Fern Morningstar: Tiny Houses, Big Dreams Empowering Transitional Journeys

I do really believe 100% from every part of me that everyone has the capacity to be able to do the things that they want and not to be held back by the mental baggage that's in our head that we want to push through.

Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. In each episode, we get down and personal with people who go after the things they want to make all their wildest dreams come true. Join us as we unveil and dissect a formula for what it takes to do the thing. Here is your host, Stacy Lauren.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. This is your host, Stacy Lauren. Well, guys, I love these kinds of episodes because I am bringing on one of the do the Thing community members to celebrate her for going through all the different challenges that she's gone through. And I also wanted to really have you guys hear her do the Thing story because every time she is sharing in the group or on a zoom or sharing a video, there's just something about being able to see someone who is really just living their life and in service to others that is truly a Do the Thing moment. And so I'm so excited to be able to talk to her and hear all about what she's doing. So I am welcoming Fern to the show. Hey, Fern. Hey.

How's everybody? Good.

I'm so excited. All of a sudden I'm like, wait, I haven't done an interview with you yet. We've got to bring you on and actually do this. So I'm so excited to do this with you today. I'd love to have you start off and just share about you and your story.

Well, I just kind of came across to do the Thing. I don't know, by accident or divine providence or whatever. I was just scrolling through there and my life was in a major change. Divorce from a 20 year marriage, that sort of thing. So I was kind of in this influx thing, and I'm a big believer in fix yourself. And so I just came across one of your things, and I was just like, I'll try it. And so I was hooked. I've done, I think, five challenges. Four or five challenges now. Yeah.

And I remember kind of the moment when you really stepped in when we had that listening workshop and you got to do that zoom and you just jumped in and you were able to just be totally vulnerable. And really I got to witness you doing something that not a lot of people would jump in for. So that was amazing. Getting to see that.

Well, and Zoom is technology that I can handle that one I know just the whole live recording thing because I have a hard time holding it on my face. So I'm the person who cuts off the top of their head like this.

Yeah. Well, that's good. We're doing find your voice now. So that could be your test is to really practice. Although the really good Instagram videos or the videos out there that you see are the ones where they have the face half cut off because they look real.

Well, there you go. I guess I could do that. I'd be like the half a person.

Yeah. So before we go into your full story, why don't you just say what that experience has been like for you. Just being in the challenges and maybe how you felt before, especially after going through a divorce and then finding the group and now being able to just really step in right through each challenge, getting a momentum, taking action, learning about yourself. What's that been like for you?

For me, it's like finding a whole group of people who understand where you're at. And no matter what, somebody's there and they're going to give you a little hug sign or something just to say, okay, I understand, I'm there. So at this point in my life, so I'm an empty nester. All the kids are gone. It's just me and my puppy dog. And so finding people that I relate to and I love hearing their stories and I watch their videos and stuff and see so many people just learning, still trying to grow and be better people. Because I think every day you should try to just be a little better than you were the day before. And I see so many people doing that and that's what inspires me. Yeah.

And so what do you think is different about you now? Now that you're in the challenges and you've been growing through them, how do you think life is different for you?

So, as almost anybody can say, once you're kind of exiting a 20 year marriage, especially if you're the one who opted to exit, you second guess yourself. And the more that I'm in the group and I am regaining who I was before all of this, the more it kind of helps me be okay with my decision. I mean, it's not always easy to make the decision and just branch out on your own, but it gives me a sense of, okay, this is who I need to be. I needed to find myself again because I had totally lost who I was, that sort of thing. So it gave me that chance to reclaim my own self and now my own voice.

Okay, so now I'd love to get into more about you and your story even before do the thing. So tell us all about you because now you're helping with a nonprofit, helping teach people life skills. How did you lead there?

