Kids designed for pets, elderly, and people with disabilities during emergency.
Oh, cool.
That's awesome.
Okay.
That's amazing.
So, we are live.
I caught myself off guard there a little bit, but I'm so excited to have Connie Myers on.
We're going to be talking about preparedness, being ready, sustainable, and making sure
that we're preparing our communities for crisis because it can happen.
And so, this is not a fear-based conversation.
It's a readiness-based conversation, and that's why I really appreciate you, Connie.
So thank you for being here.
I am just going to love doing this.
Thank you, Jackson, for having me.
Absolutely.
So, as we get ready to talk about kids for kids and things beyond, before we do that,
you've got some leadership experience behind you.
So with that, what are three books that you recommend for visionaries or three resources?
I actually, so I'm a John Maxwell-certified coach, and his 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership
is a great place to start to assess where you are and where you need to go and what
you need to do to be better.
And then there's also a book called The Happiness Advantage by Sean Achor.
He was a Harvard professor that taught happiness, and this book changed my life on how I looked
at happiness.
I used to always think you had to be successful before you could be happy, and that absolutely
is the reverse is true.
You have to be happy to be able to be successful.
And then there's another fabulous book by Dr. McDonald, I can't think of her first name.
Anyway, it's called The Upside of Stress.
And she found out that in her research that we only die from stress if we believe we're
going to die from stress.
Otherwise, it actually works in our favor.
Think about an athlete when they go out on the field, that first stress, that moment
of, okay, we've got to do this, and they turn it into action.
So those are three great books.
Oh, I'm a big fan of that.
All three of those.
Those are huge.
Thank you.
One, a big fan of John Maxwell.
I love relationships one-on-one because of how easy it is to read.
Two, the happiness concept.
Yeah, I can't get enough of happiness.
If you want to be a good leader, I mean, what he did and the stuff that he did, he's got
practical things in that book that happened to hospitals and other businesses when they
took his principles to practice.
It's amazing.
That is so awesome.
And then The Upside of Stress.
I'm also, I'm a big believer and fan of the concept reality to me.
My humble opinion is that adversity is something that is for our benefit.
Whereas it's often, even though it's hard to accept it in the time of an event happening,
something stressful or something that we don't like or don't appreciate, there are opportunities
that exist.
Oh, you're speaking my language.
My first book was called Crystal Line Moments.
Crystal Line means sparkly or clear, so moments of clarity.
And there's always a gift or opportunity.
I'm a prime example of that.
My husband passed away in 2011 and I couldn't go back to my old life.
And I had to create a new life.
So I thank him every day.
I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing today if he hadn't passed.
That's how big it can be.
I tell widows all the time, look for that gift that they've left behind because it's
there.
You just need to find it.
There's a lot of beauty in what you said.
It's very sacred territory and I appreciate you honoring us with that.
And in honor of his memory, we're going to cut to a reflective break and we'll be right
back everybody.
Enjoy this.
This is going to be an absolute pleasure.
All right.
Welcome in to Vision Pros Live.
With Jackson Calame, I'm your show host.
We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are building fantastic
visions out there.
Hey, what's up everybody?
Welcome in to another episode of Vision Pros Live.
I'm your show host, Jackson Calame, founder and CEO of First Class Business.
I'm excited to have Connie Myers on today.
We're talking about being sustainable, ready and prepared for community crisis.
I'm going to own it.
I kind of butchered the grammar on that title.
That was my fault.
But that would be my personal crisis for the day and maybe Connie will save me from that.
So I appreciate her being here.
She is an emergency preparedness specialist and it's going to be fun to dive into her
experience and these cool kits she has for kids to help kids, again, be more prepared
for their crisis experiences and also just a general sense of comfort.
We'll talk about that more when we get into the kits themselves.
Before we do, I want to talk about some of the sponsors that we have for the show as
these are opportunities for visionaries out there that I've seen and I'm like, man, I
wish I had known about these sooner in life and saw the opportunity to hang along.
So first we're going to start with Sean LeChuga and the Wellness Shop 365.
Sean was a featured guest on our show.
You can catch that episode where him and Julianne, his wife, talk about their approach to integrative
nutrition, health and wellness.
What really caught my attention about their program and made me kind of obsess over and
say, wow, this is amazing, is the 365 Wheel of Life that you see on my screen right now.
And while this is the preliminary concept for the wheel, the fulfillment of such isn't
based on the design.
It's based on the assessment.
They're actually talking to people about joy and spirituality and creativity, finances,
the home environment, relationships, social life.
That's holistic wellness at a whole new level that I haven't seen very many health coaches
dive into.
And that type of well-roundedness is something that said, man, these people are special.
So as I've built a relationship with them over the last six months, I get a lot of behind
the scenes access.
Their kids being part of our Zoom calls sometimes and seeing them interact as a couple.
I'm sure they're not perfect as a couple.
I don't know any couples that are.
But the love that they share is a reflection to me of the type of dedication they have,
the wholeness and wellness.
