll see them on the street and it’s like, “You know, I still remember something you said to me two years ago.”  I’m like, “What?”

Because you … you know, when you can do that, it gives them … in a sense, it opens a space to give them permission to look beyond today or look beyond the tunnel vision that they currently have.  And I think that’s something that, you know, you open up, you allow them, you know, engage with them and you reach new heights because you allow them to believe in themselves and their abilities.

Toni: Absolutely.  And what I also hear you say is that as curious as you are by the way that you engage with these people, I would imagine it opens them up to being curious about themselves again.

Sharon: Yes, yes.  And you know, they start asking questions.  I want to say maybe for the last 20 years that I’ve had staff under me and, you know, my door was always open and often they would come in … with my kids as well.  You know, no one wants to be told what to do, you know?  They want to be able to have someone that they can relate to and sort of just pass things by, and as I said, ask questions that allow them to just go a little bit deeper.

To me, that engagement creates synergy, and that synergy is what allows them to begin to explore themselves further.  And that leads to change, to improvement, to potentially transformation.  Or to say “You know what?  I like who I am and this is where I’m going to stay, but wow, I understand why I do what I do now.  I understand what my triggers are.  I understand that my personality has me … you know, gives me … is responsible for some of my perceptions.  Okay, now how do I deal with those things, and how do I relate to others, knowing myself better?”

Toni: What inspires you, Sharon?

Sharon: You know, there are so many things that inspire me.  I’m such a simple person.  I grew up in the middle of an urban area, very poor.  But quite honestly, I had no clue I was poor because there was a richness in our family of a lot of love and a lot of support.

Right now, I live up on a mountain, in the middle of a mountain in an old farmhouse, and I think one of the basic things that inspires me is truly nature.  I love to go out and hike, and that gives … and I love to walk on the beach, and those two things give me the space to be quiet.  I find that when I’m, you know, really overwhelmed with a life situation, whether it’s personal or professional, I will often find myself, you know, putting on my hiking boots and going into the woods because it allows me to just quiet myself, my inner voice and my mind.  And that quietness and listening to the birds and just, you know, looking around and realizing that you are one small part of a huge universe, suddenly, you know, things just start to unfold and become clear.

You know, when they say be quiet and that’s when you hear and that’s when you see things, I really, really believe that.  Music does that to me.  You know, I can listen to a piece of music and be absolutely inspired to begin to create and design and think about, you know, building and making things better.

I’m also inspired by watching people, many, I think, of whom have very little in their life but they have heart.  I had one woman … I was teaching a parenting program, and this was for low income families that were prior to school age.  And a local school district had told us that approximately 70% of children entering the school district lacked one or more of the skills they needed to be successful in school, which was mind boggling.  If they were one year behind, they could catch them up.  If they were two or three years behind developmentally, they really, really couldn’t.  And that was a slippery slope then, not being able to bond with your school, never feeling connected or engaging and becoming truant and dropping out.

At the United Way, we began a Right From The Start initiative that really focused on parents of young children.  And I remember, you know, we were teaching the parenting skills to parents, but we tried to do it in a way that really was strength-based and solution-focused.  So we didn’t come across as a teacher telling them what to do.  We went back to that questioning, you know, and that pondering and wondering, and “What do you know about this?” or “What do you think about that?”

I remember one mother coming up to me after class one day and she said, “I am learning so much.”  She said, “I don’t have … I didn’t have the luxury of, you know, going to school and learning all of these things, and I didn’t have a good childhood to have parents that taught me these things.”  She said, “But one gift I can give my children is I do have a lot of love, and I know now that what I’m giving them, even though I couldn’t give them these other skills that I’m just learning now, you taught me that that love is absolutely critical.”

She walked away with such a sense of pride, and I was so inspired by that because I felt that, you know, in everyday occurrences there are those little nuances, that, you know, you … you can open that space for people, you know, to have that power to take that on.  Authentic people inspire me.  People that truly help others see and feel.

I had the opportunity this summer to do two things – one was to create a new camp for teenagers around volunteerism, but I really felt that the camp couldn’t be just about volunteering in the community.  I needed to give them a visual of what were the community conditions that created the need for them to volunteer, whether it was around education or whether it was around homelessness or, you know, other people in need.

So we had … the walls were adorned with all types of statistics that was their community.  And for many of them, they had no clue, because they lived in this little isolated community within the community that they never experienced, you know, homelessness or being low income or whatever the situation might be.

And then we had them out in the community and we would do volunteer work and bring them back and give them time to truly reflect on what they saw, what they felt, what they were thinking.  At the end of the week, I mean, it was amazing the feedback from the kids that this was such an opportunity that opened up so much for them in terms of how, you know, their own behaviors and their attitudes and what they thought about things, and breaking down judgments and breaking down perceptions, and I was in awe of that.  I truly was.  But it was … again, it’s that I was inspired by the fact that creating that space for them to be mindful of situations and people that were different from themselves.

Most recently, I had the opportunity to work with a local hospital that was collecting school supplies for low income students in our city, and you know, again they were thinking well this was a nice thing to do.  But I went into every department prior and I gave them a picture of what the community looked like, you know, that 70% of children going into this district lacked the skills.  That, you know, on any given day, 1,400 people were utilizing emergency food services, and I threw out different numbers for them to visualize why what they were doing was so critical and the impact that it was going to make in the community.

I have to tell you, last year we stuffed one bus, and that was a community-wide effort.  This one organization in one day’s time stuffed a bus, a full size school bus, a bus and a half, just one organization, because they felt it and they were able to really see the impact and how it was going to help others.  It was pretty phenomenal, and I walked away saying, “Wow, the power we have to change our communities is huge.”

Toni: It absolutely …

Sharon: We just have to take … you know, we have to put ourselves out there to do it.

Toni: Absolutely, and you can tell that you’re very passionate about that, and your stories are incredible, they truly are.  I know that … it’s almost like I’m wondering if you’ve got this collection of stories that you’ve written down somewhere because …

Sharon: I do, and you know, I was thinking about … somebody said to me a couple months ago, “You know, it’s time for you to write a book.”  And I said, “What?  No, I’m not …” because again it’s that humility that comes back.  I’m like, “No, no, no, no, I don’t have …” and they’re like, “No, what you’ve done, the stories that have been told to you because of being mindful of other people and creating those spaces.”

And you know, it really got me thinking that yeah, there is the possibility of doing that because we all need champions, and there are so many champions out there, but they don’t know where to begin, or they’re told, “No, we can’t do that.”  We need people to be able to say, “Yes you can, yes you can.”

Toni: Absolutely.  Sharon, the final question of the Project, and unfortunately, you know, we are on this time constraint and just listening and you just get … you can listen forever, can’t you?  I mean, I can.  But what are you doing now to continue to explore your own potential so that you can be that advocate for people who want to change and grow?  What are you doing now?

Sharon: Well, you know, this last year I really struggled because my job has changed several times over the last few years, and I came into a space where, you know, I was no longer doing what I was truly passionate about.  I was doing good work, but it wasn’t me.  And I kind of went back and asked a lot of people, because I lost a little bit of confidence and a little bit of feeling that, you know, like what’s my value here?

I asked people what they saw as my value, what I brought to the table, both professionally and personally.  And not from an ego standpoint but truly from the point of, you know, reinventing yourself, and I think it’s important to keep, you know, reflecting on what you’re doing.  Are you still doing what you’re passionate about?  Can you reinvent yourself?  What else might you do?

And so, you know, the process of going through that for myself really made me step back and realize that, you know, I can do this work, and I don’t need necessarily an agency or a container to hold me back.  And so over the last year as I explored my own potential, someone had said to me, “You’re a spirit whisperer.”  I thought that’s an interesting word, and basically they defined it as someone who quietly opens the space for others to explore their potential, and I thought, “Yeah, that’s what I do,” whether it’s as a program or an agency.

So I’ve been exploring going out on my own, contracting with other organizations that I truly am inspired by the work they do, and trying to look at how can I be an advocate for them or another voice to get their work out into new avenues.  So as I go forward the next few months, that’s what I plan on doing is to just get out there on my own and, you know, let that spirit soar and see where it takes me, because I truly believe that God puts you where you’re meant to be, and I’m not done yet.

Toni: Fantastic, and you know there’s a lot of people that will be listening to this interview and they’re going to be wondering in four months’, five months’ time, “Where did she go, what is she doing?  I want to know.”

Sharon, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to be part of this Get Inspired! Project, and all of the wisdom that you’ve shared in this interview has been fantastic, and we can’t thank you enough for being part of it today.

Sharon: Well thank you.  I just … I’m inspired by the possibilities that will come out of this Project, and just giving people, you know, the opportunity to believe that they can, you know, and to inspire hope, you know, in others, so good for you.  Kudos to you.

Toni: Well thank you, Sharon, and take care of yourself, and we’ll talk soon.

Sharon: Okay, thank you.

