WHY Not Wednesday with Lynn Everard

Sam.

Hello and welcome to why Not Wednesday. I am so excited to be with you guys today. It has been a great weekend. My institute, we got a lot of good stuff going on. But one of those good things that's going on is we've got a great guest today. Lynn Everard is with us today. He is a self transformation integrator, author, speaker, author, coach, and self publisher consultant. He helps people speak their truth and unlock the power of authentic communication and emotional connection in every aspect of their lives. He also helps authors of inspirational books navigate the challenging world of book writing and publishing. Welcome to the show, Lynn.

Thank you, Dan. I'm excited to be here.

Thank you for being here. We're excited to have you. And you know, Lynn, I'm gonna start with a question I learned from watching Jordan and I'm gonna ask you that what are you excited about today? What is going well in your life right now that you want to make sure we share today?

Well, I am really excited about how my work as a Y coach is really starting to open up and I'm having so many epiphanies about just really understanding. There were a lot of preconceived notions that I had, a lot of ideas that I wanted to hold on to. And then one by one, I'm starting to let go of them, getting an understanding of what this is all about. And this is, I think I'm in what, four months now or four plus months since I got my certification.

So. So what does that mean? What, what can tell me one of, what's one of those epiphanies?

So one of them is something I actually learned yesterday from Gary and that was that, you know, I come out of this background of the idea of coaching and, and supporting people and things like that. But it's, you know, we kind of focus on people's weaknesses, right? Because that's what we're used to people doing with us. But equipping is about actually helping people get stronger in their strengths. It's about giving them the resources to be able to take their gifts, their unique gifts and their why out to the world. And that just feels so much better than trying to help someone feel better about the parts of themselves that they don't like.

Excellent, excellent. Really appreciate you sharing that. So as we talk about that topic, Lynn, let's talk about your yos. So your why operating system is to contribute to the success of others, to make things clear, clarify, and to make things simple, simplify. So this is a great topic because your why operating system is A combination of mine and G Gary's. So my why is contribute and Gary's how and what are clarify and simplify. So you would be someone that is gonna, you know, really communicate well with both of us. Tell, tell me, tell us about your yos and how it resonates with you. Thank you, Melanie. Thank you for your comment. Focus on your strengths. So she agrees with you, Lynn. So let's let you add to the question. Sorry.

Yes. So.

My two main areas of work right now really are one thing, and that is I help people learn to speak their truth. And for many of us, that might seem very simple, but for someone who has been in an abusive relationship or someone who grew up in an abusive home where they never felt safe to give their opinion, to share their thoughts, or to even let their emotions and their feelings out. And so it can be very frightening, it can be very overwhelming for someone like that to be able to learn to speak their truth. And I'm one of those people. I'm a product of incest and I grew up in a home with an alcoholic, abusive father with a temper. And so one of my first lessons in life was that to be safe, we need to be perfect, silent and invisible. And I lived most of my life that way until I started down this path of self improvement and, and really discovering all these things about myself that ultimately I didn't really like. But then there was a possibility for me to change, which I did, which I'm still doing. So as someone who couldn't speak their truth, I'm now someone who can. But, but it's not just blurting stuff out at people because sometimes we're speaking our anger and not our truth. And so I teach people how to do it in a way that's constructive and not destructive. And I help them start with themselves because the truth is that the person we lie to most in our lives is ourselves. And so the first step is learning to speak your truth to yourself, then learning it to speak. To speak your truth to others. And, and even before that is discovering what your truth actually is.

So how does, how does your, your. How does contributing, clarifying and simplifying play into that in your coaching?

Yeah, so, because my. Why is contribute. My, my goal is really to make a difference in the world by supporting people in learning how to speak their truth. Because when you can speak your truth, you're not all bottled up inside. And you're not, you're not, you can't flow with life. You can't, you can't just ease down the river as as people would say. And then my why is my how verify. So I help people get really clear on what their truth is. And there's five layers of truth, but what specifically what their truth is. And then simplify is my what. And I help people simplify how they're going to speak their truth in in a very clear and very concise way. So it's simple. Breaking things down from complicated processes into simple steps that are repeatable and produce predictable results.

