Hello, my name is Leslie and I am the host of the Why Not Today podcast.
This is a podcast to celebrate people who have been courageous and said, why not today?
I started the podcast in honor of my father, Patrick Kane, who often did say, why not today?
I'm based in Reston, Virginia, a planned community right outside of Washington, DC, and thanks
for joining us today.
So I'm really excited about my guests today, that we had a great conversation the other
day about different subjects.
I'm like, oh my goodness, you need to be on this podcast.
And so Liz, is it pronounced Grieven?
Yeah.
Nailed it.
Yay.
So we met at Smith Mountain Lake that if you've listened to the podcast at all, that's one
of my places to hang and go.
And it was definitely a Godwink introduction.
Like I walked into my friend, Stor J. Bond, who's been a guest on the podcast, and you
were there and just we were talking and assuming we knew each other.
And then I think a couple of days later, walked into another coffee shop and there you were
again.
And just like, we need to connect.
So we connected on social media and I just was watching things you're posting.
I'm like, okay, there is a story behind this girl and I need to know it and we need to
be friends.
And even though I'm not at the lake right now, we're in separate places in Virginia,
but we still could be friends.
And we're talking about some power sessions and all kinds of fun things.
So I'm really excited just to have this conversation with you, Liz, and share some of your why
not today moments.
And it's kind of opposite of a lot of what people on my podcast we've talked about.
And you are Liz Greven and not a company, which I love and it's who you be.
So introduce yourself, just a quick who Liz is and a fun fact.
And then we'll talk about courage and all your stories.
Absolutely.
Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me.
It's always a pleasure getting to chat with you.
I am like a little butterfly.
I float around Smith Mountain Lake quite a bit.
So it's not a coincidence that we ran into each other in two different places.
I do have fun getting to meet all of the locals here at Smith Mountain Lake.
And I do consider you kind of a local even though you are in the rest.
Because when you are here, I do get to see you quite a bit.
So the story of Liz Greven, I'll give you a quick fun fact about me.
I have moved actually about 38 times in my life.
Oh my goodness.
And I'm young.
I'm in my late 30s.
So it's about as old as I am.
And they're not to different places geographically, so to speak.
But they're just, I've moved around a lot.
And some of it has been for job opportunities.
Other times it's been with my family.
Other times it's been just to start a new adventure and seek out a new opportunity.
So that's a fun fact about me.
If I think if opportunity knocks or if there is an opportunity to start something new or
meet new people.
I think it's you just kind of have to trust God that that's where you're meant to go.
I love you.
Moving and doing things for new adventures, which speaks to my heart and soul and I'm
always up for adventure.
Yeah.
And that's sometimes I, and that's kind of a fun fact about me is that I am very trusting
that there is a purpose to my life and I trust that there's something greater for me to be
doing.
One of the things that drew me to you and I just knew in our conversation, I just like
I knew I needed to know you and I've been really trying to be obedient to the Godwinks
and the meeting people and the people in my path.
And just, you know, it's just one of those coincidentally.
Just meet someone who needs to introduce you somebody else to somebody else and you know,
I think we need to be open to that.
Yeah, absolutely.
I know it's being such a hurry.
Yeah, well, I think that's that's another thing too is I think people are always in
such a hurry that they don't pay attention to some of the things that are handed to them
or put in their path.
Because we're always in a hurry to do things that are in art that we have planned out that
we don't pay attention to the things that maybe are put in put in front of us for a
reason or the people that are put in front of us for a reason.
So yeah, and I think that's one thing I like about being at Smithmount Lake because I live
in Northern Virginia, which can be crazy and busy and it's like a badge of courage or badge
of honor that you're busy.
And I'm from New York.
I'm from New York.
So I completely understand that.
So if the lake is kind of more chill, people aren't as big of a hurry.
You stop and talk to people and you say hello and you have a conversation and get to know
people.
