Your Unstoppable Life

Welcome to True Grit and Grace, a podcast designed to empower you to claim your resilience and thrive through life's challenges. I am Amberly Lago, a mindset coach, fitness expert and bestselling author. Each week, I'll dive deep with the world's brightest thought leaders and elite performers to share tangible tools and practical advice to inspire you to keep your eyes on the prize and forge ahead. So get ready to conquer your fears, heal any trauma, lead with your heart, and elevate your life with grit and grace. Happy holidays and welcome to True Root and Grace. Thank you for being here. This is the first episode that I am recording from Texas. We moved from LA to a small town outside of Dallas called Heath, population 7,450 or something like that. I'm loving it here. It's so quiet and This is actually Christmas morning, and I woke up early before everybody wakes up in the hustle and bustle of gift opening and going to my granny's. And I'm so excited, but I couldn't wait anymore to bring this episode to you. So I'm recording it now. And I hope you enjoy each and every story that you're going to hear. I just finished up the Unstoppable Life Mastermind. And before I launched this mastermind, I prayed and I said, God, bring me faith-filled, passionate people who want to make a positive impact in the world. And that is exactly what I got. And so I had this big idea because we met every week on, on Zoom, and we learned from some of the top thought leaders, elite coaches, top 1% podcasters, authors, and celebrities. And I thought, what about if we met together in person So we all came together in Malibu, and then I said, y'all, you have learned so much in this mastermind. You've learned how to optimize your Instagram and launch podcasts and YouTube channels and coaching programs. And they learned how to put together a talk. So I said, how about we meet together in mastermind and each of you give a 10-minute TED-style talk where you share the most important lesson of your life that you have ever learned. So y'all, this week you are going to get a special treat because you're going to get to learn from each person who was in the mastermind. And these people are unbelievable. They're unbelievable. They are definitely people you're going to want to connect with. So I have put their Instagram handles in the show notes so you can reach out to them. I want you to take note from everything that they share because they are true champions. And I want— they've become more than just friends. They've become family and they are unstoppable. And you know what? There's a chance for you to be in a mastermind too. So I'm sharing for the first time. I haven't launched this on social media. I haven't launched this with this big Align Ambition event that I'm speaking at in a couple of weeks, you are getting first pick to join the next mastermind. So if you're ready to really get clarity on your vision and your goals, if you want to write a book, if you want to start a podcast, if you want to launch a YouTube channel, if you want to start your coaching program, don't do it alone. Join a mastermind. Come together with a like-minded community of people that are paving their way to success. And I had— and this isn't a huge group, y'all. This is only 20 people that are going to be in this group. There are only 10 early bird spots left. So go to truegritandgrace.com to learn more about it. I will tell you that I already have some guest speakers for this one lined up. I've got Mitch Matthews and he's sharing how to produce a top podcast. Emily Lyons, who is going to teach you how to build your brand, y'all. She— look her up on Instagram. She's a top entrepreneur. She has like six businesses. She teaches people how to really build their brand and their media. I've got Travis Believes coming on, sharing how to grow your YouTube channel. He's the one who's responsible for making Prince E, Jay Shetty, Lewis Howes go viral. I've got Kim Cope coming on. She is a LinkedIn queen, teaching us how to really explode our LinkedIn. I've got. Jess Ekstrom coming. Um, she's teaching us how to speak and how to write and so many more. So this is the first time I'm sharing all this good stuff. I want to know if you do want to really make an impact and grow your income. I want you to check out truegritandgrace.com and be a part of this mastermind. And now I am bringing you these amazing stories, lessons learned from these top entrepreneurs. entrepreneurs, podcasters, and YouTubers. So take note, uh, if you enjoyed one of them in particularly, make sure you take a screenshot and share it and tag me @AmberlyLagoMotivation on Instagram so I can see it and share it in my story too. So welcome to the show and enjoy this episode.

One of the most challenging moments in my life was walking into a classroom And not understanding a word what was being said. You see, I was born here, but I still didn't speak the language. And that's something that I struggled with for a couple years of my life as I was walking into that classroom not knowing what was said, not being recognized, not having friends there, not understanding the teacher. I was different. I wondered if I belonged there. It took a couple years for me to understand that I am different. And because of that, I am who I am, and I'm paving the way for the girls to come. I'm a first-generation Latina student. My parents immigrated here from Mexico. My parents came here with a vision to improve our lives, to give more.

Thank you.

to give abundantly. My dad had to leave his country, and because of that sacrifice, I stand here sharing my story because we've all had sacrifices. We've all come across an obstacle, something that we had to overcome, and that is powerful beyond measure. The other day, my daughter was telling me that there was a girl in her class She's in 5th grade. Her name is Elisa. And she said, Mom, I have a new friend in class. She doesn't speak English. She doesn't have friends. No one played with her, Mom, but I did. I introduced myself. I had that talk with my daughter and I said, you talk to her, you guide her, you're her right hand. You be friends with her and help her in any possible way you can. Because I was her in first grade. My daughter looked at me and said, really, Mom, that was you? I said, yes. So when I said I had trouble belonging, yeah, I was born and raised here. We would go to Mexico. I thought, well, maybe this is where I belong. We'd come see my family during Christmas time. My friends thought it was the coolest thing that I spoke English. But my Spanish was different compared to theirs. Again, I couldn't identify myself being Mexican and I couldn't identify myself being Mexican-American. I am first-generation. I'm Mexican-American and I proudly say that now because those obstacles that I had. See, my parents didn't allow us to speak English at home and it sucked. Because I was learning something that I loved and it was just new in cartoons and it was all over the TV. My friends spoke it at school and I wanted to come home and talk to my brothers and my sisters and tell something new to my mom and dad. But my dad said, no, you don't need to speak it here in this house. In this house, we don't speak English, we speak Spanish. I was crushed because that is what I wanted to share with them, what I learned, a new word like, you know, rojo, red. I mean, something as simple as that. But we were told no. And that was an obstacle growing up because, as I said, I didn't identify who I was. But now looking back, I'm so grateful that my mother and my daughter— my mother— I'm so grateful that my mother and my father were strict with us to say no back then, because now I'm fully bilingual. I know English, I know Spanish, and that is the biggest gift that they have given me. And that is the gift that I am proud now. It was an obstacle then, But now it has opened up doors. And what I do now is I help people. I have this beautiful platform and I'm using both languages to help others, to help others cast a vision, to help others through health and wellness, to help others with working. You know, see, my father came here and my mother knowing that they're gonna work here, break their backs from morning to sun just to put a meal on our table.

Mm-hmm. We—

they came here to work and everything that they earned here, they sent it back to their other children in Mexico because they couldn't bring them all to us. And that right there is what has laid the foundation for my family in Mexico and here in the United States. My dad had a vision and that vision casted into all of us, but upon me, it made such a big difference that that vision was not for me to work in the fields like he did. He would take us to pick apples, asparagus. We picked it all. And now I say it proudly because that vision that he had and said, I bring you here so that you don't have to do this in your future. I want you to go to school. I want you to graduate and do the things that we weren't capable of. That was their sacrifice. And because of that, you see, I didn't finish college. I finished— I graduated high school, And that's the highest education that my family completed. But that was a success for my family. I went on to college. I didn't finish. Stumbled across a couple opportunities. But now with this opportunity that I have in my business and in my company is that I can cast vision for people to work and not have to break their backs.

Mm-hmm.

That they can supply to their families. They can support their families being present. And not being gone, and that is where I am having the biggest breakthrough with my family. To be there with my children, to speak the language, our culture is important, to be there for them, and for that little girl sitting in first grade or fifth grade that can't speak English to say, "I am her, and I'm paving the way for you and for your family." That is my biggest obstacle turned into a solution, into a benefit, and because I am her. I am that Elisa in 5th grade.

Every evening I would see a shadow go by the window, and every evening I answered the same questions in my mind. Overwhelming anxiety and fear would fall on me, and I would think, who's going to walk through that door? Who is it going to be today? Is he going to be angry? Is he going to be happy? Has he had a good day, a bad day? I was 23 years old, Alabama girl living in California. I'd been married for 5 years. I had moved 16 times, and the cycle of abuse in my marriage was happening about every 3 months, not including minor abuse, which would be having Kool-Aid poured over my head, having food thrown at me. I didn't know what was going to trigger him, but I always knew that it was coming. And as you've listened to just this first part, 20 victims have suffered abuse. Imagine that. 1 in 4 in relationships are in domestic violence. Sure, I tried to get away, but how could I? I was isolated from my family. I dropped out of nursing school. I had two babies to take care of, to feed, to clothe. I felt like I was stuck. I needed to find the answers, and for me, the only answer that I knew I could trust—I had people on this side saying. You don't deserve to be treated that way. You need to leave. And I had people on the other side saying, God hates divorce. You can't get a divorce. And I had to come up with the answers myself. I needed to know that it was okay. So, how did I get the answers? This is really a crazy story, honestly. I should have done some push-ups before I got started, Amber. I need to move around.

Big time girl.

