Life Is Short - Eat The Ice Cream

Welcome to A New Life podcast with Pamela Jean, where it's all about empowering women to empower more women. Get ready, friends, to create a new life. And here is your host, Pamela Jean.

Hello, my friends, and welcome to this week's episode of A New Life podcast. I'm Pamela Jean, your host and welcome to Fall. Here we go. You know, I had every intention last week of wrapping up August with a podcast celebrating my birthday month. I turned 56 Aug. 24. I'm grateful for that day, grateful to be alive, grateful that God gave me life and continues to do so today. But I got a little derailed on the 28th of October of August. Excuse me, 28th of August, I lost a friend. Her name was Kay Eskridge. She was a really, really dear friend of mine that I have known for probably over 30 years at this point, or close to it anyway. She was a guest on my podcast September 28th of 2020. During her podcast, she, for the first time stepped out into the world and admitted and shared with everybody that she was an alcoholic. During our conversation, she talked about her struggles. She talked about times of struggling to stay alive, struggling to want to stay alive, to how she was learning to love herself and step into that new space. And unfortunately, the demons of her. Of her past and the demons of the things that she struggled with just caught up with her. They were just too big, too big for her to fight off. And we lost her on 28 August. And she was one of the brightest lights that I've ever known. She's one of those people that when you walked into a room and she walked in behind you, the whole room lit up and was just a little bit brighter. You know, you have that person in your life, right, that just lights up a room. Well, she was one of those people. The portrait industry is going to miss her. She was an incredible teacher, fabulous photographer, mentor, and friend and volunteer. She believed in the professional organization and she volunteered her heart out. And she was there for her friends and there for her family, and she's going to be missed. I pray deeply for her mother, Dee, her sister and her sweet husband, Howard, and all of her many, many, many friends that are going to miss her. But what was so fun today is I got to go back and listen to the podcast and, and you might think this is funny, but I really don't ever listen to my own podcast. I just record them and put them out in the world. I don't really go back and listen to them, but I listened to this one and I'm so glad I did. And I'm so glad I had the chance to hear her voice again today. Hear her happiness, hear her joy, hear her pain, hear her struggles. But I just got to hear her, and that was an amazing thing. I think so many of us are. Are affected by addiction and mental illness and all kinds of things that we all are affected by, whether it be a family member or a friend or a loved one. And I just. You know how this feels. If you're listening to this, you know how this feels to lose someone. But I have such a strong faith, and I know that Kay loved the Lord. I know that she. She believed in the Lord. And I just have a strong, strong feeling that I'm going to see her again someday on the other side of this life. And I'm going to choose to imagine the reunion that she and her father had. He passed from dementia a couple of years ago, a few years ago. And I'm just going to imagine the reunion that they had as she ran into the arms of Jesus. She and her daddy are the dancing on the streets of gold as we speak. So condolences to my friend Kay's family, all of her friends, all the people who loved her, and to anyone who's dealing with addiction. Reach out. There are people that love you. Don't give up. And if you have lost someone, my condolences to you as well. So, anyway, to recap, Summer, I've gotten off my podcast recording schedule a little bit. Took a tiny break from summer. Gosh, I had a good summer. We didn't do a lot of huge trips, but a lot of little trips to visit our children and grandchildren and our family, to Austin, to Houston, to Charlotte, to Springfield, Missouri, and friends in Wichita, Kansas. And just, we've just truly had an amazing summer, and I'm grateful for that. I had a great birthday month. My husband is so good to me. You know, when God chooses the person that you're meant to be with in your life, everything just works out right. And we had an awesome birthday celebration. My daughter that lives locally came with her family and celebrated. So I am so blessed. And I'm just grateful for all that I have in my life. That's for sure. Am I the only one that, you know, as we step into fall, like September, I'm trying to pump the brakes about planning out 2025. I'm so excited. As we hit fall, it's like, okay, we're almost to Q4. It's time to start planning for that next year. So many Amazing things have happened this year in life and business and, and I'm just so pumped up about what 2025 is going to look like, and I'm so excited to get going on those plans and start strategizing my goals and, and all of those things. But am I the only one who does that? Because, gosh, I just cannot wait to get started. The feeling of fall is starting to roll around in Oklahoma. We have a little bit of cooler mornings. The humidity is not quite as awful. August is usually a pretty brutal month for us, so it feels good to have a 68 degrees in the morning when I head out to the gym. But in reflection of what's going to happen in 2025, don't forget you still have to finish strong in 2024. I know you started out your year with all of these great, amazing goals and you may or may not have reached them, or the goals have just simply changed and evolved and you've pivoted them into something else that's always good. Just because it's a goal in the beginning of the year doesn't mean it has to remain the same goal at the end of the year. Sometimes you don't know what you don't know when you set that goal and you just need to pivot and make it happen. But it might look differently than you thought it was going and that's an amazing thing. So don't forget, you have four months to finish strong, to reinvent those goals, to jump back in the saddle and go after them even harder. But finish, finish strong. My friends, we've got four really great months to make that happen. And I know that you can do that. And hey, if you need help re establishing your goals or talking them