And that's one of the things I love about there, whether it's you're at the coffee
shop or you're Jayvon store, you know, met so many people there, you just and I've got
a great group of friends and as you said, I don't even live there.
Yeah, it's beautiful.
Yeah, and it's a beautiful area to do that too.
Yeah, exactly.
So what does courage mean to you?
What's your definition of courage?
So and it's and it's funny because I really listening to your prior podcast and some of
your guests, I think a lot of them have nailed it in so many different ways.
And I really gave this thought and I love that you asked this question.
So for me, it's kind of a combination of Latin, you know, you always hear that courage is,
you know, feeling the fear and doing it anyway.
And I honestly, I agree with that, but I think that people leave out, I think the most important
piece of that, and it's the decision part.
It's feeling the fear and deciding, making that decision to do something anyway, and
then taking the action.
So and I can give a personal example.
Like for me, it's, you know, feeling, feeling fear and what I moved down here, for example,
I didn't know anyone in this area.
I had never been to Smith Mountain Lake, and I was given the opportunity to move down here
from New York to Virginia to an area that I knew no one had never been here and start
my life basically fresh.
And I was petrified.
Because I thought, you know what, like, this is going to take a lot of courage, it's going
to take all of me to do this.
And I made the decision and I think a big part of courage is when you make a decision,
you invest, it goes from your heart, it goes from your head to your heart.
And that's where that's where courage really comes from is your heart.
So I think that's the biggest piece that people miss when they just, when they define courage
is that it involves your heart.
And so once you make a decision with your heart, you're fully invested and nothing can
stop you.
Totally agree.
You know, it's interesting just you saying that the visual that came to my mind is Wizard
of Oz.
You talked about courage and hard and I love the story behind the Wizard of Oz and the
symbol of all of it and how true that is.
Courage is making a decision which deciding is cutting off all other options.
It's like, okay, what are the things I'm going to do, you know, words that and I just created
and people can get it and sign up for my email list, courage hack that I have saved on my
phone as a screen saver.
And it's like the letter Y and then NT for why not today.
Basically taking the action.
What's that one thing and courage doesn't have to be big.
It doesn't have to be moving to another state.
Courage can just be getting up in the morning sometimes.
Yeah.
And that's so that's the other thing too is I decided to go back to school and major
in psychology while I was here taking care of my parents and helping out with that.
And I've learned so much that it sometimes for some people it is just getting up in the
morning.
It is just making that decision to say hello to someone when you have so much anxiety that
around social anxiety that you can't talk to people or for some people it's just leaving
the house because there's so much anxiety about leaving the house, especially after
a pandemic or interacting with people.
So we're in such a different place with our mental health.
And that's one of the reasons why I decided to go back and study psychology is that there's
such a you know you have people have to give themselves permission to find out where they
where they're at and and then.
Alright, those internet's breaking up a little bit.
Okay.
I'm sorry about that.
So then what I was saying was that some days you have to take one step and use that courage
and then maybe it's the next day or after that a week later use two steps or three steps.
Yeah, and then but it's making that decision to just be be more courageous than you were
the day before.
Yeah, what do they say it takes five seconds of courage.
And because Mel Robbins talks about she has a great to talk about five second rule.
I love Robbins.
She's wonderful.
And so it's talking about when there's something you want to do from getting out of bed to
making that phone call to say hello to somebody you go you count down five four three two
one instead of going one two three four five then you can go six seven you don't do it.
So you know it's just making that decision.
So you're young and you've had a lot of life and a lot of experience and we could talk
about lots of stories.
So I know when we talked yesterday you we were talking about businesses and people that
we've interviewed I've interviewed and talked about they've started business or nonprofits
and you would be opposite and I kind of I left corporate America also but I had another
business to start but you left a successful business corporate to take care of family
which is so admirable.
Yeah, yeah, thank you.