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For more information about Sharon Mast:  www.uwberks.org/wwwpub

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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Meredith, for agreeing to be part of this Project, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?

Meredith Deeds: Well, I just want to say thank you, Toni, for giving me this opportunity.  What a wonderful Project this is.

Toni: Thank you.

Meredith: My name is Meredith Deeds.  I’m a cookbook author, and I’m a freelance food writer, and I’m a culinary instructor, and I’m an editor, and I’m a mother and a wife, and a friend.

Toni: Well, Meredith, when you think about that word inspiration, who do you think you inspire, and how does that happen?

Meredith: Well, I hope I inspire my students and my readers through my cookbooks and my articles, and everywhere I can reach out to people about cooking.  I really, really think about what will make them feel good about themselves, and the way I like to approach teaching people how to cook or giving people information about food is to build up their confidence.

So often people feel like they can’t cook, and that’s not true for anybody.  Everybody on the face of the earth can cook, and it’s just giving them the information that they need to feel better about it.  And for me, it’s not just about getting them to create better food for themselves … that’s a big part of it, but I really feel strongly about the inspiration that food itself will bring to other people.  It certainly brings it to me, but it inspires people to come together in the kitchen.  It inspires them to come together around the table, and the more they enjoy that process, they more they are going to participate in it.  If they feel good about what they’re doing and their ability to do it, I think that they’ll be more inspired to be a part of that kind of community.

Toni: What happens with … when you are teaching or writing and you said what you hope happens is that you’re inspiring people to think about food differently and to have that confidence.

Meredith: Right.

Toni: What happens to someone’s potential in that particular area?  If they gain the confidence in cooking, what might happen as far as exploring their potential?

Meredith: Well, I think that whenever you gain confidence in anything, it’s like a link in a chain.  It makes you feel better about yourself and your ability to do things, and it brings you to the next adventure, and you look at the next adventure differently.  “I could never bake a cake, but then I read this recipe, I saw this teacher, I got through this article, and I created this extraordinary cake, and we all enjoyed it together, and what a fantastic experience.”  “You know what?  I’ve never climbed a mountain, but you know, maybe I’ll think about it.  I might not do it right away, but maybe I’ll think about it, because look what I did that I never thought I could do.”

And so it’s just really … I mean, that’s an extreme example, obviously, but I think once you start to gain confidence in yourself, that really the sky is the limit and you start looking at the world in a very different way.

Toni: You said you are a cookbook author?

Meredith: I am.  One of the things I do.

Toni: How many books have you written?

Meredith: I’ve written six books.

Toni: Wow.

Meredith: It’s a lot of books.

Toni: And aren’t they called like a “big book” of something?

Meredith: Yeah, they’re all big books.

Toni: It’s a lot of the big books.

Meredith: It’s a lot of the big books, yeah.  I’ve got several big books, and you know, the fun thing about the future is that now that we’re all entering the digital age, there really is a brand new world open to us.  And maybe we won’t do the big books so much anymore, but we’re really learning to touch people in a million different ways.  We can be there in the kitchen with them, they can see us cooking on their iPad, they can read our recipes, and that’s another way that we can give people a little bit more confidence in what they’re doing in the kitchen.

Toni: Exactly.  It’s a virtual mentor, isn’t it?

Meredith: It is; it really is.  It’s having someone really almost feel like they’re right there by your side.

Toni: So what inspires you, Meredith?

Meredith: What inspires me?  There’s a lot of things that inspire me, obviously, but one of the things that inspires me the most is opportunity.  And if I have a great opportunity in front of me and it seems like a positive experience, I am often inspired way beyond what I ever thought I would be, and I think the inspiration makes me more creative and makes me more confident and allows me to really reach, push the envelope for myself.  And I think that that’s an important thing to do for all of us.

Toni: When you are seeking inspiration, do you tend to reach for certain tools or resources?  Are there consistent things you go to?

Meredith: Yes, yes.  One of the consistent things I go to is my husband and my children.  I find constant inspiration.  When I feel down, there is nobody that can cheer me up quicker than my husband.  When I feel as though I can’t do something and I’m way over my head, my family gives me the confidence to carry on, and I would say it’s absolutely as consistent as anything can possibly be.

Toni: Would you say that you’re passionate about the work that you do now?

Meredith: Absolutely, absolutely.

Toni: So people that are listening to this interview or reading your transcript, there’s been an unintended outcome of the Get Inspired! Project, which people are talking about what they’re passionate about and working towards or on their purpose.  How did you get there?

Meredith: How did I get passionate about what I’m doing, or …

Toni: How did you get lucky enough – and I don’t know that you have – but how did you get to the place where you could work on something you were passionate about?

Meredith: Well, luck has its role, and it always does.  I grew up in the restaurant business.  I grew up in a family that was very adventurous in a culinary way, and I knew from an early age where my passion lies.  That is just luck.  You know, there’s a lot of people that don’t find out until they’re 40 … I think there’s even a famous, you know, speech about that, like the people I like the best are the ones that they don’t know what they want to do until they’re 40 – they don’t know what they want to be when they grow up until they’re already, you know, old.  And there’s, I’m sure, something to that.  But for me, knowing early how much I loved food and how much I loved to cook was a big, big, big plus.

Then there was a period of time where things weren’t great in the country in an economic way, and I veered off the course a little bit and I got an accounting degree.  And I spent a few years being an accountant, getting my husband through his Ph.D. program, and that really solidified my belief that food is what I’m passionate about.

And it really is … life is bittersweet, and I think that that is the best part about life.  And if you’ve never experienced the bitter, how are you really ever going to appreciate the sweet?  I think that that has been key for me often, and one of those things is realizing how much I dislike doing something I wasn’t passionate about has really made me appreciate and work harder at the things I am passionate about.

And the other thing, too, is I’ve been in a fantastic partnership.  I’ve been in a few fantastic partnerships, but my husband has certainly been encouraging, and there have been some lean years, you know, where that might not have been an easy thing for him to do, and he always was.  You know, I’ve had a writing partner, Carla Snyder, I’ve worked with, and that was … you know, partnerships are a good thing.  But the passion, being passionate about what you do – life is too short not to be.

Toni: Absolutely.  What a great way to put that as well, and I like the bittersweet analogy with no pun intended on the cooking.

Meredith: Right.  I haven’t even gotten into the puns yet, Toni.  We’ll work our way into those.  We haven’t even talked about biting off more than you can chew, right?

Toni: Oh my goodness … okay … so, what do you do now to explore your own potential?

Meredith: You’re going to laugh … I do bite off more than I can chew.

Toni: There should be a bell ringing somewhere.

Meredith: I know.  There’s a rim shot in there, you know.  I do do that.  I tend to not say no to opportunities that are in front of me even if it’s not something that’s in my comfort zone.  I’m not afraid to step out of my comfort zone.  My initial response at saying yes to things is often because I tend to be a little bit of a pleaser.  “Sure, I can do it for you.  I can solve your problem for you.”

And it starts off in a good … you know, I do it from a good place in my heart, but what often it leads to is down a path I never expected to go.  I find things out about myself, and “Wow, I’m much better at that than I anticipated I would be,” or “that’s not something that interests me as much as I thought it would.”  But either way, I think that if you do get out of your comfort zone and take advantage of the opportunities that lie in front of you, you’re going to find your way, and it’s going to benefit you in the end.

Toni: How do you keep up on the learning and the teaching that you do and coming up with new books?  How does that happen?

Meredith: Well, a lot of it is reading.  You know, I’m in this fantastic industry where there’s so many other creative and inspirational people writing about food and talking about food and making food and tasting food, and kind of keeping up and being a part of that community, so I find myself in the loop.  I find that really important, and anymore with social media, this is a pretty easy thing to do.  I’m not a social media expert, but I do find that the one thing I really appreciate the most is how much it does help me with my continuing education.

Toni: So you really have to be aware of what’s out there and then also read it, digest it … there’s another one … I didn’t mean that …

Meredith: See – once it starts, it’s hard to stop.  You just can’t have one.  There’s … yeah, exactly.  And you figure out, you know, the sources that you like the most.  Not everything on the internet is quotable or reliable, but you do find your way, and that’s how I kind of keep myself, you know, informed.  Also, there’s just simply a … the learning curve keeps you educated and going.  You say yes to something, and you kind of have to figure it out along the way if you’re not familiar with it, and that’s a part of it, too.  By the time you get to the other side, you know a lot more than you did to begin with.

Toni: Absolutely.  And I can only imagine just in this brief interview with you how inspirational you must be in front of your students.  And if you write this way … because the interview … there’s words that I associate with most of the interviews and for you, it was delightful, because you really and truly were, and if you are this passionate and it comes through and this … you sound so full of joy, really, and if that is put in front of your students, what a gift you’re giving them.