I like that a lot. Lynn. So you recently posted something that caught my attention and said, I invite you to be open to the possibility that when you that what you consider your greatest weakness could actually be your greatest gift and strength when applied to your purpose and calling. What did you mean by that?

So most of us are. We all have an ego, right? And the ego is really quick. It doesn't care whether we think we're the best person on the planet or whether we think we're the worst person on the planet because it wins as long as it creates separation between us and everyone else. And so when we get into this process, right, and we start to understand what that's all about, we realize that maybe the things we saw in ourselves as weaknesses really weren't that at all. But we're so quick to run away from our weaknesses without exploring them. And so I encourage you, before you decide your weakness is bad or wrong, look deeper into it. See if maybe somehow it's a gift. And if it's a gift, you can use it in your life and you can use it to help you fulfill your mission, to help you carry out your why.

Love that. Love that. So how do you integrate. So you, you've been with us a few months now, so how do you integrate the why discovery into your coaching?

So one of the first things I learned in the, in the certification training was that knowing your why is is the first step to knowing yourself. And of course, knowing yourself is knowing the truth of you. And so in the very beginning of the, you know, I want to help people discover their WHY operating system. And it does two things. One, one, it helps them, but it also helps me get a better understanding of them because when I do theirs, then I'll share mine with them. And I'm looking for correlation. I'm looking to see if we have any of those things in common, right? So one of the things I do is I work with authors who help them speak their truth in the form of a book. So a lady that I'm working with right now she and I both share. Now, it's not necessarily in the same place, but she and I both share. Clarify and simplify. Right. And so right away there's this connection. Right. And because we've got those shared things.

And, and that's what I do with my clients before they become clients now, is go through their why with them. And that helps me understand if they're going to be a good fit to work with me. Because if we're too different, then we might not really mesh very well.

Okay, so what if someone is very different, Lynn, but they need what you bring? So what if they, you know, maybe they're, they're. They've got challenge, which isn't simple, but they need some clarity and simplic their life. Is that playing into how you evaluate whether they're a fit or not?

Well, to some extent. But you know what, What I've realized is that pretty much all of us, every one of us really does have a desire to contribute to the betterment of the world. Yeah. Okay. Now, we may not call it our why, but we, but all of us, at least in my experience in life, is that when you have a deep conversation with most people, you know, they want to be a part of something bigger than themselves, that they want to see the world be a better place, if for nothing else than for their children, because.

The one that they grew up in. And, and so I think most of being able to. Or having a need to be able to actually make a difference in the world, it's just, it doesn't rise high enough in the ranking for a lot of people to. To set their why is contribute. And so that gives me the, you know, the ability to be able to say, okay, you know what I want to work with. You know, there's something else I do with my author coaching clients. I ask one question, and this tells me if they actually want to make a difference for other people. I say, if we do all this work and we produce a book for you and only one person.

Is. Is impacted by it.

Yeah.

Would it be worth it to you to write the book anyway? And when they say yes, I know they want to make a difference in the world.

Right. You know, it's interesting you bring that up because, you know, there are. There are nine whys. Right. We talk about all the nine whys all the time. You use it in your coaching. But I think everybody, every why wants to make a difference, as you said, and they just go about it differently. Right. Better way people contribute to by finding better ways and Sharing them. Challengers like Melanie, who commented earlier, they, they make a difference in the world by letting us see something different, by helping us see the world in a different way, bringing a different perspective. And the same goes for every single one of the why. So if your why isn't contribute, that doesn't mean you're not contributing to the world if you're a right way person like Lynette, who we were talking about earlier. Lynette contributes by creating systems and processes that are repeatable and they give us reliable results. So that is how that she contributes is if we allow people to use their gift to make that contribution. I think that's probably a lot of the process that you take people through.

Yes, because part of my process as well is.

You know, whether people think they're writers or not, but they have a story to tell and their story is important to at least one person and probably a whole lot more than one person. And my commitment to my clients is that I will help them produce a book that maintains the essence of who they are. Because most of my clients have written books that are, you know, telling their life story. They're inspirational in a lot of ways. They tell what they've overcome in life and what they've achieved and things like that. But I really, I pull more out of them. I had a client recently that I worked with for a very long time, and when we got to the. And I told them in the beginning, like I tell everyone, I said, look, I'm going to actually pull more out of you than you. You think you're writing the story of a past event, of your transformation. You're still in it while we're doing the book. And this guy at the end, he said, wow, he said, you weren't kidding at all when you told me that. But it's so funny when I tell people that in the beginning because I see this smile come over their face and they're like, yeah, sure, right, yeah, that's not going to happen. Yeah. And then we get to the end and they're just blown away because they didn't realize they could have this kind of experience.