Let's talk a little about that and the steps behind that and you know ironically when
I quit my job it was I did have another business behind but not knowing my dad six months later
would have a stroke and I would be up to be there and I had position in my life.
So you just never know but taking those steps which can be scary.
Yeah, so for me it was honestly it was petrifying.
You know I think that it started essentially it started with a Tony Robbins weekend that
I did virtually and then he talked about service and a life of service and stuff like that
and I realized something clicked in me there that I was very driven by my career and so
there was there was just that in the back of my head and but nothing really triggered
me yet and then I was doing great with my career and then my mom got sick and it just
turned it turn of events happened where it was time for me I made a decision like we
talked about to just kind of step away and really help out with family but the thing
that really triggered me the most was in 2019 I lost my aunt who had fought for the majority
of her life to breast cancer and for the last like two weeks of her life I was there by
her side day in and day out put her on hospice and was by her side watching her through that
and I had survived breast cancer myself so when you watch someone pass away from a cancer
that you have had it is a totally it puts you in a totally different mindset a totally
different place and so you start to realize and I think this was the biggest the biggest
decision for me was that you realize that there's very little time you change your focus from
being career driven and what's important in life to your your your front side focus needs
to be on the people that are important in life and that no matter whatever time you have
left or they have left it needs to be you know and this was just for me it could be
different for other people but it needs to be about who and not what.
Absolutely and I think that's one of the my passions with this podcast is to give people
courage to do those things in the last few months I have no friend at 57 that didn't
that was found not alive another friend this week I heard her she had a best friend at
44 that they found again not alive and then somebody else was telling me about somebody's
mother although she's in her 70s that's not that old again nobody could get in touch with
her so three instances where people couldn't get in touch with somebody and they were not
with us anymore.
Well right.
You know we're also career focused and what are we what's the next rung on the ladder
and and then family and life and what's important and why are we doing all these things.
Yeah and that's what I found my I mean my mom you know her health is not great she's wheelchair
bound right now and and pretty much to her bed and she has a lot of health issues especially
with her mobility and she's she's not even 70 yet she's in her 60s and to me she that's
a baby.
Yeah I'm almost there.
Yeah that's what I'm saying there's so many people there's that I know people that are
in their 60s were still running marathons but it's you know it's you don't know when
or what's going to happen in life and especially after this pandemic we had people that were
babies just passing away so I've learned I've lived like I said like you said I've lived
a lot of life in my young life and I've learned that life is really fragile so part of and
there's different ways you can be courageous I think you can be you know physically courageous
you can be spiritually courageous you can be emotionally courageous there's just different
ways you can be courageous and so for me part of the way that I found that I needed to be
courageous not just for me but for my family members was that I needed to switch from being
driven for myself and then wanting success for myself and really define what success
meant and say what is this what is this game of life really about you know like kind of
just shift that focus and say you know who do I show up for because 90% of life maybe
even 99% of life these days is showing up and who do you show up for and how do you show
up for them and you know you need to show up for yourself and and what does that mean
you know and define that and then when you show up for other people are you showing up
kind of part in the French half-assing it are you showing up like you know where you're
there but not really present or are you are you all in and when they need you to be and
be so key and yeah well exactly and I found that when I was showing up for my parents
when I was showing up for my sister and her kids when I showed up for my brother and his
kids even if it was on a phone call I was talk where my friends I was talking to them
but I was texting while I was doing it because I had stuff that I needed to get done for
work and yada yada yada and that just that's not who I wanted to be so you know I decided
I made that like we said I made the decision to do a courageous act for my life and it
was just to take a step back from my career and you know the catalyst was my aunt passing
away and and just show up go all in for the people that I cared about awesome and so I
was speaking to her aunt today I know we're recording this not the day the same day we're