So I came from a non, let's just say non traditional childhood. So then I got my degree in psychology and one in criminal justice. And that was always with the goal of doing not social work in the way most people think about it. But so I did casa, which is a court appointed special advocate for years. And I did that for years and the last little group, because once you start seeing the kids of the kids come back, then you think, okay, we didn't make the difference that we thought we did because otherwise why would their kids be coming back through here? So then I got into family violence prevention and myself and a group of ladies. But still, the programs aren't really geared to give them the life skills. Yes, you can teach them about trauma bonding and triggers and that sort of thing, but the very fact that their lives have been stunted so much by that, they need basic life skills. Because if you can't hold a budget and you don't know how to pay your bills and you don't know how to keep your own house or whatever, and the skills are all over the place, then it makes it hard to be successful, which makes them go back to where they were.

Yeah. So what does that look like now for you? So you noticed that I actually really love that where you're doing the casa. I know. I remember looking into that before. It's a lot of work to kind of get selected to be able to be that advocate. And so you then were doing it and then you obviously did it for a long time. If you're then seeing the kids of the kids, and then you're like, what am I even doing? It's not what I thought was helping isn't helping. And so then you realized what the core issue was. Right. You're solving the problem, not just the symptom, where you then are like, okay, life skills is at the core of this. And so now what does that look like for you? How are you helping people in that way?

Well, we still do the classes to help them overcome the trauma and those sort of things, but we also throw in their basic cooking. Now, I, I'm not a chef, but I can put dinner on the table. I'm old school. Meat, potatoes, dinner. But as long as you have that much of a skill, you don't have to be a French cuisine chef or something as Long as you can get a healthy dinner on the table, especially somebody who has kids, you need to be able to put that dinner on the table. You need to be able to maintain your house in a way in which it's not getting DHS called into your house because you don't know how to keep it clean. You need organizational skills. I mean, for those of us who manage our own house, it is a juggling act. And so organizational skills are basic budgeting skills. If you did not come from a family who budgets, you probably didn't get any budgeting skills. And then you'd find it hard to maintain a house because you can't pay your bills. Those are basic things that most people got from their parents that not. Well, there's a lot of people out there who did not get from their parents.

Yeah. And so are you doing this as a foundation now or a nonprofit, or what does that look like?

Correct. Me and several ladies who I worked with, with Family Violence Prevention before, we have all kind of gone together and are working on doing this foundation.

That's amazing. So did you get the 501C? Are you still working on that specifically?

We're specifically still working on the paperwork and stuff for that and what it's going to look like and how it's going to operate and all of those kind of things. Because this has just been in the last couple of years that we decided that what we was doing was not working. It's time to do something else. They say the definition of insanity is to keep trying the same things over and over again and expecting different results. So we decided, hey, why don't we just do something different?

Yeah. So I'd like to know, because I feel like for people listening, a lot of times people have these ideas, right? Or these yearnings of wanting to do something, but then they're like, oh, what's that gonna do? Or whatever comes up. And even me, if I think about it, when I tried to do the casa thing a while ago, when I heard all the work, I was like, oh, I don't know. It's just such a beautiful thing that you are seeing what's the problem? And then you've bonded with other people to be able to really figure it out, and now you're doing something about it. And I'm just curious if you have any thoughts on that, on what's helped you get to this point.

Well, I had the thoughts for years, but I let people tell me that it wasn't doable and stuff, and it wasn't Until I ran into the specific ladies that I'm talking about where we all have had the thoughts for years that I guess we kind of put our energy together and then there was just more of us that kind of drowned out all the negative people saying, okay, we don't change things, we do things the same way. They've been done always. So I think it would find in other people who felt the same way I did.

Yeah. And so you're not just stuck in your head wanting to do something, you're actually able to collaborate and partner with other people.

Correct.

What do you think helps you help people with lifestyles? So someone's listening and they want to get involved somewhere in their community, their wherever, church, whatever they want to do, Community center. What would be something that they could do to really kind of just replicate what you're doing now?

I think it's just a matter of kind of jumping in and doing it and finding other people in whatever way you volunteer. But also don't be afraid to change things up, color outside the lines a little bit. For instance, if trying to teach somebody, here's a lesson learned like this, if that's not working for you, maybe they're visual learners, maybe they're hands on learners. Don't be afraid to change it up and see if you don't get a different result if somebody can't get the information the way you're giving it. And that's one of the reasons of having the different ladies, because we all have a very different teaching style when we teach. And that helps. Because what one person can't get from me, it's not about me, it's about them getting the information they need so they could maybe get it from one of the other ladies in a way they can better understand and apply.

