Episode 183: Some Stories Are Meant to Be Told... Differently

It's Not the Same Old Story with Lisa Caprelli

183 podcast cover art Lisa Caprelli image and quote

Her life didn't start with unicorns and butterflies, and like many people who grow up without, she didn't really know it until her high school years when the comparison games began. Seeing other girls with new, trendy clothes and all the accessories made her keenly aware of what she didn't have.

She knew there was more for her, and when a mentor saw her for the curious, ambitious, intelligent young woman she was, Lisa's natural talents were nurtured and expanded.

When she decided it was time to leave Texas and make her way to the beaches of southern California, people told her she was crazy, that she'd fail, and that she'd waste precious money and time trying to be something she wasn't. She didn't listen, thank goodness, because over the past 10 years, she has made significant, high impact, positive contributions to our communities, like her multiple best selling children's books, an Amazon TV series, and a successful marketing business.

Lisa did what others saw as impossible.

183 podcast cover art Lisa Caprelli quote

What makes Lisa so good at what she does? What motivated her to find her path? Listen to this episode of Your Stories Don't Define You to find out!

Visit Lisa's website to learn more about her work, and check out her children's book series, Unicorn Jazz. Be sure to follow her on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with the great content she shares.

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ABOUT SARAH:

Image of Sarah Elkins with promo language: ”story sharing coaching for leaders”

"Uncovering the right stories for the right audiences so executives, leaders, public speakers, and job seekers can clearly and actively demonstrate their character, values, and vision."

In my work with coaching clients, I guide people to improve their communication using storytelling as the foundation of our work together. What I’ve realized over years of coaching and podcasting is that the majority of people don’t realize the impact of the stories they share - on their internal messages, and on the people they’re sharing them with.

Audiobook promotional cover art

My work with leaders and people who aspire to be leaders follows a similar path to the interviews on my podcast, uncovering pivotal moments in their lives and learning how to share them to connect more authentically with others, to make their presentations and speaking more engaging, to reveal patterns that have kept them stuck or moved them forward, and to improve their relationships at work and at home.

The audiobook, Your Stories Don’t Define You, How You Tell Them Will is now available!

Included with your purchase are two bonus tracks, songs recorded by Sarah's band, Spare Change, in her living room in Montana.

Episode 163: Life Will Blindside You, Sometimes Literally

A Story of Becoming Blind at 50

Some of us make plans for the future, some simply let each day define and shape the next. I don't think any of us anticipate every potential scenario of change, transformation, or trauma. Even the most morbid or realistic of us cannot predict or prepare for the reality of tomorrow.

That's what Maria Johnson realized as she received the diagnosis of a rare disease that was quickly denying her the ability to see. She had been concerned about her eyesight, went for dozens of tests as she realized it was getting worse. It wasn't until 7 months after she went for her first doctor visit, and only one month prior to completely losing her vision and becoming legally blind, that she finally received her diagnosis. And there was nothing to be done. No cure. No treatment.

For a long time she held out hope that she would be the exception. That her vision would return if she just believed, worked hard enough, was lucky.

Her doctor finally had the most painful conversation with her. He told her it was time to grieve her loss of vision. It wasn't coming back. It was time to consider the reality of the situation, grieve, and move on.

Maria shared the story of trying to shop for a prom dress with her daughter, the painful and beautiful way she found her own ability, despite the limitations of her disability, to participate in a meaningful way, with the help of her son and a large format iPad.

When you listen to Maria speak about her experience, you'll hear the unresolved questions of why, and you'll also hear her resolve to make her life, and the lives of those around her, a different kind of normal, an extraordinary normal, if that's a thing.

I know, it doesn't make sense, and none of it does. Something so tragic in a person's life can go so many different ways. Maria could have fallen into despair, she could have lived as a "poor me" and no one would fault her for it.

Or she could have taken the path of least resistance and simply made her way through life with the skills she had, the people she had in her life, and been, well, mediocre.

She didn't do any of that. She started a blog to share her experiences, to guide others with loss of vision, and to bring some comfort to the support network of those people, to share what their friends and family needed when they lost their vision.

She grew, transformed, and found her way toward growing new dreams, new goals. You might just be surprised what someone like Maria can do.

To learn more about her, visit her website, and follow her on LinkedIn and Facebook.

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ABOUT SARAH:

Purchase the audiobook here.

In my work with coaching clients, I guide people to improve their communication using storytelling as the foundation of our work together. What I’ve realized over years of coaching and podcasting is that the majority of people don’t realize the impact of the stories they share - on their internal messages, and on the people they’re sharing them with.

My work with leaders and people who aspire to be leaders follows a similar path to the interviews on my podcast, uncovering pivotal moments in their lives and learning how to share them to connect more authentically 

with others, to make their presentations and speaking more engaging, to reveal patterns that have kept them stuck or moved them forward, and to improve their relationships at work and at home.