going to post it but the day we're recording it happens to be your aunt's birthday it is
my birthday you told me today she's hanging out with my dad but you told me when I don't
know if it's before she passed away or earlier in life that she challenged you about courage
and you know I've talked about that because I think she did um so and it was it started
when I was super young so every summer you know everybody has that aunt or that uncle
or whoever that you'd go to their house you know she lived in Rhode Island right by the
beach by Miss Quamicate Beach so I grew up going to her house every summer for a week
or a weekend or whatever my parents would drop me off or she would come and get us and my
siblings and I and we would go and spend you know the week at Aunt Gail's house um and
we'd go to the beach and do all this other stuff well she would always get she'd always
bring us to like these exotic seafood restaurants and do all this other stuff and I would look
at her and I would say I don't like it she'd try to get me to eat you know whatever you
know calamari squid whatever it was all these weird things um and to like a you know 10
year old or whoever you don't want to eat squid you don't want to eat clams you don't
like you want chicken nuggets or french fries yeah and so I would just tell her I didn't
like it and she would say how do you know you don't like it if you've never had it and
I would just say I don't because it doesn't look right I don't like it so she challenged
me every single time I was with her to try something new but not just when I was with
her she later in life she would tell me she would say she always called me Elizabeth
with drove me nuts because nobody ever calls me my my full name um she would say Elizabeth
from now on I challenge you to try something every day that either scares you that you've
never done or that you think you could never do every day and then she made me promise
her that I would do it for the rest of my life well which was yeah and now you know
once she passed away too it was like crap now I really got to do it because now she's
going to come back and haunt me so she's watching me now so now I even if it's something super
small um that it's just trying a new food or trying a new coffee at the coffee house
or um do something that scares me talk to you know I remember in I think it was high
school or middle school I would go up and talk to a boy who I thought was really cute
and it was and I would call her and say so I did something that scared me today um but
it was and I knew she'd be proud of me so like I you know I always challenge my friends
or people and I challenge anyone who's listening to this to do that find something that scares
you try something new or you know just do something that you thought you could never
do um and do one of those things every day just pick one love it yeah I love that challenge
and you know they always say and I quote this often Daniel Pink wrote a book about the power
of regret and says you you rarely regret the things you didn't do but you or no rarely
regret things you did but not the things you didn't do didn't do like you know make the
bold move so another thing we talked about the other day is your I mean breast cancer
was a major health challenge but the other one that we talked about yesterday and the
other day was with walking simple and yesterday you told me you had to kind of have a whole
mind shift around that so share a little about that yeah so um I used to run marathons um
and I bless you at the runner what's that God bless you not me it's just a lot of steps
it's just a lot of steps in a row that's all it is the correct thing I was talking to somebody
yesterday who was working in a facility with adults with disabilities and this woman who
was 57 years old so younger than me was paralyzed from the neck down from from a I think a hiking
something rock climbing but she had at age 50 decided to do marathons and did I think
50 marathons and this man that was talking to her totally able bodied and he goes I'm
so you know I think her name was Valerie's like that's amazing I could never do that
and he's like what am I saying this woman who is totally you know disabled and can't
move paralyzed and I'm saying that so he said he did it and we'd like prom promised her
and raised like $10,000 and you know but it's like okay you can do it you just so that's
my love side never got that people limit themselves in their own minds and it's amazing the things
you can do if you ready decide right the theme all right yeah right marathons so um I used
to run marathons and I was like this great athlete and all this other stuff so my whole
life ever since I was you know probably came out of the I probably came out of the you
know the womb running at this point I was just super active my whole life and I was
at college waking up to run with one of the cross country runners and because we always
went on our morning runs at some you know zero dark ugly and I went to get out of bed
and couldn't walk I literally just I had lost function of my right leg and my I had no flexion
extension in my foot I couldn't use my foot at all and I had this horrible pain up and
down my entire leg my right leg and so I called my my one friend who was a paramedic on campus