Meredith: Well, I hope so.  It’s certainly a gift I’d like to give them.  And it’s not really a gift I’m giving them, it’s a gift we’re sharing with one another, and that’s … again, that brings me right back to food and the table and the things I find most inspirational.

Toni: Well, Meredith, thank you so much for being part of this Project, and I wish you the best success.

Meredith: Well thank you, Toni.  This was delightful for me as well.

Toni: Great.  Take care.

Meredith: Thank you.

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For more information about Meredith Deeds:  www.meredithandcarla.com

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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Lesa, for agreeing to be part of this Project, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?

Lesa Day: Yes, Toni, thank you again for having me.  My name is Lesa Day, and I am originally from the Northeast here in the United States and living now in Atlanta, and I’m an author and a speaker and a parent/family coach.  The title of my book is How To Get Your Child To Say Yes I Can and I Will, and you can contact me and www.yesicanandiwill.com.

Toni: Fantastic.  Thank you, Lesa, and thank you for being here.  Lesa, when you think of the word inspiration, who do you inspire, and how does that happen?

Lesa: Well, truthfully, Toni, I hope that I’m one of those people that every day the people that I encounter that I inspire them, just because I really believe in having a positive, upbeat attitude wherever I go.

I think again when we think about people who influence us throughout our lives, I’ve been extremely blessed to have people in my life like John Maxwell and Stephen Covey and all of those great authors that I was able to get exposed to, you know, like 20 years ago and having great leadership like that, so that’s sort of like in me.

My niche area is working with parents and families, because I really have a heart for our youth and really training up our kids to be as independent as possible, and yet really increasing self-esteem while they’re going through that process of growth, no matter what age they’re at, and honing in on what are they really passionate about and understanding their strengths in order to just make themselves better and the world better around them.

Toni: And you do this through coaching?

Lesa: I do.  I do it through coaching — personal coaching as well as offering workshops and also working online.

Toni: When you’re doing this type of work, how do you think that you will help someone to explore their own potential?

Lesa: I try … well, first of all, I try to relay to people whenever I’m communicating with them that all things are possible – it’s just a question of how bad you want it.  I guess I’ve always believed that, because I’m always an adventurous person.  I mean, like 12 years ago, I felt like I needed to go on an exploration journey, and I just hopped in my car and I just traveled for seven months.  That’s priceless, the things that you can learn when you do things like that.  So when you’re doing that in your own life and you’re willing to, you know, step out of your comfort zone, then it’s easy to teach that same type of thing when you’re coaching people.

So when I’m working with them and I’m thinking about their strengths … I even teach like on the personality types, and I’ll bring that into, you know, “Let’s talk about, do you know, you know, sort of why you do the things that you do and how you do them?”  It helps them to be more accepting of their strengths and to really hone in on that and not to feel bad about their weaknesses, because we all have weaknesses.  And then they’re also able to appreciate other people and how they can best work with them.

Toni: So really the inspiration then becomes almost a pay it forward situation, doesn’t it?

Lesa: Yes, and that’s wonderful.

Toni: Yeah.  So, what inspires you?

Lesa: When I see and hear other people’s stories, particularly those that have always stood on a high level of integrity.  I try to surround myself with positive people all the time, because I also understand that as a coach when you are working with people, there’s energy that’s flowing out of you all the time, and if I’m not feeding myself somehow, I’m going to empty out.  I’m going to … I’m going to just dry up, if that makes sense.  Does that make sense, Toni?

Toni: It does, absolutely.

Lesa: So I recall it was a guy by the name of Charlie “Tremendous” Jones, and Charlie’s got to be like in his 80s today, that was a motivational speaker like 30 years ago.  He wrote this great book called Life Is Tremendous, and it stuck with me ever since.

I tell people this all the time, that there are two things that will determine where I’m going to be five years from now, Toni, and that is the people I meet and the books I read.  When I understand how powerful that influence is and that I actually have some control over that, I discipline myself to put myself in front of people that I feel can influence me in ways that is bigger than mine — whether it’s a success level, what they’ve done in their life — because they have the opportunity to share things with me that can help me move forward, and I’m always grateful when I can do that.

Toni: Lesa, have you always shown up to the table that way, that you knew that you wanted to be a positive role model, work with children and parents, but also stay in that positive place?  Have you always been that way, or has this been something that you worked on based on a decision to not be another way?

Lesa: Two things.  One, the idea of inspiring people and sort of being there to nurture, I think, has always been that way, and I didn’t even realize that until many, many years later.  Like if you were to look back into my youth, back in like junior high and high school, I was one of those that the kids always came to for advice.  So that role was sort of there naturally without me even knowing it.

But until I got into my 20s and was in business with men and women that were like old enough to be my parents did I really get that wisdom of how powerful influence is on your life, you know, because whether we like it or not, we think about it.

I mean, you are doing such an awesome project here, Toni, because you are honing in on something that’s positive, motivating, and helping people to be uplifted and to move forward.  But if we just walk out into the world and we just watch what’s going around us, there’s a lot of negativity out there, and we have to search for the positive.

Toni: Thank you for that; and so you are making a conscious choice to search for that positive.

Lesa: Absolutely.

Toni: Do you find … go ahead, go ahead, I’m sorry.

Lesa: And if it’s not … if it’s not like sort of like right there in front of me, I think because my brain has been trained sort of like that all the time now, I’m the one who will speak, you know, the positive into a situation.  What do you mean … like all my kids, if I’m working with kids, know that “I can’t” is not in the vocabulary.  “What do you mean you can’t?  You can do anything that you possibly want to do, if you want it bad enough.  I understand that it’s difficult.  I understand, you know, if you feel like you’re going to do 10 more steps than what you wanted to, but ‘I can’t’ is not an option.”

Toni: I think that’s great.  Do you find yourself … if you need to be inspired, do you find yourself reaching for the same tools and resources?

Lesa: Absolutely.  I’m an avid reader, whether it’s something on leadership or inspiration, I think there’s a balance there.  I think that I need to have a balance of sort of like “how to” in creating self-discipline, and then I also need to be able to have the stories, because that’s part of how we’re wired, you know?

Toni: Absolutely.  So what are you doing now to explore your own potential?

Lesa: Oh, I am doing a lot more marketing when it comes to the teachings and expanding upon that as far as an audience.  I have to tell you that I go back and forth, Toni, with … my niche is the area for parents and families, and that was one of those that just sort of happened.  Me working with agencies all over the country and working with the families didn’t, but the book and that … that just happened.  That wasn’t something that … if you had asked me 10 years ago or 15 years ago was I going to do that?  No, it wasn’t.  I did that because I felt again that was my responsibility with the gift that I’ve been given.

As I traveled throughout the U.S. — and I had already done motivational speaking in my past — I had families coming up to me in communities asking me, “What are you doing with these kids?  Why are we seeing such a significant difference in their behaviors and their attitudes and their self-esteem in a matter of like three weeks, a month, or six weeks?”

My thought process was, Toni, this is just normal to me.  This is just something that I do every day.  And I began to understand that people, they sort of understand what it is that I’m doing, but they don’t know how to do it.  And I’ve sort of had to like have people knock on my door for about five years, Toni, before I was like, okay, I gave in.  It was almost like, “All right, I’m going to write the book – I promise.  I’ll do it.  I’ll do it.”

And you know, there’s transitions that happen in your life and you say “Okay, well I guess now is the time.”  And what happened was, I was in New York.  I was working an hour out of Manhattan, and I was just sort of in a place where I’m like “Okay, I’ve got the time and there isn’t anything really here to distract me,” and I had my book in and out within 12 months.

Toni: Wow.

Lesa: But a lot it has to do with the team, too.  I mean, I think that again, when we talk about influence in our lives, okay, there are people in our lives that are there to be like mentors to us and to use their gifts to help us move forward, and I’ve known that, and I’ve followed that for more than 20 years now in my life.  I don’t hesitate to connect with them.

Whatever it is that I’m doing … if I was writing the book, I had people in my life that I had worked with back in my social work field that, you know, are now working in family mediation and family counseling.  And I had a whole array of people that were just really excited about this project, sort of like yours, Toni, that we’re willing to step in and we’re willing to be a part of this project, because we really believe and understand what it is that you’re doing, and we want to be a part of it.  That’s powerful.

Toni: It is powerful, and you’ve given some very powerful messages here.  You know, it really is a choice to seek out a positive or to stay in a negative or to dwell in the negative, and you’ve made it very clear that you make it a conscious choice to reach for that positive.  And to be able to share that choice and work with using your normal into the coaching world, as you said, I think with something that just makes total sense to you, you’re applying it to children and parents that you work with, and that’s pretty phenomenal stuff.

So Lesa, I’m thrilled that we were able to have you be part of the Get Inspired! Project, and I want people to be able to get ahold of your books or to see your websites, so we will have those links at the bottom of the transcript, and we can’t thank you enough for taking your time out of your schedule to be part of this Project.