So it's really kind of not getting frustrated, it's being able to see how that person's learning. So then you're able to help them without thinking there's one way to do it. There could be a lot of ways to do it.

And there's a lot of ways people learn. And that is the thing that people get hung up on everybody. If you think about the education system, there is one way they expect people to take in knowledge and learn it. But if that's not the way you learn best, even though you might be perfectly intelligent, you will struggle because you don't learn the way that it's put out there. Well, the same thing happens even and especially with adults because it's hard to learn skills that you know you should have already had because there's a little bit of pride and stuff in there. Like, I am grown and I am now having to learn something I should have known when I was seven. I give these talks because the best way to reach people is for them to understand that you do understand, because they do not get to connect with them on the level that you need to unless they understand that you really do know where they're coming from.

Yeah, you're so right. I think that's what's making me so passionate about just even find your voice. Right. That challenge which you've been in. And I know now we're starting another round, and so I'm excited to see this round with you. But when you've gone through something and you are able to come on the other side of it, I mean, there's no one else that can help someone or relate to someone in the way that they need to be related to, like someone that's already walked that path. And I think you really speak to a powerful thing of just now. You have to really be able to tap into that, to be able to share it, because that's how you're really going to be able to change someone's life. By you being able to do it.

Exactly. It's a pay it forward. Because people get the idea that when you come from a rough childhood, that it's all doom and gloom 24 7. No, it's not. There's always people along the way. There was people like neighbors and just other people that were there to help me along, that taught me things. And then I was adopted when I was 16 by who I consider my parents. And so they were so patient because when you're 16 years old, you should know something. But I didn't know anything because I came from a hoarder background. So as far as housekeeping, you can imagine what you learn from a hoarder mother. As far as housekeeping, it's nothing. So Lois, the lady who adopted me, she would literally just teach me to wash windows. She gave me a bucket of water, and I was on one side of the window and she was on her side of the window, and she was just like, literally do this.

So that's where you had that moment of being raised, it sounds like from a hoarder environment. And then you ended up getting adopted and living with someone who was really intentional about teaching you life skills.

Right.

And so that's where you realize it probably gave you confidence then in life to be able to really do other things. Too.

It did. It gave me the confidence to go ahead and get an education. Nobody from where I come from gets an education. That's just not something that's done. If you don't come from the kind of background where education is valued. I'll give you. For instance, one of my brothers said to me that now that I was high, pollutant and educated, that I was stuck up. So when I say I don't come from an education priority background, it's more like discouraged. It's not even just not like they're trying to help you get there. They're actively trying to stop because they don't want you to do that.

Yeah, exactly. And then you got around a new environment. Right. And so then you got to see what was possible, which then was what helped you really move forward with what you got to do.

I think it was just that there are more ways to do things. So don't get me wrong, my adopted parents didn't have an education either, but they educated themselves and they were for education. And they pushed me to be the person that was kind of lost this thing was just get up there and do it. Just why not? And that's kind of why whenever I ran across your little thing for the original group, because that's something she told me a lot. It's like, well, it's got to be done, so you might as well just do it.

Yeah, just do the thing right.

I mean, that was kind of her philosophy and her and her family modeled. So you can say anything you want, but what really reaches people is modeling the behavior for them in your everyday life. So her and her sisters were so super close, and their family to this day is still so super close that it inspired me. That's what I want. That's what I want for my family and that's what I want for my kids. Because I don't want my kids to look back and have to say they had a non traditional childhood.

What do you think has been the hardest thing that you had to overcome?

The hardest thing I had to overcome, basically was people trying to stop me from getting where I wanted to go by that. I say, I am a Southern woman and they want you to be quiet. You're supposed to be very mannerly and quiet. And when you have your whole entire culture telling you you're supposed to be one thing, but you have to struggle to stay in that box that they keep telling you is where you belong, then it just seems like your whole life is a struggle. And it wasn't until I realized that I just don't fit in that box. And to quit trying that, I really felt like I had freed myself. Yeah.

