We're going to dive into that even deeper,
not just what's the story behind your why,
but I'm going to pull from a little bit about what I heard
earlier when you were telling me about your vision.
You mentioned it took 50 years to realize
that you didn't have to follow these rules that society
or life or family set.
And you talked about the Stephen R. Covey book
having an impact on you.
And it sounds like it was somewhere before that 50 year mark.
And then you've got this training with John Maxwell.
And so I capture the reality that, OK, you're not
throwing Stephen R. Covey's book under the bus.
You learned some values.
I know.
Right, exactly.
I still quote it.
Yep, hang in there.
So I can see that.
And I imagine with the shift you've
made through John Maxwell's program
and really figuring out how to break
free of superficial rules through your own life
discoveries, you probably have a different type of appreciation
as well for what you learned in the past.
So I kind of want to hear the story behind why
do you do what you do, starting from what was so,
I don't know, I guess, what was so difficult
about those first 50 years?
Because I know other people probably
were in that same type of boat or are in that same type of boat.
And why is it so important for you to help
other people get out of it?
Well, I was raised in a Southern evangelical culture.
And I'm still a pastor's wife.
And so there's a lot of expectations
that come with that.
There are a lot of rules and regulations
that come with that.
And when I teach core values and when I help somebody understand
their core values, I tell them to look all the way back.
And when I look all the way back to even my mother saying,
Andrea, you were the definition of the strong willed child,
I'm like, well, looking back now,
I know that my top core value is freedom of thought.
And when somebody else is consistently telling me
what to do and how to think and how to be,
I look back and I say, that's where it all started.
This is where the conflict started
over my own core values.
The problem is we want to fit in.
We want to be accepted.
We want to be a part of the group.
And when that group is very clear and defined,
it makes it, quote unquote, easy to fall
into those rules and principles for this very defined group.
And breaking away from that very defined group is difficult.
I've not broken away from Christianity,
but I'm just saying that's where some of that comes from.
And I look back at there were specific times in my life.
I say 30 years ago, I started my core values journey
30 years ago.
I have glimpses of when I would come up for air.
And I look back now and I think, oh, I
wish I had been able to pursue it then because I had come up
above the fence or up above the water line.
I was able to see an idea of who I could have been.
But it is so powerful, the conditioning
that we have that pulls us back under or the fear
that we have of stepping outside.
I grew up in Seoul, Korea.
And in the Asian culture, they have sayings like,
and I think this is actually from Japan.
It's like the tallest blade of grass gets cut first.
So you don't want to stand out.
You want to fit in.
It's all about fitting in.
And for me, looking at what I believed
I was supposed to do, I just could not,
even though I would have these glimpses,
I would read a good book.
And I've read personal growth books since I was 18.
I mean, they started out as spiritual personal growth,
but a lot of them were not necessarily
spiritual personal growth.
And so this is a battle or a journey
that I've been on a really, really long time.
And I think that not recognizing that I had the authority
to be able to say, this is who I am and it's OK,
while I watched other friends my same age do that,
and I was insanely jealous at 18 or at 35
or at 40.
And finally, and the thing that was really
the big catalyst at 50 for me was that I lost my mom
to breast cancer.
And so sometimes it takes a really big emotional thing
to put us in that crucible where we have the opportunity
to say, all right, it's now more difficult
to continue doing all that other stuff than to actually make
the changes.
Wow.
That's super deep.
Thank you for sharing that.
It's yeah, there's so many people out there
who are looking for that path towards the freedom
from the rules, the ability to be self
and discover their identity.
So I appreciate you sharing that so openly.