Lesa: Thank you, Toni, so much.  It’s my honor, and any time that we can work together, you call me and let me know, and I’m more than happy to assist you.

Toni: Well thank you so much.  Take care of yourself.

Lesa: Thanks, Toni.

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For more information about Lesa Day:  www.yesIcanandIwill.com

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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Charmayne, for agreeing to be part of this Project, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?

Charmayne Kilcup: Yes, thank you, Toni.  My name is Charmayne Kilcup, and I call myself a soul coach.  I’ve been doing intuitive healing and guidance and consulting work for about five years now.  I have a Master’s in counseling and kind of incorporate a lot of counseling into my healing work.  Also, I’m doing a Ph.D. in transpersonal psychology.

Toni: Well thank you for being here.  Charmayne, when you think of that word inspiration, who do you think you inspire, and how might that happen?

Charmayne: Well you know, I thought about that, and I thought about how it’s so hard to know how we inspire other people.  I see so many people do so many things each and every single day, and I watch them, and they hardly even know I’m there, but they’re inspiring me.  And so I think that, you know, it’s almost an impossible question for me to answer.

I think about a teacher I had in sixth grade — her name was Miss Trujillo — and she was just a wonderful, beautiful soul.  I was a very painfully shy and sensitive sixth grader, and I got made fun of quite a bit for it.  She was my English teacher, and I loved to write.  When I wrote, I wrote very sensitive, kind of dark pieces about the problems of the world, and she actually encouraged me to go deeper into my sensitivity instead of to stay away from it like so many others had been doing at the time.

And I think of her, and that was years and years ago, but I still think about how much she inspired me and helped put me on my path, and she’ll never know.  I have no idea where she is now, but I know she’s inspired me and other people, you know, in my same kind of situation.  So I think of people like her and think about, wow, we rarely get to know how we inspire other people.  I hope that I do.

Toni: Well, let’s think about that.  When you do the work that you do – you said you’ve done client work for the last five years, right?

Charmayne: Yes.

Toni: So what happens?  If I’m in engagement with Charmayne, what happens?  Do you work with me to inspire a different way of thinking for me?

Charmayne: Yes, I would say that with my clients is mostly where I try to consciously inspire.  And in essence, all it is is getting a person to see the truth of who they really are.  In this society, we get so many messages about how awful we are, how bad we are, how worthless we are, how unlovable we are, and all of that is just a big lie.  But there’s so much of it and it’s so dense that we really come to believe it.

When I work with clients, all I do is I can kind of see the light behind all of those negative messages – the beam behind it, the divinity behind it, the unique essence of a person, what they’ve come here to do, who they’ve come here to be and embody and express, and all I did was get them to touch back into that part of themselves.  You know, it gets covered up very, very early in our culture.  And so when I work with a client, I just look for where is the preciousness of this being?  Who is this person standing before me?  It’s so easy to see them as divine and divinity shining through all those negative messages.

So that’s the place where I say I consciously try to inspire people, but what’s funny about it is that they’re actually inspiring themselves.  I’m just helping them get there.  I’m helping them mirror back to them the fantasticness, if that’s a word, of who they really are.  They’re doing all the work.  They’re the ones seeing it and acknowledging it, and letting it in and choosing to radiate from that place.

Toni: How does that type of work then help someone to explore their own potential?

Charmayne: Let’s see.  Well, what I’ve noticed is that kind of work, kind of mirroring back to the person their essence, it helps empower them from a really deep, deep kind of gut place.  And when they feel that sense of empowerment, it gives them more courage to do the things that they really wanted to do in life.

Toni: Well, there’s some key words that you’ve used.  One word that I have not heard in a while and that was precious, and you used it as preciousness — and that is a very cool word, and I haven’t heard it in a long time, so what a great word to use — and then courage, that you’re helping them to find their courage.

Charmayne: Yes, yeah.  I would say that courage more than anything is what really inspires me when I see it in other people.  Just the courage to be yourself.  I mean, it sounds so simple, but it’s so hard to do with all of the acculturations we get from, you know, our first day of being here.

Toni: Well, that would be a great lead-in for the next question, which is, what inspires you?  And you mentioned courage and seeing the courage in others.  What else inspires you, Charmayne?

Charmayne: Okay, well art and nature definitely; they seem to be the universal inspirers.  Beautiful art definitely inspires me.  I was in the New York Museum of Modern Art a few months ago, and standing in front of Monet’s Water Lilies, I mean, something happens to me.  Something … I’m just in a different place and a different time.  I’m just flooded with this sense of joy, this sense of peace, everything just stops.

So beautiful art, beautiful lines, the way light falls at dusk – it’s just so beautiful to me, and that will definitely inspire me.  And it is just those small things.  It’s watching people every day and seeing just how great they actually are.  I ran into a two-year-old today and I was approaching where she was standing; she doesn’t know me at all.  She looks at me, and just this huge smile.  It was so beautific.  It was so precious, again, and it just filled me again the way that Monet’s Water Lilies did at the time.  It just fills me with this sense of “Oh my God – this is God.  This is something deeper, right here, in this moment.  This is the truth.  This is who we really, really are.”

Toni: Charmayne, have you always been that way?  Have you always come to the table this way, in this way of thinking?

Charmayne: Oh, that’s a good question.  I would say so.  Again, I was profoundly sensitive as a child, and really it was hard for me to see what we were doing to each other and what we’re doing to the environment and animals.  I was a bit of an activist at eight years old and did not have many friends, let me tell you.  But since then, something has, I guess, shifted in me, and it started probably in middle school or high school, where I started to see the beauty of people.

You know, photography really started to show me the beauty, even in the really awfulness that there is sometimes.  You know, taking a picture of a beautiful, broken down wooden chair and seeing the beauty in that and seeing the divinity just in that.  I think that helped me change how I see the world.  Now it’s like every day I see people doing incredible things, even just strangers smiling at each other or, you know, the barista smiling at me and saying, “Good day.”  These are the things that they really have a deep, meaningful impact on me when I let it in.

Toni: Do you find yourself now having made that transformation yourself and have that shift happen to you, is that part of the work that you’re doing with others?  If someone comes to you and they are of the old mindset that you had, you know, before you realized the beauty and all of that – do you then try to help them to make that shift themselves?

Charmayne: Oh, definitely.  I like to remind them that earth is actually a really wonderful place.  I love earth.  I didn’t want to be on earth for quite some time; it was just so difficult here.  But earth – there’s so much beauty here.  I mean, the beauty of love, the love we get to share with each other, the wisdom we get to see in each other, just moments of holding someone’s else’s hand, that’s a beautiful, sacred moment.  We don’t get to experience those kinds of moments when we’re not in body.

So I try to remind them, I mean … the pleasure of a good piece of chocolate or a good meal, where else can you get that?  There is a lot of beauty here.  And even when I see the sadness around me, I think of that – well I know, I don’t think of it – I know that in all the horrors that I see, underneath it there’s a desire for wholeness, a desire for balance, a desire for loving again.  There’s just a desire to come back into the fullness of all that is.

Toni: How do you continue to explore your own potential, Charmayne, to do the work that you’re doing?

Charmayne: Well, quite frankly I’m very inspired by my clients.  When they see that light go on about who they really are, something happens, and I’m just filled with joy, and they inspire me to live courageously.   I think courage is a really big word for me, because it just takes so much courage to live from the true self instead of the false self in this culture.

And so by seeing them kind of wake up to who they are, it reminds me every day – Oh, who do I want to be?  How do I want to act?  I want to act from my authentic self, my true self, and that takes courage, and so I just try and maintain that courage as much as possible.

Toni: It would be an interesting conversation to have at another time – maybe another interview, who knows – but to understand the differences when someone thinks they’re being their authentic self, but yet you can see that they’re not.  Can you really see that?

Charmayne: Yes.  Yes, it’s a marked difference.  Yeah, true self and false self can be very different appearing, even though false self likes to say otherwise.

Toni: That’s really interesting.  I can tell you, listening to you, that you’re very, very passionate about what you do and the way that you think.  You’ve given … I’ve written a word down for you – there’s certain words that come up for me when I’m doing these interviews – and the word that I wrote down for you was graceful.

Charmayne: I like that.

Toni: And you’ve given a very, very graceful interview.  We thank you very, very much, Charmayne, for taking your time out today and being part of the Get Inspired! Project.  It’s been great.

Charmayne: Thank you so much, Toni, and thanks for doing this.  It’s inspiring to me.

Toni: Thank you.  You take care, and good luck to you.

Charmayne: Thank you.

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For more information about Charmayne Kilcup:  www.charmaynekilcup.com

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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Katie, for agreeing to be part of this Project, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?

Katie Boehm: Thank you for asking me to be a part of it.  My name is Katie Boehm, and right now I am a college student.  I’ve also been involved with organizations World Peace Through Sports and Girl Child Network.  That is mostly what I am involved in right now.

Toni: Well, Katie, when you think of that word inspiration, who do you think you inspire, and how does it happen?

