Tell me about your vision.
So my vision is that everyone on the planet would be living their legacy
every moment of every day choice by choice.
And
you know, it's something that most people when we think about legacy
we tend to think about like something we're gonna leave behind after we're gone and it's usually like, you know finances,
property that kind of thing and
I believe the reality is we are living our legacy
you know with every choice that we make every action that we take and that can be a little jarring especially
You know and I've been there, you know
We can be on autopilot like going a hundred miles an hour only to wake up one day going
I think I'm going the wrong direction
You know or I'm not sure if this is the right direction and
So, you know it I believe it especially now
There's so much change so much uncertainty
going on and
you know
We need to become more conscious of in the middle of all that. What is it that we really want?
really
not by default
Not by default but by design, you know, what is it that we want our life to look like?
How do we want to be able to impact the people on our path?
And that's just not something that most of us
make the time to ponder and
And for me
It took kovat to wake me up
it was a serious wake-up call and
You know, I realized you know when everything came to a halt
And I had to like look life straight on and say, you know
Is this what I've been doing even though what I was doing was really successful and meaningful
It had kind of lost its spark for me
And I realized I was completely burned out and I needed to rethink
I wanted to rethink my life now
Rethinking your life in the middle of a pandemic in terms of being able to make a significant shift in what I was doing
Did not make a lot of sense financially
You know, it's like oh my gosh
How am I going to completely rethink my life and how can I afford to do that in Los Angeles in the middle of the pandemic?
and you know, I have done the seemingly impossible over and over
throughout my life
and in that moment I needed to
Say, okay, what's worked for me before?
And it's two what I consider kind of magical questions
which is
What if what I really want is possible?
And what am I not seeing yet?
And that yet is
Really critical because it's the thing that opens up that door of possibility that there is something there is a way
To do it. I'm just not seeing it yet
And by asking what if it is possible I get out of that
Negative what you know all the what ifs as in what if it won't work?
You know and and to shift my mindset into one of
What if it is possible
And and it really is and has been for me magical
Meaning in this case the minute I asked those two questions
the next day
The minute I asked those two questions the next day I came across an article
About a woman who had retired in mexico on her fixed income
I'm like say what you know, no way could I do what I want to do on my fixed income
and
Moved to mexico in the middle of a pandemic. That's crazy. And of course all of my friends fueled that that's crazy
What are you thinking? You know, you're either on something or onto something which is it, you know
But you know the minute I saw that article I began to second guess my doubts
And I began to think okay, well, what would that look like or what would I want it to look like?
And I created a list
With my husband we sat down and said, you know, what would we want this next life to look like?
Detailed not just little whatever's but like exactly. What do we want it to look like?
And there were two things at the top of the list
affordable
and climate
As in a moderate climate if we were going to move because we were going to have to move if I wanted to do this
and
When the climate issue came up
I looked at what are the the top three places in the world?
That have a moderate climate
and lake chapala mexico popped up onto my radar screen
and
You know, I thought well, okay, and so we started doing research
And lo and behold it ticked off every single box on our list including
Our one, you know, we had the have to have so nice to have would be amazing to have
And the two things on the amazing side were
mountains
and water
And lake chapala is the largest freshwater lake in mexico
and
We literally the home that we're in now
We have a view of the lake and we're up against the mountains
And across the lake there's another set of mountains, you know, so it's you know
It was amazing
again
You know by opening up our mindset and you know
Challenging the assumptions that we had and there were many about mexico
And of course, none of those have turned out to be true
And you know, we love the people we love the culture
We love the environment
and
It gave me time
To sit back and reflect on my life and what was it that?
Contributed to me doing those seemingly impossible things
And to finally write my book to share with other people
You know how I went from
Doubt to do over and over again
How I actually navigated
the possibilities
That you know, I first you know that I saw
um
and
You know, it's given me time to then leverage that to be able to speak like I am today
and
uh to share my vision
with other people
Because I really do believe it would be life-changing not only for the individual
But for everybody on their path for the world, you know
If we all were willing
To own up to what is it that we really want?
And why is it so important?
And what are we willing to do to make that happen?