Yeah. So, um, I wrote the Bible. Really, I wrote the Bible. I had always heard, my granny always said, that there's nothing in this world, not a question in the world, that you can't find the answer to in the Bible. And I thought, okay, well, I have a Bible, and I learn best by writing. So every morning I got up at 4 o'clock in the morning while my babies were still asleep, and I wrote a chapter of the Bible every day. The whole New Testament, Psalms, Proverbs, and a few other ones. And guess what? I found the answers.

Wow.

One morning, my daughter walked into the kitchen, and she looked up at me with these huge, beautiful blue eyes. And she said, whatever question it was that she asked me, the confidence was in her face that she knew I would have the answer. She knew I had the answer. And in that moment, I felt like I was looking at my father, and he had the answer for me. And I knew that he wanted me free. Because what I felt was, you would never let anything like what's being done to you be done to her. And I'm not okay with what's being done to you.

Let me get back here for a second.

Okay. So how did I— you know, my faith was the biggest thing that helped me through that. Another thing was counsel. You know, not opinion, counsel. And I had remembered my aunt and uncle that I grew up around, and they had a great life and a great marriage, and I loved their kids, and I was always happiest when I was with them. So I talked to them, I got vulnerable, and I told them. After all those years, I told them what was happening to me. And they helped me. They gave us a place to live.

Wow.

They bought diapers for my babies. They took care of us. They helped me get a job, helped me find an apartment, all of those things that are so difficult when you're in that position. And, you know, it's called battered wife syndrome. So it's like you can't make decisions. You know, I couldn't even decide when to go to the grocery store when I finally left.

Yeah.

So having people to help navigate and help you make those decisions was huge for me. I also was in counseling. And I highly recommend counseling, right? I mean, I— grew up feeling like maybe that was weak, or, you know, you were weak if you needed that. But I think if everyone just did that— Because we all got issues, we all have things. And I'll never forget one night I had gone to a group meeting, and I felt so ashamed, and I was crying, and I was sharing, and I said, you know, um, I just wish that that he would not come home, that something would happen to him, that God would just take it in his own hands and I wouldn't have to live with him anymore. And the room got really quiet. And then all of a sudden everyone started laughing. And the women were like, girl, we have all felt that way. You are not alone.

And I was like, what?

So it just felt good to not be alone, because I did feel very alone in that situation, right? And then the last thing was fierce determination.

Mm-hmm.

And so I made up my mind that I wasn't going to live like that anymore. And I had always been known to be stubborn. when I was raised. And at that time, I was like, thank God I'm stubborn. Thank God for this determination in me. So the day came that I, I set the first boundary in our marriage. And I looked him in the eyes and I said, if you scream, yell, or cuss at me, I'll take the kids to the park so you can calm down. I'm not leaving. I'll come back. Don't freak out, I'll come back. But that's not happening in front of our children anymore. Do you understand what I'm saying? He made eye contact with me and said that he understood. And then I said, if you ever put your hands on me again in a violent way, I'm leaving and I will never come back. Do you understand? He acknowledged that he understood. 2 weeks later, 2 weeks later, um, he was agitated and things were escalating quickly. So I was still in my pajamas. I jumped in the shower thinking, I'm gonna have to take the kids to the park. So he comes in the bathroom and will, will not relent, right? So to make a long, horrible story short, I did— I don't remember anything that he said to me in that moment. I don't remember the pain from any of the blows that day. It was almost like I was in this bubble, and I just knew what I was supposed to do. I got out of the shower. I put my pajamas from the floor on my wet body. I went to my daughter's room, got her Went to my son's room, got him, grabbed my wallet, $20 to my name, got in my car, and I never went back.

Wow.

So that's the hard part. That's the challenge, is not going back, because I always went back before. And most women do go back because if you know the statistics, 3 out of 5 women don't make it out alive. Because when you go to leave and when you're preparing to leave, that's when you lose your life most of the time. And I was afraid that I would lose my life. I didn't sit with my back to a door for years.

Wow.

But it was staying away. That's the thing. Staying away, staying free, right? Because I can say that the woman standing here today is free.

Honey, your dad is on life support. In any other situation, it would have been horrible. But I wasn't in any other situation. I was in a hospital bed. 5 days after my own spine surgery, an ocean away from my dad, and unable to walk more than 5 steps without excruciating pain. And for this Christian girl saying some really un-Christian words to the physical therapist. But in that moment, I knew that I had to get to my father.

Mm-hmm.

And so my brother-in-law, an Iron Man from West Point, flew across the nation to come get me, drugged up, put me on a plane, and go see my father. You see, my dad is the one who knows that dreams come true. And actually right now, this is on my vision board. This room is on my vision board. Yeah. So I knew that I had to see my father, who knows that our stories matter, who knows that everyone has within them something that must be made known on this earth and cannot be made known by anyone else the way that you can. And my part of my story has to do with a little bit of a peculiarity. I have this weird gift with Shakespeare, writing, music, and visual art. And he always said, you have got to go for it. And unlike Polonius, who told Ophelia that you're just a green girl, you don't know anything, He was more like Polonius to his son Laertes when he said, and this above all, to thine own self be true, and it shall be as night that comes after the day. You will not be false to any man. That's my father. The other gift that he gave me that I had no idea that I would need as much as I did is in my middle name. They named me Katherine Grace. And it is the resiliency that comes from grace that has carried me through the beginning to now of that journey that started in that hospital bed. Because I had no idea that 2 years ago in November of 2019, a few months before something else hit this nation, That my story was not over with one surgery, that it wasn't a simple microdiscectomy that I'd be walking, walking out of that hospital bed very easily a couple days later. What's beautiful about what happened though, is I flew across the nation to see my father and let him hear my voice one more time. Is that the gift of grace has become a tool. See, I think of it as, first of all, gratitude. That's part of how I've gotten through this, these 2 years. Man, I had no idea how nice it was to be able to stand up, to sit down, to walk into the shower with no trouble. But now I am grateful for just being able to get my leg over the tub. And when, not if, but when my miracle happens, I won't forget the gift of the small things. Also within gratitude is our greatness. We don't have to wait until we're all better from a difficult situation or from a health condition Or from having just the right 401 to be able to live out our greatness. And my father knew that. The other piece of grace is learning how to receive. I've had some amazing opportunities in my life, but they came because I was doing excellent things, pursuing my dreams. I was asked to come to Harvard in an email. I didn't even apply. I was asked to come to Lambda, one of the top drama schools in the world, without auditioning. There are things that have happened that really shouldn't have. But during this time when I couldn't do what I wanted to do, I had to learn how to receive people helping me in ways that really I never needed before.

Mm-hmm.

'Cause I could do it myself, 'cause my dad raised a tough cookie. I'm from New York. We're different.

Okay.

Yeah. Beyond asking though, which is a skill and something one must develop if you're gonna get through really tough times, I had to learn how to act on my dreams. See, I have this thing where I really like to dream a whole lot of things, and I could fill the whole back wall with all sorts of ideas. I call it like an idea-volution, a revolution of ideas all over that board. But if all that we're doing is dreaming, we're not actually acting. And we need to learn to go from dreaming to doing in order to make our vision and our message come forth on this earth. So that's the third thing. The other thing that my father allowed is creativity. Oh my gosh, there is so much creativity in our house. It's like, how in the world did we ever get anything done, right? I, I love creativity so much I had a hard time stopping school. I have 2 masters. I was even asked to be the USA Postgraduate Scholar for the University of Birmingham and the Shakespeare Institute to work with the Royal Shakespeare Company. How does that even happen? But it came because I was studying something called Shakespeare and creativity. I encourage you that in our hard times, when we feel like we're not ready or prepared, get creative. There are more ways to do what we want to do and fulfill the dreams of our hearts, the stories that matter, the stories that Shakespeare would have written about, to be honest. There are more ways to do it than seems to meet the eye. Don't let anything, even the inability to walk 5 steps, get in your way. There is a way to make it happen. Then the last part of grace Grace. Which is so important. And remember, grace also means blessing. It also means favor. It's something that's a gift, right? And we've all been given this gift to be able to live out grace in our lives. The last part, and I think maybe the most important, is to expect miracles. Every day I wake up, Hmm. Jesus. Every day I wake up and I say, this is my miracle day. This is the day that I get to walk freer. This is the day that I get to have less pain. Because in the 2 years since my dad was in the hospital bed, they've diagnosed me with the most painful condition known called CRPS, but I believe I'm still at the beginning of it enough to push it back. So I don't even claim it. It's not mine. It's something that I'm going to conquer. If I expect every day that I'm going to be in pain, then I'm going to be in pain. If you expect every day that you're not going to accomplish your dreams, you're not going to accomplish your dreams. If you expect That you're gonna go out and your message is— that's so beautiful. You're gonna make your message known to the world in a way that no one else can because your story is no one else's, then you indeed will make that story known. So one thing that's interesting about grace is that it gets us through the toughest times. And even though my father didn't— has not gotten to see this journey so far, the journey of being bedridden, the journey of waiting for a second surgery, the journey of still learning to walk, I know that he's watching. Queen Catherine, which I am using without any shame in this moment, but Queen Catherine and Henry VIII It says, my tears, my— oh no, my drops of tears shall turn to sparks of fire. I believe that through using grace, through going after your dreams, through being true to yourself, that you can turn your drops of tears into sparks of fire. Not only for yourself to make your message known, But you can spark fires in others, and they can go out and be fire starters themselves. So today, as you're thinking about your own dreams, consider grace and know that you're a fire starter.