Katie: Well, I try to inspire young people such as myself and my soccer team.  We were approached by World Peace Through Sports, an organization that gives us an opportunity to play soccer to help other people.  We would earn points for different goals we achieve, such as completed passes or shots on goals, and then these points would coincide with a money amount that we would donate to a charity of our choice.

The charity that we chose was Girl Child Network, which is based in Kenya, that helps children in bad situations.  And the reason we chose that is because I personally had visited it and I told all my friends about it on the team, and they got behind it and just were so excited about it.

So I try and inspire the girls on my soccer team as well as other young people that they can get involved, because most people in this day and age, like the young people think, “Oh, philanthropy is for old people with money” kind of thing – put that in quotes because I don’t mean to insult anyone – but they don’t know that it can apply to them just because they can help anyone by giving money if they want to.  Or, my personal favorite is donating time.  They can go help out at a shelter in their own town or walk dogs for the Humane Society or something like that.

I try and inspire people by getting involved at the level of people I am actually helping with, but I don’t like to just send money off and hope it gets there, but I like to talk to the people that I’m helping and get to know them and make connections on a personal level.

Toni: And what is the name of the organization in Kenya again?

Katie: The organization in Kenya is called Girl Child Network.

Toni: Girl Child?

Katie: Yes.  Girl Child.

Toni: Okay.  Thank you for that; I want to make sure that we get that correctly.  So by inspiring people your age … and you said you’re 18, correct?

Katie: Yes.

Toni: And so by inspiring college students all over the world, I would imagine, to really step up and donate their time — because I know, having college students myself, that there isn’t a whole lot of money to give — but to donate time is very, very precious.  So how do you think that helps someone to explore their potential by doing that type of work?

Katie: Well, they learn so much more about themselves and the world around them.  They’re not just in their own little world full of homework and just hanging out with friends at the mall kind of thing, but they realize that they can be connected to people all around the world.

We got to talk to the girls that we were helping with our team, and we made signs for them and sent them jerseys, and they sent us pictures back and talked to us.  My soccer team was amazed that they could talk to these girls in Kenya that they would have previously, you know, wouldn’t have thought about, and they became more conscious in their own lives about people elsewhere.

Toni: Oh, and to be able to actually communicate … and in today’s times, that communication is so much easier than it used to be, you know … to be able to do that and actually hear the feedback and the admiration and acknowledgment of the work that you’ve done, that must be pretty exciting.

Katie: It is very exciting, especially because with all the technology there is more access, but there is also less because people get all wrapped up on their computers and emails and such.  But the fact that we were able to see photos and talk to the girls personally was really amazing.

Toni: I can only imagine.  So Katie, what inspires you?

Katie: Oh well, there’s a lot of things.  My family is one of my big inspirations.  They try and help out whoever they can, whenever, donating time or sometimes financial loans and such.  But other things that inspire me are little things in life such as seeing friends, comfort from friends, or a stranger returning a wallet they found, because these are reminders of our basic humanity and understanding for each other.  That’s often forgotten in this fast-paced world.

Toni: Absolutely.  So it’s those acts of kindness that inspire you.

Katie: And then also when I personally visited the Girl Child Network in Kenya, just the smiles of everyone we were helping.  They were so happy to see people and talk to us, and every moment was filled with love and laughter.  They had told us that a year before a group of people had come that had donated to Girl Child Network, but they did not engage with them.  And so the children said they had so much fun with us because we were able to talk and laugh and play some soccer – and they beat us really badly – it was a lot of fun making the personal connection.

Toni: Oh, that is fantastic.  Katie, what are you doing to explore your own potential?

Katie: Well, I’m dreaming.  I try and know my dreams.  It doesn’t matter if they are big or small, but I own them.  One example is that I’d like to work with athletes at Real Madrid Soccer Club in Spain.  Every day I try and remind myself of my goals and not try and be sidetracked by just being lazy and not doing anything. I have to be my own motivator to accomplish what I want to accomplish.

Another way I explore my own potential is I try new things, and I learn new things.  You can learn new things every day just by observing the world around you.  It makes so much difference in my life.  I’m trying to learn Spanish right now just because I want to.

Toni: How’s it going?

Katie: It’s going … slowly.

Toni: And so do you see yourself following in your parents’ footsteps as far as doing the philanthropy work?

Katie: Well, I do want to help other people.  I don’t know if I can be involved at the level that they are, but maybe if I make enough money in my future career then I can help more on that level.  But I’m definitely planning on being involved at the personal level with the ones I’ve chosen.

Toni: That’s fantastic.  Katie, you really are serving as a great role model for young adults everywhere, and I appreciate you bringing awareness to the organizations actually that you’ve spoken about, and also I love the word engagement.  It’s one of my favorite words, and the fact that you said that these girls were not used to having someone come over and engage, and you did, that’s incredibly powerful.  It’s one thing to donate your time, but it’s another thing to engage while you’re donating your time.

Katie: Yeah, it was a lot of fun, and then these girls — actually it surprised me and inspired me — is that they wanted to do a similar program to help people less fortunate than they are, which I don’t understand how they can because they’re living in mud huts and have barely any access to food or water.  But it’s just such a ripple effect that you can find … and if you know what your actions are, then your actions can inspire others.  A lot of people don’t realize that.

Toni: What a fantastic way to leave the interview.  We so appreciate you being with us on this grand finale of the Get Inspired! Project, and we can’t thank you enough, Katie.  It’s been a wonderful interview.

Katie: Thank you so much.

Toni: Take care of yourself.

Katie: You too.

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For more information about Katie Boehm:  World Peace Through Sports, Girl Child Network

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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Carey and Zoë, for being part of this Project, and before we begin, I’m going to let you introduce yourselves.

Carey Mann: Thanks for having us.  It’s really great to be doing the interview with you.  My name is Carey, and I’m from zoëandcarey.com.

Toni: Okay, and I know we are … for those who are listening to this interview, we are going to be doing a joint interview with Carey and Zoë, and so you guys let us know who’s talking, and I’m sure that this is going to be fantastic.  So Carey, let me ask you – who do you inspire, and how does that happen?

Carey: I would say that we inspire our clients first and foremost.  I think our mission statement is to help women create the lives that they really, really want by redesigning whichever part of their life isn’t working for them, whether that’s focusing on creating healthy, fulfilling relationships, their own business, a better relationship with their body and self, or just to be more open and adventurous and positive about life in general.

We’re firm believers that change is an inside job, really, and we believe we inspire people to do the inner work that gets reflected in their external circumstances.  We’d like to inspire people to take healthy risks.  We both had quite exciting media jobs/careers in the past, which was fun, but we knew when we were doing those jobs that we weren’t really fulfilled in what we were doing.

So making a transition to setting up private practices as therapists was quite scary in terms of identity and who were we becoming – we’re becoming something else altogether from what we were before, and we didn’t really fully believe that we could do it.

What we’ve learned is that you don’t need to know exactly how you’re going to do something, you just need to believe and trust that you can do it and focus on what you want, because obviously what you focus on you get more of.

Toni: Absolutely.  And so can you give an example of how that inspiration occurs between you and your client?

Carey: I think … I think the inspiration with clients is generally due to the process of the session, and then obviously each client is very different.  So can you be a bit more specific with that?

Toni: Sure.  Just an example, or even an example of a testimony that someone may have given you where that transaction that occurs between you and your client and inspiration – just an example of what might happen?

Carey: Hang on for a second, Toni, because we’ve really thought about what we’re going to say, and I mean, I’d have to really think about … I’d have to think about that for a second, so …

Toni: Absolutely.

Carey: Hang on one second.  One sec.  Toni, could you read that out loud so Zoë can hear that as well?

Toni: Sure.  I was just wondering … hi Zoë, welcome to the interview … I was just asking … I want everyone who is listening and reading the transcript to really get a sense for what you do and how that inspiration occurs, because it sounds fantastic.  So, can you give an example of what happens when someone’s in front of you?

Zoë Clews: Okay.  So I guess the first thing we do is talk to that person about what it is that they want to achieve in their lives, what it is they’re struggling with.  So, using an example of a relationship, say we have somebody who comes in who is having trouble meeting somebody, seeking the right sort of person or the relationship is not working.

The first thing we do really is identify what might be in the way.  So it might be an issue with self-confidence.  A lot of time it’s fear.  Working the process with the same person, we get to identify the fears, perhaps those came in childhood in their beliefs and we try to help them come to that themselves.  It’s really identifying and clearing those at a subconscious level, and we look to make changes to get someone focused on what they see now and what sort of person they do want to see.

A lot of times we’re working with someone on their relationships and focus very much on improving the client’s relationship with themselves.  We’re firm believers that if you have a good relationship with yourself the more likely you are to have a really good relationship with their romantic partner.

