Gratitude: The Foundation of Confidence
In this empowering episode, we welcome Tara LaFon Gooch, an international TEDx speaker, bestselling author, and creator of the GRASP Method™. Tara has dedicated her career to building confidence through gratitude, helping people unlock their potential by transforming their mindset and embracing authentic leadership.
Tara shares her journey from fear to fearless, explaining how gratitude not only fueled her personal growth but also became the core foundation of her confidence-building methodology. She dives into the strategies she uses to cultivate gratitude daily and how this practice can be the key to thriving in both personal and professional life.
Join us as Tara LaFon Gooch explores:
- Gratitude as a catalyst for confidence and personal transformation.
- The GRASP Method™: A practical approach to building unshakable self-belief.
- How to overcome self-doubt by shifting to a gratitude-based mindset.
- Real-life stories and insights from Tara's journey as an international speaker and author.
Connect with Tara LaFon Gooch:
Tara's journey is a testament to the transformative power of gratitude and its role in cultivating lasting confidence. Tune in for actionable strategies and inspiring stories that will motivate you to harness gratitude and lead a more confident, fulfilling life. Whether you're aiming to excel in your career, relationships, or personal growth, this episode is packed with valuable insights!
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Follow the Host, Kelly Buckley:
Stay connected with Kelly Buckley and join her journey of healing, resilience, and gratitude. Follow her on social media for more inspiring content, updates on future episodes, and insights on living a life full of hope and purpose.
- Website: kellybuckley.com
- Facebook: Kelly Buckley on Facebook
- Instagram: @KellyBuckleyOfficial
- LinkedIn: Kelly Buckley on LinkedIn
- Twitter: @KellyBuckley
- YouTube: Kelly Buckley on YouTube
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00:00:03
Hello, my name is Tara Lafon Gooch.
00:00:05
I'm the host of Grasp Confidence Podcast.
00:00:08
I'm also a two-time best-selling author,
00:00:11
CEO, and international TEDx speaker.
00:00:15
I would love for you to join
00:00:16
this conversation today as
00:00:19
Kelly Buckley interviews me
00:00:21
and I interview her.
00:00:23
Kelly, please introduce yourself.
00:00:26
This is going to be so much fun.
00:00:27
My name is Kelly Buckley,
00:00:29
and I am an author and
00:00:31
motivational speaker,
00:00:33
and I have a background in
00:00:36
healthcare management.
00:00:38
And my message is about gratitude.
00:00:41
So Tara and I,
00:00:44
we both use gratitude to
00:00:45
create both confidence and
00:00:47
hope and resilience.
00:00:49
So we're going to have an
00:00:50
awesome conversation today.
00:00:52
So let's jump in.
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I love that.
00:00:56
Well, you know,
00:00:57
gratitude has always been something,
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you know, in the past,
00:01:02
I would say it was always
00:01:04
something that I didn't relate to.
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And...
00:01:08
I think a lot of people can
00:01:10
understand that on a concept, Kelly, that,
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you know,
00:01:13
maybe gratitude at this point in
00:01:15
their life or a past point
00:01:18
in their life has felt out of reach.
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And I relate to that on a
00:01:24
lot of levels because it
00:01:27
once felt out of reach to me too.
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You know,
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today I have a TEDx talk called Gratitude,
00:01:34
the Foundation of Confidence.
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I've got a book.
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The first three chapters are
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about gratitude,
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but it definitely was not
00:01:41
always that way.
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I remember when it felt like
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a foreign word and concept.
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Do you relate to that at all?
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I do, one hundred percent.
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I remember starting
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initially a gratitude
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practice that was it just
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seemed very superficial now
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that I look back on it.
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And I kind of struggled
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because I think that.
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I guess maybe it was a maturity thing too.
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I was younger and I had not
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really found a way to set
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boundaries for negative thinking.
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And so when you go through a
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difficult time,
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that seems to just surround
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you completely.
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And then eventually you figure out, okay,
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I can set those things aside.
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I can lay my burdens down
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and I can look around for the blessings.
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But you're right.
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It didn't come easy to me either.
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It took me a long time to figure that out.
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But thank goodness I did.
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It's interesting.
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And, you know, even when I was new,
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I will say new to it, right?
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Yeah.
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And just kind of exploring it.
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It didn't at first come naturally.
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And I felt like there was
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almost some resistance towards it.
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And I say that because I
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feel like it could have
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been maybe some victim
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mentality that I had,
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self-sabotaging behavior even.
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Mm-hmm.
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That was telling me all of
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the things that it might not be.
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This might not be the answer.
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This might not be as easy as it sounds.
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This might not be for me.
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Might not, might not, might not.
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And I would actually set
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myself up for failure
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before I even started.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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And it really was just one
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day I said to myself, you know what?
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If the placebo effect works
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and we know it works.
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It does.
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Right.
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What if gratitude is kind of
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like a placebo effect?
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Okay.
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if that's the case then
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what's the harm in trying
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it yeah it's free yeah and
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it causes no harm we know
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this right it's an
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available resource so I
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said okay I'll just try it
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and I'm really glad I got
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out of my own way at that
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point and just the world and tried it um
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But yeah,
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I would set myself up for failure
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before I even started by
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telling me all the ways it
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wouldn't work before I even tried it.
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Has that ever happened to you?
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More times than I want to admit.
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Actually,
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in my healthcare management roles,
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one of the roles I had was
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I was a director of
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strategic initiatives and
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in charge of change
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management for a merger
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that we did with a number
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of hospitals to create one
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larger region in Western Canada.
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And so I was working with
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people who were just
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waiting to point out what
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was going wrong.
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And essentially,
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my job was to look for
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things that were going
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wrong and fix them.
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So you then start to look
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through that lens in every
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aspect of your life.
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So I would look at a
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situation and much like you
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thinking about the
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alternatives that could happen,
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I would say, yeah,
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that sounds like a really good idea,
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but here I need to think of a plan B, C,
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D, E, and F just in case.
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And that sabotaged me.
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You're absolutely right.
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You set yourself up for that.
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So you do have to be,
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when you make a decision to
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live a life of gratitude,
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you have to draw the line in the sand,
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don't you?
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You really do.
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And it's hard to let go of
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that past behavior because
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it's been learned over your lifetime.
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Yes.
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Oh my gosh.
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That is so true.
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It's letting go of your past
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and that past behavior that
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it feels like an old record playing.
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You know,
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the thing about gratitude and
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before gratitude,
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I'll just start there before gratitude.
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Cause I feel like that's
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where a lot of the listeners are,
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you know,
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maybe they're at the beginning
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of that journey.
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my life felt like a broken
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record just spinning around.
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And it was the same,
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almost like Groundhog Day.
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It felt like the same day
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every single day.
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You know what?
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Because it was.
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Yeah.
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Every single day I was
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reliving the day before,
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the day before that,
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the negative thing before that.
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And it was a rumination of
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continual marination of
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negative thoughts playing
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on that old record.
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old spinning record.
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And ultimately what I needed
00:06:57
to get out of my way was a
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break from that cycle.
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Yeah.
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And, you know,
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once I started incorporating gratitude,
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that was an unexpected outcome.
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I did not realize it could
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actually stop the broken record.
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I just thought it was going
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to make me happier.
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Yeah.
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I had no idea it was
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actually going to change
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patterns and behavior and
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habits and outcomes.
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Right.
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And it's free.
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And anybody can do this.
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Yes.
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Yeah,
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we're we're we're promoting a great
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deal here.
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Gratitude is one hundred percent free.
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Right.
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You don't get very many things like that.
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Do you feel like like you talked about,
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you know,
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kind of feeling like a broken
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record and that really resonates with me?
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For me,
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where I found the power of
00:07:52
gratitude was when my life fell apart.
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So what about you?
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Like, tell me, tell me about kind of that,
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because we all have these
00:08:01
forks in the road in our life, right?
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We're walking along,
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we're living this life.
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Maybe we're awake and
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noticing what's happening.
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Maybe we're just kind of
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trudging along with our head down,
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just trying to get through the day.
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And then all of a sudden
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we're at a crossroads and
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we have choices to make.
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And so tell me about a time
00:08:21
in your life where you were
00:08:22
at that crossroads and you
00:08:24
chose happiness and gratitude.
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Wow.
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It's always at our lowest point.
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I wish it wasn't sometimes,
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but I think we almost have to get there.
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Yeah.
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And, you know, it's, it's pretty powerful.
00:08:40
We look at the night sky and
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I encourage everybody to do
00:08:44
this tonight because it'll
00:08:46
add a lot of perspective.