Thank you for sharing that with us uh cat
Um, I there's so much you shared and there's so many questions I have regarding that
first thing is
To me legacy is something you build towards and to you legacy is something
Uh, you live to me legacy is something you leave behind for people
The to me that is impact you've had in the in the world the life
Maybe you've changed and maybe the people you've inspired. Yep
Um, and you say that it's something i'm living right now
There's a very few people I know who are living their legacy
So what is the legacy you're living right now or is this something that you've already shared to me with me right now that you're moving to mexico having those experiences
And living where you wanted to live with the people you wanted to live and having the experience you wanted to have
What is your legacy?
Oh, my legacy
Well, ultimately I would say I want to have a legacy of love
But that's you know, that's kind of like a big thing
But what that looks like for me every day
Is what what am I doing to help?
other people see their full potential
And not be limited
by
The the way they've labeled themselves the way other people have labeled them
um
All the shoulds and have to's and
Uh, you know i'm i'm in the process of i'm going to be doing a ted talk in march
and my my uh
My working title is labels lies and your legacy
Because you know
In order to be living our legacy, it means we need to be letting go
Of all those things that are limiting us from what we really want
Awesome, yeah, thank you for sharing that
Would you say
What are some of the stories that
That you have pertains to your why
Or what you do
I would love to hear some of those stories. I think that would be something that would put some more insights on
Where you're going with this and why
Yeah, so
I I was really blessed at a very early age
to
Be exposed to something that comes out of the heart of the person
to be exposed to something that completely changed my life which was
You know at the age of 14 I saw
An up with people performance
And you might say what the heck is that because you're probably too young to know what that is
but up with people
Um had a two-hour very inspirational
live performance
with young people
Than college age and they toured for a year
Uh staying in host families wherever they went
And the whole purpose was to prepare them to be lifelong changemakers
To see their potential and to give them the the courage and and the confidence
To pursue their vision
And when I saw that at 14, it was like my dream
to be able to travel with them, but I was 14 and these were college kids and
But believe it or not
I declared this is my dream someday. I'm gonna do it and two years later
When I was 16, they started a high school cast
And
I'm like
Here we go. I'm gonna live my dream
And in order to do that I had to get a sponsor
And again probably might be too too young to appreciate the full impact of this
but
I picked up the phone and I called nbc studios and I asked to talk to bob as in bob hope
Who was one of the biggest entertainers in the world at that time?
And believe it or not. He was there
They put him on the phone. I showed him
And he became my sponsor
Paid for my complete year on the road
That's awesome. And that was the beginning of me believing that anything is possible
When we
Make a decision
And you know about what we want we declare what we want we share it expecting that we're going to get the support
and and it it really
It created a whole way of being for me that I then lived out in many other situations
and
You know, they really helped me see my potential during that year. It was an incredible experience. So
Fast forward many years later
I
Went to work at a residential treatment facility for teenage girls that were labeled at risk
And I was really
Taken with their vision of giving these girls a quote second chance
And that I could be part of that but I realized very quickly this wasn't a second chance
How could I be part of that?
Second chance. How can you have a second chance if the only thing you've ever known is one thing?
So I had this idea
Many people thought was crazy
But I had this idea that if we could get these girls out in the community
Doing meaningful work
That it would transform
their image of themselves other people's images of them labels and
And show them that they have
The potential to make a difference in the world
I shared my passion with the non-profit leaders 20 of them said yes
That's and we started a summer program
volunteer program that became
transformational
I mean
these girls
You know, they were kind of downcast before this
And all of a sudden they had a spark in their eyes
And instead of running away they stayed they showed up day after day whether it was
walking Johnny
Uh at the equestrian therapy or being with mrs. Johnson at the senior center
or
Working at the food bank, you know all of a sudden these girls realized
They mattered to someone and someone mattered
mattered to them
And they could have a positive impact
in their life
And it really was transformational
So this is you know this for me
Was is a great example of when we have a vision for something
And we're willing to kind of buck the system
you know and
share our vision
And that we can attract the support that we need and we can make a difference
So I would say to your listeners, you know, like what are you passionate about?
And what could you do?
If you believe that was possible you asked for what you needed
And you took that first step
Which is always the hardest, you know
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
And 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