Tell me about your vision.
My vision is, it's a round voice and speaking.
And I have a metaphor for the human race,
which is that if every person in the human race
learned how to truly align with their true self
and speak from their soul, the vibration would change.
And with this metaphor of the human race
being like one big orchestra,
what we've had throughout my lifetime is,
it's as if part of the orchestra isn't playing,
like the entire string section is staying silent.
So the drums are beating louder and harder
and trying to make up for the fact
that the strings are silent,
but the drums have to be drums
and the strings have to be strings.
And when we get to a point
where people are truly being themselves in alignment
with their higher self and throwing their ideas out there
and joining the conversations that are happening,
that's when harmony will be reached.
And you can't reach harmony
if the drums are the only things playing.
Wow.
There's a lot of big words in that vision.
What do you mean by higher self?
It's not our inner critic.
It's not our fears.
It's the part of us, I call it,
when I'm connected to my soul,
when I'm my best self,
when I feel like I'm doing things that are in alignment
with what I know is right,
in the way that feels right for me.
So according to my understanding,
this true self and higher self are the same or different?
To me, they are the same.
It's different words.
Like it's one of those soul, spirit, higher self,
true self, capital S self.
I find it's best when people use the one or ones
of those words that work for them
in the ways that they work for them,
rather than me trying to impose that on others.
All of them come when we're in alignment
with what we know is right for us.
Thank you for sharing that,
but let me go on a step further with that.
How do I know that what I know is right?
That's a great question.
You know whether or not it's right for you.
We get into trouble when we think we can decide
what is best for anyone other than ourselves.
That's amazing.
I am so glad.
Wow.
Let me go to the next question then, Lori.
Where did this vision come from?
Pulse of knowing inside of me.
It's what I feel like I am here on the planet
in this lifetime to do.
And one of the answers is it came, I'm a coach
and I've had lots of coaches.
And in the early days of starting my business
and embarking on what feels like it's now my mission
to make this vision a reality.
I remember one coaching call in particular
where somebody kind of kept helping me zero in
on what was important about this work that I wanted to do.
And I don't remember all of her questions
because it's probably been 13 years, 12, 13 years,
something like that.
And I do remember the moment where she kind of asked me
what a metaphor would be for why I was doing this.
What was my vision, even if I wasn't gonna see it
in my lifetime.
And that's where I understood the biggest vision,
the biggest reason why that I do the work
that I do in the world is because of this.
There's lots of other sort of smaller, more tangible,
more offshoots, leaves on the tree,
something like that that are related to it.
And at its essence, that's what it's about.
I see there's a story coming.
Do you have a story behind your life?
I have a story of what led me here
that feels like it's the illustration
of my life's journey to this why.
I have been an actor since I was seven years old.
And theater and speaking are incredibly similar.
My acting journey and this journey to what I now do began
when my mom found me in the backyard talking to myself.
I had been playing with friends, making up a story.
We were making up our very own episode of the Brady Bunch.
And kids being kids, they got bored
and went off to go to the pool.
And I said, okay, I'll meet you there later.
I'm gonna finish the story.
My mom walks into our garage in the backyard.
And instead of saying, what are you doing?
Stop that.
She said, what are you doing?
And I said, I'm finishing the Brady Bunch episode.
And she immediately took me to an acting class.
And theater, like speaking, like many things in the world
has a light side to it and a dark side to it.
The darker side often feels like the movie Mean Girls.
There are older movies out there.
I think one of them is called The Understudy
where it's a very backstabbing, competitive,
scarcity driven environment.
And that is true.
There's a light side also.
There's a dark side and there's a light side.
In the lighter side, which I've surrounded myself with
and created myself now as an adult,
it's a community of people that are holding a mirror
up to humanity, that are incredibly creative
and that are able to be present with each other
and connected deeply in a way that most of the world isn't
and definitely was not as I was younger and growing up.
And fast forward 20 years, I was acting at night.
I was doing theater during the day
and working way too much overall.
I was an executive assistant in the Silicon Valley
here in California.
And I started feeling this call to go live
a more aligned life, but I was resisting it.
And there were real voices in the world saying,
theater, how are you gonna make money doing that?
I am making money using my theater degree.
Just in case there's anybody out there
who has people in your family.
I had no idea where it would lead at that point.
And I had a very powerful experience
in my favorite acting class ever,
where everyone was focused on me,
whereas normally you would do your acting work
with one to three other people.
Everyone was focused on me
and I kept kind of pulling myself together
and kind of putting an energetic armor in front of my heart
and that I'm fine emotional mask on
between these little sections.
And my acting instructor, Richard, stopped the exercise
and said, whatever that is that you're doing
in between the vignettes, stop doing that.
And I said, I'm not that comfortable
having everyone's eyes on me.
And he said, then you've picked a strange set
of careers for yourself.
You're an actor, a leader, a speaker.
Part of you knows you're meant to be here.
And it was like, it cut through all that static,
my inner critic, my inner protectors
to the soul part of me that knew he was right,
that I'd known since I was like five years old
that I was here to do something,
to bring a vision to reality.
And I trusted him and this intimate lab studio space
that he created.
So I jumped back in and I was actively releasing
the jaw tension, the emotional I'm fine mask.
And it felt like I was on fire
and I was ice somehow at the same time.
And I believe layers and decades of protection
was melting away.
And by the time the exercise was over,
I was in tune with everyone in the room
after the acting had stopped.
I could see and feel what kind of emotional state
they were all in, what kind of day they were having.
And I now say it was my first moment of oneness
that lasted beyond the acting
and that didn't happen in the playing of a sport.
When I was in high school, I played basketball,
volleyball, softball, soccer.
You can have moments of oneness
when you're really connected to the team
and you're focused on the goal together.
This was a moment of oneness.
And I realized that in order to see others,
we have to actually allow ourselves to be seen.
We have to choose to be seen.
And some people think that charisma, AKA presence
is something that you can't put your finger on.
It starts there.
It starts by actually letting down anything
that we're consciously or unconsciously hiding behind
or protecting ourselves with.
And then from there, we can allow our energy to expand
and for people to see us and understand us and feel us.
And that's the kernel of what I want for the people
that I work with and it's a kernel underneath
all of the work that I do to this day.
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 gonna 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
and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.