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Go out with your family on
00:08:50
your front yard.
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Look up at the night sky.
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And what you'll see is an
00:08:54
array of beautiful stars.
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There's distant planets and
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galaxies out there far,
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far beyond our reach.
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And to us,
00:09:03
they look like little tiny dots
00:09:06
in the sky, right?
00:09:07
But if we think about it,
00:09:09
would we have appreciation
00:09:11
for them without the darkness?
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Oh, I love that so much.
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Would we have appreciation?
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They would still be there,
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but we wouldn't be able to
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see them because we can't see them.
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We can't appreciate them.
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Yeah.
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That darkness sometimes
00:09:31
gives us that perspective,
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just like the night sky,
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where we have to experience
00:09:37
that dark time in order to
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really have a deep,
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profound appreciation for
00:09:42
this thing we call gratitude,
00:09:45
which is really just a lifestyle change,
00:09:47
honestly.
00:09:49
Yeah.
00:09:50
So I would love to hear your
00:09:51
thoughts on that too,
00:09:52
because my listeners from
00:09:54
my podcast are saying,
00:09:56
we know Tara's story,
00:09:57
but we don't know Kelly's story.
00:10:01
Okay, so let's dig in.
00:10:06
So I started my gratitude practice,
00:10:10
my true gratitude practice.
00:10:12
I think I was just dabbling before that,
00:10:14
but my true gratitude
00:10:15
practice started in the
00:10:18
parking lot of a funeral home.
00:10:21
And I always call it God's
00:10:24
little whisper in my ear.
00:10:26
But we received a call on
00:10:28
the fourth of July that our
00:10:30
son had been swimming at
00:10:32
Jordan Lake and was missing.
00:10:35
And so we had, we were in Louisville,
00:10:37
Kentucky, visiting my husband's parents.
00:10:40
And so we immediately jumped
00:10:43
in the car and began
00:10:44
driving to get to Jordan Lake.
00:10:47
And, you know, I,
00:10:48
that was when I was doing my,
00:10:50
silent conversation with God negotiating.
00:10:53
And, um, anyway,
00:10:57
we get to the lake that morning and, uh,
00:10:59
before they resumed the search,
00:11:01
it was about six in the
00:11:02
morning and I was sitting
00:11:03
on this little bump in the
00:11:04
sand with my chocolate lab, Rudy.
00:11:07
And, um,
00:11:10
That was when I had the whisper,
00:11:11
like I have to find things
00:11:13
to be thankful for because to be honest,
00:11:17
I felt like I was standing
00:11:18
on the edge of an abyss.
00:11:21
And I had a, it wasn't a fork in the road.
00:11:24
It was the edge of an abyss.
00:11:26
And if I,
00:11:27
I had to make a choice right then
00:11:29
and there.
00:11:31
And you know,
00:11:31
what was interesting for me was, you know,
00:11:34
I told you about my background, right?
00:11:36
And so I was always a fixer.
00:11:39
So this was like a kick in the face for me,
00:11:41
really,
00:11:42
because I did not have any solutions,
00:11:46
none.
00:11:47
I was sitting there going, what do I do?
00:11:49
And I had never experienced that before.
00:11:52
And so that whisper in my ear saved me.
00:11:55
It's absolutely saved me to
00:11:58
look for gratitude.
00:11:59
So that first day, I
00:12:02
Um, I will tell you,
00:12:04
I'll tell you some of the
00:12:04
things I was grateful for,
00:12:05
and this will give you
00:12:06
perspective on gratitude
00:12:08
and how you can use it in
00:12:10
difficult times.
00:12:12
So Steven was this beautiful,
00:12:14
wonderful human being.
00:12:16
Um,
00:12:17
and I still feel him around me every
00:12:19
single day.
00:12:20
And my work is Steven's ripple.
00:12:22
So he was,
00:12:23
I had Steven when I was young
00:12:25
and he was an identical twin and his,
00:12:27
his brother died shortly after birth.
00:12:30
And, um,
00:12:32
So one of the things I was
00:12:33
grateful for that morning
00:12:34
was that they had reunited because, um,
00:12:40
Steven's entire life,
00:12:43
he always felt like
00:12:45
something was missing and
00:12:46
he gravitated towards twins.
00:12:48
It was amazing.
00:12:49
Um,
00:12:49
I can't tell you the number of
00:12:51
identical twins that he
00:12:53
gravitated towards and one
00:12:54
in one in particular,
00:12:57
And this was before he was
00:12:59
old enough for us to really
00:13:00
explain to him what had happened.
00:13:02
And he, it was in baseball.
00:13:04
And after the game,
00:13:06
we were driving home and he said,
00:13:07
you know, you know, these boys and he,
00:13:09
you know, he said their names.
00:13:10
I said, yeah,
00:13:11
they're great friends of yours.
00:13:13
He said,
00:13:13
there's something about them
00:13:15
that's like me.
00:13:16
I thought that was so
00:13:18
amazing because you read
00:13:19
about all of these things
00:13:21
with identical twins and
00:13:23
the bond that they have.
00:13:24
So that was the first thing
00:13:25
that I found gratitude in
00:13:27
is that my two boys are
00:13:28
reunited back together.
00:13:32
Second thing was the divers
00:13:35
that found Steven and
00:13:37
allowed me to bring him
00:13:39
home because the job that
00:13:43
they have to do is one of
00:13:45
the most difficult things
00:13:47
and they are humans.
00:13:49
with kids and wives and
00:13:51
lives of their own.
00:13:53
And they face this trauma selflessly.
00:13:57
And so I was incredibly thankful to them.
00:13:59
And I actually went over and
00:14:01
hugged them and told them thank you.
00:14:04
And I don't really think
00:14:04
they knew what to do with
00:14:05
that because I'm not sure
00:14:07
if a lot of people have
00:14:08
conversations with them at
00:14:09
that particular point.
00:14:11
But I felt it was important.
00:14:14
The third thing, without going on too long,
00:14:17
but the third thing was
00:14:19
Stephen's friends and the
00:14:22
parents of those friends
00:14:24
showed up at that lake and
00:14:26
they stayed with us.
00:14:27
They did not look away.
00:14:29
They stayed with us.
00:14:30
And one woman in particular said,
00:14:33
Um,
00:14:34
she gave me this hug and my mother died
00:14:36
when I was years old and
00:14:38
she hugged just like my mother.
00:14:42
And it felt like mom had
00:14:44
sent me a hug from heaven.
00:14:45
And I was so incredibly thankful for that.
00:14:49
So I looked around and I,
00:14:52
I was absolutely just ground into dust.
00:14:55
I was so broken.
00:14:59
Um,
00:15:01
but I could still see there
00:15:02
was love and goodness all around me,
00:15:06
even though I was devastated.
00:15:10
So that was my kind of
00:15:11
origin story of how everything started.
00:15:16
This is really how Stephen's
00:15:17
Ripple started.
00:15:19
Such a profound story.
00:15:21
And
00:15:22
For anybody that's listening to this,
00:15:26
you know, I thought I knew gratitude.
00:15:29
And I told Kelly this when I
00:15:32
saw her in person just a
00:15:34
little while ago.
00:15:37
I told you.
00:15:37
I said, Kelly, I thought I knew gratitude.
00:15:40
I thought, you know,
00:15:41
I teach people gratitude.
00:15:42
I have a TED Talk and a book.
00:15:45
Apparently,
00:15:46
the thing with gratitude is
00:15:48
it's a continuous practice.
00:15:50
And honestly, it's...
00:15:52
It's something you can never
00:15:53
truly master because it deepens.
00:15:57
Yes.
00:15:59
It deepens and it only gets more profound.
00:16:02
And I like to think of it as
00:16:04
layers of gratitude.
00:16:05
So if I think of an onion,
00:16:07
I think of all of the
00:16:08
different layers of an onion.
00:16:11
Gratitude, infinitely more depth.
00:16:14
There is no core.
00:16:16
There is no center that I know of.
00:16:18
You just keep being more
00:16:19
grateful and more grateful.
00:16:21
It's so profound when you
00:16:22
think about it that way, isn't it?
00:16:25
It really is.
00:16:26
And I love the thing that
00:16:28
I've really enjoyed about
00:16:30
podcasting and talking to
00:16:33
other individuals who are
00:16:34
on these beautiful missions
00:16:36
is that it's applicable in
00:16:40
so many areas of our life.
00:16:42
So when I first started this
00:16:43
and I first started talking
00:16:44
about gratitude publicly,
00:16:48
it was specifically how to
00:16:50
deal with grief with gratitude.