Toni: Well thank you for that.  I think it’s really important to clarify how that inspiration occurs, and it just sounds like the work that you guys do is so fantastic that I wanted to make sure that we knew what happens between you and your clients.  The work that you guys do, then, how do you help them to … help people to explore their own potential when you do this type of work?

Zoë: Would you mind saying that again, Toni?

Toni: How do you help others then explore their own potential?

Zoë: So the purpose of our work, really, in our practice, is specifically on helping somebody realize their full potential.  Like I said, we begin by helping clients really identify limiting, unhealthy beliefs that are standing in the way.  What I/we found is once you start to remove negative beliefs, negativity, thought patterns, certain destructive behaviors, perhaps, then somebody can move much more towards their own natural self-confidence.  When you start to, I guess, challenge someone’s limits about themselves, they have a bigger sense … they get a bigger sense of who they are and what they can become and realize that nearly anything is possible.

Helping them … part of the process as well, I think, is helping someone identify what it is they really, really want.  It can be a bit of a hard question.  You know, we’re all very much focused on what we don’t want.  I think what we’re often conditioned to do.  We all know what we don’t want, asking yourself what you really, really want in life can be challenging if you realize you need to make changes to achieve this.

What Carey and I do is … the reason we’re here, really, is to support women on their journey as they do this.  We also think of beliefs like invisible walls, and we really don’t know what they are until we keep coming up against them and we realize we’re in the same old pattern of behavior or thinking.  We very much, you know, we think if you can change your beliefs you can change your life, but the first steps in doing that is identifying what those unhelpful beliefs are.

Toni: So what inspires you?

Zoë: For me, the resilience of the human spirit, I’d say that inspires me.  I’m constantly inspired by the man on the street and by that I mean that, you know, we’re often offered up celebrities and famous people as role models, when in fact there’s been people, clients included, that I’ve met who have worked very hard to overcome tragedy or trauma in their early life or later life or present life, and they refuse to let it crush their spirit or limit who they are.

I mean, those to me are the people that really inspire me, whether that’s someone who is … I don’t know, a recovering addict, someone who struggled with mental illness.  Anyone who takes responsibility, faces themselves, keeps on pushing forward and refuses to give up, even in the face of great adversity, that’s what I would say would inspire me.

Toni: Thank you for that answer, Zoë.  Would Carey like to answer that question?

Zoë: Yes.  I will just pass you over.

Carey: Hi, Toni.

Toni: Hi.  What inspires you, Carey?

Carey: I’m totally inspired by forward thinking people like Dr. Bruce Lipton.  He is obviously bridging the gap between spirituality and science, and also Gregg Braden – he does something similar where he sort of combines his own discoveries with new science, insights into history, religion, and ancient mysteries and that kind of thing.

The person that’s inspired me most in terms of personal growth and change in my life has absolutely been Neale Donald Walsch, who completely changed my belief and perceptions about relationships.  I mean, reading his work really enabled me to see how you can thrive in a relationship once you let go of the fear.

Lynne Twist is very inspirational to me, and I’m kind of now looking at liaison with The Hunger Project about organizing some kind of fundraising event.  So I’m quite inspired by people who have changed my life with their thoughts, their belief, their wisdom, their knowledge, and sort of looking at empowering men and women to change their own … end their own hunger, very empowering people with empowering words and thoughts and philosophies.

Toni: You can hear that.  It’s really… it’s really interesting.

Carey: I’m really passionate.  I’m very passionate about it.

Toni: You can absolutely hear that.  When you … have you ever had a day, Carey, when, you know, you might need to seek a little bit more inspiration than the day before?  Are their go-to tools and resources that you tend to reach for on a consistent basis, in addition to what you’ve stated?

Carey: Yeah, there are.  I mean … I mean, I run.  I used to hate running, and as you get a little bit older you realize actually “I’ve got to do some activity,” you know?  I used to hate running until I sort of wired in learning with running.  So on a sort of every-other day basis, I go for a run and I put in my earphones and I listen to something new, somebody new.  It could be something a friend has said that inspired them.  It could be something my husband has said has inspired him, but I use that kind of thing as sort of, more or less, an every other day kind of inspiration.

But there’s also things like meditating and doing things like that where you’re just kind of bringing yourself back to living in the moment.  And also, gratification is so important every day.  I get up in the morning or I go to bed at night, one or the other, and I write in my gratitude diary all of the things that I’m really grateful for, because that keeps me very positive and very living in the moment and knowing that I don’t have anything lacking in my life.

We’re all such consumers, and we live our lives thinking we need more than we do, you know?  I think it’s really important for you to just think about “what I need, not what I want” all the time by being a big consumer.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m the proper girl , I love clothes, but I think those … my spending and everything has very much changed through the inspiration that I have in my life.

Toni: So what are you doing now to explore your own potential?

Carey: That’s an interesting one, actually.  I think we both, Zoë and I together, I think … I mean, I can pass you over to Zoë in a second, but I think we explore our own potential by encouraging each other and ourselves to grow and challenge each other and ourselves.

When you’re in a relationship like Zoë and I are in … I mean, our relationship sometimes is more tense and more intense and more challenging than my relationship with my husband.  So we remind ourselves that it’s often only when we feel uncomfortable in feelings or in situations that we can really push the boundary in terms of change, and we can really grow, because when I feel or see a situation that I feel uncomfortable in, I don’t walk away from the person or the situation.  I really think about what’s underneath that, and obviously, it’s never about anybody else, it’s always about me.

I think Zoë and I very much grow together.  We also think one of the most important things that we can do in our lifetime is to learn to be our own best friend.  We think this can be challenging.  It’s just not something we’re conditioned to do, but it’s beyond worthwhile.  And for us, a good relationship with yourself or the self is the foundation to a happy and successful life.  Would you like me to pass you over to Zoë?

Toni: Absolutely.  Thank you so much for your answers, too, Carey.

Carey: Okay, thank you.

Zoë: Hi, Toni.

Toni: Hi, Zoë.  So the final question of the Project is, what do you do to explore your own potential?

Zoë: I think I’d agree with what Carey said in terms of pushing myself forward.  I think it’s really important when you’re feeling low to understand that it’s just a perspective and it’s just a day, and you’ll even feel differently the next day.  I also think putting yourself into situations, you know, feeling the fear and doing it anyway has always been a big thing for me.  Even if I thought I can’t do it and I’ve been feeling really anxious, I’ve sort of pushed myself forward.

You always surprise yourself, really.  You know, whatever happens you find that you handle it, you know, and I think one of the most important things with fear is to push through it.  And you don’t have to particularly do it well, you just have to make sure that you do it.  And each time you’re learning and growing, really.

Like Carey said as well, I think, you know, learning to love yourself can be a real challenge, but I think it is one of the most important things you can do, as well as our intimate relationships with others can also reflect back to us things that we need to work on.  I think relationships are a great mirror, really.

So, you know, just being open, really, always thinking “What can I learn from this?  How can I move this forward?  How can I grow, surrounding myself with people that are positive, people that I find optimistic, people that are going to champion you, as well as challenge you?”  I think it’s really important, the people you choose to surround yourself with.

Toni: That’s a great way to bring closure to this interview, because what you both are doing to help women with their own beliefs and to move them forward, you guys also work on that yourselves.  And I love that Carey spoke about running and working on herself not only physically but mentally as she runs, to the way that you’ve described about, you know, how you need to feel about yourself.

And we will position your website at the bottom of this transcript so people can learn more about you and the work that you both do, and we’re very lucky to have you on the Get Inspired! Project.  And we thank you so very much, both of you, for being here.

Zoë: Thanks, Toni, it’s been great.

Carey: Thanks, Toni.

Toni: Okay, take care of yourselves.

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For more information about Carey Mann and Zoë Clews:  www.zoeandcarey.com

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Right click here to download…

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Thumbnail image:  Original illustration by Barbora Knobova

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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Barb, for agreeing to be part of this Project today, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?

Barbora Knobova: Oh thank you very much and, you know, first I’d like to thank you for the opportunity to be a part of this amazing, extraordinary Project, and I’m really very honored to be able to participate in this.

Toni: Oh, thank you.

Barb: So, about me.  My name is Barb Knobova, a self-love coach for women business owners, and I’m also an author and a speaker.  I’m the owner of Delicious Path, my self-love coaching practice, and I write Delicious books for strong, bold, and fearless women.

So as you can see, I really use the word “delicious” quite a lot because it makes so much sense.  This word expresses exactly what we women are, and it’s actually an acronym that expresses all that and embraces all that.  And in this acronym, D standing for Daring, E for Enchanting, L for Loving, I for Inspiring, C for Captivating, I for Intriguing, O for Outgoing, U for Unique, and S for Sophisticated, so that’s why I use this word so much.

I’m a big advocate for women’s empowerment, and personally I’d say I’m a very caring, generous woman that loves life and enjoys it every minute with excitement and happiness and gratitude.