And that's a great sign of somebody who can also be a source to lead you to one of the
same.
So I highly recommend checking out what he's up to.
Then there's the Law Spot, thelawspot.com by Melissa Gray.
I also hosted her on the show.
And I was super hesitant to host an attorney on my show.
I was like, man, I'm talking about vision.
This is supposed to be fun.
And most attorneys have horrible personalities.
Sorry to any of you who are attorneys who don't that are offended by that.
I'm so sorry.
I'm not sorry.
We I want to work with attorney who gets me as a human being.
I want to work with an attorney who understands how to nurture and protect.
And when Melissa stepped on the show, I got to see that firsthand.
I was like, wow, here's somebody who understands that law doesn't have to be complicated, that
you can stand for your beliefs and make sure to make an impact and an argument when you
need to.
But you can also be a human being and take care of people.
So I caught her vision as well of like, wow, OK, we've got legal Zoom and Crocodoc and
all sorts of free tools for legal purposes that most of us as entrepreneurs and especially
the entrepreneurs, the solopreneurs that are on RIN route, you turn to.
But what I've also found to be true is most of the entrepreneurs I've ever worked with,
I'm talking thousands of entrepreneurs from restaurants to SaaS companies, do not have
somebody on retainer that they've researched very well, if they have somebody on retainer
at all.
And in addition to that, when the cease and desist does come or the trademark battle does
come, they end up investing a ton more than they would have because they're not prepared
to protect themselves legally.
So I'm sure Connie also can vouch for that as an emergency preparedness individual.
We've got to be, if we want to protect our kingdoms that we're building, then it's very
important that we also have fortifications in place to make sure that we're not susceptible
to different types of terror that can occur.
Whether it's weather, COVID, diversification of business model or liability protections
in the form of legal.
So I hope that helps at least one of you out there.
Then there's the water project.
And the water project is near and dear to my heart.
There are 8 billion people in this world that struggle to have water.
Now, why is this near and dear to my heart?
It's not because I've ever suffered with a lack of water.
It's because I choose to remember the fact that as somebody who's blessed to have a podcast
and that can walk to my sink to get water anytime I want, filtered water for crying
out loud.
We've got this resource.
And I want to remember there's millions of people in this world who don't.
We have an opportunity to make an impact on that.
And through the water project, you get to select the community that you want to help.
You get updated on what happens to that community.
And seeing these kids act like water, they look like they're celebrating Christmas even
better than my kids celebrate Christmas.
And we celebrate Christmas like we're awesome about our celebration with it.
So it's important for us to remember there's opportunities to give back.
Now, if the water project doesn't inspire you because your heart is heavy for something
else and you're like, man, I wish you would talk about this project instead, just drop
the project in the comments.
Give us a chance to see what we can do to help.
There's 8 billion people in this world to help.
And we all have the opportunity to step up and do that.
You never know.
You might be able to get $5.
And of course, that makes a huge difference.
You might share it with somebody who ends up giving $50,000.
Never underestimate the power of your voice.
And know that if the power of your voice didn't matter, you wouldn't be tuning into a podcast.
So without further ado, Connie Myers, thank you so much for being on stage.
And thanks for joining us on Vision Pulse Live.
I am definitely looking into that water project.
That is right down the nonprofit's road.
So I'll definitely look into that and reach out to them.
Well, my good deed is done for the day and we can end and I can know.
It's awesome when we can do multiples.
So no, thank you for honoring me with that.
I'm excited that you got to learn about it.
Was this the first time hearing about it?
I'd heard about it, but I mean, you gave me the reason to move forward, right?
I had heard of it, but I hadn't really done anything about it.
But now it's on my to-do list.
Yes.
No, absolutely.
You know, while we get talking about what you do and before we dive into vision, I'm
going to signal Cynthia to go ahead and start sharing your website with the audience.
But I'd love to know from your perspective, what do you hope the audience gets out of
today and what elements about your background should they be paying attention to?
Well, I have said for many years that I was like a cat with nine lives.
I had nine different careers.
And in reality, every bit of it was training from my mid-twenties to what I'm doing today.
So it is really what I want to take away is find something that's near and dear to your
heart, what you're passionate about, create the vision for it and make it happen.
If somebody would have said I was going to have a nonprofit and I wanted to help 30 million
people be better prepared and more sustainable before my husband passed away in 2011, I would
have said, you're nuts.
And here I am.
I'm 75 and I'm more passionate now about my life and what I'm doing and what the people
I'm attracting to it.
So when you step into that passion and you know it's right, then people show up.
Like this, I didn't know about you, Jackson.
I'm not even sure how you found me.
I don't know how I found you.
I think my automations probably found you.
Well, I have to tell you.
I mean, my goal, I started attracting people in 2022.
I got my 501 C3 in December of 2021 and I started asking people, this is what I want
to do.
This I would really like your help.
I have never had a no.
I've never had a no.
And it's because we all are concerned about our kids.
We're all concerned about what is happening to them.