00:16:53
um not everybody understood
00:16:56
that message at first and
00:16:57
that's okay you know that's
00:16:58
it's a different approach
00:17:00
to grief most definitely um
00:17:02
but what I love as I as I
00:17:05
talk to more and more
00:17:06
people is you see how
00:17:07
applicable the practice of
00:17:10
gratitude can be in the workplace
00:17:14
And we have so much stress
00:17:15
in our lives these days, right?
00:17:17
And so gratitude in the
00:17:19
workplace with the work that you're doing,
00:17:22
the work that I'm doing with the bereaved,
00:17:24
the work that other people
00:17:25
are doing with people who
00:17:26
are struggling with
00:17:27
addictions or chronic illness.
00:17:31
It applies everywhere.
00:17:34
I think about healthcare
00:17:35
teams who work in a selfless position.
00:17:41
They give and give.
00:17:44
And what could gratitude do
00:17:45
to transform their team,
00:17:47
to transform leadership?
00:17:50
of hospitals who are, you know, they just,
00:17:53
they have a lot on their shoulders.
00:17:55
So it's applicable everywhere.
00:17:57
The Onion is a perfect
00:17:58
example of how you can peel
00:18:00
back those layers.
00:18:02
I love that.
00:18:03
Well, you know,
00:18:04
even though our stories are
00:18:06
very different,
00:18:08
the thing about it is it's
00:18:10
really not that different, is it?
00:18:12
Because it's the human experience.
00:18:14
And, you know,
00:18:15
that's part of the power of
00:18:17
sharing your story, sharing your message,
00:18:19
your mission.
00:18:21
sharing your vulnerabilities
00:18:22
to create that impact,
00:18:24
that ripple effect that
00:18:24
you're talking about as well.
00:18:27
You know, if we keep these things inside,
00:18:29
it's ultimately not helping anybody.
00:18:32
And I think of, you know,
00:18:34
teaching gratitude, sharing your story,
00:18:36
the ultimate form of service, really,
00:18:38
because I really do believe
00:18:41
that somebody out there
00:18:42
somewhere is praying for the exact same
00:18:48
remedy that we can provide to them.
00:18:51
The exact thing.
00:18:53
And they're just praying for
00:18:55
you to share your story so
00:18:57
that they feel less alone.
00:18:59
And somebody out there who's
00:19:01
suffering from depression,
00:19:02
because a lot of people are,
00:19:06
if they can hear a natural cure,
00:19:08
what's that going to do for
00:19:09
them and change?
00:19:10
How's that going to change their lives?
00:19:12
Impact not only themselves, their families,
00:19:14
their communities, their
00:19:16
Generations.
00:19:17
We don't know.
00:19:18
Right.
00:19:19
And one in five,
00:19:21
one in five Americans right
00:19:23
now will tell you that they
00:19:26
are struggling with a mental illness.
00:19:28
One in five.
00:19:29
Yeah.
00:19:31
So, you know,
00:19:32
the stats are very clear that
00:19:33
we need to start doing
00:19:34
something differently.
00:19:36
Um, we need to take this seriously and,
00:19:39
and, you know, the work that,
00:19:41
that we do with gratitude, both you and I,
00:19:43
and so many other beautiful practitioners,
00:19:45
um,
00:19:48
we have to really be conscious of the
00:19:51
importance of our teaching and,
00:19:54
Not being limited to one one
00:19:57
area of your life and and
00:19:59
explaining to people that
00:20:01
this needs to permeate
00:20:02
every part of your existence.
00:20:04
Right.
00:20:05
You can't just say I'm going
00:20:06
to be a grateful team
00:20:07
member at work and then go
00:20:09
home and not practice that
00:20:11
because it just doesn't it
00:20:12
doesn't work that way.
00:20:13
Right.
00:20:14
It doesn't.
00:20:14
In my language.
00:20:18
Right.
00:20:18
I mean,
00:20:19
and I know that that this is part
00:20:20
of your message,
00:20:21
that it has to be part of who you are.
00:20:25
Tell me about how you
00:20:27
communicate that in in
00:20:29
businesses that you in
00:20:30
companies you're working with.
00:20:33
Absolutely.
00:20:34
I just gave a keynote
00:20:35
presentation yesterday and
00:20:37
it was about gratitude.
00:20:39
It's called the Confidence Blueprint,
00:20:41
Building a Strong Foundation.
00:20:42
It's based after my TEDx talk.
00:20:45
And I wanted the listeners,
00:20:49
the audience to really walk away,
00:20:52
not with just like, you know,
00:20:56
temporary motivation.
00:20:59
I wanted them to walk away
00:21:01
inspired to change their
00:21:03
lives and transform their
00:21:05
realities through gratitude.
00:21:07
So I gave them real examples
00:21:11
and I made sure everybody
00:21:12
had a thirty day gratitude
00:21:14
journal even so that they
00:21:15
could continue the practice
00:21:17
and report back to me the results.
00:21:21
And I'm going to do this
00:21:22
journey as well along with them and
00:21:25
You know,
00:21:26
when we can give people real
00:21:27
tangible change, because, you know,
00:21:30
during a presentation, people might think,
00:21:33
oh, that's great.
00:21:34
That's great.
00:21:34
That's good.
00:21:35
Okay.
00:21:35
Afterwards, now what?
00:21:37
What do I do?
00:21:38
So I don't want them to have
00:21:39
the what now do I do?
00:21:41
I want to be able to
00:21:42
actually give them that roadmap and say,
00:21:44
here it is.
00:21:46
Follow along with me and I
00:21:47
will lead you in this
00:21:48
journey over the next thirty days.
00:21:51
That's powerful.
00:21:53
And it's that abundance mindset,
00:21:57
I feel like, non-transactional,
00:22:00
very relationship driven.
00:22:02
How can I continue to add
00:22:03
value to your life?
00:22:05
When they see someone like that,
00:22:08
that genuinely wants to add
00:22:10
value to people's lives, you know,
00:22:13
that's just leading by example.
00:22:15
People want to follow that, right?
00:22:17
And they want to almost join your circle.
00:22:21
It's a trust level there.
00:22:23
But I do want to say, Kelly, you know,
00:22:26
it was not always this way for me.
00:22:28
Because, again, going back to, you know,
00:22:30
I mentioned that at one
00:22:32
point gratitude felt like a
00:22:34
foreign concept.
00:22:35
What do you mean gratitude?
00:22:37
That's like some fluffy new age, right?
00:22:42
I was cynical.
00:22:43
I was cynical.
00:22:44
I was cynical.
00:22:45
I was a cynic.
00:22:46
Yeah.
00:22:48
I was a bump on a log, if you will.
00:22:52
I was not fun at all to be around.
00:22:55
And it was at that lowest point.
00:22:59
You know,
00:22:59
you talked about your lowest point.
00:23:01
My lowest point was
00:23:03
suffering from major
00:23:04
depressive disorder and
00:23:05
anxiety at the same time.
00:23:08
Feeling suicidal.
00:23:10
I didn't want to live anymore.
00:23:14
And I say that because
00:23:16
people are feeling that right now.
00:23:19
You know,
00:23:19
according to the World Health
00:23:21
Organization, the WHO,
00:23:24
depression is the leading
00:23:27
cause of disability worldwide.
00:23:30
People are disabled.
00:23:32
They're disabled from their depression.
00:23:34
Yeah.
00:23:37
And if, again,
00:23:39
we're focusing on all the darkness,
00:23:42
but we need that perspective, right?
00:23:45
And that's why I encourage
00:23:47
everybody to just tonight
00:23:49
go out and look at the night sky,
00:23:51
see the perspective.
00:23:52
And if you can incorporate
00:23:54
gratitude into your daily practice,
00:23:57
because it is a lifestyle
00:23:58
change like you mentioned,
00:24:01
you'll start to have this
00:24:02
really cool ninja mindset, right?
00:24:06
You know what I mean by that, Kelly?
00:24:08
I know that sounds funny.
00:24:09
Maybe people are laughing too,
00:24:10
but I feel like it's like a
00:24:12
ninja superpower mindset trick.
00:24:15
It absolutely is because it
00:24:17
completely changes how you see things.
00:24:20
Yes.
00:24:21
You know, if you, let's see,
00:24:25
maybe you have a flat tire
00:24:26
on the way to work and you
00:24:28
could focus on all of the
00:24:30
negative things.
00:24:31
I was late to work.
00:24:32
I have a flat tire.