A very wise friend with a lot of life experience once told me, Be careful who you get involved with. Marry the right person, your life is going to feel like heaven on earth. Marry the wrong person, your life might feel like hell on earth. I did not realize the magnitude of this truth until living it myself. I've always been someone who loves deeply, and I've always been great at loving other people, but for some reason, I just did not know how to love Myself. Self-love, self-worth, they were like motivational quotes you see on social media. I couldn't wrap my mind around the two of those concepts beyond that, which is why I unknowingly was inviting into my life a parade of people who were either non-committal or extremely unhealthy emotionally. And to say it took a toll on my emotional well-being Is an understatement. Every breakup felt like a funeral, and it got to the point where I was so broken inside, I felt like one more heartbreak and this is seriously going to end me. I cannot keep going through this. Which is why, even though I saw the red flags, something in my gut, my intuition, which I believe to be the voice of God in my heart, told me, don't get involved with this person. Don't go down this road. But here again, the thought of going through another heartbreak was unthinkable, and I was afraid of hurting him if I walked away. He lived in another country, so the relationship was long distance. Over the phone, I picked up on some really bizarre inconsistencies with his behavior, but I just figured he's stressed from work, hasn't gotten enough sleep. Once we're together, I can make him happy. All will be well. His text messages were like poetry, and when he promised me over the phone, I wanted so badly to believe him. And so I bought into a brilliantly crafted facade. We only met up with each other in person once before getting married, and as we were crossing the country together after Saying, I do. Jekyll turns into Hyde, and I realized I made the biggest mistake of my life. It was an emotionally abusive nightmare for 3 years, and it could have been a lot worse had I not been perfectly agreeable to everything he said, everything he wanted. I basically played a character that wasn't me just to survive. Every day felt like walking through a minefield. I didn't know when he was going to blow up. But what felt worse was living a lie, pretending like everything was okay. I felt so ashamed for making such a hasty decision to even get involved with this person despite all those red flags. I didn't want anyone to know the truth. I didn't want anyone to know what was really happening behind the scenes. So I just vowed to myself that I was going to do whatever I could to make it work by Showering him with kindness every day, lovingly pushed for counseling. Yeah, that did not work. So it got to a point where I knew deep down I'm gonna have to dig myself out of this train wreck and break free. Mind-blowing depression was my constant reality, but the greatest turning point of my life happened out of what felt like complete darkness. I need to share with you a quick backstory. When I was a little girl, I used to love going for walks and talk to God. I grew up Catholic, went to Mass every Sunday, but I always had this sense that God was bigger than church and definitely bigger than religion. And when I would go for these walks, I could just feel this loving presence all around me. I knew it was God, and I just always felt like God was looking out for me. I completely fell in love with God my whole life because of my experiences with this radical love, and especially during this relationship debacle. So at this point, the only time I could get alone was late at night. I would sneak out, walk laps around the neighborhood, and just pray, pray that God would work a miracle and open this man's eyes. Well, God worked an even bigger miracle. He opened My eyes. And a series of life-changing breakthroughs happened. You cannot heal from something you're not aware of. So the first breakthrough is becoming fully aware of the fact I was seriously codependent and had been living my life for years just desperate to please other people and make other people happy. I neglected my own sense of value for so long I completely lost myself. My identity was wrapped up in trying to save, fix, and rescue other people. I just lost myself. I was trying to fulfill a role I was never meant to fulfill. Now, don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful thing to wanna contribute to someone else's happiness, but we're not meant to be someone else's happiness. So I researched all that night about coaching. Codependency. Fast forward, by the extravagant grace of God, I very strategically got out, got my life back. And when I crossed the border, had the weirdest feeling. It was so unnerving. I never felt so vulnerable. It was just me, myself, and all these feelings and emotions I was no longer numb to. But I knew that I had to work through these feelings and emotions if I was ever going to fully heal. And just put an end to this obnoxious cycle of relationship catastrophe. My safe space for this to even be possible, of course, was going out for my long walks, talking it out with God, praying a lot, and meditating. And so many beautiful revelations came to me during that time. I realized that the love of God far exceeds all human emotion and bad decisions, because no matter how broken and screwed up I felt, no matter how many what was I thinking moments, God's plan for my life was infinitely bigger than I ever thought possible. And it was in my brokenness, alone with God, allowing myself to be vulnerable, layers of scars came to the surface. And this love I can only describe to you as divine healed those scars and all that pain. And I can distinctly I remember waking up one morning feeling like a brand new version of myself, like something massive had been lifted off of me. And it was then that I realized that if I could accept the unconditional, radical love of God, despite my flaws and all my broken pieces, I could love myself. And it was then that I realized this is the starting point for having healthy relationships. The next breakthrough is discovering my true authentic self. It isn't until you know who you truly are authentically can you possibly know what makes you happy and fulfilled, how to show up as your best authentic self, how to align yourself with relationships that resonate with who you are and where you where you're going in life. And the third breakthrough is setting healthy boundaries and being okay with it. Can I just tell you how? How liberating it feels to be able to say no and reserve my energy for only who and what are aligned with where I need to be going in life. And the 4th breakthrough is having standards that honor your values and never compromising those values for anyone or anything. And always, always listen to the voice of your intuition. Even if it doesn't make sense, go with it. So I've made it a personal practice to be very in tune to the voice of God every day in my heart guiding me, which I believe is my intuition, and trust it even if it doesn't make sense, because God can always see what we cannot. And God is always moving on our behalf for our greater good, even if it doesn't look like it on the surface. My friends, with all my heart, I hope to be an encouraging voice to you. that whatever your deepest pain might be right now, whatever your greatest struggle, there is magnificent purpose emerging out of what you think is impossible. And with all my heart, I pray over each and every beautiful person listening to me right now that you would experience the radical unconditional love of God in such magnitude, it literally changes the trajectory of your life. Straight to the heart of God. My friends, with all my heart, I say this to you, that God will turn your deepest, deepest scars into a beautiful masterpiece. Don't give.

So exactly 3 years ago, my husband told me he was going to effing leave and take all of the kids with him, and I could have my career and my money and my success, and he would take the kids. And I was holding my 9-month-old baby and I felt absolutely nothing. I looked at him blankly. He took the kids, he went to the beach, and it also happened to be his birthday. It's not exactly how I had envisioned spending his birthday, but it was the reality of where I was at that point. I'd been hugely successful. I had built multiple businesses, was making really great money, far out-earning my physician husband, and had this incredible career, but I was dead inside.

Hmm.

Completely numb, out of energy, probably going through some postpartum depression, and just trying to get through the day. And so what that looked like is I spent all of my time buffering. Buffering away through work, through social media, through doing even more and more and more and more. And here he was dying, literally suffering, because I couldn't deal with the pain that I was going through. It was a defining moment for me in many different ways. And I remember him coming back from the beach and me being very calm. Pulling him into the bedroom and sitting down and looking at him and saying, first of all, you will never take the children, and if you leave me, I will take everything. You'll learn this about me that I mean business, right? But he was right. I said, there are some things that we need to work on. And there are some things that I need to work on, and there's a lot of pain that I need to work through and I need to heal through. And I accept responsibility, and I take extreme ownership for how far off the rails I've gone with my time management, with managing my emotions, with taking care of my family, with being here for you. I take responsibility for that. But it takes 2 people.

Hmm.

It takes 2 people. And you're a part of this too. And so I spent the last 3 years really doing a lot of work on myself, a lot of personal growth, a lot of development, coaching, seminars, all the different things. A lot of time taking walks, going for runs, listening to my thoughts, working through my feelings, healing parts of me from my childhood— loss, disappointment, sadness, depression— healing all of those things. And taking responsibility and accountability for myself. Now, he wasn't exactly coming along on the journey with me. In fact, he resisted. I could feel his anger. I could feel his frustration. I could feel him shutting down, and I could feel him wanting to set boundaries on me and give me rules. Well, this is what I need you to do, and this is what I need you to do. And we had lots of talks. at night and we would talk about, you know, all the things that he wanted to change and we would make concessions and be like, okay, this is what we can do. But as you know, anytime we're trying to change something, is it perfect? It's messy. Do you change it 100% of the time right away?

Mm-mm.

No. It takes a lot of time. And so I remember feeling very, very calm and very, very peaceful about this. And I think this is a really important lesson for everybody to learn in any relationship. Whether it's a leadership position and you have people that you are a leader of, or it's in your marriage, or it's with your children, any kind of relationship. I remember him being frustrated with me and feeling that anger because everything is energy, right?

Yeah.