You know, Lynn, I, I thank you, thank you for that because I think it's, it's amazing that you're able to do that. And I think you, you create trust, you create an environment where people feel able to share that with you. You know, when I, when I looked at your about section, one of the things you talk about is who you work with, individuals and companies that understand and value the importance of connection and powerful. Connect and powerful communication. What does that mean in terms of who. Who does Lynn work with?

So all of us as human beings desire connection. We desire deep emotional connection. In most cases, people aren't buying what you think you're selling. What they're really buying is emotional connection because they want to feel safe. They want to have someone that they can trust, and that is really, really important. So by offering that to them, by helping them realize that they have that as part of the experience, then there's so many places they can go for. For business owners and managers, you know, who want to get the most out of their people, Especially in this world of resignation. Right. You want to get the most out of your people. You got to be connected to them. And it's got to be more than giving them a list of tasks. It's got to be when they know you care about them, when they know that you're connected to them, when they know your why, they're more likely to stay where they are because they feel valued, they feel seen, and they really want to do that. What I love about the why.

That, what it really does is it helps us to know how to speak to someone, to help understand and be understood.

When I work with clients and they. I've had clients that have just broke down in tears because they tell me, wow, like, you really. Right. And I. I've never had that before. And it's. It's just such a beautiful experience and so beautiful to be able to offer that to people. And once they feel that they're willing to go deep in the process of writing their book. And it's not that my work is done, but it just makes my work a whole lot easier. I just had a conversation with someone a couple hours ago.

Yeah.

And you know, she's having trouble putting the words down. I said, look, I will come and sit with you so that you can start writing. And if you write one word and spend a half hour crying, it's okay, because that one word will have gotten you started. That one word will have uncorked the dam to allow everything that needs to flow out. Because writing is cathartic. It's healing. It helps us to be able to take all that extra stuff in our head and put it down on paper. And when we put it down on paper, we take its power away. We take the negative energy out of ourselves and we transmit it and transmute it into the paper.

What an amazing gift you have. Yeah. What an amazing gift you have to bring that out. I wanted to pull up TJ Davidson put a comment. He said, amazing question asked shows how passion. What passion they truly have to helping others. When you ask that question is if it. If you only help one person. So TJ listens regularly, so I wanted to make sure and highlight his question. I think it's an excellent question to ask Lynn, you know, and Steph McPhee said, yes, Lynn, absolutely. It's all about the connection. And those of us in, In. In the. In the. In the room who are contributors or, or Bella, who, who, who. Isabella, who made a comment. You know, as someone with the why of trust, it is all about the connection. And I think you have a special gift for doing that. And it comes a little bit from your why. You have a shared past. I think regardless of what your clients are writing, I think you're able to connect with them at a deeper level because of your past experience. Because you've struggled with some of this stuff, right?

Oh, I struggled with it tremendously. And I think that's. Whenever I get stifled or slowed down, I stop and I go back to my. My why. But. And it's even deeper for me because I know what it feels like when you can't speak your truth. I know what it's like to live day after day feeling like you just can't reveal who you truly are. On my website, I think I have a video there that says I spent most of my life unable to be who I am because I felt I had to be something else so that people would approve of me or like me. And one of the most beautiful things about learning to speak your truth is that it gives you a sense of freedom and takes you into something that I call the ladder of possibility. So I'm going to just share this with you really quickly, because when. When you are able to speak your truth, you go onto the first rung of the ladder of possibility, which is called self confidence. Well, self confidence means you don't need anything from outside of you. It's not that you won't accept it, it's just that you don't need it. You're not a. You're not a prisoner to it. You're not addicted to it. From self confidence, we go to freedom, and then we. Because now you have this real sense of freedom about you. And then from freedom, when you're truly free, you're. You're able to choose, so chooses the next rung on the ladder and see people talk. So the next rung after that is possibility. But if you can't choose, you have no possibilities. So. So being able to move from freedom to choice opens up the possibility of possibility. And then once you've experienced all of that and you're manifesting things in your life, and your life is amazing, you're willing to trade all of it, every bit of it, for the top rung of the ladder of possibility, which is peace. Because peace is all you've ever wanted out of life. And you don't have to follow all the steps, but that's where we all want to get to. And so this is just one way of going up the ladder to get there.