00:24:33
I don't know how to fix a tire.
00:24:34
I also broke my nail when I
00:24:35
did that and all these things, right?
00:24:37
Or you could say,
00:24:40
I'm glad I wasn't injured.
00:24:42
I'm glad the rest of my car is okay.
00:24:44
You know what?
00:24:45
Maybe that actually
00:24:46
prevented me from a catastrophe.
00:24:50
Yeah.
00:24:51
What if that actually
00:24:52
prevented you from a larger
00:24:54
accident down the road?
00:24:54
Maybe a deer was going to
00:24:57
dart out and you would have
00:24:58
actually totaled your car.
00:25:00
We don't know these things.
00:25:02
But you find if you can
00:25:04
adopt a gratitude mentality,
00:25:06
you start to get that,
00:25:07
I call it ninja moves.
00:25:09
And you say, oh, I'm so glad.
00:25:14
Just imagine saying,
00:25:16
I'm so glad I have a flat tire.
00:25:18
Well,
00:25:20
but that is exactly how my husband and I,
00:25:23
that's how we look at our life now.
00:25:25
We're like, and when things happen,
00:25:27
we always say we pull a
00:25:29
Tony Soprano because we say,
00:25:30
what are you going to do?
00:25:31
What are you going to do?
00:25:32
Like Tony Soprano.
00:25:33
But we don't let it stop us.
00:25:36
And the beautiful thing,
00:25:38
and I want to talk to you a
00:25:39
bit more about this,
00:25:40
is that what I found after
00:25:42
my practice deepened and it
00:25:44
became part of who I was
00:25:47
and what I did on a daily basis,
00:25:51
it creates a bounce, right?
00:25:53
So when crap happens,
00:25:56
and crap happens all the time,
00:25:59
when you have a solid gratitude practice,
00:26:02
you can bounce back from things much,
00:26:04
much faster.
00:26:05
You can put things in perspective.
00:26:07
So things that would, you know, I have,
00:26:12
I have anxiety.
00:26:13
You were talking about
00:26:14
depression and I really
00:26:16
dealt and struggled with
00:26:18
anxiety after Steven died.
00:26:20
But gratitude is,
00:26:24
reminded me of what was there.
00:26:26
And so I was able to,
00:26:27
when I would have a negative thought,
00:26:29
I was able to put that in
00:26:30
its little box and tuck it away and say,
00:26:33
no, no, but there's still good here.
00:26:35
It didn't make every day perfect.
00:26:37
That's not realistic.
00:26:40
But there was something
00:26:41
perfect in every day.
00:26:44
Ooh, that was a mic drop moment.
00:26:48
I like that.
00:26:49
I like that.
00:26:50
I know, right?
00:26:50
Throw it down, Kelly.
00:26:53
So powerful.
00:26:55
And, you know,
00:26:56
I realized as well that
00:27:00
gratitude is for me very
00:27:02
faith-based as well.
00:27:04
It's, you know, it's a continuous prayer.
00:27:10
And it's a continuous appreciation.
00:27:12
And I do believe that, that, you know,
00:27:15
when we can not only express gratitude,
00:27:19
but feel it within us.
00:27:23
that it's a continuous
00:27:25
prayer and it's almost like
00:27:26
a direct connection to source.
00:27:31
The power, the energy,
00:27:33
the enthusiasm you feel is
00:27:36
deep and it lights you up.
00:27:39
It gives you energy.
00:27:41
And it's such a profound
00:27:44
state when you do this in a
00:27:46
continuous way over time.
00:27:49
And it really compounds the interest,
00:27:52
right?
00:27:53
It may start off as small.
00:27:55
You know, when my daughter was little,
00:27:59
I used to get irritated
00:28:01
when she'd wake me up every night.
00:28:03
Why is she waking me up every night?
00:28:05
I can't get a good... No,
00:28:06
everybody needs good sleep, right?
00:28:08
But now I would...
00:28:10
Because of my continuous
00:28:12
gratitude practice, I can say,
00:28:14
I'm so glad she trusts me
00:28:15
enough that I'm her safe space.
00:28:18
Yeah.
00:28:19
I'm so glad that she's safe
00:28:21
at home in her bed.
00:28:23
I'm so glad I have a daughter that I love.
00:28:26
I'm so glad I love my family.
00:28:29
I wouldn't trade them for the world.
00:28:31
Right.
00:28:32
You find the gratitude in anything.
00:28:34
And then you know what?
00:28:36
You're a lot less grouchy.
00:28:38
You're a lot less of a bump on the log.
00:28:41
People want to gravitate towards you,
00:28:43
be around you.
00:28:45
And it's really a magnetism thing.
00:28:48
I feel like very much
00:28:49
similar to confidence.
00:28:50
A really confident person
00:28:52
really does attract a lot
00:28:54
to them is a grateful person.
00:28:58
Yeah, that that is really, really true.
00:29:02
I completely agree with that.
00:29:04
And I also want to bring up
00:29:07
mindfulness with gratitude
00:29:10
because and I mean, mindfulness,
00:29:13
that word, you hear it a lot lately,
00:29:15
people talking about living
00:29:16
a mindful life.
00:29:18
Yeah.
00:29:20
But gratitude,
00:29:21
when you are actively seeking gratitude,
00:29:24
when you are looking around
00:29:25
your life to be grateful,
00:29:27
you are in the present moment.
00:29:30
And so I want people to
00:29:31
think about this for a second.
00:29:33
So you're really struggling right now.
00:29:36
Maybe you're depressed.
00:29:38
Maybe you have anxiety.
00:29:39
You're going through a job
00:29:40
loss or some struggle.
00:29:42
Stop.
00:29:43
Stop.
00:29:45
Look around your life and
00:29:46
find just one little thing
00:29:48
to be grateful for.
00:29:50
And in that moment,
00:29:53
you are right here right now.
00:29:55
You're not in the past with regret.
00:29:57
You're not in the future with worry.
00:29:59
You are right here right now,
00:30:02
and you are okay.
00:30:04
So you have an opportunity
00:30:05
with gratitude to have a
00:30:09
moment of reprieve from
00:30:11
whatever you're dealing with.
00:30:13
Okay.
00:30:15
Right.
00:30:16
It's like a little moment of reprieve.
00:30:18
You can step in your little
00:30:19
time out room of gratitude and say, OK,
00:30:21
I'm just going to catch my
00:30:22
breath here and notice what
00:30:24
else is around me.
00:30:25
And I will tell you that that practice,
00:30:28
just like you said,
00:30:29
with that constant practice
00:30:31
and how it deepens.
00:30:33
All those little things,
00:30:36
they tether together and
00:30:37
they form this rope.
00:30:39
And I always say,
00:30:40
and I'll say this again to
00:30:41
anybody who's out there in darkness,
00:30:44
that tether those moments
00:30:45
together and that rope will
00:30:47
lead you back to the light.
00:30:48
It will.
00:30:50
And so talk to me about
00:30:53
mindfulness and what you
00:30:55
see on the business
00:30:56
landscape in terms of
00:30:57
because I know that people
00:30:59
at work were talking about
00:31:01
like self-care and all that.
00:31:03
And so how does mindfulness
00:31:05
and gratitude work together for you?
00:31:08
Yeah.
00:31:08
So in business, you know,
00:31:10
it's how we connect with others,
00:31:12
how we connect with, you know,
00:31:14
any relationship that we try to form.
00:31:18
You know, for me,
00:31:20
it almost acts as an automatic filter.
00:31:24
And I told you and your husband, Brady,
00:31:26
about this when I think
00:31:29
when I first met you guys,
00:31:31
it was maybe the first time we met.
00:31:34
And I said that my daily
00:31:36
prayer is not ever for more
00:31:39
clients or more business or
00:31:40
more customers or more friends.
00:31:43
It's bring the aligned
00:31:45
people into my life.
00:31:47
So how can I bring the
00:31:48
aligned people into my life?
00:31:50
I have to attract the aligned people.
00:31:52
How do I do that?
00:31:54
Well, it's self-leadership.
00:31:56
So if I want to attract confidence,
00:32:01
I need to present myself confidently.
00:32:04
if I want to attract
00:32:06
gratitude and grateful and
00:32:08
positive-minded people into my life,
00:32:10
then I'm first going to
00:32:12
display gratitude within myself.
00:32:15
Right.
00:32:16
And you do this,
00:32:18
you pick the traits that you really,
00:32:21
what do you really want?
00:32:24
I really want to grow confidence.