We can feel the energy. And I just remember saying, be patient with me. Just be patient. And I was saying that as much to myself as I was to him. Because healing and growing and changing is a process, and you have to be patient with yourself. And I wasn't mad at him, but I just said, be patient with me. I'm learning. I'm changing. Be patient. And the second thing I told him is, I love you, but I am not responsible for your happiness. I'm not going to put that on. I'm not going to take that on. I don't need that pressure while I'm healing and while I'm learning how to be happy. I'm not responsible for your happiness. And so how did we go from that point 3 years ago with my husband storming out of the house, taking the 5 older kids, and me staying behind with the nursing baby, to where we are today? Madly in love, passionately supportive of one another, absolutely free in our relationship. How did we go from there to here? Well, we were patient. We were patient with each other. I started my journey of growth and development, and I started working on myself, but I never once went to him and said, you should read this book, you should do that, you should take this course. I never forced it on him. I just did my thing. I just did my thing quietly, and he started to see the changes, and he'd start to ask Well, what are you reading now? Could you, could you, could you, could you send me the link to that podcast? I mean, what's a good podcast to listen to? And I played it cool. I was like, oh yeah, sure, I'll send it to you. So I started sending him the books I was reading and the podcasts I was listening to, and our discussion started to change. And I could see the change in him. I could see the growth in him. I could see the development in him. And when I look at where we were 3 years ago to where we are today, all I can say is it's a miracle.

Yeah.

He's not the man I married. I'm not the woman he married. And it's beautiful. We've changed. We've evolved. We're more supportive. We're more in love. I'm more busy. I have more businesses. I have more things that I do. You can ask anybody that knows me.

I'm like, this is a great idea.

Let's Honey, let's buy another house and let's tear it down and remodel. That's not really called a remodel, by the way. But I have all these ideas and I'm still busy and I'm still anxiously engaged in work. And our marriage works.

Awesome.

Because we give each other space. We have patience. We understand that we're not responsible for one another's happiness. We support each other. We encourage each other. It's not perfect, it's messy, it takes a lot of figuring out with 6 kids, but it's worth it. And I spend a lot of time in my business counseling with women that are married, that have children. And what do you think the number one reason is they quit, they pull back, they stop? I'm doing this for my family. I've gotta, I've gotta pull back because of my kids, or this is hurting my marriage. Like, I can't go after my dreams because that would not be good for my family, that would not be good for my marriage. Like, I put family first. That was amazing when my sister sent me that message. I was like, that's fantastic because so do I. It's amazing that we have the same goal, it just looks different.

Right.

Right? And so what I want to remind you And the point of this whole story is that you changing and becoming a better version of yourself, you going after your dreams, you getting the help you need to change along the way, is gonna make you the most magnificent, the happiest version of yourself. And your happiness and your energy and your vibrancy is a gift to your family. It's a gift to your kids. You know what the alternative is? Why don't you go ahead and try quitting? See how much you love your husband then.

Mm-hmm.

See how much resentment you have. See how much regret you have when you quit on the thing you know you're supposed to do. If I can go through that experience and 3 years later be making 3 times as much money and have 3 more businesses, and be madly in love and have children that love their mother, that love each other, that are vibrant, that are healthy. If I can do that, you can too. The greatest lie that women believe, and that I even saw in a People magazine the other day, is that you can't have it all.

Oh.

It's a lie. You can have it all if you're willing to be honest with yourself, if you're willing to have the hard conversations. If you're willing to accept responsibility, if you're willing to do the work, if you're willing to go through the pain and the suffering, there's nothing but beauty on the other side and abundance and everything you've always wanted and everything you've ever been made to do.

I can remember the exact moment that I started to live. I was 30 years old, and thinking of my story, I don't have this big trauma that I overcame, or this huge obstacle, I thought. And my burden that I carried was complacency. It was being asleep. I felt like I was asleep for 30 years of my life. And, you know, growing up, I grew up in a small town, and I had loving parents, and I was taught, if you are a good person, and you put your head down, and you work hard, that's what there was to life. So that's what I grew up believing. And I always struggled with confidence. I was never confident. I— and it's funny because I was naturally thin and people would always comment on, oh my gosh, you're so skinny. And I would cringe. I hated my body. I hated how I looked. And I always grew up comparing myself to other people. And I had a mom who was always commenting on how she looked. And she's beautiful and I love her. But that's what I learned. I thought that was normal. And so for 30 years of my life, I was going through the motions. I was doing what I thought I was supposed to do. I was being a good mother. I was being a good wife. I thought I was. I think I was. And so in June of 2020, I was on a run, and I was listening to my favorite podcast by Bedros. It's The Empire. It's amazing. And he's talking about the story of crabs in the bucket. And just to make a long story short, crab fishermen will put crabs into a bucket, and they don't cover it, because when a crab tries to climb out, the other crabs will pull it down. And in that moment, I'm listening to this, and I felt like I had an elephant on my chest, and I literally collapsed while I was running, sobbing. I was thankfully off of a main road. But I was sitting on the side of the road sobbing, because I had And I had this realization how complacent and asleep I had been for so long. I had recently fallen out of a friendship with my best friend. She was the maid of honor at my wedding. She's my oldest's godmother. And she stopped talking to me. And I was so heartbroken when this happened, and I didn't understand why. It's like, why would she cut me out of her life? Why is this happening to me? And we had these other things happening in our lives too. We were going through this financial situation, and we were worried about if we were gonna be able to keep our house, and we had a baby, and just all of these things. And I was like, why is this happening to me? And I was constantly complaining. And I realized in that moment in June that I was living a victim, living the life of a victim. Life doesn't happen to us, it happens For us. And I realized in that moment that I was just going along with everything that I had been taught, everything that I thought I was supposed to be. And I had been asleep. And I woke up that day, and I made a promise to myself that I was never again going to be the victim. I was gonna use every situation as a learning opportunity. What can I learn from this? And I was gonna take control of my life back. Because we are all in control of our lives.

Right.

So the 3 biggest things that changed for me, I started taking care of my body, and through exercise and nutrition, because I've come to learn that our body is just a physical vessel here on this earth. There is something greater inside of us, and this is just our vessel for now. And we all have that inside of us. We need to take care of us so we can fulfill our purpose here on earth. The other part I started really developing myself and learning about myself and really investing in me and what I have to offer. I nailed down a solid morning routine. I start my day with meditation and affirmations and visualization. There's something huge in the power of manifestation that I have discovered, and I can say with 100% certainty that it has changed my life just in the last month. And the third thing is surrounding yourself with the right people. And I'm so happy to be in this room with all of you today because it is all about the power of proximity. When you surround yourself with the right people, I love this saying, if you're the smartest person in the room, you need to find a new room.

Yeah.

Because otherwise you're not gonna be challenged, you're not gonna keep growing. And so the biggest learning experience that I had on that day was that I am in control of my life. I'm never gonna be a crab in the bucket for anyone again, 'cause that is what happened with my friend. I was always complaining to her. I had so much to be grateful for, and I wasn't living a grateful life. I had a beautiful home, I had 2 beautiful, healthy children, I had a job that I loved, and I wasn't grateful. So now I can live a grateful life. You can have it all. And there is just so much power in stepping into who you are meant to be, because we are all meant to be something bigger. And especially to moms that I speak to, you are more than just a mom. And I realized that one day. There are so many more things that I can do with my life, and everyone else can too. So that is my purpose. My calling is to speak specifically to those people, to those moms who feel lost, who feel like they're just a mom. There's so much more. That you can do and just—

Relentless.

My word of intention this year was relentless. And I said to myself, I am going to relentlessly pursue everything that presents itself to me. And most of the time it's worked out good. I've had some weird things happen and they were great. They were great learning experiences, but it's part of the journey. Yes, we can get into that later, but. There's— there is something guiding us. Whatever you believe in, there is a higher power that has a purpose for you. And we have to slow down and take off all of those limiting beliefs and let go of that control to listen to what that path is for you. So I have been relentlessly pursuing everything this year, and it's led me to some amazing places. I've gotten to work with some amazing women. And I just decided here today, I am going home after this weekend. I'm going to put in my notice with my employers. I, I've been praying on it. I've been meditating. January 1st is going to be a turn for me. I'm done with everything holding me back, and I am going to fully step into my power.

Yes.

And so I want to let everyone else— Everyone else speak— everyone else listening, that you have so much more in you and you have to embrace that fear because I am scared as hell up here right now. But I feel more alive than I have ever felt in my life, and I want that for everyone. So find that hunger in your life.

17 years ago, I found myself at the bottom of the basement stairs With my face plastered on the concrete floor. And my head was in such excruciating pain that I knew that there was something really wrong. My eyes— the pain was so bad that I couldn't tell if my eyes were squinted or if I just couldn't see because of the pressure. That was surrounding my head, and there was this heaviness on the left side of my body, yet at the same time it was light and weird and disconnected. And most people who know me know that I have been through a significant amount of pain and suffering and trauma, but at that point I knew that I was out of my body. The ER doctors, after running a whole bunch of tests and taking me and keeping me there for a long time, told me that I was having a stroke. And I felt something rise up inside of me that I had never felt before, and it was a force. And I knew that I had to do something. The next thing I know, my feet were moving and my mouth was moving, and I was saying things that, well, I'm not ashamed that I said, but they were choice words, which was, F this. I'm done. You see, I was so sick and tired of going down the same road, of following all of these different paths of Western medicine and chasing illnesses and never really knowing what was wrong and feeling so ashamed for the fact that I had all of these different things that were going on in my life. And honestly, it was failing me. So I didn't even recognize myself anymore. I looked at the woman in the mirror and I said, "Who are you?" And she looked back at me and said, "What are you gonna do?" So I drove myself home, and I sat. And I thought about all of the things that I needed to do. And I realized that I was so busy outrunning all of the experiences that I had had, all of the traumas that I had experienced in my life— psychological abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse— and I had thought that I could outperform it. I could could be as perfect as possible. I could just create this world, this boundary, this structure around me that ultimately would allow time to pass so that I could no longer feel all of those feelings. And it was a lie. See, to the outside world, my life looked perfect. I had a husband who loved me. I had 2 beautiful daughters. I had a beautiful professional career where I was making a lot of money. The European sports car, you know, the house, the everything, literally the white picket fence around it. And inside, I was dying. And that is when I learned one of the greatest lessons in my life, and that is That no one is going to care as much about you as you care about yourself. And so what that caring meant was awareness. And I had to look at the way that I was showing up in my life in order for me to be able to transform my life.