The audiobook, Your Stories Don’t Define You, How You Tell Them Will is now available!

Included with your purchase are two bonus tracks, songs recorded by Sarah's band, Spare Change, in her living room in Montana.

Episode 162: When Your World Crashes Down, You Rebuild by Helping Others

For An Athlete, An Injury Can Put Your Identity and Your Story to the Test

Charles Clark's mother wanted to fix it. She was desperate to see her son climb back up from the deep, deep hole she was watching him experience. Seeing someone we love in despair is likely the most painful grief.

"What can I do, Charles. How can I help you?"

"No mom, this is something I have to do myself."

When I heard this story, my eyes filled with tears. All I could think about was his mother's pain and pride in that moment. The pain of helplessness and the pride in hearing those words.

That wasn't the only story Charles shared in this episode that brought tears to my eyes, and we laughed, too. This was an hour of incredible story sharing, I think I experienced every emotion as this masterful storyteller opened his world for me to experience with him.

If you haven't heard of Charles Clark, the former World-Class American sprinter, now inspirational speaker, you'll be so glad to meet him through this episode of Your Stories Don't Define You.

And if you did know a little about him, you might just become an even bigger fan after listening in to our conversation.

Connect with Charles on LinkedIn, visit his website, and be sure to follow him on Facebook (that's where I discovered this amazing guy) and Instagram!

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Charles Clark, the creator of the Thrive Planner and the Thrive Tribe Podcast, is an expert in habit improvement, discovering purpose, vision creating and goal setting. After he became the 6th fastest man in the world, a devastating injury left him searching for his identity. Charles developed techniques that brought clarity to his life’s purpose while establishing massive confidence.  

Charles’ modern transformation strategies, empowering presentations, and high-performance mindset hacks have made him a sought-after speaker and coach for leading organizations like Dick’s Sporting Goods, Nike, Raymond James Financial, Frontier Communications, iHeart Radio, US Army, and FSU.

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About Sarah:

Purchase the audiobook here.

In my work with coaching clients, I guide people to improve their communication using storytelling as the foundation of our work together. What I’ve realized over years of coaching and podcasting is that the majority of people don’t realize the impact of the stories they share - on their internal messages, and on the people they’re sharing them with.

My work with leaders and people who aspire to be leaders follows a similar path to the interviews on my podcast, uncovering pivotal moments in their lives and learning how to share them to connect more authentically 

with others, to make their presentations and speaking more engaging, to reveal patterns that have kept them stuck or moved them forward, and to improve their relationships at work and at home.

The audiobook, Your Stories Don’t Define You, How You Tell Them Will is now available!

Included with your purchase are two bonus tracks, songs recorded by Sarah's band, Spare Change, in her living room in Montana.

Episode 131: Make Kind Loud - It's the Only Way Out of This Mess

"It's Better to Be Kind than to be Funny" - Louisa Garrett

Louisa Garrett used to rely on her sarcastic sense of humor to make people laugh. But when she saw herself through the eyes of her nieces and nephews, as a model for the behavior she wanted to see in them - and in others, she had an epiphany. Being sarcastic was not a kind sense of humor, sarcasm can certainly be funny, but it is rarely kind.

As the youngest of a gaggle of kids, Louisa loved to be the center of attention. She’d do anything silly to make her siblings laugh, and developed a reputation for lightening difficult situations and conversations with her sense of humor.

Now, as we finally begin to address the issues of racism and bigotry in the most substantial way since the days of MLK Jr., Louisa has her work cut out for her. She knows that all any of us can do is be kind to each other, “stand in the gap” to support the efforts of our communities to address systemic racism and bigotry, and demonstrate the thoughtfulness and compassion we want to see in others.

You can learn more about Louisa by visiting her website, and by following her fantastic activity on Facebook.

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Are you ready to find clarity? The next Finding Purpose through Your Natural Strengths course begins July 8, 2020, and runs for 8 weeks, every Wednesday. Schedule a call to find out if this course is right for you.

Episode 130: I Will Not Meet Hate at the Door, Lessons of Love and Forgiveness

Stories of Love and Learning Through Adversity

Heather’s TEDx Colorado Springs - Transforming Adversity into Opportunity

Heather Younger is no stranger to adversity. Born to a white, Jewish mother and a black father, her mother's family was less than welcoming, and Heather grew up without any contact with the majority of that family.

What's really significant about Heather's words is that she backs them up with real action and and her behavior absolutely brings that message home. She chooses love, learning, and personal growth in response to the adversity she experienced as a child and young adult.

Now is the time for us to amplify messages like Heather's, to listen closely to her stories not to get angry or frustrated, but to learn how to hold space for learning and compassion for those who mistreat us.