And that's why the first initiative we're going to be doing others, but the first initiative
is called Kits for Kids.
And it's all about protecting our kids, whether they're at school, the playground, activities,
or if there is an emergency and what they need to do and know.
That's awesome.
And we'll be featuring the Kits for Kids on the landing page as well so people can learn
more about it.
And you got a lot of great content baked into this website as well.
So we'll let's dive into your vision for now.
Help people grasp the concept of where all this came from, how they can improve their
own visions.
If we have some time at the end, we'll dive further into those kits.
We might talk about some of what's in there and why they matter.
Who can get them as well?
That could also be helpful.
So what's your vision for those that you serve?
Connie, what do you hope people...
Yeah, I'm going to stop right there.
What's your vision for those that you serve?
Well, I used to teach visioning before I started this disaster stuff.
And I want people to take a look at the vision of what we can do to protect our planet, our
kids.
76% of parents now are worried about their kids' anxiety, fear, and depression.
And suicide and PTSD is up something like 50% in the last three years.
So my vision is to help change that and to make a difference in how we go about looking
at it and what we can do to protect our kids.
So if you have a vision in your community and you want to help kids, or if you're a
part of an organization that wants to help kids, my vision, 30 million seems like a big
number, but in reality, I use the number 20%.
I'm being very generous by using that number.
I want to take it from 20% of being prepared to 25%.
That's it.
Hey, you're on Vision Pros Live.
30 million or 30 billion or 30, it's your number.
We respect that.
That's awesome.
I think it's amazing.
So did you say you used to teach visioning?
Is that what you said?
I did.
I did retreats all over the...
I did them internationally called Ignite the Fire of Your Business and Life.
One thing I can tell you is, one of the things I taught is that you cannot go to a vision.
You have to come from it.
In order to come from it, you have to become it.
You have to step into it.
So what are the five senses?
What does it feel, smell, look, sound like?
And then what are you wearing when you're walking out the door in the morning in your
vision?
What books are you reading?
What podcasts are you listening to?
What are you doing to become that person before the vision actually fulfills itself?
And once you create that vision, it just keeps organically growing, just like a business
plan.
That's amazing.
So you were teaching vision fulfillment.
That's really cool.
I'm hoping to get back to that.
Nice.
I'm hoping to do a little bit more of that.
I kind of, because of everything I'm doing with it, and I'm teaching it with what we're
doing with the nonprofit, but I want to get back to doing more of the retreats like I
was just a year anyway.
I have a saying that was inspired by Richard Branson.
You can have your cake and you can eat it too, and you can have a conveyor belt of cakes.
Absolutely.
So with that said, what's your vision for you?
What do you see for yourself, Connie?
I want to be known in the world as the person who changed people's lives through preparedness,
sustainability, and I want to be a speaker and a writer.
I've got six bestselling books.
I've got two more I'm working on, and I want to be able to express my true passion for
how you can do well by doing good, how you can make a difference in this world and improve
your business and your life all at the same time.
My favorite saying is do well by doing good.
That's awesome.
And I love that.
I love that you put that as your title as well on here, do well by doing good.
It shows how committed you are to your mantra.
So let's dive into a dark territory now.
Speaking of not doing good.
What's your worst leadership experience ever?
Well, thank God it was a small group.
It was probably about 20 people and the lights went out.
And I'm in the middle of my presentation and I've got this PowerPoint and I'm talking
and I've got people all wound up and they're ready to, it was one of my retreats and the
electricity went out.
And thank God I had practiced, but what they did is they all turned on the flashlights
on their cell phones.
So we did it by flashlight and continued on.
But yeah, that was something I wasn't anticipating.
You know, you try to anticipate all the technical stuff because so many things go wrong, but
having the lights go out was not one of them.
Absolutely.
That was probably the worst.
That's fair.
That's an uncomfortable scenario to be in for sure.
And what's your best leadership experience look like?
What I'm doing right now.
What I mean, everything, like I said, everything I've done in my past has led me to this and
seeing people's eyes light up when they hear what I'm doing, when we're talking about the
campaign, what whether we're talking about what we want to do in the world and it's amazing.
It gives me goosebumps when people say to me, oh my God, this is such a brilliant idea.
And then having people say, Jackson, I used to have the worst case of imposter syndrome
you've ever had.
As a matter of fact, I've been told that by people and I did a board call where I was,
I might be able to challenge you on that, but we'll swap the inner demons in a minute.
Go ahead.
Sorry.
Anyway, so I did a board meeting where it was, we had just brought on about 25 or 30
of the advisory board people and I asked every one of them why they said yes.
And every single one of them started out by saying, well, we couldn't say no to you.
And I literally got off of that call and sat and cried for a good hour because I really
didn't get it that I actually was worthy.
And actually one of the women, the main woman that told me that I had terrible imposter
syndrome, it was on my board of directors.
And she called me after where she says, I could tell that moment, that crystalline moment
when it changed.
And it was dramatic.