Mm-hmm.

I was willing to reinvent myself and do everything and anything that it took to be able to do that. I knew that I had to take every ounce of strength that I had, and coming from a half-Italian family of very strong women, And a half-Scottish family of very strong women, I knew that I had what it took. I knew that I had the strength because I had been like Atlas carrying all of the problems of the world on my shoulders for years and years and years. But one of the things that I learned is that we have this thing called epigenetics. And that even though we might have been able to talk about our traumas, we might have been able to actually outrun our traumas, we might have been able to actually be able to look at the people who created the traumas or live with the people who created the traumas, that didn't heal the traumas. And some of the experiences that I was living wasn't even This was something from this lifetime. This was stuff that was passed down from generation to generation to generation from others who were not given the opportunity to be able to heal some of the things that I was carrying around in my cells.

Wow.

So I sat there that first night and I started going back. And remembering who I was when I was born. See, I was born a healer. I could see things. My first time I experienced healing was 7 years old. And most of my life, I had worked so hard to forget because it was too painful, because where I was living and the systems and societies that I was living in didn't accept that. And I was ashamed.

Hmm.

I was ashamed of who I was. And so all of the things that I did were to try and hide the shame. Looking for other people to say that I was okay, and so the second greatest lesson that I learned in my life is that when you are carrying around a wound, you cannot see the world clearly, nor can the world see you clearly. So I did what I had to do in order to. heal that. You see, everything is energy and everything is vibration. Everything. And those cells that existed in my body, all of the illnesses that I had hit the wall with, and then when the doctors looked at me and said, well, this is the best we're gonna do, you're not gonna be able to heal it, throughout my entire lifetime, Somehow, through sheer will, I was like, nah, I'm not gonna buy into that.

Mm-hmm.

And I forgot. I forgot that I was able to do that. And I did that over and over and over in my life, yet I wasn't able to see that. It's kind of like being the best dentist in the world, but not being able to give yourself your own root canal.

Right.

So I worked with my mind because one of the things that I realized is that I was born and connected to the divine, and the divine worked through me. And some people go their entire lives to try and develop and preen and and magnify those things within themselves so that they can have an experience maybe once that I had had my entire life. And I had spent my entire life pushing it away. So one by one, cell by cell, I went through my entire body. And I wish that I could tell you that it was an overnight transformation, It wasn't. And I wish I could tell you that there was a happy ending to many of the different relationships in my life. But one of the things that I also realized is that I was surrounded by people who benefited from my energy, who benefited from who I was, But because I didn't see the value of who I was and what I brought into the relationships, I kept giving and giving to the point of being completely depleted. And so part of my healing was I had to realize and I had to agree that I was going to say no to suffering. You see, there's a big difference between Suffering and pain of growth.

Very true. Yeah.

Very true.

And so I said, no more suffering, because suffering is an indication that there is an internal conflict within your body, your mind, your energy, and your spirit. And I don't know about any of you. Have you ever experienced that time or a time in your life where you feel like every part of you is like a different train car on a different track and you're so spread out that you literally feel like you have to just work to be able to do the basic things in your life? It's such an effort, right?

Mm-hmm.

So I realized that my body was over here. And I was treating it this way, and my mind was over here, and I was relying on it to work for me this way, and that my spirit was over here, and that I was compartmentalizing who I was wherever I would show up. And it was so much work.

Hmm.

So I said, this lack of congruence in myself, this conflict Is my disease, and I emptied myself down to anything and everything that I could except for what couldn't be emptied. And then I poured into myself, and I don't know about you. But do you know how good it feels to really, truly receive your own love? That also means saying no. That also means saying hell no. And I remember when I was in the ER and I was looking at the doctor and My right eye was kind of squinty, and I think he thought it was because of the stroke, but it wasn't. It was because I was ready to punch anybody's lights out that was ready to get in my way of my health. It takes so much guts to let go of the things that society tells you that you're supposed to have, like work really hard, sacrifice yourself. And what I realized is that as I was looking back at all of my life, I was repeating the same patterning that had been done to me, that had been done to my mother, that had been done to my grandmother. That had been done to my grandfather, which was abandoning, which was dismissing, which was avoiding, which was hiding, which was martyring. And I said, I can't do that anymore. And when I healed, I helped to create space for others to heal. And that my ancestors were waiting for me to do that. So one of the most important things that we could ever do Is to decide to figure out what it is that we stand for, what it is that we're born for, and how much do we want to peel back all of the layers to be able to deliver that gift to the world. You see, I didn't choose my gifts. They were given to me from God and from the divine. And who am I? Who am I to say no?

No, sir.

Right?

And so part of what I realized is that I was lacking a safe place and a world full of compassion in my life. And I look back now and And I am completely unrecognizable. My life is unrecognizable from what it used to be. I'm 100 pounds less. I am disease-free on all levels.

Amen.

I am completely healthy. I have healthy relationships in my life, and I am still healing. From traumas, because the more you grow, the more you grow. Right? And what I realized is that I am connected to God and the infinite, right? So if that is infinite, then I can be infinite. And the more infinite I am, the more I can connect and understand with and have compassion for every single living being that's here. So I want to ask you, are you willing to take this step? One step to heal something that's within you. You see, it took me 38 years to hear the words, it wasn't Hmm. And as soon as I heard that, it gave me all of the choices in the world to make everything my dream. So I ask you, are you willing to follow the path of the divine, of the unseen, of the unknown, So that we can actually live in a world that we've never seen before, which is one that is loving, compassionate, inclusive, and safe. I hope that you do.

It was 2 o'clock in the morning and I was All of a sudden woken up, and there was chest pain. So bad chest pain, there was an elephant sitting on my chest. And I thought, I'm laying down and I went, what is this? As you talk to yourself at 2 AM. And I go, okay, box breathe. In 4, hold 4, out 4. Nothing. Still stabbing pain. So I'm still talking to myself. What's going on? I have a physique contest in 2 weeks. I've been working really hard. I'm in the best shape of my life. Go away. Okay, well, we know how that works when the body wants to do what it wants to do. So I try to get up. I get up and I go back down like that. The pain is so bad. But I'm not giving up. I'm still okay. Box breathe, pray. Let's try that. I have to get out. I look, I look at the clock. I have to get up at 4:30, which is in 2 hours. How am I going to go back to sleep? I don't know how I did it. I rolled over, got up, walked out to the couch and sat on the couch upright because that was the best place. No pain. And I fell asleep for 2 hours. I have to go to work. I'm the sole provider. My clients need me. They're expecting me to be there. I told them my word. I gave them my word. So I go, all right, now you have to go take a shower. So I'm gingerly walking to the shower thinking, now a lot of times people have heart attacks in the morning in the shower. So I'm like, okay, this we get. Take the shower. I get to work. So we get there. I'm training my clients, and all of a sudden, a couple hours later, I'm sweating. I'm like sweating my stomach. I'm nauseated. And I go, you know, I think I should go home. Maybe I have the flu. Go home. I get into bed. I'm— because I have a contest in 2 weeks and I'm missing my workout today. That's day 13 and I only have 12 more days, so I need that workout. Go home, go to bed that night. Okay, I'll be good the next day. 2 AM the next night, elephant on my chest, and somehow this freaking elephant Is twice as hard. I mean twice as hard. And when they say elephant on your chest, they aren't lying. It is a frickin elephant on your chest. Well, then I start box breathing, talking to myself. What are you doing? You have to get up. I have to do this. Now I start having pain down my arm. Okay, okay, that's all right. I'm, I'm okay. Then I'm laying there. Now I'm having pain down my back, low back, and then I have shoulder pain, which is kind of what women get. They get shoulder pain, not as much as men do. Still talking to myself, I'm gonna do this, I'm— it's gonna go away. All of a sudden I have jaw pain. I just go like this to my husband and go, Wake up! Wake up! He, you know, of course he's like, what? You need to take me to the hospital. I'm having a heart attack. He gets up. We get to the hospital. Luckily it's early. Nobody in. Get right in. This wonderful nurse says to me, okay, we have to lay you down. I have to hook you up to an EKG machine to take a reading. I go, No, you can't lay me down. You can't lay me down. Do not lay me down. It's gonna hurt. Honey, I have to lay you down. So she takes— she has her arm around me. She takes my hand. She goes, all right, we're gonna do this really fast. So they— I have— they have my clothes off. They tape me up where— and she goes, you ready? And I'm going— and she lays me down. And I have never heard myself scream or anybody scream like what came out of my mouth. It was so painful. It felt like somebody's doing the knife like the Psycho guy or all the cartoons where you see that. And she goes, breathe, breathe, breathe. And you want to go, well, what else can I do?