00:32:26
I would love to be able to
00:32:28
have that ninja mindset
00:32:29
Tara's talking about where
00:32:30
I can just reframe things
00:32:31
really quickly like a Rubik's Cube.
00:32:34
Or maybe I want to stop
00:32:36
ruminating thoughts.
00:32:38
Maybe I want to be a better
00:32:40
communicator for my team.
00:32:44
Start with gratitude.
00:32:46
It's the simplest thing you
00:32:47
can do that you can start
00:32:49
immediately today that's
00:32:51
going to get you a little
00:32:52
closer to all of those goals.
00:32:53
Because you know what?
00:32:54
You start with gratitude.
00:32:57
People may be thinking,
00:32:57
how's that going to help
00:32:58
with my communication skills?
00:33:01
begin your conversations
00:33:02
with somebody else with an
00:33:04
expression of gratitude.
00:33:07
Kelly,
00:33:08
I'm so grateful for this opportunity
00:33:10
to meet with you today and
00:33:11
be on your amazing podcast
00:33:13
and you be on my podcast
00:33:15
and for us to expand
00:33:17
together and grow together.
00:33:18
Isn't that amazing?
00:33:19
Like, of course, you know,
00:33:21
the other person's excited
00:33:22
and feels increased.
00:33:24
Exactly.
00:33:25
And in a business situation and having,
00:33:28
having been in positions of
00:33:29
leadership myself and
00:33:31
having to have difficulty
00:33:34
or difficult conversations
00:33:36
with employees from time to time, it just,
00:33:38
it happens.
00:33:41
beginning those
00:33:42
conversations with
00:33:44
recognizing that not all is bad, right?
00:33:48
So starting and setting the
00:33:49
tone as a manager or a VP
00:33:53
or wherever you are on the ladder,
00:33:56
when you are dealing with
00:33:57
an employee situation and
00:33:59
it's stressful because
00:34:00
confrontation is just,
00:34:02
it's a stressful thing.
00:34:03
Nobody wants to do it, right?
00:34:06
But everybody has potential, right?
00:34:09
even when you have to talk
00:34:10
to them about something difficult,
00:34:12
look for the potential and
00:34:14
highlight that at the
00:34:16
beginning of the conversation,
00:34:18
because you are telling
00:34:19
that person you still believe in them.
00:34:22
And that's going to give
00:34:23
them the strength to
00:34:25
improve their performance.
00:34:28
So gratitude, I mean,
00:34:30
that's gratitude applied to
00:34:32
a crappy meeting where you
00:34:34
have to tell somebody that
00:34:35
they did something wrong.
00:34:37
So really,
00:34:38
it's applicable in every situation.
00:34:40
Absolutely.
00:34:41
And, you know, this is any human brain.
00:34:44
So this applies to all of us.
00:34:46
When we hear something,
00:34:48
so let's say we're in the
00:34:49
exchange of a conversation
00:34:50
with somebody else.
00:34:53
The information, the words they say,
00:34:55
goes into the base of our brains, right?
00:34:58
That's like they call the
00:34:59
primitive area of our brains.
00:35:02
Then it has to make this traverse, right?
00:35:05
It has to traverse all of
00:35:07
this area of your brain and
00:35:09
go through the limbic system.
00:35:11
This is your I feel here area.
00:35:16
before it makes all its way
00:35:18
to finally that prefrontal cortex area,
00:35:20
which is the, I think,
00:35:22
rationally way over here area.
00:35:26
So imagine you're starting a
00:35:30
conversation with somebody
00:35:33
and they perceive it's negative.
00:35:35
No matter what you say,
00:35:36
they're going to feel it first
00:35:39
Emotionally,
00:35:40
they feel words just like you feel words,
00:35:42
just like all of us feel
00:35:44
before we can actually rationalize.
00:35:46
Yeah.
00:35:47
So how do you take a
00:35:51
conversation and make it
00:35:53
automatically where that
00:35:54
other person is receptive
00:35:56
to our message and feels
00:35:58
comfortable with us?
00:36:01
Yeah.
00:36:01
We start a conversation with gratitude.
00:36:04
Gratitude.
00:36:05
And if you start that
00:36:06
conversation with gratitude,
00:36:08
it'll enter in the base of their brain.
00:36:11
It'll travel through their limbic system,
00:36:13
the feel center.
00:36:15
And they'll actually feel
00:36:17
your expression of gratitude toward them,
00:36:20
opening up their receptivity to you.
00:36:25
And then they're not walled up.
00:36:28
Their barriers are down.
00:36:29
They're much more keen to
00:36:31
listen to what you're saying.
00:36:33
And when you do this with enough time,
00:36:35
I'm not saying it's going
00:36:36
to be perfect the first time,
00:36:38
but just try this out and
00:36:39
try this with your family at home.
00:36:42
Try it with yourself.
00:36:45
Because everybody talks to
00:36:47
themselves and we all have self-talk,
00:36:49
Kelly.
00:36:50
Hello.
00:36:51
Oh, yes, we do.
00:36:53
How many conversations do we
00:36:55
have with ourselves that
00:36:56
are very positive?
00:36:59
Not many.
00:36:59
Not many.
00:37:00
Why didn't I do this?
00:37:02
Why didn't I do that?
00:37:03
I can't believe I failed at this.
00:37:05
Look at that person.
00:37:06
They're so much better than me.
00:37:07
Right?
00:37:07
Right.
00:37:11
It's so true.
00:37:12
It's, it's just,
00:37:13
it's so easy for our mind to go there.
00:37:16
Especially when we're,
00:37:18
we're passing judgment on ourselves.
00:37:20
It's, it's not a good thing,
00:37:21
but you have to train your mind to, to,
00:37:24
to get past that too, because it, it,
00:37:26
it just happens quite naturally,
00:37:28
doesn't it?
00:37:28
Yes.
00:37:29
And that's, again,
00:37:31
applying this concept of
00:37:33
the self-talk with gratitude.
00:37:35
What if every time you
00:37:37
caught yourself doing it,
00:37:40
you reframed it and said one thing,
00:37:42
one little thing,
00:37:43
just one little thing that
00:37:45
you're grateful for, for yourself.
00:37:48
Instead of saying, oh man,
00:37:50
that person is such a
00:37:50
better author than me.
00:37:52
They got this huge book deal
00:37:53
and here I am self-publishing.
00:37:56
You published.
00:37:59
You got so much farther
00:38:01
ahead than ninety nine
00:38:02
percent of the population with your goal.
00:38:05
And you actually reached your goal.
00:38:07
Be happy and proud of
00:38:08
yourself in that moment and
00:38:10
congratulate yourself.
00:38:11
Yeah.
00:38:12
This not only builds that
00:38:14
virtuous cycle of gratitude,
00:38:16
but it also builds a
00:38:18
stronger self-concept to
00:38:20
where you're not as reliant
00:38:22
on the opinions of external
00:38:24
validation that you once were.
00:38:26
And you can finally feel
00:38:28
wholeness and completeness
00:38:31
and fulfillment without the
00:38:32
reliance of anything else outside of you.
00:38:35
That's pretty powerful.
00:38:37
That is powerful.
00:38:39
Um, I want to,
00:38:41
I want to switch gears for a
00:38:43
second and this is going to
00:38:44
be funny cause I'm going to
00:38:45
admit something to you, but, um,
00:38:49
Prepare yourself.
00:38:50
So I want to talk to you
00:38:53
about we talked about, you know,
00:38:55
being kind of cynical at the beginning.
00:38:57
And I was very much there to
00:38:58
cynical about this whole gratitude thing.
00:39:00
I was, you know, don't have time for that.
00:39:02
Right.
00:39:04
So, you know,
00:39:05
that you run into a lot of
00:39:06
people who just kind of.
00:39:10
kind of maybe quirk their
00:39:11
head a little bit and say like,
00:39:12
what are you talking about?
00:39:15
I'm going to admit something
00:39:16
on this podcast today.
00:39:17
I actually got kicked out of
00:39:19
a bereavement group for
00:39:20
being too positive.
00:39:23
Now, okay,
00:39:26
let's just sit with that for a minute.
00:39:28
I am so sorry.
00:39:29
That is incredible to me.
00:39:32
I called my husband and I said,
00:39:33
how does it feel?
00:39:34
And he said, how does it feel?
00:39:36
What, what are you talking about?
00:39:37
I said,
00:39:37
how does it feel to be married to
00:39:38
someone who got kicked out
00:39:40
of a bereavement group?
00:39:43
Now,
00:39:44
I don't fault them because I
00:39:46
was talking about something
00:39:48
that they weren't used to talking about.