It was like nothing I've ever experienced before.
Wow.
That's awesome.
Thank you for sharing that.
It's amazing.
There's visionaries.
It's not just visionaries who struggle with imposter syndrome.
Actually I digress.
What's interesting to me is that in my humble experience with the people I've talked to
in my life, most people live with imposter syndrome and accept it, which is why visionaries
struggle with imposter syndrome because we're breaking out of the shell of what we're told
to be by society.
And we're deciding to break through the barriers and say, no, I'm going to be me.
I'm going to do what I'm meant to do.
What are your thoughts on that?
Well, I used to say I'm a farm girl from Nebraska.
What you see is what you get.
And I'm not supposed to be alive.
I'm supposed to be dead at 14.
And what I really feel is that these crystalline moments I had throughout my life, a lot of
them I didn't understand until I got to be a little older.
And now I look back and my book really helped to bring clarity to it.
But also I think that once you really start looking at your life and everything is a gift,
right?
Everything is a crystalline moment.
We have them every single day, little ones, big ones.
And once we start living our life by those moments, those cross the road crossing and
you're going to take one direction or the other, I think when you start living that
way all of a sudden you're no longer trying to live in the future.
You're living in the moment.
And also it becomes more clear and it helps a lot.
Now that I understand how bad my imposter syndrome was, I wouldn't say I'm 100% cured
of it.
I still have doubts and it's just like everybody else.
But I'm certainly more determined and I couldn't be more passionate about what I'm doing.
And I'm 75.
It took me a long time.
This just happened last year.
So it's not like...
That's great.
It took me a while.
You know how many people in their 40s, 50s, 60s, I mean, even especially women that feel
like in their 30s, their best is in the past.
It's like, whoa, what are you doing?
No way.
No.
I used to have a podcast called To 70 and Beyond.
When I turned 70, 90 days before I said, okay, I'm going to show you what it's like to turn
70.
And then I was having so much fun, I did it for another five years.
But I turned 75 last year.
So I have to come up with something new.
But I showed people, it doesn't matter how old you are, it's all in your head.
So a big thing on imposter syndrome, grateful for Taylor Welch for teaching this.
I don't think he personally knows Michael Phelps, but he uses Michael Phelps as the
example of breaking the world record or breaking his own record.
And when these athletes, they're going after these things they've never done before, they're
naturally going to have a thought in their head.
And in their heart, I don't know if I can do this.
I'm going to do everything I can.
But they have learned how to conquer that inner doubt that exists there.
And so it's not that we're ever going to escape imposter syndrome, not anonymous, we decide
to settle for never progressing again, never doing anything new.
Because when you're doing something new, you're naturally going to wonder, can I do this?
So let's go into those inner, if you don't mind the inner demons, I'll share mine first
of my imposter syndrome ran pretty deep with me.
And then I'll let and then you go ahead, go free.
Let's do the one up battle.
So my ultimate, I was five years old.
At five years old, I went to soccer practice in jeans.
What people don't know is I went to soccer practice in jeans because I knew and was mortified
that my thighs were fat.
Oh, God.
That's where my imposter syndrome began, as far as I can remember.
And it did not, you know, it was nurtured for years beyond that.
But that's where it all started for me.
Yeah.
Well, mine was actually five years later when I was 10.
I was very sick as a child, I had a very rare kidney disease.
And the only reason I'm here today is because of a wonderful couple that have a building
named after him at the Mayo Clinic.
And I had to spend one night in the hospital.
And there was another young girl, she was 14, and she had the same rare kidney disease
I did.
She died two years later.
And in that moment, I'd been told I was going to be okay.
And in that moment, I thought I have to be really, really, really good.
And that dictated how I'd run my life for the next 50 years.
And then I went home to my one room schoolhouse.
And the teacher, her name was Mrs. Headley, we called her Headless Headley.
And she, I had to give a story report.
Well, one of the byproducts of this disease is you stutter and you wet your pants.
And so I never wanted to be around anybody.
Now, this school, it had 10 kids in the entire school.
That's how big it was.
Anyway, I had to get in front of the entire school and give a little story report.
And I stood up there and I stuttered and I hammered and I looked at the floor and I sat
down and this was really, truly the beginning of this.
I sat down and the teacher said, do you know who has the highest IQ in this school and
who just gave the worst story report?
I was rookie of the year for Metropolitan Life Insurance.
I've had all kinds of awards.
And every time I had one of those, I didn't feel I deserved it.
So I'd worked that much harder, which made me a total horrible workaholic.
50 years later, I finally figured out, first of all, the first one was that I wasn't trying
to do good with other people.
I was afraid of dying.
And the second one was, look, you've done all this stuff.
You deserve whatever rewards you get.
And that's really when the transition started.
But I was 60 years old when I finally started looking at that and feeling that.
And it really wasn't until these people told me that they were here for the nonprofit,
for the kids, because I asked them.
And that truly, I mean, it makes a big, big difference.