Right.

She gets me up. She's with me the whole time. This nurse was a godsend, holding my hand, comforting me, saying, we're okay. She rips off all this stuff and she's talking to me and she's calming me down and She's just wonderful. So they do like 1,000 different tests. The tests are done. Everything's done. I don't have a heart attack. I have what's called pericarditis. Pericarditis is outside the heart. It's the lining that goes over the heart. So when it rubs against the heart, inflammation, heart, like that, just like that. As simple as this. Simple. Well, that mimics a heart attack. What a joke! What do you mean? All the pain, but good news, bad news. I thought, hmm, what is that about? So I go home and I'm still thinking, I better call my clients. I'm thinking, I have to be there. What, what are they going to think? I have all these things going through my head. What I have to do, not for me, for everybody else. And that's what I have done my entire life. I have always done things for other people, but I liked it. But it sort of got bombarded with doing more, having no boundaries, not being worthy enough to myself to say no. This is not healthy for me, and I'm a physical trainer. I train people. I tell people what to do, how to do it. Please take care of yourself. This is the best thing for you, and I was not doing it to myself. And the years just built up like that. So the armor around me of not expressing my feelings— my feelings were this. I repressed my feelings instead of expressing and expanding my feelings. So what was hard— but the woman— I forgot to tell you, the woman, the nurse said this. This is the clincher. When she— when I was ready to leave, she took my hand, hugged me, and she says, honey, next time this happens, make sure you come in right away. Right away. Because you may not have a second chance, and you only have one body. And I went, you know that saying when God just throws little pebbles at you to get your attention like that, and then you don't listen? So I'm going to throw rocks. We're going to get a little bigger. Well, today my day—that day was a boulder. So I had a choice to decide how I was going to do it. But for a long time, I still was in that armor because I didn't believe I was worthy to take care of myself. Even though I was coaching and teaching that, I still hadn't done it because it's year after year after year. I didn't think I was worthy. But now what I do is I meditate. I journal. Journaling is the best, getting it out there. But the biggest thing is awareness. Awareness that something's going on. Because when we have awareness, we can change it. And when we can change it, we can take the little tiny steps for us to feel good. I'm not sure if anyone knows, but when you say, what is your emotions? There is over 50 emotions. So if you say, I'm fine, I'm good. What else would you say? I'm okay. Happy, sad, there's a lot. I would suggest to you to look those up just for fun and try and use different words when people ask you, how are you? How am I feeling? But also when you journal, journal every day. That's the first thing I do and the title is, what am I feeling today? So I write that out, what am I feeling? And it doesn't matter what it is. Good. I try not to go good, bad, fine. But if the first word is that, that's okay, because that's the first thing that came out of my head. Then I remind myself, what are some of the other things? What can I expand on and open myself up? I needed to take off my armor, but I didn't trust. I didn't trust the world would like me. that I was good enough, that I was worthy enough. Just the other day, my neighbor across the street said, wow, you look really great. And what did I say to her? I slipped. I said, oh, well, I should be. I'm a trainer. So what I didn't do? I did not acknowledge it. So I suggest to all of us that we take a compliment as heartfelt. A compliment— that compliment is a gift, whatever it is. It's a gift, and I would hope that we would all accept those gifts and be better people for it. Be better humans and be better self-care, because self-care is not selfish.

So I remember it like it was yesterday. I was 33 weeks pregnant. I had a checkup. I had my mom, my mother-in-law, and my husband going. And honestly, I waltzed into that room like I was just gonna get some pictures of my sweet baby boy. And I remember the technician was, you know, looking at stuff, and then she walked out and brought a doctor in. And the way that this emotion just went over my body, I knew something was up. And the doctor told me that my son was missing about a centimeter of the vermis of his brain, which is responsible for motor development. And from there, he recommended that I go see a specialist at Texas Children's. So I went in, I did an MRI, and they brought us in and they were chatting with us about the results. And they told me at 33 weeks pregnant that it would probably be a good idea to abort my baby.

Whoa.

At that point, if I had had him, he would have survived. He was 33 weeks pregnant. I could see him. I could feel him. The images I had of him already were of a child. And my husband and I looked at one another and we said no, that Kason deserved life and we were going to do whatever we needed to do to give him the best life that he could ever have. And he was born and he was a beautiful baby. I heard all these stories about how they come out like smushed and all this, and he just came out looking like a baby doll. And quick side note, when my daughter was born— I've only had 2 babies— and she did come out squished.

And I remember asking the doctors, what is wrong with her?

She, 3 hours later, had kind of thawed out and looked beautiful too. But anyways, that's how beautiful Kason came out. Well, at 4 months old, he was meeting his milestones. He was rolling, he was lifting his head, he was doing everything he should be doing. Then at 7 months, he was crawling. And y'all, this doctor told me that I would be lucky if Kason was walking by the time he was 2. That little boy was running at 10 and a half months old. Wow. And from there on, I was just like, I really think we've got this. And, um, we decided to Just immersed him in everything that we could to give him all the tools to overcome his struggles. At 2 years old, we ran into our first one, and that was when we noticed that he wasn't speaking at the level of his peers. And, um, we did find out that there was a little bit of ear infection issue going on, and he wasn't quite hearing well, but We did determine that he did in fact have a speech delay, which was due to motor development. Long story short, his mind was thinking faster than his mouth, and it just was kind of coming out jumbled up, and he just— it just wasn't there. So from there on, we, um, we were in speech, and, um, they then recommended that we get him some OT. And the OT doctor told me the best thing to do is to put him in swimming, to put him in sports, to ride the bike, get that right and left brain working. Just do everything that you can do to get his motor development up. And by 3 and a half, he was saying short sentences. And by 5 and a half, that little boy exited from speech on level with his peers.

Wow.

It was just so amazing to see. We did the swim lessons, we did everything they told us to do. At 6 years old, he was in Little League baseball, and that was when he first had some big struggles with that because we no longer were just hitting a ball off a tee, we were hitting it off a machine. So bless his little heart, it was harder for him. He would go up there and he would strike out and he would cry and he'd get upset, but I was like, baby, we're just gonna keep trying. I'm not gonna let you quit. You've got this. We're just gonna keep trying. By the end of his first pitching season on the machine, he was hitting the ball. By his second season, he had the 4th best batting average on his team, and his team won the Little League World Series. So, Kason is a story of resilience. He is a story of never giving up. And I know as we grow into adults that it's really easy for us to get into the rhythm and and to stop learning and let people get in our heads and tell us that we can and can't do certain things. And I'm telling you, that doctor was wrong. My baby is a blessing.

Yeah.

And he was meant to be here. And one thing that I took away from the situation is to never let anybody stop you. Never let anyone get in your way. And my little boy is a true testament of that. And his story inspires me every day. And I am just so thankful for him. He has this presence about him that is like an angel is in the room. I never take him anywhere where I don't get a compliment on his behavior or his manners or his kindness. I guess the story that Kason has taught me is to just never quit. And I think that it's important to sometimes look at children and see where their mindsets are at and their determination is at. And I think that everyone could benefit from being a little bit more like Kason.

Hi, my name is Kathryn Gordon, and I wrote a book called Relationship Grit. It's a book, of course, that is a story about me and my husband and our ups and downs and how we weathered that storm. But what I want to share with you today is 3 people that had a negative impact on me And how that was a good thing. So the first one was my first boyfriend that I moved in with at 16. Now I'm going to share some things with you that might be a little shocking. Judge me if you will, but they are the truth.

Okay.

So my first boyfriend was actually my cocaine dealer at 16 years old. He was a very good-looking, charismatic older guy who swept me off my feet, and I ended up moving in with him. We had a very big life. It was, you know, lots of clubs and glamour and clothes and money. And he really tried to hold me down. And one of the things that he would say to me when I would say that I wanted to go to college was, you're not going to go to college. You're not, you're not smart enough to go to college. And the other thing he would say was, And, and, and if you ever leave me, who would ever have you? So fast forward, because one of the things that I found about myself is that I'm, I'm motivated in a— in negative ways, which I don't know if it's always the best thing, but in this case it served me well. Because after that I was like, I'm going to college and I'm leaving you. And so, so I ended up going to college. I put myself through college. In the meantime, I did move in and out of his house. He was very physically abusive too. And when I graduated from college, I literally packed my bags a week after and I moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and I never went back. But I think, as we all know, no matter where you go, there you are. And I found guys just like Rob Ramsey just dressed in different clothing. So the next guy I dated who was my negative gift was a professional wrestler. And this guy was a load of fun. He flew me all over the place and, you know, would just shower me with Louis Vuitton and all kinds of, you know, clothes and all of that. And always professed his undying love to me, wanted me to completely quit my job and do everything just to travel with him. And one day he was in the shower and I see a notebook and I happened to open it and he had 13 women's names and stars next to each name depending on, I guess, who his favorites were. And I mean, thank goodness I had a star. But clearly I was like, okay, this guy's gotta go. So dumped him. And really started to think, wow, I need to do things a little better. But that didn't happen quite so quickly. I did start to work on myself and, and do some therapy, but I wasn't quite, quite ready. So then I ended up meeting George Lipton, and George was a lot older, again, very, very wealthy. doing a lot of the things that I talked about before with drugs and alcohol. I'm so grateful for him because I hit rock bottom with him. I had gotten to the point— I mean, the way he would jerk me around and treat me and, you know, really tug at my heart when I would try to leave him. He'd literally show up at clubs I was at, and he was very charismatic. I always found those guys. And he'd pull up on his Harley and, hey, Katarina, get on the back, you know. And, you know, off I'd go running behind him. And so I finally had just said enough is enough, and I had to kick George Lipton to the curb. And my last guy, who was my negative gift of relationships, was this guy named Ernie. And I met Ernie in an AA meeting. And Ernie, Ernie had long blonde hair. He was like a total rocker. And I at this point was into like yoga and meditation.