Heather and I connected early in my LinkedIn activity, and we've had the opportunity to spend real time together - in person. She was one of the first to sign on to participate in the inaugural No Longer Virtual event in 2017, and hasn't missed and #NLV since. 

I'm so grateful for her friendship, support, and incredibly inspiring way she speaks, lives, and loves.

Learn more about Heather by connecting with her on LinkedIn, visit her website, subscribe to her podcast, and be sure to watch her outstanding TEDx talk. You can also order her best selling book, 7 Intuitive Laws of Employee Loyalty on Amazon.

Episode 124: Your Stories Don't Define You. How You Tell Them Will.

Think about that title for a second. Your Stories Don’t Define You. Those things that happen in your life are not what define you, create your identity, and shape your relationships. It’s how you talk about those things that matters. 

When you tell people about the experiences in your life, you shape those experiences for yourself through subconscious internal messages. According to researchers at Eastern Washington University, the stories told about you, in front of you, begin to shape your identity before you have words. And the stories you tell about yourself, your personal narrative, are what build on that identity.

So how do we apply that knowledge as adults to improve our lives and relationships?
 
We pay attention to the stories we’re sharing. And we look back at the incidents and situations that shaped those stories.
 
My book, Your Stories Don’t Define You, How You Tell Them Will, is based on what I’ve learned by hosting more than 100 episodes of this podcast.

Most people cannot easily tell a story about pivotal moments that shaped who they are and how they think. The book is designed to help readers uncover those stories, find the meaning in them, and share them with the right audience at the right time, in order to strengthen relationships, address damaging internal messages, and inspire others through their personal stories.

The ebook is available for preorder online for $0.99 on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble from now until May 31. I encourage you to purchase the ebook to get started, and then order the paperback from your local bookstore, or visit bookshop.org to support independent booksellers.

I finished writing this book in November 2019, just a few months prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, with absolutely no idea how 2020 would transform our global community. In a very short period of time, thousands lost their lives, millions lost their jobs and businesses, families were pulled apart and quarantined together, and the global economy realized how tightly connected we really are.  As communities, we saw healthcare workers sainted, bullied, and celebrated when entire cities howled like wolves during shift changes to recognize them for the risks they were taking to care for our sick.

Meanwhile, many of us hunkered down to shelter-in-place, faced with daily uncertainty of our health, our jobs, school closures, and being barraged with moment-by-moment shifts in the news about the short and long-term impacts of this pandemic.

People have found ways to cope, of course, and there have been beautiful stories of families reconnecting and spending quality time together making meals, taking walks, and reading together.

“There is no doubt the learning, the richness and the expansion that comes from our stories is the place where Sarah Elkins’s legacy lives. By reading this book and taking hold of its principles, you become a part of that legacy, too. Use that power well.”

— Cheryl Snapp Conner, founder and CEO of SnappConner PR and creator of Content University™

For me, a huge 50th birthday celebration was planned for April 18, 2020, complete with friends and family coming to Montana from all over the country. It didn’t happen, of course. What happened instead was a gorgeous hike with a friend – with appropriate social distancing, a virtual wine tasting, a brief paddle around in a nearby lake with a new kayak, a surprise Zoom birthday toast with friends and family from all over the world, some heartfelt, amazing video birthday messages, and a Facebook Live performance of a few songs by me and my husband, Bob.

When I had time to think about the events of the weekend, I found them truly inspiring. And while I was disappointed not to celebrate the way I intended, the stories we created together for this big birthday were probably more significant, more life-altering than if things had gone the way we planned. Instead of focusing on the disappointment, I lived each experience in the reality of the moment.

That’s what the book is about, finding out that the stories of the things that happen in our lives are significant, far more than the things that didn’t happen in our lives.

Some have called this time The Great Pause. One friend described his bike ride in a city north of London: “I could have ridden on either side of the street, it was so deserted. And the air. The air was crisp and fresh, I’ve never smelled it like this here.”

I have great empathy for the students and young adults whose lives were so disrupted in their final year of school, I cannot imagine the depth of disappointment in missing the major experiences they were expecting to have: Prom, graduation, parties, goodbyes, all of those “this is the last time…” moments. Those disappointments feel so big right now, and I can tell you they will pale in comparison to the adventures that await you.

Please take time now to begin collecting stories of this experience, to remember the details of incidents and situations that you can look back at, to see how pivotal they were in how you see yourself and how you see your future. Consider the tragic loss of life, and the courageous acts of our healthcare and service workers, and also the smaller acts that made a difference, like the many who took up the call to sew masks for themselves and others and neighbors delivering food to each other. Reflect on your stories of this time in the context of the stories of the people around you.

You’ve heard people ask each other: “Where were you on 9/11?” “Do you remember what you were doing when you heard the news about…?”