00:39:50
I was asking people about gratitude.
00:39:54
And this was like very early
00:39:56
on in my grief journey.
00:39:57
Now,
00:39:57
I do wish that he had understood that
00:39:59
I was just seeking.
00:40:00
I was seeking alignment with
00:40:01
somebody else who may be
00:40:02
doing the same thing.
00:40:04
But that's okay because he
00:40:06
wasn't ready to hear that.
00:40:08
So that's fine.
00:40:09
I'm not in any way holding a
00:40:12
grudge against any bereavement group.
00:40:14
No names will be mentioned.
00:40:19
But it was a great pushback.
00:40:21
And I will tell you,
00:40:23
it stunted me for a minute.
00:40:26
he pushed back and I retreated and I said,
00:40:29
Oh,
00:40:30
maybe this is not the right way to be
00:40:32
doing this.
00:40:33
I don't, you know,
00:40:34
cause I was still feeling very,
00:40:35
very lost at that moment.
00:40:38
So, but I, and you know,
00:40:40
I have a very supportive
00:40:41
husband who was like, you keep going.
00:40:43
Like, no, this is, you know,
00:40:44
we were doing this as a family.
00:40:46
It wasn't just me looking
00:40:47
for one little things.
00:40:48
We were doing that as a family every day.
00:40:51
So I had to,
00:40:54
self-talk and push myself
00:40:57
past the people who thought
00:40:58
I was some sort of crazy
00:41:00
Pollyanna person looking
00:41:01
for gratitude in a bereavement group.
00:41:04
Okay.
00:41:05
And so I pushed forward and
00:41:07
I kept going and I'm so
00:41:08
glad that I did because, you know,
00:41:11
years later now,
00:41:12
here we are talking
00:41:13
together about gratitude and,
00:41:16
But tell me about,
00:41:18
I know that you've met with
00:41:19
this pushback.
00:41:20
I know that you have.
00:41:23
So tell me about an
00:41:24
experience where you've
00:41:26
encountered pushback like that.
00:41:28
And how did you handle it?
00:41:31
Wait, how long is this show?
00:41:32
No.
00:41:32
Going for days.
00:41:33
Oh, my gosh.
00:41:39
Well, you know, when I...
00:41:42
Develop my GRASP method.
00:41:44
So the GRASP method stands for Gratitude,
00:41:46
Responsibility, Action, Sight, Purpose.
00:41:48
It's the five-step method I
00:41:49
use to change my life.
00:41:51
And I've helped other people do the same.
00:41:54
And it's based on my first
00:41:57
book and now my podcast.
00:42:00
So I meant a lot of pushback
00:42:03
from the development of GRASP.
00:42:08
I had plenty of people...
00:42:11
Tell me that action was
00:42:14
never supposed to be in the middle.
00:42:16
Action is your first step.
00:42:19
This isn't going to work.
00:42:23
To which I said, what about strategy?
00:42:25
Because I can hop in an airplane.
00:42:27
I can take action.
00:42:29
I could hop in the airplane,
00:42:30
get in the captain's seat right now,
00:42:32
maybe turn it on and move it around.
00:42:35
But if I don't have a basis of knowledge,
00:42:38
is that really going to benefit anyone?
00:42:40
Right.
00:42:41
That was my pushback to that person.
00:42:43
But anyway, yes,
00:42:45
I had plenty of pushback
00:42:46
and people saying, hey, you know,
00:42:51
I've had really bad things
00:42:52
happen to me in my life, in my past.
00:42:55
Maybe they've had a lot of trauma, Kelly.
00:42:59
And they think there is
00:43:02
nothing to be grateful for.
00:43:05
Yep.
00:43:07
Because they've had a lot of
00:43:08
bad things happen to them in their life.
00:43:10
And there's people they
00:43:12
simply cannot forgive.
00:43:16
And that was a lot of the
00:43:17
pushback I got as well.
00:43:20
And that's, you know, their journey.
00:43:24
What I know is my deepest
00:43:27
inner truth is that bearing resentment,
00:43:33
unforgivingness,
00:43:35
Not letting of things go and
00:43:39
harboring negative ill will
00:43:43
either towards someone else,
00:43:45
towards yourself, having regret.
00:43:48
These are all extremely negative emotions,
00:43:52
negative vibrations, negative energies.
00:43:56
And our bodies have a unique
00:43:58
way of storing these energies.
00:44:02
We're learning more and more about that.
00:44:05
Every month I find a new
00:44:07
article and I'm a big fan
00:44:12
of holistic healing.
00:44:13
So acupuncture and all those
00:44:16
wonderful things have
00:44:17
helped me greatly in my
00:44:19
health and my emotional health too,
00:44:21
in terms of my anxiety.
00:44:24
And it's a very natural way
00:44:26
to go on a path to health.
00:44:28
But people do push back.
00:44:31
And then you have to kind of decide,
00:44:36
am I going to keep pushing
00:44:37
this topic with this
00:44:39
individual or do I have to
00:44:40
let them find their way
00:44:42
back when they're ready?
00:44:45
And that's a good lesson to
00:44:48
learn for anybody out there
00:44:50
who is trying something new
00:44:52
is don't be surprised when
00:44:54
you get pushback, right?
00:44:56
Don't be surprised.
00:44:57
Don't be afraid of it.
00:44:59
Stand in your truth.
00:45:01
And I received some very
00:45:03
good advice when I was in
00:45:05
the thick of change
00:45:06
management with a merger one time.
00:45:08
And we talked about you've
00:45:10
got your strong supporters,
00:45:12
you've got your strong dissent,
00:45:14
and then you've got your fence sitters.
00:45:17
It's go for the fence.
00:45:18
Go for the people sitting on the fence.
00:45:21
Because if you spend too
00:45:23
much time trying to
00:45:24
convince people who don't
00:45:26
want to be convinced...
00:45:28
you're going to lose your message.
00:45:31
You're going to lose those
00:45:32
people sitting on the fence too.
00:45:34
And it was really wise advice.
00:45:36
Shout out to Vicky.
00:45:37
Thank you so much.
00:45:39
She was the communications
00:45:41
and PR person and a
00:45:42
beautiful soul who taught me a ton.
00:45:47
But it was a really good
00:45:48
lesson for me because I realized, okay,
00:45:52
Kelly,
00:45:53
it's not your responsibility to
00:45:54
bring everybody to the water to drink,
00:45:58
right?
00:45:59
Oh, I say that quote all the time.
00:46:02
I can lead a horse to water.
00:46:04
I can't make you drink.
00:46:06
Yeah.
00:46:07
At the end of the day,
00:46:07
it's all of our choices and
00:46:10
we're free will individuals.
00:46:12
Yeah.
00:46:13
You know, and again,
00:46:15
you can look at that two ways.
00:46:16
You can look at that and say, you know,
00:46:19
a lot has happened to me in my life.
00:46:22
None of that was your choice.
00:46:24
Things that happened to you
00:46:26
may not have been your choice.
00:46:29
No, it did happen though.
00:46:31
And that's,
00:46:33
it doesn't make you a bad person.
00:46:36
There's nothing about your
00:46:37
past that you can ever change,
00:46:40
but it's about finding
00:46:42
space and holding space for
00:46:44
what it shaped you into who you are.
00:46:47
Right.
00:46:49
And I mean, that's how it was for me.
00:46:51
I wouldn't say I grew up in
00:46:53
the best circumstances.
00:46:56
I had, um,
00:46:59
alcoholic father who was
00:47:01
abusive and I was the
00:47:03
youngest of five and he did
00:47:05
not have a steady job.
00:47:07
And when he was around,
00:47:09
you didn't want him around.
00:47:12
So I grew up my childhood
00:47:14
just on eggshells.
00:47:16
causing this, what did I say?
00:47:19
Record playing of anxiety
00:47:21
and sadness and fight or flight.
00:47:24
It was dish and behavior,
00:47:26
just like you're marinating
00:47:27
a turkey and continue to baste it.
00:47:30
And I was just reliving that all the time.
00:47:33
And in order for me to let
00:47:35
go of those things,
00:47:36
that feeling like every day
00:47:38
is Groundhog Day, I had to forgive.
00:47:42
And I had to find the
00:47:43
gratitude in those things
00:47:45
and in those experiences.
00:47:47
And for me, it was, okay, you know what?
00:47:51
I didn't like it at the time.
00:47:53
It wasn't what I wanted.
00:47:55
But what did it shape me into?
00:47:57
How did it shape me?