It's so easy to get stuck in that conditioning. Right. That this is the way it's supposed to be, and this is what it's supposed to look like, and to be able to really open your mind to see that there's so many ways to do it, and you have to almost break that conditioning, which is hard.

Exactly. And try not to put it on your own children. Because as a parent, you catch yourself saying stuff that you heard your whole life, and you have to kind of catch that and go, wait, that's not something I want to pass on. So. Okay, scratch that. I didn't mean that. I'm sorry. But think for yourself. Go ahead and be the best you you can be.

What is your number one piece of advice for people on doing the thing?

My number one ice would be for people to realize that normal is not really a thing. So everybody is always trying to strive to be so normal or whatever, but whatever is normal for you is normal. There's no such thing. And I think we've all kind of got sucked into that mindset of, oh, this is how we're all supposed to be. This is what. But the world would be a very boring place if we were really all the same. So just go ahead and be you and know that that is the perfect thing that you can be.

I would love to hear what your goals are with the nonprofit and the women that you're working with. Do you guys have a picture in mind of what this looks like?

We would like to, at some point, get to the point where we had tiny houses, so we have the property already. And we really would like to have locations where we could put people, especially kids aging out of foster care or women who are coming from environments where they need housing and stuff, like a shelter, but not in a shelter kind of way. We would like to do, like, a small community of houses where they learn to keep house. They learn to do the basic stuff that they need to do by doing it. Because sometimes the best way to learn is just to do it and have a safety net. Because if you think about it, in normal family households, that's what the parents do. When you have your first kid and you call your mom and you say, okay, this baby's not sleeping. What's going on? We want to be the safety net for these people as they're learning. The person they call up and go, hey, I'm not getting this, it's not working. And just come and help them do that. Right now it's just teaching. But at some point we would like it to be a temporary live in situation where they live in their own little individual houses and they learn to maintain these houses because learning and doing with the safety net is how you usually start out in life. That's what your parents do as you become an adult. Let me help you set a budget. Let me help you learn to balance your bills out with your paychecks. Oh, you only get paid every two weeks. You need to pay all the bills that come from that week to the next week. Basic stuff and a lot of emotional management and stuff like that, because that's still going to be there. But even if you're teaching all the emotional management in the world, if you don't give them the basic life skills, then they're always going to struggle and they're always going to be a step behind everybody else and it's always going to be that much harder for them. Mm, yeah.

That's exciting. With the idea of the tiny houses and what that can actually do. I mean, for what you're building here, it's amazing.

We would like to put them in communities where there's a high concentration of people who would need the skills. And I know you would think that would be everywhere and it probably is everywhere, but mostly a lot of this college towns and stuff because there's a lot of kids there and it's the first time out away from home and maybe they learned how to do their own laundry and maybe they didn't learn how to do their own laundry. It's not just for people who did not have their parents to teach them everything because sometimes you just didn't get everything. My middle son, whenever he went to the military, because I was a big believer in everybody needs to learn all skills. There's no men's skill, there are no women's skills. There's just skills. So when he got to basic training, he called me and he said himself and one other guy in the whole unit was the only ones who knew how to turn the wash machine on. That he had spent the whole first day they had to do laundry showing people how to operate the washing machine.

Oh my gosh, that's horrible.

Wow.

Well, this has been amazing getting to talk to you. I'd love to. Just also, since you've been in so many do the thing challenges, have you shared with people that maybe aren't in the do the thing community yet that just listened to the podcast. What would they get from joining a Do the Thing challenge? And what advice would you give them?

I feel like they would get a sense of community. And I think in today's world, that's so important because not everybody even knows their neighbors and stuff where they live. I think it's a sense of community. It's a sense of somebody who's going to be there whenever you're sharing that moment or that breakthrough. And somebody's gonna not only be there to say, do your thing, but they also go, oh, that helped me so much. So you get both the cheerleader and the sense that what you're sharing and the breakthrough that you're making is helping somebody else make their next step.