Excellent. Love that, Lyn. You know, I want to make sure and ask because, you know, our time is flying. You're doing such a great job. Thank you so much for being a great guest with some great answers. But I want to talk about your book, how speaking your truth could save your life and how it saved yours. If someone's going to go buy that book, what, what's. What's the main lesson they're going to learn from that book? Lynn?

So my book is kind of two books in one. And on one hand, it's a book that talks about how speaking your truth. But I use my own life as an illustration of the principles in the book. So we talk about the fear. Why don't we speak our truth? Why do we lie? Why do we do half the things that we do? All of it really boils down to fear. Fear of not being loved, fear of being abandoned, being criticized. It just all those things that, that if we are giving our power away, we're going to fear all those things happening to us. But if we understand that we are the source of our own power, right? We don't have to give it. We don't have to give it away, and we don't have to live in fear. In the book, I talk about four layers of truth. And. But they're actually five. And so I'm going to share the five with you because I, I'm. And I'm going to. There's another book coming that's going to integrate the concept of love and truth together. And, and it's going to be called you'd Truth is Love. And. But anyway, and that. I'm just starting on that. I've written a lot of it, but I haven't organized it all yet. But. So the five layers of truth is. The outer layer of truth is our thoughts, emotions, opinions, feelings. These are momentary truths. They're not permanent, they're just momentary. But in that moment, they're true for you and they get to be honored, right? And this is where most people have the most problems because they can't. There's a block where they can't express those aspects of themselves. And they need to feel safe with someone so they can do that. You know, how many times does someone, you know, group of people get together and say, hey, let's go have dinner at this restaurant. And you hate that restaurant. But will you speak up? Maybe not because you want to go out with your friends, but all the whole time you're there, you're not going to have a good time because you don't like the restaurant. But if you spoke up, maybe people would say, oh, well, maybe we can go to a different place. We don't know until we try. The next layer under that is our childhood wounding, which I break into two categories, is real trauma. Many of us have had real.

We have the availability of a professional, a therapist to work with us. But there's another part of that that is the stories. We have a relatively normal childhood without a lot of trauma, but our ego and our mind have made up so many stories about it. We're just like the people that had trauma because we needed some reason to block ourselves from living the life we wanted to live. So we'll use those stories to do that. The next layer under that is our gift is our purpose. So we find our purpose under that. And then under that, if we have a specific purpose, if we don't have a specific purpose, then our why will take care of us through our lives. And then under that are the gifts that we've been given. And though this is where the weaknesses come in.

Is it a gift? And it really is important to explore that. And then the. The inner layer of truth, the core truth of who all of us are is our divinity or our relationship to a higher power, whatever you want to call that. And that is what actually unites all of us. That is the only truth, the only layer of truth of the five that actually unites all of us together because we all have some level of belief in something. And so those are the five layers of truth. And then part of what I do with people is guide them through to discover their personal aspects of those things.

We're going to have to record that and share that in the recording for sure. Those five layers of truth. That's really insightful, Lynn. I want to make sure and recognize. Steph McPhee put a couple of comments. One is, you have such a needed gift, and we want to recognize that. Lynn, I think you're definitely sharing your gift with us today. And then the second comment was, love that, Lynn. Peace, yes, that is what we all want. We're all looking for peace. And I, I know we're, we're running short on time, but I want to ask you a question that I ask every week. Well, tell us about your biggest why not moment in the time when you said why not to an opportunity, circumstance, or choice, and it made a significant positive impact for you.