In the future, people will ask you those questions about your time during the COVID-19 pandemic. I hope as you think about your experiences during this time, that you begin to collect details of some specific moments, conversations, walks, time you spent with your kids, your partner, your fur babies, in the kitchen, or on video calls. Take time periodically to jot down notes, the way you’re feeling, your thoughts, and how you spend your precious days.

“People have lived through historically significant events and forces, like WW2 & the Great Depression, the 1918 flu epidemic, etc., and I find great comfort in this knowledge and understanding.” Martha Kohl

The Montana Historical Society has been collecting the stories of individual Montanans for decades, including letters written by and to individuals across the state from the time settlers began making their lives here. These letters, archived for future generations to read and learn from have offered a unique perspective for students, giving important context to the history they’re learning and reading about in school.

When our younger son was a freshman in high school, his drama class performed letters from that  collection, written by and for Montanans from our territorial days up to around the time of the Gulf War. It was an incredible opportunity for them and for the audience, especially the Q&A session with the students following the performance. Many of them mentioned how much more meaningful the study of history was when they could touch and feel real people’s experiences like that. Martha, the program coordinator for that class, said: “They recognized themselves as actors in history, and that their behavior and choices matter.”

The Historical Society has shifted this brilliant collection to address our current situation by creating a survey asking people about their experiences in the time of this pandemic. The agency will archive the stories of everyday citizens, offering an extraordinary glimpse into the past for future generations, giving context to the world news and making it more relevant with  specific stories and incidents.

This is the time, my friends, to consider the stories you will share in the future, because YOUR stories, the ones you make right now, are what will give our collective future meaning, and will give context to the suffering, joy, and transformation we will see as a result of those experiences.

Do not waste this opportunity. Because it’s not what happens to you that shapes your identity and your relationships. It’s how you talk about it.

The book is available for preorder NOW. on Amazon or Barnes & Noble. The ebook will be just $.99 until the book’s launch on May 31st. A portion of each book preordered will be donated to the Prickly Pear Land Trust, a Helena, Montana-based non-profit devoted to preserving open land and recreation opportunities for everyone. Why PPLT? Because the open lands in my neighborhood have provided endless inspiration for me and my writing, and I am so grateful, especially now, for the people who continue to create a collaborative structure to preserve those spaces.

Please visit Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, to preorder the book before May 31st, or visit bookshop.org to purchase the book after May 31st.

Episode 122: Storytelling As A Means of Self-Reflection and Change

When Love is a Catalyst for a Shift in Your Story

He looked at his 2 year old son, standing at the foot of the bed where Bryan Falchuck's wife, his son's mother, was wasting away in front of his eyes.

It was that moment when he knew he had to change. To be there for his son in a way he hadn't felt supported as a child, and to be there for his wife in a way he knew she needed, he had to take the steps. Those steps included steps backward, to better understand why he was so compelled to action, so compelled to exploit his anxiety as a tool for professional success.

At a time when money was tight and time was so severely limited, Bryan finally sought help.

It wasn't an overnight shift, following his realization as he looked at his son and wife that day. And he knew it wouldn't be.

He had plenty of evidence of his resilience, persistence, and motivation. As a seriously overweight child and young adult, in his 20s he made the decision to take control of his health and weight and lost 100 lbs. But when his wife got sick and they couldn't find a diagnosis, he regressed and gained 50 of those pounds back.

Bryan took the necessary steps every day to bring himself back to health, and to be the support his wife truly needed.

It's nine years later and he has stayed the course. His wife is mostly recovered, though she continues to battle long-term symptoms of Lyme Disease, and he has written and published two best selling books about his adventure in finding health and happiness in his relationships with himself and others.

What I loved about Bryan's story was that his decision to change wasn't really about him. His decision came from deep love for his family. Being a healthy father and husband meant being a present, compassionate, and supportive father and husband. And that was his motivation. Love.

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Bryan Falchuk is an author, speaker and coach helping people change their lives. Bryan has also been a successful C-level executive. As a Certified Behavior Change Specialist, Bryan is the best-selling author of Do a Day and his latest best-selling book, The 50 75 100 Solution: Build Better Relationships. He speaks regularly on the subjects of motivation, culture, relationships and overcoming challenges, including several TEDx Talks.

He has shared his message on over 150 podcasts and radio shows, and has written for many top publications like Inc Magazine, the LA Times and Chicago Tribune. Bryan also hosts his own show, The Do a Day Podcast.

Visit Bryan's website to learn more, connect with him on LinkedIn, and follow his inspiring work on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

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Sarah Elkins is a communication coach, keynote speaker, Gallup certified StrengthsFinder coach, professional musician, and author. Her book, Your Stories Don't Define You, How You Tell Them Will is based on lessons from hosting this podcast, and will be available for preorder beginning in early May, 2020.