and he came rushing over and he was a he was an ex he's in the Navy X Marine kind of thing
so he was a medic a field medic and he came rushing over to my dorm room and I remember
him being like I don't know what's wrong with you I don't know why you can't use this like
so they brought me to the hospital they rushed me to a bigger huddle they did all that stuff
it turned out after 26 hours in the ER I got diagnosed with this rare neurological pain
disorder thing um which I still do have so I'm in pain pretty a level of pain pretty
much all the time but after four years um of off and on basically four years of of crutches
oh no you froze again all right you froze again oops go back you froze to oh you're
coming back let's see all right here's a crutches okay so on four years of crutches um basically
off and on um I finally had surgery at Columbia Presbyterian um in New York City to basically
reroute and reconstruct some of the nerve pathways in my leg and so now I am no longer I can
I can walk you know and I function in my leg but you know when you go from being a runner
and a an avid athlete and then just have that taken away for years of your life and you
you basically learn that you have to mourn the person you were before yes because mentally
you you just that person is now dead and and so mentally that takes a huge toll on you
and so I went through a lot of of a mental health um journey and I think with that the
courage piece to be able to recognize that okay I've got a mourn I have to move past
I can't live in the wallow in the self pity of this but this is now the is yeah you had
to I had to make a decision there and I learned that and um I was very thankful I leaned on
um I leaned on some mental health professionals in my in my life because I didn't know how
to handle that I didn't know all I kept saying was um and I think there's a really big lesson
here for people is you have to when you have to reach out for help because I didn't know
how to handle the fact that every single thing that I knew about myself was gone like every
way that I defined myself was now gone it was I was active and I was an athlete and um
when I got stressed I went for a run and every way that I handled everything about life was
physical and I couldn't do anything physical I couldn't use my legs essentially so now
what do I do and so I had to learn a couple new things the one thing I had to learn was
I'm really really smart and I'm really talented in other ways that don't involve my body so
I had to say okay that part of me essentially is gone it's dead so what other ways can I
use my body can I use my mind can I use my gifts a to give back to be successful and
to do the things that I want to do in this world to accomplish the things that I want
to do and to make myself a better person to learn and grow that don't involve any limitations
right what a great pivot and what a great mental shift and I love in accompanying with
that going back to school for psychology and mental health um because I think there's such
a need there's something I heard about yesterday or the other day which is the coolest thing
this man started a nonprofit it's called the confess project have you heard of that I haven't
tell me about it all right so it's the coolest thing and I would he was on the Mel Robbins
podcast so I don't know if I could ever get him on here but he started training beauticians
and barbers on mental health yeah you mentioned it yeah yeah yeah crazy like because if you
think about it those of you sit in the hairdressers chair and you share everything yeah and it's
just and the other thing I was talking to somebody about the other great way to have
converse hard conversations with people and I know people have kids say the best conversation
they ever had with their kids is when they were in the backseat of the car you're not
I love I know a pastor of the church he said the best way to have conversations with people
is side to side me and for a walk so I'm like we need some walk therapy you know that we're
going to have some we're having those discussions well that's one of the things that I learned
was my best friend and I grew up um basically brother and sister he and I were just since
fourth grade best friends you know doing all these great things and we would have our friendship
developed over going runs together he was my run partner and we would go for runs and
I learned so much about him um going for a run because he wouldn't he would never open
up to me if we were just talking right but I'd be eyeballed eyeball but no he was so
insecure and he was so afraid to like have that vulnerability with me but when we would
go for a run and we were doing something else and and his mind was somewhere else he would
just talk and he was next to me and then he would open up so there's something to be said
about you know being able to have someone be vulnerable while they're being active yeah
we need to all need those people that we can talk to and reach out to and unfortunately
a lot of people don't have those people now so anybody listen to podcast if you need that
person I am my phone is always I was just gonna say find me on follow so well we can
talk forever and ever and I know we're gonna brainstorm all kinds of fun things together
and do some so the Leslie Liz show is not over but how to empower what would you suggest
to empower somebody else to be courageous to put family first to grieve over changing
life to all the things we talked about so there's a there's a few points there that
I would make and I'm I'll touch on them quickly the first thing as far as I'm being courageous
I would say two things one make a decision and then jump you're going when you jump
you're you know if you're jumping out of a tree you're gonna hit some branches on the
way down you're gonna tear up your clothes it's gonna hurt but eventually you're gonna
fly so you just have to make the decision to jump life is crazy and it's messy and it's
beautiful yep so true so you just have to make this don't be afraid like there is no
reason to be afraid of the chaos life is chaos it's messy don't be afraid of it embrace
it the sooner that the sooner you embrace the messiness of life the sooner you will see
how beautiful it is yep and isn't it the hardest things we've gone through or have the brightest
shining light once you get through it and I went through that to get to that that one
it's funny because I look it back at some of the stuff that I have navigated my way
through in in my young especially my younger life and I think people are always like I
don't know how you got through that and I'm like a I didn't have a choice you just go
through it and be a I think those are some of the best things like somebody asked me
what's the top you know I would name what other people think are the worst things in
their life because I grew from them I look at them and I think I don't know I would
not be who I am today if I didn't if those didn't happen to me and I love who I am today
so um yeah and then as far as the as far as putting family first that's just a decision
you have to make if that's something that fits in your life if that's something that
you feel like you your heart is ready to have that focus um you know I think I think honestly
it's you need to just take time for people be present in every moment um being present
and and I think the biggest thing is is that put your phone away like make eye contact
I think I think the phone is the I miss shaking people's hands and I miss making eye contact
with people and I I missed doing that and now that I do that I think it is the decision
I ever made yeah yep she's frozen again these fun looks hopefully you'll come back miss
Liz something about Smith Mountain Lake internet I was just gonna say I'm on I'm on wifi like
literally in like a thing so can you hear me now yeah I interviewed somebody else at
Smith Mountain Lake and he got to a point it's Christian Q and he got to a point he
was a little emotional let me cut out which his phone died but yeah technology speaking
about technology it's gonna mess with us so yeah so many things and we could talk forever
and ever and it's just making those decisions doing the things and you never know it's gonna
take you and so I was trying to tie back in these like how do you connect with my dad
and I said that to somebody one time I like well I never met your dad I'm like no you
didn't but you know some of your life you've had some ups and downs and he definitely did
on the I've had from a car accident he got into when he graduated from high school and
sent his life a whole different trajectory and you know look at the trajectory in the
path like he would that accident had to happen for me to be born because my mom lived in
South Bend where he moved and went to Notre Dame in college so so many things you look
at your life when you look back I'm like wow so glad that disaster happened so this blessing
can happen so yeah your courage is amazing and I knew there was a story behind you and
I'm looking forward to do another thing so we're gonna share in the show notes how you
can connect with Liz she didn't have a business but she's on social and you can find her she
posted some cool posts and cool stuff and as I said we're gonna do some other things
together so I'm excited about that so anything before we close this list you want to share
that we missed no I just really appreciate the time I appreciate all our conversations
I think I think this show is such a blessing to everyone definitely I would tell anybody
listening definitely go back and listen to some previous episodes because there's some
fantastic guests and you know Leslie's definitely got this you know such a great thing going
here so thanks and we're gonna yeah lots of other guests lined up and I keep meeting
people and just the coolest people and I'm just like oh I have to have your story on
the podcast so for sure for sure so if you like the podcast review it share it rate it
and you can find all everything about the podcast on the website why not today podcast
calm there's a courage hook hack you can get if you want let me know you can find me on
all the social media places Liz as well we do have mine's a little beat up but why not
today cups I have t-shirts which I'm working on some more vinyl stickers all kinds of stuff
because we want this to be a movement for people to be courageous and live in courage
and make those decisions so thank you for being my guest and there'll be more to hear
from this we're looking at some other fun things together so thanks again everybody
for listening bye