I think the best thing for people to do if they really suffer from this, like you did
and I have, is find people that you trust and say, OK, what is good about me and what
is bad about me?
Give me the facts.
Right?
And you're going to find out there's a whole lot more good than bad.
And if you don't, it's time to change your circle.
That would be my next imitation.
I do agree with that.
Your circle of five, your circle of 10, building relationships with people who are going to
look for your great and be grateful for the good that you are, super powerful and helpful.
Thank you for that, Connie.
And anybody that wants to share in the comments, there's this exercise that people do at these
motivational conferences.
I think it's pretty cool where they write their negative impression of themselves on
a board and then they break the board.
It's like a breakthrough opportunity.
Well, we can virtually do that.
We don't have to have a board to get the same satisfaction.
If you want to share what one of your imposter syndrome realities is, absolutely feel free
to share it in the comments.
We'll be happy to engage with that.
And hopefully everybody is respectful, everybody else in the process.
But it can be helpful to be involved in a community that supports you and where you
realize you're not the only one who thinks interesting things like that.
You mentioned another one, Connie.
You mentioned about being, I can't remember exactly what you said, but it reminded me
of my conversation with my kids this weekend where I was telling them when I was eight
years old, I was baptized.
And I was so worried beforehand because I knew my sister, Lacey, love you to death,
Lacey.
I knew she was going to piss me off at some point in the next 24 hours.
I was going to sin and I was going to go to hell.
Nobody told me that.
Nobody ever like indoctrinated me with that.
I just knew it.
And I think it was Looney Tunes, like seeing the heaven and the hell and their renditions
of it, like, I don't want to go to hell.
But I also don't want to play the harp in heaven.
That sounds boring.
Man, I was like, 10 years, I was worried about both heaven and hell are going to suck.
And I'm going to end up going to hell anyway.
Like, which side am I on?
And my kids are just dying of laughter.
I'm like, oh, cool.
They're never going to worry about this in their life.
So it's amazing what happens when we share our own little imposter syndrome realities
with people and they can destroy the boogeyman for us on the spot.
Connie, go ahead.
You had another thought.
I'll let you.
Okay, so one of the things I do at my retreats is I either bring dishes and they write on
the dishes things and they throw them in the can and they have to break the dish.
Or if I'm at the beach, I get sand dollars and they write them on the sand dollars and
we put them out to the ocean.
So getting just recognizing it and getting rid of it and getting it out of your head
makes a big, it's how I start every one of my retreats or workshops is with some kind
of an exercise like that.
So I totally get it.
It works.
It really works.
Yeah.
Power of visualization, the power of pulling their physical reality together with our mental
capacity.
A lot of tools available for us.
Thank you for sharing those ideas.
You can do that on your own.
You don't have to be in a group.
That'd be cool too.
So what powerful lesson, if this was your last opportunity to share one lesson with
visionaries to learn from your experience, what would it be?
Oh, boy.
No.
I call them crystal.
I know what you can call them, whatever it is you want to call them.
But when those occur, even if it's just a thought or an event, it could be an event
that's like two seconds or it could be an event that lasts days or weeks or months,
but just know that there is a gift and an opportunity in every one of those.
That's not failure.
There's no such thing as failure.
Failure is just a change in direction.
Which direction are you going to go?
And paying attention to those crystalline moments that just pop into your head and you
have a choice to make.
If you know that there's a gift or opportunity, then that's what you're going to be looking
for and that changes the chemistry of your brain so that it's looking for that success
and for what that vision is going to be.
That's awesome.
And to double down on that, again, it doesn't make it easy.
When you have adversity, when you have challenges, when you have trauma experiences, and it is
oftentimes our greatest adversities that end up refining, creating our greatest strengths.
And at the same time, we've got to find ourselves in a position to accept that.
And maybe there's a period of grief required first.
Maybe there's a period of grief that's required first.
I say maybe.
I know there's formulas for it.
And at the same time, I've seen instant cases.
But your past is not predetermined by anybody else.
It's just yours as a visionary.
So follow your heart, follow your mind.
Find great people again to surround support and great practices.
And hopefully, the great experiences will come and you'll see it sooner than later.
That's what I hope for you.
I think that especially if you lose a loved one, in my book, there's talks about a woman
that talks about losing two children nine years apart.
And she wouldn't be doing what she's doing today if that hadn't happened.
And she sees the gifts.
She's changing people's lives all across Canada.
She has clinics set up for mental illness.
And there's always, I tell the widows, I send my book out to all kinds of people.
And I usually wait until after it's been like six months or maybe a year.
If it's before that, they have to do the grieving.
That's part of it.
But then, as a matter of fact, the first book I ever sent out to a widow, she called me
on the phone.
She goes, what do you mean there's a gift in this?
And I said, that's what I realized.
I needed to wait to send the book out.
And a few months later, she called me.
She says, I get it now.
I get it.
And even if what I tell people, whatever that trauma is that you're going through, just
put it in the back of your head.
I don't know what the gift is right now, but it's going to show up.