Yeah.

And, you know, we were just not, we were not clicking. So anyway, I ended up finally realizing that my relationships were all getting better, But they weren't great. So I broke up with Ernie. That's when I ended up meeting my husband, John Gordon, who I didn't really like at the time. It took a little while because you know why? It's really hard to notice a great guy when you are so used to not having those.

Yes.

And so, but he worked on me and he never gave up. And so we, of course, ultimately got married, and it's been almost 26 years, and have 2 beautiful children. But I guess the message for me today is that you have to have losses, and you have to have those negative relationships and interactions to ultimately win.

Nothing was normal about that day. The busy little medical practice was overflowing with patients. So why then was the doctor wasting time standing at the fax machine? Well, she was waiting for an important result to come that day. And so the report came over the fax. It was a biopsy result, and it was positive for cancer. I was the doctor standing in my office that day, and that biopsy report was mine. In my shock and my horror, I tried to see straight. I tried to think straight. I tried not to think of my children. I continued with my day. I saw my patients with what felt like 50 bricks and a bunch of cement filling the space from the base of my chest to the pit of my stomach. But I got through the day. And so in case you're wondering, that can be done.

Should it be done?

Maybe not. That night, I sat at my desk and I called the best surgeon in the area I knew. And perhaps maybe a little inappropriately, I also called one of my patients. You see, she had gone through a similar situation just a few years prior, and she used some kind of strange epigenetic nutritional IV therapies And she did amazingly well.

Hmm.

I've always had an open mind, a humble heart, and I've sought the truth. I always sought the truth in what I was doing and how I was advising people and all of the things. And so perhaps that led that phone call that day. I called my friend Laura, who's a longtime nurse, And other than that, I had no friends really to call. I mean, who had time for friends? I was a busy mom, professional. I owned my own business. So I started to think really what I was going to do about this. And intuitively, it came to me one day on a morning. I was on a run. Mastectomy is what needed to happen. You see, I very, very much wanted to avoid radiation and chemotherapy, and this would give me a very good chance along with the IV treatments of avoiding those things. So I thought about that, and then came the question of my children. And I had been ignoring this part of it, but I felt deep down like I had failed them. My daughter was entering high school, a time where she very probably needed her mother the most. My son was entering junior high. These were my babies. I did everything for them. I was a fiercely independent woman and a fiercely protective mama bear. I didn't want them to be the kids in class that couldn't focus on their tests that day because they were worried that their mom was sick, that their mom was weak, That their mom might die. And so I didn't tell them. I elected for the smaller surgery because that was an outpatient procedure where you come home the same day. And in theory, I would be able to be home by 5 in time to make dinner. My husband urged me to, to tell the truth, to share with at least my mother what was going on. I refused. All I could think about was the pain of the vulnerability, the shame, and my children. A week later was Thanksgiving. We were there with the family. My breast was throbbing and aching. It was black and blue, and I had a horribly uncomfortable skin rash across my chest from the anesthetic. Honestly, I was near dead inside. But not much longer, not much later after that, I was back at work. My practice was busier than ever, and I had done everything physically possible to heal myself. I slept more, I ate better, I exercised more, I supplemented more. And at the year mark, the cancer was still there. I had begun to think about healing in a different way by this time. I had begun to learn about the spiritual component to healing, the emotional, mental, and energetic components to healing. In the journal, Clinical Journal of Oncology, in 2004, a study was published showing that those women who went through their cancer journey alone were 4 times more likely to die than those who had developed 10 or more friends during their journey. 2012 study showed that those with better, bigger social connections, 70% less chance of dying. And we all know how intuition works. We know we should follow it because it's right. And Cornell University actually did a study on this. They were able to detect the sweat glands in the study participants' hands to help detect what instinctual answers they were going to choose. And what this study found was that the participants were able to select the right answer 3 seconds before the computer even generated the question. And so I went through with that lumpectomy, and perhaps that physical procedure was the gateway to the underlying illness in my body, the emotional, the spiritual, the energetic, the mental. All that had to come and open up. My mother, who normally I kept at arm's length, was now at my bedside. My Nina and my dear Auntie O, a 20-year survivor herself, helped me notice and realized that telling the truth to my children was showing my children how to deal with adversity. And it was setting the example to, to show them how to deal with hardship.

Hmm.

So I ask you all to not only approach your life with openness and humility and seek for the truth, but lead it with self-love. And when you do this, your relationships are deeper and stronger. When you do this, you heal not only physically but mentally, emotionally, spiritually, energetically. You will notice that your children will learn how to do their chores, and you will receive hundreds of magical healing emojis from lots and lots of friends. You will find that through gratitude, You are exactly where you need to be every time, and you will have the profound joy and privilege of leading a life that is filled with self-love.

Good afternoon. My name is Dr. Damian Nesser, and I am privileged and honored to be part of this and to have been part of this wonderful mastermind group with brilliant and beautiful women. And I'm going to miss you. We're all going to keep in touch. But there's 3 things that I want to address today. There's a problem, which is my cerebral palsy. There's a solution to that cerebral palsy, which is grace that's integrated with grit. And then there's the benefit, which is giving back to other people. So the year was 1967, and my mom and dad were at Villa Roma, a Villa Roma, the Villa Roma Resort and in the Catskill Mountains, and my mom was pregnant with her 5th son, myself, and her water broke. My father Joseph and her were dancing to Fly Me to the Moon, Let Me Play Among the Stars. Joe, what are we gonna do? Seal, relax. My father calmed my mother down. They actually drove in a big sedan, a smoke-infested big sedan, In 1967 and made it to Highland Hospital. And the doctors basically said, Mr. and Mrs. Nesser, we don't think that your son's going to survive. As a matter of fact, he's got a 25% chance of surviving. I was born 2 months preemie, 2 months premature, and I was born with a case of cerebral palsy. Not only did I survive, but the doctor said he may not Walk. He may not run. He may not jump. He might not— he's probably not going to play sports. I was captain of my basketball team. I defied the odds. In first grade, I had a paranoia or an anxiety about learning, believe it or not. And I rushed through my work. So I failed first grade. I had Miss Gallia in first grade. So I had her in first grade twice. Then I had Miss Gallia again in fifth grade. And guess who was at my father's funeral 38 years later? Hi, Damian, how are you? And there's a beautiful woman with red lipstick on with gray hair looked at me and said, I'm Miss Galia. And I bawled like a baby. I mean, if that doesn't show— people don't want to hear how much you care, they want to see how much you care. She was the example for me. And really, that's why I've been in teaching for 26 years. So after my elementary experience, I went to a high school for 2 years, a prominent Jesuit high school where my other brothers, 4 brothers, went. I was under pressure to go there. It was kind of like a family pressure. But I had to take an entrance exam. And this is to all the young people out there that don't do good on tests. You can do it because my score on that test in this prominent Jesuit school was the lowest score.