What if they're scared and they're like, oh, I don't know, I think this one sounds scary. What would you suggest there?

I think because there's such a range of the way people share on there. Some people just in text, some people do the videos, and some people are video gurus, and they're on there just riding down the road. There's no way I could drive and ride down the road and be filming. I can barely take us. Well, I actually, I can't take a selfie. That's. To be honest, I can't take a selfie. So I don't think I would be able to go down the road holding the camera up. But you just see so many amazing people, and you get to be just like this little snapshot of their life, but you get to see their light bulbs come on. And I must think it's like a teacher who has that one pupil that they've been waiting their whole life to teach that's like, oh, this. This is going to be an exciting kid. Well, to be honest, it's like we're a whole group full of exciting people. You can see all the little light bulbs coming on.

I'd love to also have you share, because I've been exploring what the do the thing formula is. And a lot of people think it's a success formula and so which it is. But in all those interviews when I dissected it, I identified what helped people overcome their struggle and achieved success. And what I realized the common thing successful people have is they take action. Right. So I think the do the thing formula is really an action formula. And I just would curious if you could just speak to that in terms of if it helps you take action and what you've noticed from that, specifically.

I think it's an action, but I Also think it's about building your own self confidence. So the one thing that successful people have is confidence. So maybe if you don't have as much confidence as you need to take action. So the little by little steps of. It's like public speaking. People say that public speaking is a fear that people have that most people are just terrified to get on stage and never do that thing where you picture them in their underwear, because that's a really bad deal. But the way you do it is you get up and you talk to a small group, and then you talk to a bigger group. And if you know what you're talking about, that gets to be easier and easier. I mean, yes, the first time you think you're going to hurl backstage or whatever, but after a while you get up there and you just talk. And it's the same with any kind of skill. The more you practice it, the better you get. And you allow people. The way you've set your program up, it's broken down into baby steps, which is something we've always taught. Don't take the thing as a whole because you get overwhelmed, but you have broken it down into the little steps to help them build confidence. And if they don't think they got all the confidence they needed the first time, they just take the dare again when it comes around.

Okay, Please share where people can learn more about you and if they want to follow along with your journey, especially as you're building this nonprofit.

We're on Facebook. We don't have our group up yet, but there's not a lot of Fern Morningstars on Facebook. I'll just say that it's not that hard to find me. But do include a little note who you are, because I don't just. You get all these friend requests from people who have three pictures on their profile and you're going, okay, this person is probably a scammer fixing to ask me for money. So if you want to follow that, just let us know. And we have plans to put up a website. We just. We're working on it.

Yeah.

But first we're trying to get down the core of how we're going to do the classes and who's going to do the classes and that sort of thing right now.

Anything else coming alive for you while we're doing this interview?

I just have to say I appreciate that you are one of those people that I view that just keeps coming. People come into my life when I need them most. I feel like you were one of those people you just appeared like magic. Whenever I needed you the most, there you were with your do the Thing. And I was just like, okay, hey, let's do the thing.

Thank you so much for being part of the community. I just love having you in there and for you supporting and encouraging everyone along the way. I've really enjoyed doing this interview with you. It's a mixture of a celebration and getting to know you and your story and what you're doing to help other people. So thank you for that.

And if anybody wants to offer me video operating help, that's where I struggle. I need a Do the Thing challenge for video operating help.

We're actually doing a bonus. Did you see? Because with Find your Voice, I'm giving a bonus where we're doing a magnetic content video and she's going to show you how to hold the camera and all this kind of stuff. So it's part of that too, just so you know. But anyone, feel free to reach out to Fern, but all right. Thanks you guys for joining do the Thing. Don't wait for opportunity, create it.

Yes.

And hey, have you checked out my Facebook group yet? Go to do the thing community.com thanks.

For listening to the do the Thing podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. But even more, we hope you'll be inspired to do the Thing. Do you have a burning question on Doing the Thing that you'd like answered? How about an inspiring do the Thing story of your own that you'd like to share? We'd love to hear all about it. Just leave us a voice message at dothething or email us@helloothethingpodcast.com.