In 1989, I was, I was married, I was living in Buffalo, New York, in basically a dead end job and you know, in health care, which is where I wanted to be, but it was a dead end job. So I found out about an opportunity in Fort Lauderdale and I moved to Fort Lauderdale and that essentially bought me a 29, another 29 years in the healthcare industry, which also allowed me to meet a lot of people and gain an understanding of so many different aspects of life in doing that. And then when I left that in 2014 and started my second career, which is the work I'm doing now, but had I not moved, there are all kinds of things that would not have happened. Right. Because I would have been up there believing I had to stay stuck where I was. And so sometimes we just get this idea that says it's time to do something different. And that voice, and we listen to that voice in our head, then we can actually take action on it and do that.

How different? Buffalo, New York to Florida. Right. I mean, did you bring your snow shovel? Did you just leave it up there?

No, I. The week I got here, I saw a bumper sticker that made it all worth it. It said, when I get old, I'm going to move north and drive slow.

So I moved to beat the rush. Yeah.

Outstanding. Outstanding. So, Lynn, how has discovering your yos impacted your personal life?

Wow. Well, I'll tell you, I think the biggest thing for me has been when I did this with my son, and my son had been floating in jobs that he just wasn't cut out for. And when I shared when he discovered his why.

His whole operating system, then he knew that he had to do jobs working with people. He needed to be in the company of people. And he was working at one job, at one point where he was working with this big corporate organization in food service for a company with a 30 story home, adult care home. And he left, he left that. And now he's been two months at a place and these were all wealthy people that were living there. And now he is working with the poorest people and yet he's happier than he's ever been because he knows how important it is for him to have a job. He communicates with people. And I think that is the, you know, one of the most gratifying moments for me of taking the people I care about, the important people in my life, through their, through their.

Why.

That'S, that's great. You know, I love that you, you know, again, typical contribute. Right. It wasn't about you, it was about helping someone and some. Someone you care about, which I think when we help someone we care about, it also is good for us. So I love that story with your sons, by the way. What's. What is his why?

So his why is so he's got the same elements I do, just in a different order. So his why is clarify, his how is simplify and his what is contribute.

Excellent. And so he, he does that and he's found work. Doing what. Living his strengths, basically, is what you've been able to help him do.

Yes. Living what he loves to do. And now he's not working, looking for warehouse jobs or house cleaning jobs where he's going to be by himself and not feel like he's making a difference in other people's lives.

Fantastic. Fantastic. So, Lynn, you've shared a lot in terms of what you've gotten out of, out of being part of the Wise Society and being one of our coaches. What would you say to a coach who is considering joining the Y Society? And then in the back of their head they have a couple of questions. So what would you say to them to help them make the decision?

I think for me, it's.

I would. Well, first of all, I just tell them to do it, but. And understand that it may take a little while for all of it to become apparent as to how it's really going to impact your life and the life of your clients. And it's not going to happen in five minutes. And so, you know, it's going to take looking down the road a little bit and having confidence in the Y Institute and in the, in the products and everything and the people that you connect with and knowing that you're going to be able to ultimately help them make a choice where they will get to use their gifts.

Excellent. That's a great answer. I really appreciate that, Lynn. And so, you know, what would you like to close with? I always like to give you the option. Is there something that, that, that I haven't talked, that we haven't talked about that you want to make sure and share with the audience today.

Yeah. You know, I did a post the other day about your gifts and looking into your weaknesses, but I want to take a step further with it with a kind of a challenge, maybe an admonition to people, and that's this, stop asking what's wrong with me and start asking what's right with me and take what you discover is right with you and look and see if that is going to be a place where you can operate from your strength, from your gifts, and be able to go out into the world and live your why to the fullest.

Wow. Great stuff, Lynn. Thank you so much. I loved having you on. I've enjoyed following you. You're always so great about following and commenting on what we put out at Y Institute, and we're just excited to have you on board. I love that you're continuing to work with clients and helping them tell their story. Sounds like you're living your yos perfectly. So we appreciate that and we look forward to hearing more from you.

Thank you very much, Dan. I've enjoyed this. I remember the first time you and I talked, and it was a, you know, for me, it was a process of getting to the point of getting certified, but I will never look back. It's been beautiful.

Thank you so much, Lynn. Have a great rest of your day and we'll see all of you next Wednesday. But don't forget tomorrow we have our monthly show, which is our Y2Y. And we have a surprise guest tomorrow. So I'm going to tell you guys all about it on LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram. So take a listen and we'll see you next Wednesday. Take care. Have a great day, Lynn.

Thank you.