Toni: Well thank you so much for sharing all that.  That’s awesome!  When you think of the word inspiration, Barb, who do you think you inspire, and how does that happen?

Barb: I think that I inspire women, and I inspire them both personally and professionally.  Personally, my friends say that they are always inspired by my energy and courage to always keep moving forward and creating and building new things and exploring new possibilities.

And as a coach, I think that I inspire women to discover their authentic selves and their own value.  I inspire them to create their own life experience and to overcome their fear and insecurities that we all have.  And I inspire them to dream, to dream big dreams and then take these dreams and transform them into really gigantic goals, and then take these goals and turn them into a really, really powerful reality.

Actually, what I always say is that I’m on the mission to help as many women as possible find their true self and to use it to break through six or even seven figures in their business.  On this mission, I also inspire them.  I inspire them to create really effortless prosperity and abundance for themselves and their loved ones, because for us women it’s always so important to take care of the people that we love.

I also inspire my three kids, my three sponsored children in India, my adopted daughters, because I really feel that they are like my daughters.  I inspire them to believe in themselves and to empower themselves and to build a better life for themselves and their families, because it’s so important in that part of the world.

Toni: I would imagine the inspiration that happens between you and those who you work with, also those relationships that you have, are pretty much the same … the results would be the same of that empowerment and being able to create that life.  It sounds like you do that pretty much naturally.

Barb: Yes, definitely, and I really, really love doing that.  It’s like … I don’t know if it’s a mission or a calling, but it comes pretty natural to me, that’s right.

Toni: Now, how do you help others then to explore their potential?

Barb: You know, I’ve overcome really many obstacles and challenges in my life, and I’ve hit rock bottom many times, but I am very, very grateful for every single one of these challenges because I know that they helped me become the person I am today.  So my friends and clients, when they get to know me and see that incredible strength that I have, they realize that they have the same, if not bigger, power to create their own experience and live their life the way only they want to live it.  So I would say that I help them explore their potential by making them see that their power is truly endless and unlimited.

Toni: What inspires you?

Barb: What inspires me?

Toni: Yes.

Barb: I think that there are two things that inspire me.  There are many things that inspire me, but there are two main things that inspire me, and I feel very lucky to have them in my life.  First, of course, it’s women, because I love being surrounded by extraordinary women.  And there are so many extraordinary women out there today that really make this world a better place to be.  And I’m very, very grateful that I have so many incredibly inspiring women in my life, and I mean the women in my family, my friends, my clients, and my mentors – these women are really fabulous.

The second thing that inspires me is the fact that I need to be exposed to new ideas and experiences constantly, all the time.  I achieve that through traveling and books.  These are two big pillars of my life, and honestly I’ve been a … I’ve been a nomad really, and a really avid reader since childhood.  I learned to read and write when I was four, and I never stopped.  Also, I love learning new languages because actually, I speak eight languages and it’s a skill that helps me get inspired even more because it’s so much easier to absorb new experiences and knowledge of other countries and cultures, and this really inspires me.  These two things — women and new experiences that I get through traveling and books.

Toni: Now, when you speak about things that inspire you and other women and then the life experiences that you have had, but you also spoke to the fact that really how you help others explore their potential is by showing people what’s possible and that you’ve been down and you’ve come back up.  How did you find the courage, and is that what it took, in order to keep getting back up?  For people that are listening to your interview or reading your transcript and are saying “You know what, I’m there right now” – so how are these people on this Project that are being interviewed, if they’ve hit rock bottom, what did it take to get you to stand up again and move forward?

Barb: You know what?  I think that life never gives us more challenges than we can handle, so I know that when I face a challenge, I know that I can handle it.  I just need to find the way to do so, and I’m not a person that would give up.  I never, ever, ever give up.  And because I’m a self-love coach and I discovered the amazing power of self-love years and years ago, I know how important it is to love yourself at that moment, even if it’s difficult, and not to be, you know, harsh or, you know, really bad and tough, just that, you know, I really … I love myself.  I know that I’m a great person, and I know that I’m going to get through this.

Then you just get up and you do what you need to do, and you just do one thing and then another thing and another thing until you’re done and you’re there and you’re back on your feet.  You just never give up.

Toni: So basically, what I’m hearing from you is that you’ve got to look inward and never give up on yourself or never lose that feeling of self-love, as you put it, so that you can continue to keep moving forward.

Barb: Yes, exactly, because no matter what happens in your life, it never changes your self-worth and your value, and it doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person or that you’re not worthy enough or valuable enough.  You are always that unique, extraordinary person, and you always have to remember that.  And when you remember that, you have the strength and power and energy to do absolutely everything.  You just learn.  You take it as a valuable experience.  You learn.  You move on, and you start again.

Toni: So what are you doing now to explore your own potential?

Barb: Oh, you know, thank you for this question.  I really love it, because really I must say that I explore my own potential on a daily basis, really.  I’m a very, very passionate explorer of my own potential.  And you know, I’m a true Indigo Adult, which means that I constantly look for new challenges and I set new goals, and I really, really love and enjoy pushing my own boundaries, and I don’t think that many people can say that, but I really, really love it.

So there … you know, there are always new things to learn and new skills to acquire.  To me, life is a very … is an exciting journey with its ups and downs.  Sometimes it’s like a rollercoaster, but it’s just a part of it.  You know, already a very long time ago I stopped using words like “I can’t,” “It’s too difficult,” or “It’s impossible.”  I just stopped using all these excuses, and they are not a part of my vocabulary anymore.

I know myself, and I allow myself to feel my fear when I feel it, because I know I’m just human, and you know, fears and doubts, it all belongs to us human beings.  Then I just go and do what needs to be done, you know, as I said.  I think thanks to this, I really keep growing and learning all the time.

Toni: It’s really interesting how the interview actually does come full circle, because what you do for others as far as the work that you do in inspiring women to empower themselves, you actually put that to practice in almost a daily manner, the way that you described exploring your own potential.  So you are really a great example of someone who teaches what they need to learn, because you are pushing that every day.

Barb: Yes, exactly, and I really, really love this because I know that there are women out there who are where I was.  And that’s why, you know, I always say I’m more than a coach or author or speaker, because I speak about my own experience.  And it’s not just about coaching knowledge or education, it’s about your own life experience and about understanding those people that need your help.

Toni: It’s really amazing.  I’m just listening to you, and I’m … we’re so lucky to have the people that we’ve had on this Project, because just the value that you’ve given in your interview alone as far as the inspiration, not only what you’re doing but what you need, and to answer the question the way you did about never giving up and to never lose your self-worth and your self-love and to keep moving forward and challenge yourself every day – that’s a great, great message for this interview, and we thank you so very much, Barb, for being part of the Get Inspired! Project.

Barb: Thank you so much.

Toni: Take care.

Barb: You too.  Thank you.

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For more information about Barbora Knobova:  http://www.DeliciousPath.com

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]]> http://www.getinspiredproject.com/2010/08/25/day-329-barbora-knobova/feed/ 0 http://www.getinspiredproject.com/2010/08/24/day-328-rebecca-lang/ http://www.getinspiredproject.com/2010/08/24/day-328-rebecca-lang/#comments Tue, 24 Aug 2010 04:01:04 +0000 deb http://www.getinspiredproject.com/?p=3115 “… in any profession, I feel like you cannot get stuck in a place that you feel like you know everything, because there’s always a whole other world that you don’t know.  And the more that you explore what you don’t know, the more you know about your own potential.”

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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Rebecca, for agreeing to be part of this Project today, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?

Rebecca Lang: Oh sure, and thank you, Toni, so much for having me.  I am Rebecca Lang.  I am a cookbook author.  I have actually just turned in my manuscript for my third book, which will be out in spring, and it’s called Quick Fix Southern published by Andrews McMeel.  I also do television work for Southern Living Magazine, which is on the nationally syndicated show Daytime, and I’m on once a week.  Other than that, I am at home being a mother to my two children every day.

Toni: Well thank you so much, Rebecca, for agreeing to be part of the Project.  When you think of inspiration, who do you think you inspire, and how does that happen?

Rebecca: I really like to think every time that I’m in the kitchen that I’m giving inspiration to somebody because I often teach cooking classes, and I travel a good bit to do that and I just … my main purpose when I get in the kitchen is for anybody that’s in there to understand how easy it is to get in there and cook.

I always say that, you know, if you can read, you can cook.  I think so many people don’t really understand that, that they think it’s so much easier to run through the drive through or run and pick up something that’s already ready when it’s so easy – you can have supper on the table in less than 30 minutes.

That’s one reason why I wanted to write this new book that I was writing that everything’s under 30 minutes.  But it’s such an important time for your family, and especially as a mother, that I really want people to understand that, to get into the kitchen with their kids, with their family, and spend some time in there and get supper on the table.

Toni: Do you see a turning of the tide, so to speak, of people that are getting back in the kitchen?