Wow.

in Jesuit history. So if young people, if you think your life is over because you're not doing good in school, you can always go the vocational route. Dr. N always is an advocate for vocational schools, and I will continue to be so, do so. So with that said, my second 2 years, my junior year and senior year, I went to a prominent public school where I made some bad decisions. Young people listening, please make sure you make some solid decisions of who you hang around with, because my father used to tell us all the time, you are who your friends are. And that actually almost destroyed my life because I got involved in drugs. I didn't do well in school. I didn't care. I was in major depression. So that's when my cousin Chuck came to me and he shared his faith. And now I have a very strong faith, and that's changed my life. And I owe just about everything to my faith. And after I graduated from high school, I actually went to a small Christian college. And I met, God rest his soul, Mr. Hazeltine. He was my economics professor. And he said, make sure that you don't hold education away from you. Make sure you bring education to you because that's the key. So there again, I almost failed out of this small Christian college because I just— it wasn't— school wasn't clicking with me. I really didn't— enjoy school at this point. And so Mr. Hazeltine, in the middle of a big lecture hall at this small Christian college, said, Damien, in front of 150 students, Damien, after class, God wants me to have a conversation with you. And I said, he does? And so after class, Mr. Hazeltine and I talked, and I thought I was gonna get this big lecture about, you need to stay in school because you need to get a good job, and, and you need to have an education to help people and be productive for society. And you know what he said to me? He said, I had a 22-year-old daughter that was driving to a state university, and she lost control of her car. It was winter. She went over the guardrail, and she was killed instantly at 22 years old. And he was bawling, and I started bawling. And I said, Mr. H, I'm not dropping out of school. It's amazing, young people, adults listening, Life's too short. You really need to love the people around you, your family, your friends, and really surround yourself with key people in your life. So my mantra in life is learn, dream, achieve in your classroom of life, and give back to those who can't give back to you. So the dream part of my mantra means hope. It means faith. And I actually was a banker for 5 years before I went into education. And I didn't like banking, so I took a month reprieve. I went to Egypt and Israel for a month. One of my dreams in life was— 2 of my dreams in life was, A, to go to Israel and tour Israel, the Holy Land. And the second thing was to climb one of the pyramids of Giza. So I and my friends paid off the guards at 3 o'clock in the morning. It translated to about $250 way back when. And we climbed 45 minutes up. And jumped 20 minutes down. And I've used that example in my classes, in my math classes, in my science classes, and with gravity and all the things that young people need to know. So young people, if you want to travel, that's a great way to expand your mind and to really make sure that you open up your life and the horizons of what you want to do. So I was actually, during that trip, I was judged by several people because I had a beard. I'm half Lebanese and my mom's Italian, but I was a lot darker back then and I had a beard, so I was profiled back then. So what happened to me? I ended up, I ended up in an Israeli jail and an Egyptian jail. True story. So I call my brother in one of the phones, you know, in the early '90s when the cell phones were this big. So I grabbed my Flintstone phone and I said, Joe, what do I do? He was a lawyer. He's now a judge. He goes, don't say a word and just listen to what they tell you to do. So my point for saying that for the young people and even adults that struggle with getting along with people, never profile anybody. I met Robin Williams before he passed several years ago, the comedian, and he basically told me, paraphrasing this quote, never judge the book by its cover because you don't know what that individual's going through. You have no idea. Like looking out in the audience, So many diverse people, young people, and it's really important not to judge people. And finally, achieving. Achieving in life is very important because Jack Canfield said, paraphrasing, everything you want is on the other side of fear. So that's very important, young people. If you're fearful, do it anyway. In closing, I'm part of a wonderful company called Paddy's Peppers, and Paddy's Peppers is giving back in many different ways. This fall— this actually in December, Or January, we're starting the LIAC Foundation, which is the Life Is a Classroom Foundation, and we're going to give back to churches and schools globally, and we'll be giving more information about that. I'm very, very thankful that I've had the opportunity to be part of this wonderful company and to be part of this wonderful mastermind. I've learned so much from you beautiful women, and you're so brilliant. I'm humbled and honored to have been a part of this. Thank you.

Thank you. It was such an intense moment. There was just instant palm sweating. My heart is racing. You know those moments of just complete fear? And I was so hijacked in the moment because of a question, and a question that completely altered the path of my life. And this question was one that I don't think anybody had ever asked me before. I don't think anybody had ever been brave enough to actually say. So I was in the middle of a classroom, and this classroom was for speakers. So I was learning how to be a speaker, and speaking was one of those things that I had said I would never do. I actually had a mentor ask me once to speak, and I was like, oh no. I think what I said was like, not just No, but hell no. I'm never standing up in front of people and speaking. It's just not my thing. I don't want to do it. And he was like, you're crazy. Like, no, you're crazy. You're so good. You're really engaging and people can connect with you. And you have a message or a story to share. So I said, okay, fine. I'll go to this class. And so I'm in the middle of this class and you know when like every eye is upon you or you feel like every eye is upon you and you're just being— not that I was being judged, but I felt like I was being so judged in that moment that this question came up. So you're probably wondering, what's the question, Alejandra? What's this damn question? It was, what have you lied about? And the speaker was trying to convey that As— or the speaker-teacher was trying to convey that as a speaker, when you're up here, you're totally naked. Like, there's nowhere for you to hide, there's nowhere for you to go. Like, you're just completely vulnerable. And if you're hiding things internally or even externally, it's gonna be very hard to connect or engage with your audience. So let's clear out all that space and just, like, ask the question, what have you lied about? And that's that moment where I was like, holy moly. And just the thought I felt a flush of heat, you know, and again, my palms sweating, and felt like everyone was staring at me and knew what I had lied about. So I have a beautiful daughter who is 19 now, almost 20, and her father, her biological father, decided that he did not want to be a part of our lives. And, you know, it was for the best, and I really thought I was going to be raising raising her on my own. But it was probably a couple of weeks after I found out I was pregnant. I was like, you know what, God? And I hadn't really known God at this point, but I was like, I'm just going to talk to you, God. I want to find a beautiful man who will love my daughter as his own. I even got very descriptive, like, if he's blonde and blue-eyed, that would be awesome. So anyhow, So 9 months later after I had, well, I should say I had my daughter, 9 months later after that, I met my now husband. And he's exactly the man that I had dreamed of and that I had prayed for. He's so cool. Yeah, he's just cool. So, okay, so I'm in class, back to that question, what have you lied about? And this just flush. About two years into our relationship, I was at a point in my life where I felt so resentful towards him. I really felt like he wasn't giving me what I needed or I deserved, and I was placing my happiness upon him, and like it was his responsibility somehow to make me feel good, and he wasn't doing that.

So I.

Actually found that in another man. Now, we were not married at the time, and I did not have faith at the time, but through this man, I found a sense of fulfillment. And I felt like alive again, and I felt happy again. And I was like, yeah, see, this is what I needed. But of course, I was being unfaithful and completely lying to my now husband. Who was such an incredible man and did not deserve that. So anyhow, a couple months pass, and I started to feel the guilt and realizing just the awfulness of the place that I was in. And so I ended that relationship, and I stepped back into my relationship with Eric, my now husband, and was like, okay, I'm gonna fully be here. And I was. I was at that point introduced to life coaching, and this was many years ago when like life coaching wasn't even a thing. And it was through life coaching that I met this mentor that was like, hey, you should be a speaker, and ended up in this classroom. So through my life coaching journey, I healed so many parts of myself that were placing so much of the blame and lack of happiness on my husband. And there's a huge difference between healing and dealing. And I had been dealing with my life. I had to learn how to heal. And it was through that coaching journey that I was able to do that. And so through that process, that healing was happening, but I still hadn't told my husband.

Hmm.

So at the end of the day of this class and this question and that instant just moment of like, oh my gosh, I know what I need to do, I went home and was going to have a conversation with my husband. Or, you know, we weren't married at the time, but I kept thinking driving home, how the heck am I going to have this conversation? How do you even begin to communicate something like this. And I didn't know back then, but that actually launched me into what I'm creating today. And it was a communication tool to be able to communicate major things of conflict and drama in a way that is so healthy and vibrant and allows for healing and freedom and connection to actually actually happen. So that evening when I got home, I had thought about how I'm going to approach this conversation, and I sat down and did the very first thing of what creates healthy communication, which is speak your truth. And speaking your truth has 3 components to it. You do it in the I form, you take ownership and don't place blame, and you have zero expectation of what's going to happen. And that last part of having zero expectation was the hardest piece because I really expected him to absorb and like, be like, it's okay. Like, you know, of course I wanted him to just receive and be okay with it, which is not what happened. He actually ended up leaving. But had I not spoken that truth, we would not be married today and we would not have the relationship that we have. have today, which is one that is so connected and open and intimate. We also own a multimillion-dollar coffee company. You cannot work along with your husband and build a business like that without having healthy communication. So—

Wow.

Yeah, it was incredible. The other piece that really I was honing in on is to ask questions. Rather than tell. So I approached the conversation from asking him questions rather than me just kind of vomiting and telling him all of my things and what I did and what I needed. Of course, that was part of speaking my truth, but it was the question that was powerful because then I could get into his world and find out where his mind was and his emotions were. instead of me guessing and projecting my own, which is what we do so often in communication. And through that questioning, it led to us being able to mend the relationship and for him to come home and be a dad. And a year later, we were married. And it's now 19 years later. And this communication tool is something that I have used in my coaching practice for over 18 years now, and I didn't know what it was until the last 3 months. And so I'm at a point now where I want to share with people in relationships how to solve conflict, how to have these healthy conversations, how to eliminate drama within communities, Communication so that we can have a loving, intimate relationship regardless of who that relationship is with. So that is my mission now and what I'm moving forward towards. And I just want to leave with speaking your truth is such a gift from God. And I do know God now, and he's been such an impactful part of my life and being able stand here and I think have this very vulnerable conversation and share something that could have been shameful, but I've been forgiven. And so, um, thank you all.

Thanks so much for joining us this week on True Grit and Grace Podcast. If you like it, please rate it or share it with your friends. That would help too. If you're not yet on the newsletter list, come over to amberlylago.com and jump on it. While you're there, you can grab a free downloadable gratitude journal, and you might just want to check out my book or even check out my monthly motivational membership. Thanks again for tuning in, and we'll see you next week.