through or strategizing, just reach out to me. Just hit my website Pamela jeanannewlife.com and I can walk you that well. I have to share this because this is great, exciting news for me personally. I've been working on for a while now writing a book for my coaching clients and my reason for doing that is I'm going to actually share my reason, philosophy, everything behind it in my next podcast. So you'll have to wait till next week. But I want to tell you about the book. It's called Tiny Book, Big Solutions. As I'm coaching my clients, almost everyone has some of the similar or very same pain points that they're dealing with, whether it be in their business or in their life. And my very first book is going to be out at this time as I speak to you today, September 13th. Yes, Friday the 13th. And I am not superstitious at all. But it is going to come out on Friday the 13th, 13th of September. And the chapters that are in this first tiny book is chapter one, Mindset. Mindset for you to believe that you can do what you have set out to do. Sometimes you get going on a new business or a project or a process, and then you get in your way. We really dive into mindset and retraining your brain. You're going to love this. The other pain point a lot of my clients have is time management. Time management. How is it that some people can move mountains every single day and you can barely, you know, kick the stone across the driveway? Right. What is it about really good time management? So I'm going to address that and give you some very practical tips and ideas on how you can implement some solid time management systems into your business and into your life. Because this translates over to keeping track of your kids, soccer, football and dance schedule. It all connects together. Chapter three is about marketing. So many business owners have gotten into business not because they necessarily wanted to be a business owner, but it's out of the passion or love for a hobby or something that they like to do or learn of someone that they want to serve. Marketing isn't usually one of their favorite things to do is to market their business or market their products. But we take a really, really deep, comprehensive dive into omnipresent marketing. What does that mean? We create some marketing strategies for your business based on your ideal client avatar. All of that is covered in chapter three. Chapter four, we're going to dig into pricing. Many of my clients, my business owners, struggle with pricing. If you have a product that you are the creator of the product, like portrait photography or a candle company or something like that, you are the creator of the product. People really struggle with pricing it effectively. Prices can never be made out of fear. They cannot be fear or emotionally based. Meaning I'm just going to pick this XYZ price because I think that's what people will pay. Or I'm going to do that because I'm afraid if I'm too expensive, what are people going to say? So that's not making a decision based off of facts or knowledge. That is an emotionally based pricing system that will fail every single time. You might end up with some decent cash flow running through your business. That's why it's called cash flow, because it flows in one door and flows out the other. We want you to be able to create and generate wealth and keep more of what you earn. It's not about cash flow. It's about making good, solid sales and understanding why you need to price, how you need to price. Not based off of your emotions of what you think you're worth or your product is worth, but based on the facts about how much it costs you to run your business, how much is your overhead, how much are your cost of goods, and what profit margin do you want to work under. So that is what chapter four is going to talk about. And then chapter five is about sales. Another thing most small business owners don't want to do. You want to have a business. You want to be a business owner. You're an entrepreneur, but yet you don't like to market, you don't know how to price, and you do not like sales. That's not a recipe for high levels of success. Right? So my book is going to cover that. And I'm so excited about this because this is just volume one. I have plans for volume two, three, four, and volume five. I have five volumes that I'm going to be working on. I just chose the first five pain points that are very common with my clients. The next volume will have the next set of five pain points and so on. I'm so excited about this and I'm thrilled to be able to share that with you today. I've missed you, this audience. I've missed this audience over the summer. I always think I'm going to be able to keep up with it over the holiday and the summer fun and everything, but I don't always do that. So my apologies for not being consistent. And I'm going to do my best going into the fall and finish strong as we go into the end of the year and be more consistent with with the podcast and staying in touch with my community because I have definitely missed you. I love podcasting with you, I love sharing ideas, I love inspiring you and so very grateful that you have joined me today. So, friends, I wanted to just share a little bit about losing my friend. That has really thrown me for a big loop because I thought she was doing better. I thought that everything was going well. I know there's a lot of hardships that go along with life and her passing was definitely very shocking for me and I know for her family as well. So if you would just lift them all up and my friends take care of you and take care of those loved ones. Life is short. Eat the ice cream. Go have an ice cream tonight. Go, go for the walk. Take the kids out take the dog out, walk with your with the person you love the most and just enjoy your life. If there is breath in your lungs, if you are breathing right now and you are on the Wake up list this morning, there is something very special that you are meant to do and in this life. So never stop seeking that and always, every day, wake up with a grateful heart. My friends, thank you so much for joining me and I look forward to sharing the next podcast. I'm going to share all the details about the book release which is coming out on September 13th. Make it a great day, my friends. Have a great week and God bless.

Thank you for joining us today on a New Life podcast. We will see. See you next time.