It's going to be there.
And if we get stuck in the grief, we need to go back to that and say, OK, what was the
gift this person left me?
And look for it.
Really look for it.
Because it's going to be there.
I wouldn't be talking to you, Jackson, if my husband hadn't passed away.
We celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary four days before he died.
We had an amazing marriage.
And I thank him every single day.
Because I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing.
See, that's awesome.
And here's the correlation with that.
First off, congratulations on an ultra successful marriage.
That's something that I hold sacred, that I honor.
I'm twice divorced.
And I am grateful for the mothers, the two mothers of my four children.
And they tried.
They gave their best.
I gave my best in the marriage.
And it didn't work out.
Different reasons for different occasions.
At the same time, I don't have to buy into this culture of party for the divorce.
I don't have to buy into this culture of creating an enemy out of that individual, no matter
how they choose to respond towards me.
I get the choice to decide how am I going to behave in this process?
How am I going to rise up?
Am I going to be the type of person who divides my child's personality and their identity?
Or can I do my best to model what my mom did?
My mom always honored my father.
And everybody who knows him in life knows how difficult that can be.
I love my dad.
It's hard to say that.
But he's got to take ownership too over his life.
He was always super supportive.
And what that did was it never made me doubt myself.
It helped me overcome the challenges that existed from.
And it helped me at the end of the day realize I was probably like 12 by the time I was finally
like 100%.
Mom's always honest.
Mom's always wonderful about this reality.
And dad's always a victim and always blaming others.
So I had a clear compass and guide because of the way she handled that.
So if that's helpful to any of you, it's just, again, it's back to that adversity, challenges.
It doesn't matter if it's a divorce.
It doesn't matter if it's a death.
It doesn't matter if it's whatever it is.
It's a diagnosis that you receive.
I'm so inspired by those who step into that and are able to see the blessing in disguise.
100%.
My first husband, I had three kids.
My youngest was three months old when I left him.
And I always honored my ex-husband.
I mean, I always, the kids never heard me say anything bad about him.
It just was a bad relationship.
It just didn't work.
That's all.
We had two different ways of looking at how we wanted our lives to be.
And some of those things, they collide.
They just won't work.
And so that's, yeah, I understand 100%.
And you're stepping into that gift and that opportunity by honoring them and by honoring
your children with what kind of life they're going to have because of your understanding
of all that.
That's huge.
Yeah, absolutely.
And that's not always, again, always easy to do.
And when we step into that, it's amazing how much easier life can be.
Life won't be easy, but it can be easier.
I read that sentence again, sustainable, ready and prepared with community crisis expert
Connie.
So sometimes it's not the grammar.
Sometimes it's the person who's trying to read.
Kind of a little bit in the moment.
So we have it, sustainable, ready and prepared with a community crisis.
Let's talk about sustainability, readiness, preparedness, or let's dive right into the
kits for kids.
This is your vision, Connie.
So which one do you want to dive into first?
You got the kit right there.
Is this the kit for kids?
This is the kit for kids.
It gets Velcroed into the bottom of a kid's everyday backpack.
It looks like a little bit larger than a case for glasses, correct?
It is.
It's a little bit bigger than that and it'll fit in every most every backpack and it gets
Velcroed in.
So it doesn't come out with the books and all that.
It has a tracker.
It has a whistle, a light.
It has stop the bleed bandages.
It has a Mylar blanket, a sanitizer bottle, and we're going to be adding.
It has emergency numbers and I include, by the way, the tracker not only tracks where
the child is or the kid is, but it also there's a place to record on it so the parents can
record a message that if something does happen, they can calm the child down.
We include two meditations and a prayer that was written by one of my board members who
works.
He has 49,000 churches in his database and then there's emergency numbers.
And I talked to a woman yesterday.
We're going to be adding information about she teaches about social media protection.
So this goes in the bottom of the backpack.
We have a whole educational thing around it.
We're going to promote it through what we're calling our kids for kids spokesperson campaign.
We want kids for kids ambassadors, small voices in big impact.
And we're going to have kids provide us with one minute videos of why they want to be the
kids for kids ambassador in their neighborhoods where they are anywhere from five to 17 years
old.
And now we have an army of kids out there and you know, kids are the best salespeople
on the planet.
So we now have these kids out there talking about preparedness.
And while they're getting their kids, we're talking to the parents about what they have
in their emergency kit at home.
99.9% of parents do not have kits for their kids at home.
So this represents 40% of what goes into that kit and they get a list of what needs to go
in for the emergency kit.
But the kids are out there now talking about, you know, how do we get, I'm in the second
floor.
How do I get out of the house if you can't get to me?
If there's a fire, how, when, when are we going to do this?
My mom all the time.
I wanted a rope ladder so bad.
It had nothing to do with preparedness, but I was trying so hard to get her to get me
a rope ladder.
So you could escape, right?
Oh my gosh.
I would have broke my arm four times more.
Well, so teaching the kids and kids are worried about the planet these days.