Rebecca: I do.  I think that especially now with The Food Network and other channels that are running so much food coverage, I think we do have a turnaround in a couple of decades ago.  That’s when everybody was trying to do things in the microwave and things were, you know, just almost completely opposite what they are now.  And I think people are seeing that it’s time to be in the kitchen.

Everybody’s more concerned about what they’re eating, where their food comes from, which is a wonderful movement, because we’re all … you know, a lot of people are getting to know their farmers and really thinking about “What chemicals are in my food, who grew this, what’s happened to it since it got to my kitchen?”  So I think that there is.  There’s a lot of difference.

Even ten years ago, I feel like people my age, which I’m 33, are now coming back into the kitchen, which a lot of people with little kids in the past have not.  You know, “It’s easier not to cook” is what everybody thought, and now they’re seeing that that’s an important role to have as a parent or as an adult in any household — to show everybody, you know, that dinner is easy and can be a family activity.

Toni: How do you think that by inspiring people to get back in the kitchen and to learn how to cook, how does it help people to explore their potential?

Rebecca: Well, I think that any time that they can get in the kitchen and read a recipe, you know, you always think “Oh” … and you might be a little scared and you think, “I can’t do this.”  But the first time that you do it, you know that you can, and it’s kind of like a … recipes are like building blocks.  The first time you try one that is extremely simple, next time you’re going to try something that’s a little bit more difficult, and then you’ll be more and more comfortable.

So I like to have the potential for people to understand that they are capable of making anything in the kitchen that they want to make.  It’s not necessarily just easy recipes and to not be scared to attempt something, because even if … you know, I still fail miserably in the kitchen sometimes.  Even if somebody does, you’ve tried your best and you learned from it, and you move on.

So everything is a learning experience when you get in the kitchen, and I think that potential is there as soon as you’re in the kitchen.  You have a world of opportunity to make that food whatever you want it to be and make it your own.

Toni: So it’s really to just put your stamp on it and be creative as well, isn’t it?

Rebecca: Absolutely.  I mean, you can read a recipe for anything you want and then a couple of changes and you’ve made it something that your family might like the most, and you’ve added something that’s part of your personality and part of your household.  So I think that it’s a really easy way to be creative, even though sometimes in other ways of life it’s a little bit difficult to.  As soon as you open that refrigerator and get to the kitchen counter, it’s like a blank slate.  You can start from scratch and make whatever you want to.

Toni: I heard somebody say recently that you can … with a recipe you can make one dish, but if you learn the technique of cooking, you can make several dishes.  You can make the same dish several different ways.

Rebecca: That is absolutely true.  I think once you learn the basics, once you learn the basic concepts of cooking, you can get in the kitchen and make whatever you want.  It’s such a blessing for your family to say, “Oh, can we have fried chicken tonight?” and you don’t need a recipe.  You go in the kitchen and you make the fried chicken that you know how to make.  I think once people understand that it’s super easy to understand the few basics that cooking involves, and then you’re just … you’re open to all kinds of opportunities.

Toni: Rebecca, what inspires you?

Rebecca: Recipes the most inspire me, because I really love to hear the stories behind recipes.  And especially with Southern food and the food that goes back so many generations, there’s a story behind every recipe.  I say the same thing about furniture in my house.  I like to have furniture with a story.  I like to have old furniture.

So I love to hear when somebody’s grandmother tells a story about how she made pimento cheese 50 years ago and why they grew up eating what they did, and especially to talk to people who are much older than I am that have lived to see things that I can only imagine.  It’s incredibly inspiring.

And I think about my grandmothers on the farm and what they ate and why they ate it.  My grandmother used to tell me stories about taking biscuits that her mother, my great-grandmother, would make and sometimes they were filled with ham, sometimes they just had sorghum syrup, but that was the lunch they took out to the fields, and it was wrapped in a napkin.  You know, we don’t think about things like that anymore, but it’s … we don’t know what a blessing that was to have a biscuit with some ham in it on the farm.

So I love to hear the history of the recipes, and I also love when somebody has made a recipe of mine that may be in a book or it may be online or wherever they found a recipe that I created.  I love hearing how that recipe is now part of their weekly meals that they make, and that their family loves it.  There’s nothing to inspire you like that to get back in the kitchen and do something else when you know people love your food and you’ve made something that they can then attempt at home, and it works out perfect, and they’ve made it a part of their cooking schedule.  It’s a really big inspiration to me to hear about how they use that recipe.

Toni: You know, it’s really kind of a cool way that things come back, isn’t it, because I’m listening to you and I’m thinking, the biggest memories around the dining room table.  I mean, that’s where I’m listening to and I’m relating to the dining room table.  But you bring a different approach to it as well to say it’s not just around the table, but it’s how the food got to the table, and …

Rebecca: Absolutely.  Absolutely.

Toni: … yeah, that’s really cool to think of it that way.  What else inspires you?  What do you do when you find yourself with a day going “You know, I could use a little inspiration here.”  Do you find yourself reaching for different tools or resources?

Rebecca: I am a big, big fan of books, and I was just in this conversation earlier this week.  And I own a lot of cookbooks, as you can imagine, and I love to be surrounded by books, and even if it’s not cookbooks, I just love a book.  I like to hold a book, I like to turn its pages.  So if I feel that I’m in a blank space and I need, you know, I need some encouragement, it’s a great time to go sit in my office and just even to look at some of the people who I admire so much and what they’ve written and what they have to say that’s been put into a book.

That’s incredibly inspirational, and it’s almost just like my little well of inspiration right downstairs that I can always go tap into, because there’s so many people that have accomplished worlds above what I have accomplished, and I love to go sit and read their words.

And you know, cookbooks are not just for people who are untrained.  I’m a trained professional, and I love to go sit and curl up in a chair with a cookbook and read it.  And so, you know, whenever all of us need refilling at other times … and so that’s my way to sit down and even, you know, sit down with a glass of wine and a cookbook, and I am good to go.  That is an easy way for me to get inspired in a hurry.

Toni: That’s fantastic.  What a great way to describe that as well.  So how do you explore your own potential?

Rebecca: Well I think as cooks, it’s very easy to get in a rut, and I think anybody who cooks can tell you that.  So it’s very important to cook outside of your box.  You know, a lot of times … you know, several times a month I try to make something that I have never made before, and a lot of times that means making different ethnic recipes, cooking food that I don’t know a lot about.  I don’t know a lot about, let’s say, Thai cooking.  I’m not an expert in Thai cooking, so when I attempt Thai recipes, I’ve stepped out of that box that I’m very comfortable in, and I feel like I learned from that.

So you just can’t get … in any profession, I feel like you cannot get stuck in a place that you feel like you know everything, because there’s always a whole other world that you don’t know.  And the more that you explore what you don’t know, the more you know about your own potential.  So I like to just kind of, you know, step out of that Southern food range that I feel like I’m … you know, know a lot about, and I step into a place that I may not be that comfortable in, but I get in the kitchen and I’m great.

I think life is a learning experience, and certainly cooking is a lot like that, and one reason I chose and love this career so much is because it’s a constant learning.  You’re never, ever going to be at the point that you know everything, which to me is fabulous.  You know, I can wake up tomorrow and choose one of my books and pick it up and open a page, and I’m going to learn something.  So that’s a huge blessing and I think an inspiration that we all as culinary professionals know that tomorrow is a new day, and it’s a new day to learn something.

Toni: So what’s next for you?

Rebecca: That’s a good question.  I’m always in the kitchen, I’m always working on recipes — and since I just turned in my manuscript, I have been taking it a little bit easy right now — but I’m always thinking about the next book.  You know, a lot of us who write, I will wake up in the middle of the night with the inspiration to write something.  And I guess because I have two little children and I tend to be tired, I will forget that by the next day.  So I get up in the middle of the night and write down this thought that I have, and then I’ll go back to bed.

So I’m always thinking about the next book.  I’m thinking about the next thing to write.  But you know, first and foremost, I am a mother to the little people that live in the house, and my job comes second to them so, you know, whenever I can have the chance to publish another book, I will jump on that.  It’s just … it’s a blessing to be able to do what I do and be at home with them.  And speaking of inspiration, that’s enough right there just to fill you up every day.

Toni: Oh, absolutely.  You can certainly hear the passion in your voice when you talk about what you do for a living, and that has been an unintended outcome of the Get Inspired! Project that, you know, people just speak so passionately about what they do, and you just … you can hear it.  It’s so refreshing to hear that.  So I cannot thank you enough, Rebecca, for being part of this Project, and we will look forward to your new book coming out in the spring.  And we will have a link to your website so that people can check out the other books that you have and the recipes that you’ve shared.  So thank you very, very much for being part of this Project.

Rebecca: Oh thank you so much, I appreciate it.  Thank you.

Toni: Oh, you’re welcome.  Take care, Rebecca.

Rebecca: You too, thank you.

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For more information about Rebecca Lang:  www.rebeccalangcooks.com

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