00:47:58
Well, it made me more resilient.
00:48:01
Yeah.
00:48:02
I'm more tenacious, probably.
00:48:07
And you know what?
00:48:08
Maybe it made me a lot stronger, too.
00:48:10
And it might have even made
00:48:12
me more vulnerable and
00:48:14
relatable to others.
00:48:16
Well, great.
00:48:18
Those are all great qualities.
00:48:19
Now,
00:48:20
how can you translate them into
00:48:22
exponential personal growth, right?
00:48:25
Well, continue to have gratitude for them.
00:48:27
Yeah.
00:48:29
And that was a huge first
00:48:31
step for me was that gratitude.
00:48:34
And that's why I call it in my TEDx talk,
00:48:37
a foundation of confidence.
00:48:38
I do believe for me, it was layers.
00:48:41
It was first that gratitude for who I was.
00:48:45
I could find the gratitude
00:48:46
for who I was and that journey I was on.
00:48:49
I felt like the next step
00:48:50
was going to get a lot easier.
00:48:52
Do you relate to that?
00:48:55
I absolutely do.
00:48:58
And, you know,
00:48:59
I'm just thinking about all
00:49:01
of our listeners out there
00:49:04
and the whole purpose of me.
00:49:08
I've been wanting to have a
00:49:09
podcast for years.
00:49:11
and you were just telling
00:49:12
your story and I'm just,
00:49:15
I just feel very grateful
00:49:17
because this is what I
00:49:18
wanted to do for years is I
00:49:21
wanted other people to tell
00:49:22
their stories because what happens is,
00:49:26
Is that you are giving them
00:49:28
this flicker of light in
00:49:29
their own darkness and you're saying,
00:49:31
you know what?
00:49:32
I was here and now I'm here
00:49:34
and this is how I got there.
00:49:36
And that is the power of storytelling,
00:49:40
of telling our stories and
00:49:42
speaking our truth.
00:49:43
That was my hope for telling
00:49:45
my story is I want to help
00:49:47
other people in their darkness.
00:49:49
And what greater role could
00:49:53
we have on this earth?
00:49:55
Really?
00:49:56
It's such an act of service.
00:49:59
And, you know,
00:49:59
we'll never meet all of the
00:50:02
listeners that are tuning
00:50:03
into this right now.
00:50:04
But I just want to say to
00:50:07
everyone out there, you know,
00:50:08
regardless of what you're
00:50:09
going through in life,
00:50:11
you can absolutely overcome
00:50:14
and you can do great things.
00:50:17
And truly, if I can do it,
00:50:19
anyone can do it.
00:50:20
If Kelly can do it, anyone can do it.
00:50:22
Yep.
00:50:23
There's nothing miraculous about us,
00:50:25
although I think Kelly's
00:50:26
pretty miraculous.
00:50:27
But, you know, I'm a little biased,
00:50:29
just a smidge.
00:50:30
You are.
00:50:30
Right?
00:50:33
I guess.
00:50:36
But I truly think that this is for anybody,
00:50:38
right?
00:50:38
And the great thing about
00:50:40
this is it requires no
00:50:41
additional resources,
00:50:43
no additional IQ points,
00:50:46
no additional money or anything.
00:50:50
This is something that is
00:50:53
accessible to all and
00:50:55
anyone can benefit from.
00:50:56
And Kelly, if you wouldn't mind sharing
00:51:01
I would love to say a
00:51:03
passage out of my book for
00:51:06
a little inspiration, if that's okay.
00:51:08
Absolutely.
00:51:10
Absolutely.
00:51:10
I want to give people just a
00:51:13
little bit of inspiration
00:51:14
for their day ahead.
00:51:16
Your existence is a miracle of nature.
00:51:20
As incredible as it sounds,
00:51:21
the odds of each of us
00:51:23
being alive is said to be
00:51:25
greater than one in four
00:51:27
hundred trillion people.
00:51:29
This seemingly incredible
00:51:31
calculation is almost
00:51:33
unfathomable and is enough
00:51:35
to give anyone pause and perspective.
00:51:37
Think about it.
00:51:39
All of history has compiled
00:51:41
and conspired to bring you to life.
00:51:44
This nearly undefinable odds
00:51:46
that you are reading this
00:51:47
book or listening to this
00:51:48
podcast right now is
00:51:50
seemingly impossible.
00:51:52
And yet here you are.
00:51:57
with air breathing in your
00:51:59
chest and a beating heart.
00:52:03
That's beautiful.
00:52:05
I love that.
00:52:07
When we think about it,
00:52:09
you just won the lottery today.
00:52:12
Yeah.
00:52:13
Every day you woke up,
00:52:15
you won the lottery.
00:52:16
This is one in four hundred trillion.
00:52:20
I'm not a math person,
00:52:22
but that's a lot of zeros.
00:52:24
It is.
00:52:25
Think about, right?
00:52:26
And when you think about it that way,
00:52:29
you know, this life is a gift.
00:52:33
Have gratitude for it.
00:52:36
It absolutely is a gift.
00:52:38
So we need to say thank you.
00:52:40
We really do.
00:52:41
Before we go,
00:52:42
I want to circle back a
00:52:43
little bit about trauma.
00:52:46
Because I started talking about, you know,
00:52:50
kind of the pushback,
00:52:51
but I want to circle back about trauma.
00:52:53
Because from my reading,
00:52:55
and I'm sure you have too,
00:52:57
we're learning that we
00:52:58
store trauma in our organs.
00:53:01
We keep it, we hold on to it.
00:53:04
And so talk to me about forgiveness.
00:53:10
I will tell you that there
00:53:13
was one situation after Stephen passed,
00:53:16
I needed to work on
00:53:17
forgiveness for one particular reason.
00:53:22
And it was tough.
00:53:25
It was tough to kind of,
00:53:27
but then I realized that
00:53:29
you can't stand in the
00:53:31
light while looking for the dark.
00:53:34
Yeah.
00:53:36
So I had to make a choice
00:53:38
because I feel when I'm in
00:53:39
the light and when I'm
00:53:40
doing this work and when
00:53:41
I'm helping people, I feel Steven.
00:53:46
I feel him around me, you know,
00:53:48
not in a Halloween ghost kind of way,
00:53:50
but I just feel his spirit
00:53:52
and love around me when I do good.
00:53:56
And I had to,
00:53:58
I had to forgive because I
00:54:00
couldn't let that go.
00:54:02
I couldn't let that
00:54:03
important piece of my soul go with, with,
00:54:06
by,
00:54:06
by being stuck in a pattern of
00:54:10
resentment.
00:54:12
Um,
00:54:13
talk to me about forgiveness and how
00:54:15
you've handled it in your life.
00:54:18
Yes.
00:54:19
Well, I also want to mention, you know,
00:54:22
we talked about trauma and
00:54:23
where you feel it in the body.
00:54:26
I felt it in my heart and
00:54:29
not in the metaphorical sense.
00:54:32
My heartbeat would actually
00:54:34
skip pretty regularly to
00:54:36
where I had to feel like I
00:54:39
had to cough in order to
00:54:41
get it to almost be normal, literally.
00:54:43
Okay.
00:54:45
Yes.
00:54:46
Interesting, right?
00:54:47
And I could feel just,
00:54:49
it felt like a cage around my heart.
00:54:55
And I was not forgiving.
00:55:00
So it was hard for me to
00:55:03
really connect with people at this time.
00:55:07
I felt like I had to
00:55:09
sabotage a relationship or
00:55:12
so because if I didn't,
00:55:14
they would just hurt me
00:55:16
because that was the record I would keep.
00:55:19
I had this wall around my
00:55:21
heart in more ways than one.
00:55:23
Yes, it felt like it, but it really,
00:55:28
I can't even explain it.
00:55:31
It really felt like there
00:55:32
was a wall around my heart.
00:55:35
Once I started to forgive,
00:55:38
once I started to practice mindfulness,
00:55:41
meditation,
00:55:43
once I started to put myself first,
00:55:49
practice gratitude.
00:55:51
I haven't had that problem since.
00:55:55
That's wonderful.
00:55:56
Yes, it does get stored in the body.
00:55:59
I am not an expert at how
00:56:02
emotions are regulated or stored.
00:56:04
I can only use my personal
00:56:06
experience and what I felt,
00:56:08
but it would feel like that.
00:56:11
And it almost was if I was
00:56:14
keeping the best part of me
00:56:16
sheltered off from the world and
00:56:19
Hmm.
00:56:23
It's very powerful.
00:56:24
And I think a lot of people
00:56:25
can relate to that.
00:56:28
People may be listening to
00:56:29
this thinking like, I relate to that.
00:56:31
And there were other symptoms.
00:56:34
When I was suffering from anxiety deeply,
00:56:38
it would feel as if I
00:56:39
couldn't catch my breath.
00:56:42
There was never enough air.
00:56:45
I mean, literally,
00:56:46
I could take the deepest
00:56:47
breath and it wasn't satisfying.
00:56:50
So it was so much of it was
00:56:51
in my chest and just letting that go.
00:56:54
Oh my gosh.
00:56:55
I can't even tell you what
00:56:56
that feels like.
00:56:59
It feels like you have a
00:57:00
weight on your chest and
00:57:01
then you start to forgive.
00:57:03
You start to have gratitude.
00:57:04
You start to find the good
00:57:06
in any situation.
00:57:08
Then trauma starts to dissipate over time.
00:57:11
And all of a sudden it's
00:57:13
that weight is gone.
00:57:16
There's nothing better.
00:57:18
than breathing without thinking about it.
00:57:22
And if you have anxiety,
00:57:24
you know what I'm talking about.
00:57:26
When you have depression,
00:57:28
you know what I'm talking about, Kelly.
00:57:29
Yep.
00:57:30
Yep,
00:57:31
I have been there where I didn't think
00:57:34
I was going to be able to
00:57:34
get a breath in.
00:57:37
I've had some moments where
00:57:38
I've been debilitated by anxiety.
00:57:42
Moments where I've retreated
00:57:43
from social situations
00:57:45
because of anxiety.
00:57:49
And I recognize that in myself.
00:57:52
And...
00:57:53
you know talking about
00:57:54
trauma and forgiveness I
00:57:57
want to tell you a story
00:57:58
about um a woman that I met
00:58:01
just a quick little story
00:58:02
about forgiveness because
00:58:04
every time I think that I
00:58:05
can't forgive someone I
00:58:06
think about this beautiful
00:58:07
soul um so I met her at a
00:58:11
writer's conference and she
00:58:13
had lost two of her
00:58:14
children um little girls in
00:58:18
a violent way in violence
00:58:22
And, you know,
00:58:25
without getting too detailed about it,
00:58:29
she was at that abyss just like I was.
00:58:33
And she had post-it notes.
00:58:36
And in her house,
00:58:37
she put post-it notes all over her walls,
00:58:41
her fridge, her windows,
00:58:43
wherever she could put them
00:58:44
with one word on it, forgive.
00:58:48
And she looked at those
00:58:49
post-it notes every single day.
00:58:53
And she told me that as each
00:58:55
month would pass,
00:58:56
because that's what her intention was,
00:58:58
when she would look at
00:58:58
these everywhere she went,
00:59:00
that's all she could see around her house,
00:59:01
right?
00:59:03
And as she started to heal,
00:59:05
as she started to process things,
00:59:07
because that doesn't excuse,
00:59:08
forgiveness does not excuse the mistake,
00:59:11
right?
00:59:11
It doesn't excuse the wrong
00:59:13
that has been done.
00:59:13
Forgiveness is a gift that
00:59:15
you give to yourself so
00:59:17
that you can heal.
00:59:19
It doesn't mean that you're
00:59:20
saying that what happened was okay,
00:59:22
not by any stretch.
00:59:25
But month after month,
00:59:26
she would take one more
00:59:27
post-it note down until
00:59:29
finally she took the last
00:59:31
one down and she could say
00:59:32
that she forgave.
00:59:34
And I think about her.
00:59:37
I think about her every week.
00:59:39
I think about her and I say, well,
00:59:41
if she could forgive,
00:59:44
then you certainly can.
00:59:47
Wow.
00:59:49
Yeah.
00:59:51
There's always someone out there.
00:59:54
Yeah.
00:59:55
That they would swap
00:59:57
situations with you in a second.
01:00:00
They would swap lives with
01:00:02
you in a second.
01:00:03
Yeah.
01:00:05
And that story right there
01:00:07
is exactly correct.
01:00:09
And it gives us that perspective, right?
01:00:12
Because...
01:00:14
You know, someday, and we all do this.
01:00:17
Nobody's exempt from this
01:00:18
because we're all human beings.
01:00:20
And there's some days I think about, oh,
01:00:23
I'm so stressed.
01:00:24
I've got this and that and this and that.
01:00:25
And then I reframe it and say,
01:00:28
people would kill to have my problems.
01:00:31
Yep.
01:00:33
They would kill to have a deadline.
01:00:35
They would kill to write a book.
01:00:37
They would kill to meet amazing people.
01:00:41
They would kill for this.
01:00:42
And here I am complaining about it.
01:00:45
Right.
01:00:48
So powerful to know that any of us,
01:00:53
someone out there is
01:00:54
wanting exactly what we have.
01:00:57
That's so true.
01:00:59
Tara, I mean,
01:01:00
I could talk to you for
01:01:01
another two hours.
01:01:02
I know.
01:01:03
I mean, it's just,
01:01:05
we've been all over the place.
01:01:06
It's been wonderful.
01:01:08
I know.
01:01:08
But before we go,
01:01:10
because you have this wonderful new book.
01:01:12
So I want people to know
01:01:14
about the books that you've
01:01:15
written and how they can help you.
01:01:17
Can you tell us about your books?
01:01:19
Absolutely.
01:01:20
So my first book,
01:01:22
How to Grasp Confidence and
01:01:23
Own Your Power, is available on Amazon.
01:01:27
And I have a new book as
01:01:28
well called Talk Your Way to the Top.
01:01:31
And that book is about how
01:01:35
to write a TED Talk,
01:01:36
how to land a TED Talk,
01:01:37
and how to market it for success.
01:01:40
I realized that through my
01:01:42
journey of sharing my story on that stage,
01:01:44
how much it transformed my life.
01:01:47
And I wanted to be able to
01:01:49
help other people who are thought leaders,
01:01:52
who have a mission and a
01:01:53
vision to share with the world.
01:01:55
to be able to navigate that
01:01:57
path and transverse it a lot easier.
01:01:59
So that's why I wrote the book.
01:02:01
Yeah.
01:02:02
I've already, you know me though, Kelly,
01:02:04
and I'm just like you,
01:02:05
I've got a third and fourth, at least.
01:02:08
Maybe it's just great.
01:02:10
I don't know if I'll ever stop.
01:02:12
There's always a draft word document.
01:02:14
Oh my gosh.
01:02:16
I have two already.
01:02:17
It's insane.
01:02:17
I'm like,
01:02:18
I guess I never want to vacation again.
01:02:20
Right.
01:02:20
Um, that's so wonderful.
01:02:25
And I love,
01:02:26
I love that your approach to business,
01:02:30
um,
01:02:31
It's kind of the approach with gratitude.
01:02:34
It's a little old fashioned, isn't it?
01:02:35
It's back to the basic human kindness.
01:02:38
And I love that.
01:02:40
We need more of that in this world.
01:02:41
So thank you so much for your work, Tara,
01:02:43
because you're doing important stuff.
01:02:45
I mean, you've impacted my life greatly.
01:02:48
And same with you, Kelly.
01:02:52
It's been a true, true pleasure.
01:02:54
And, you know,
01:02:56
let the relationship deepen.
01:02:58
Just like gratitude,
01:03:00
the beautiful thing it is.
01:03:02
And love, love, love can deepen.
01:03:05
Gratitude can deepen.
01:03:06
All of this can deepen.
01:03:08
And you get into that level
01:03:10
of appreciation for yourself, for others.
01:03:13
Oh, my gosh.
01:03:14
You will change the world.
01:03:16
Success is inevitable at that point.
01:03:18
That's so true.
01:03:21
Well, Tara, thank you so much.
01:03:24
And it's been such a
01:03:25
pleasure to be on your podcast.
01:03:26
Yes.
01:03:27
Thank you, Kelly.
01:03:29
I know.
01:03:30
Well, wonderful.
01:03:31
I guess we will see each other.
01:03:33
Well, this shouldn't be the last interview,
01:03:35
though.
01:03:37
Oh, no.
01:03:38
No.
01:03:39
I mean,
01:03:39
we have Word documents to talk about.
01:03:43
Wonderful.
01:03:44
Thank you so much for having me, Kelly.
01:03:47
Okay.
01:03:47
Thank you, everybody.
01:03:48
We'll see you next time.
01:03:49
And don't forget to check
01:03:50
out Tara's books.
01:03:51
They're fantastic.
01:03:53
Take care.