I mean, I tell people, look, I don't care whether you believe in climate change or not.
You're paying the bill.
The, the national shanty atmospheric administration does a total dollars on weather related, not
other kinds of other related disasters.
And in 2022, it was $145 billion.
In 2022, or I'm sorry, 2023, it was $174 billion.
And we have one out of four homes now are at risk of being too high to ensure one out
of four.
So we're going to have these little voices out there saying, mom and dad, what are we
doing about this?
Or they're going to be feeding them information.
And that's how we're going to get to 30 million, 30 million.
It also comes with a digital version of when the end thing.
Some people call this brainwashing.
Some people call this education.
You know, you can call it what are the Girl Scout cook?
What do the Girl Scouts do with our cookies?
Huh?
They're doing the same thing.
They're brainwashing them thinking we all have to have Girl Scout cookies, right?
We're educating, right?
Education.
Exactly.
It's what somebody wants to call it.
You know, you do you, you can feel how you want about it.
I think it's awesome.
I mean, you can call me brainwashed if you want to.
We're looking for community people to help us with this.
If anybody's interested in wanting to help the kids in their neighborhoods, in their
communities, please reach out to me because this is going to be a fun.
I've been told by several media people that it's going to go viral.
Yeah, I want to.
Well, that's right.
And that virality component when you've got you got all the foundation for this, Connie,
you know, the foundation.
And I love sharing this story with people.
In fact, I'll drop it in the comments so people have it.
But it's a very special training that I do with my clients on the power of five.
And it's based on Mark Victor Hansen and the book, The Chicken Soup for the Soul.
Are you familiar with the story of how they promoted that book?
Yes.
Yes, I love that story.
Tell us, tell us your version of it.
What'd you hear?
Well, OK.
I was involved with a lady that was very involved with some multi-level stuff.
And she introduced me to a woman that wrote I forget which chicken soup it was.
And I said, so basically what they're doing is they're coming up with all these different
topics and having people write books about the chicken soup and whatever their thing
is.
I said, that is brilliant.
That is really brilliant that you're you're letting people express what their their knowledge
is and you're promoting these books that are.
And I don't know if that's the same thing as what you're talking about, but I'm glad
you mentioned that because it's it's why I asked.
It's an angle that I hadn't I hadn't really considered, but that does tie closer to the
kids for kids strategy.
The the reality of how it got it didn't catch on fire.
It didn't it didn't go very far initially.
They worked for two years straight making sure to do the power five contacts.
And what they did was they decided each one of them, the two writers of the book, would
make contact whether it was a friend, a celebrity, a radio station, a local bookstore, you know,
a church.
They would go and talk to people and they did that for two years straight, five contacts
per day.
And eventually they ended up sending they ended up asking the judge for the O.J. Simpson
trial if they could send the books, a copy of the books to all of the members of the
jury because they had so much downtime and hours of time to kill.
And then every single one of those jury members came out with the book in hand from what I
understand on the story.
But it got national press and attention and damn, it started to to scale from there and
it became arguably the most successful book, modern book of all time.
That didn't happen overnight.
But that diligence, their dedication to the process, their good luck event came because
of the amount of effort they put into putting it out there, making sure that they were leading
as a great leader for the cause.
So I think it's great.
I think the kids are awesome.
How can I give up for my kids?
How do I get how I get one?
You can just reach out and go on Be Prepared, Be Ready dot org and send a little note.
We haven't got we're putting up a store right now.
We don't have it yet.
But you can and we'll ask you to make a donation to the nonprofit of twenty five dollars if
you buy them in bulk, they go down in price.
But yeah, just reach out on the Be Prepared, Be Ready and we'll give you the instructions
of what to do and let us know you want the kids.
And that's what we'll give you.
That's cool.
It's you know, my kids are the type of kids that I think most kids are.
But they they would dive into this and look at everything and play.
My son would use a bandaid right away just to use it.
Oh, you know, just to have.
But that's OK.
He's experimenting with opportunities to learn growth prepare like now he knows how
to put it on when it actually happens.
Like sometimes as parents, we try to over control stuff.
Guilty as charged and almost everything.
But I've learned I learned the back out of the way and let them just explore and play.
They would still say, no, dad, you're still a helicopter parent.
I'm recovering.
I'm trying not to be.
Right.
But you know, they learn so much, they absorb to the experience of messing with stuff like
that.
And I want you to think about something for a minute.
Excuse me.
I didn't mean to interrupt you.
How old are your kids?
Twelve, ten, eight and three.
OK, well, the old three older ones are the perfect age for the kids for kids.
When you talk to your children about passion, what they're passionate about and you explain,
I mean, obviously, I'm sure you've had conversations about what to do if something happens at school
and how to protect themselves as much as possible.
And do they ever express anything about, you know, what's going to happen to our world?
Or if they don't bring that topic because they have internal fear about it anyway.
Oh, we talked about Russia.
They had questions for me about that.
Yeah.
So it's I think having your kids have these conversations and what's really cool.
I mean, we don't they will have it with their cousins.
They will have it with their best friends.
They will have it with people who have less.
I absolutely know that because I am the product of those scenarios.
Right.
So now we pulled up a clip, a trailer from Red Dawn, which is actually a Russian invasion
movie.
You know, I made sure it was filtered appropriately.
And we had a talk about the reality of the bogeyman that's not under the bed, you know,
and the reality that we do know what to do.
We have a plan and within a matter of weeks, state no longer talk about it, think about
it, worry about it from what I know.
But we because we have an opportunity to talk any time things like that happen.
They they as far as I can tell, they feel very safe to talk to me about lots of subjects
that I'm like, oh, boy, cool.
Good.
We'll figure out how to have this conversation without also upsetting the other parental
side.
So we have we have different challenges with that.
But we as as parents, we do have an opportunity, right, a responsibility to to have these conversations.
And it's through people like yourself and CJ Scarlet's book Heroic Parenting as well.
I've learned some amazing things just in the first few pages of reading that.
Like, huh, cool.
I can I can this is a dialogue to have my kids that will help boost the confidence of
our existing relationships.
So well, the the book that I the last book I wrote, When the Unpredictable Happens, Be
Prepared, Be Ready is a reference guide.
And it tells you what to have in all your kits and what to do right.
Because mindset is 90 percent.
One thing I want to mention is every one of us is a first responder before the police
or the EMT show up.
We have to know what to do.
And what that does is it makes us resilient.
And that's the beauty of kids knowing what they need to do.
They are resilient.
And so many adults underestimate the ability of our kids.
I love where our kids are at today.
I have two of the most amazing granddaughters on the planet.
And I have to tell you, I mean, I don't really know where they came from.
I don't think it's any of my genes, that's for sure.
But the bottom line is kids are making a difference.
They're making a huge.
In fact, there was a lawsuit in September in Montana.
There were there was 15 kids ages five to 22 that sued the state of Montana because
there's all kinds of oil wells in Montana and they weren't monitoring the emissions.
The kids won.
They won because it's their future that they're concerned about.
And now there's like cases all across the country.
They say, you know, I need to we need to think about what our kids futures look like.
I tell you, I have a great grandson that's seven years old.
And you know, what is what's it going to look like when he's 47?
Right.
It's so cool to this.
This type of preparedness can be applied in many facets.
It can be related to, you know, knowing what to do in those emergencies.
My son and I happen to get in touch with my automation again, got me in touch with Bones.
He's a lighting production coordinator for Toby Keith, legendary country singer.
Right.
So Bones and I ended up building up a little bit of a relationship and it just so happened
to be my son's birthday that weekend.
So I said, hey, Emerson, you know, he wanted to buy a guitar.
I'm like, what if we send a video to Bones and ask him if we can get our hands on a signed
guitar from Toby Keith, you know, and I'd pay for it, you know.
And so Emerson sat down, did the video with me and we sent that to Bones and Bones sent
back a video saying happy birthday to Emerson, showing him a tour of the studio, you know,
and maybe no guitar comes out.
That's OK.
We let him know it was OK to.
We were respectful of the process.
But what my son has learned in terms of putting yourself out there, being willing to make
requests, you know, having this experience and the excitement he felt when he saw that
the Bones of Toby Keith responded like that puts a purpose within you that you just, you
know.
One hundred percent.
I'm so excited for him, you know, like if I could have had that, you know, at his age,
you know, the things that would have would have gone after and wanted to pursue.
So I just, you know, we all have the opportunity as parents to do little things like that to
influence our children for good.
We're all going to make mistakes and the process to, of course, nobody's perfect.
But visionaries, I hope that you took some notes on this one.
Connie dropped some serious values of wisdom.
And if you have some of your own, of course, to to give, provide those in the comments.
You have any questions for us, don't hesitate to hit us up with those.
We're going to wrap up kind of fast on this one.
But if you also have a vision of your own to share, then don't hesitate to apply to
be our guest, come to our process.
And if you've got a vision that's meant to help the world, whether it's your local community,
your own family, you know, or the entire globe, don't hesitate to share it with anybody that
is going to support you and uplift you in the process.
And that's exactly what this program is designed for.
Connie, any final thoughts before I shut it down?
I think I just want to back up what you just said.
I think we all have something in our heart or something that we're passionate about,
that we all make the world a better place.
Find that cause and do something.
Just do something with it.
If it's just having a simple conversation, have it.
I can tell you personally what I have been gifted with this whole process.
And believe you me, there were times I didn't know about the non-profit, whether I could
continue with the nonprofit or not, it was overwhelming.
But the thing I've learned is that you keep putting that foot in front of the other and
the gifts are overwhelming.
So just find that passion.
Vision pros, you heard it from the vision fulfillment expert herself, Connie Myers.
Appreciate having you on the show.
Everybody have a fantastic rest of your day and we'll see you on the next episode.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show and thank you for giving us your time
and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision.