Love Your Story

Choose Love Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Darkness can’t drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate can’t drive out hate; only LOVE can do that.” Join us today for a discussion on love. While love is always needed, always in style, now more than ever in our crazy and torn world, we need to talk about love. We need to share stories about love. Stories are our lives in language. Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. I’m Lori Lee, and I’m excited for our future together of telling stories, evaluating our own stories, and lifting ourselves and others to greater places because of our control over our stories. This podcast is about empowerment and giving you, the listener, ideas to work with in making your stories work for you. Power serves you best when you know how to use it. Last week we heard from Marvin Cassler – a man who is creating a crazy, out-of-the-box story, just exactly the way he wants it to be. Listen to that episode to see an example of someone who knows how to purpos

Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. I’m Lori Lee, and I’m excited for our future together of telling stories, evaluating our own stories, and lifting ourselves and others to greater places because of our control over our stories. This podcast is about empowerment and giving you, the listener, ideas to work with in making your stories work for you. Power serves you best when you know how to use it. Today, episode 23, I want to introduce you to Marvin Cassler. I found Marvin sitting at a booth representing the Pacific Coast Trail – also known as the PCT. This trail starts at the Mexican border and climbs straight up the US to the Canadian border. Endurance. Perseverance. Perspective. These are at the heart of every Pacific Crest Trail journey. It’s a place where people discover not only the trail, but what they have inside themselves. And, as it turns out, Marvin has not only hiked 1025 miles of this trail, but he’s also hiked 3200 miles of the Continental Divide Trail, 800 miles of the Arizon Trail, and 50

Interview with Becky Andrews – Brave and Afraid – Choosing Empowerment over Fear Today we have the privilege of speaking to Becky Andrews. You may have seen her on our Instagram campaign, or you may know her from her super-human feats of tandem biking thousands of miles around the Western US, running the Boston marathon and the NY City marathon, or you may know her as a licensed clinical mental health counselor…and while she is a mom, a wife, a business owner, a life coach, and has all the education to back that up, Becky is also blind. Her story is particularly powerful, because in order to accomplish all I’ve mentioned, and much more actually, she’s had to overcome fear. She’s had to take a look at her story and reframe in spaces, just as we are always talking about. If you want to get a hold of Becky after listening to her interview or to purchase her book: Resilencesolutionsinc.com Beckylpc@gmail.com (801) 259-3883 Book: Look Up, Move Forward

Rusty tells a story of how his father tried to sacrifice him, as a child, like Abraham was called to sacrifice his son Isaac. After his mother escapes with her two children Rusty’s life gets even more interesting and tragic, and he intuits, at a young age, that his story and his ability to rise above it will create his purpose. Rusty is the Vice President of HCM Strategy and Thought Leadership at Bamboo HR where he focuses on helping organizations discover and increase employee value. He is a public speaker who is focused on human performance engineering and he is passionate about helping people reframe and rise above the self-imposed limitations of their past and the stories that come along with it. If you would like to get a hold of Rusty after listening to his interview: rustylindquist@gmail.com His book, Escape Velocity, is scheduled to be available December of 2017

Lean into Possibility Rumi said, “You were born with wings.” To fly you have to jump. To jump means you have to risk. But without risk and leaning into possibility, without being off-balance at times, you are nothing but rooted to the ground, your wings unused. Stories are our lives in language. Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. I’m Lori Lee, and I’m excited for our future together of telling stories, evaluating our own stories, and lifting ourselves and others to greater places because of our control over our stories. This podcast is about empowerment and giving you, the listener, ideas to work with in making your stories work for you. Power serves you best when you know how to use it. Our comfort zones are very comfortable places to be. They don’t require vulnerability, because vulnerability by nature is generally uncomfortable. They don’t require risk, because real risk, the risk that pushes you past your limits is also not comfortable. Our comfort zones don’t require discomfort and so we love them –

Vulnerability – the key to connection and possibility Brene Brown said, “I believe that vulnerability – the willingness to show up and be seen with no guarantee of outcome, is the only path to more love, belonging and joy.” Today let’s explore how vulnerability creates possibility. Today let’s explore how vulnerability creates possibility. Stories are our lives in language. Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. I’m Lori Lee, and I’m excited for our future together of telling stories, evaluating our own stories, and lifting ourselves and others to greater places because of our control over our stories. This podcast is about empowerment and giving you, the listener, ideas to work with in making your stories work for you. Power serves you best when you know how to use it. As adults, we accumulate experiences. Experiences that at best dull our passions and create a guarded participation in our feelings, and at worst shroud our hearts in layers and layers of armor to keep out any more of the hurt life dishes up

Gratitude, Abundance and Prosperity – The seed and the plant We all want abundance. We all want prosperity. The key to open the door is as simple as gratitude—it shows you what you already have, how prosperous you already are, how supported you are by God and the universe where it really counts. And once you truly feel that in your soul, you open for even more to flow into your space of being. The stories we tell about our abundance now set the stage for what will come. Welcome to episode 18 – where we are going to talk about the seed of gratitude and the plant that grows in to abundance and prosperity. Stories are our lives in language. Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. I’m Lori Lee, and I’m excited for our future together of telling stories, evaluating our own stories, and lifting ourselves and others to greater places because of our control over our stories. This podcast is about empowerment and giving you, the listener, ideas to work with in making your stories work for you. Power serves you best wh

Episode #17       5 Challenges for 30 Days Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.” What stories do you habitually tell yourself? What stories can you reframe to create better habits and ways of being? Today I’m going to give you 5 challenges for the next 30 days! Easy, but life altering if you let them in. Stories are our lives in language. Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. I’m Lori Lee, and I’m excited for our future together of telling stories, evaluating our own stories, and lifting ourselves and others to greater places because of our control over our stories. This podcast is about empowerment and giving you, the listener, ideas to work with in making your stories work for you. Power serves you best when you know how to use it. Think about something you do habitually. Something that might have been hard to learn at first, but after practice, you can do it without even thinking about it. Your brain has set up a pattern and you will do it the same

Stories are models of how to live.  We often look to how others do things in order to determine how we should do things. Stories are often the vehicle in which these models are exchanged. Today we learn that when our life stories don’t turn out in a way that fits our cultural models we can listen to stories from others to find additional worthwhile ways to create our lives. Today I interview Lynne McNeill, a professor of Folklore at Utah State University. Come along and listen to her considerable expertise in story and what we can learn from becoming aware of our stories, the stories of those around us, and the co-creation of meaning that results. Podcast Interview: Lynne McNeill, Utah State University, English Department See her TEDx talk here: http://tedx.usu.edu/portfolio-items/lynne-mcneill/

Tell YOUR truth. Find YOUR voice. Sing YOUR song. Today I interview Amy Donaldson Brass about what it took to find her own voice in the male-dominated world of sports reporting. Come along and listen to our first interview as Amy tells her story. Podcast Interview: Amy Donaldson Brass, Sports Reporter for the Deseret News, Salt Lake City, Utah. For more information on Amy go to: http://www.deseretnews.com/author/5017/Amy-Donaldson.html

Personal Narrative – How We Reveal Ourselves When we talk to one another we engage in a ritual. Most people, of course, don’t think of it that way, but there are distinct patterns we follow in verbal exchanges. One type of exchange is the sharing of stories. The way we tell our stories to each other allows us to do so many things: build reputation, share awe, warn, teach, threaten, celebrate and explore, among others. Today we’ll discuss how we use stories to reveal ourselves and to reflect others. Stories are our lives in language. Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. I’m Lori Lee, and I’m excited for our future together of telling stories, evaluating our own stories, and lifting ourselves and others to greater places because of our control over our stories. This podcast is about empowerment and giving you, the listener, ideas to work with in making your stories work for you. Power serves you best when you know how to use it. During my study of the personal narrative, I used Erving Goffman’s research and

Holding Hands–Reaching out to the Characters in YOUR Story.   I lay by my son as he falls asleep. He curls his small cherub 4-year-old body next to mine and he wraps his little hand around my thumb. “I love you too,” he says. Then follows it with, “Say that to me.” As children we come into the world ready to grab hands, but having a hand only large enough to grab a finger – we start by wrapping five tiny fingers around the larger one of a caregiver –we do it without hesitation as we figure out how to reach out and connect, hold on to one another. In the case of my son, we even ask for what we need. As we get older we are much more careful about breaking those boundaries. We are careful to stay in our own spaces and too often we forget to reach out to one another. Today’s podcast is about connecting with touch: it’s about holding hands and how human touch links us, literally closes the gap between people, and how important that is – to all of us. Stories are our lives in language. Welcome to the

Random Acts of Kindness – Creating a Mystery The Dalai Lama said, “Right from the moment of our birth, we are under the care and kindness of our parents, and then later on in our life, when we are oppressed by sickness and become old we are again dependent on the kindness of others. Since at the beginning and the end of our lives we are so dependent on other’s kindness, how can it be that in the middle we neglect kindness toward others?” Stories are our lives in language. Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. I’m Lori Lee, and I’m excited for our future together of telling stories, evaluating our own stories, and lifting ourselves and others to greater places because of our control over our stories. This podcast is about empowerment and giving you, the listener, ideas to work with in making your stories work for you. Power serves you best when you know how to use it. Last week I told a story about floating down the San Juan river and how the people and experiences in our lives become touchstones of meaning

River Touchstones – A story from the San Juan River Heraclitus said, “You cannot step into the same river twice.” Today’s story takes this very literally. One thing I do not realize the first time I head for the river is that the person who steps onto the raft will not be the same person who steps off.  The water washes not only grains of sand from the belly of the rock; it washes from me my routine, takes me to a momentary place, a liminal space, where so many things cease to matter.  The consequences of the step onto the river are as opaque as the red silt water.  It is a time and space where, like the rock, I am carved… we are carved, yet added upon one grain at a time. Stories are our lives in language. Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. I’m Lori Lee, and I’m excited for our future together of telling stories, evaluating our own stories, and lifting ourselves and others to greater places because of our control over our stories. This podcast is about empowerment and giving you, the listener, ideas to

Allow for Miracles – Serendipity Stories Miracle comes from the Latin word miraculum (mirroraculoom), meaning to wonder or marvel. I believe in miracles. Today I’ve got some stories to tell you…yes, stories about unlikely happenings happening. In the mornings I say an abundance prayer. I learned it from my friend Tony and it goes something like this: “Thank you for the joyful abundance in my life and in the life of my family and friends. Thank you for the abundance that will come into my life today. And thank you for the abundance that I can bring to others today.” Every time I say the part about “thank you for the abundance that will come into our lives today,” I get excited. I’m like a kid waiting for his birthday, waiting to see what abundance and wonderful things will show up as the day progresses. It’s an exciting way to live – always waiting for the next generous miracle to show up. Stories are our lives in language. Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. I’m Lori Lee, and I’m excited for our future to

Team leaders, life coaches, team coaches, parents, teachers, strategy planners, anyone who needs to get people on the same page working toward the completion of a project – today’s podcast is especially for you. Episode 003 was our first episode for leaders, teaching you how to use story as a tool for defining origin, values, and vision. This is our second episode, especially for leaders. Stay tuned for a breakdown of the archetypes within the Heroes Journey and how you can use them to make perfect sense of where and how you need your team, family or group to move toward your final goal. In other words….leadership using the oldest and most reliable tool – story. When you are a leader you know how challenging it can to lead a group of individuals toward a goal. There are different ideas, personalities, viewpoints, skills, and agendas. Not everyone has the skill to lead, but those who do, and do it effectively, know that it takes skill, judgment, patience, planning, and tools. Today I’ll open the story to

Perhaps life is not about having all the answers, but about the journey of discovering them. Martha Beck, nationally renowned life coach, said, “No part of your experience is wasted. Everything you’ve experienced so far is part of what you were meant to learn.” When life is messy that’s a darn good thing to remember. Stories are our lives in language. Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. I’m Lori Lee, and I’m excited for our future together of telling stories, evaluating our own stories, and lifting ourselves and others to greater places because of our control over our stories. This podcast is about empowerment and giving you, the listener, ideas to work with in making your stories work for you. Power serves you best when you know how to use it. Last week we talked about how we make big things happen and this week we are going to talk bluntly about the messiness of life, and how that messiness is perfectly right. When I was really young, a child, I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I couldn’t

Thomas Edison said, “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” Stories are our lives in language. Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. I’m Lori Lee, and I’m excited for our future together of telling stories, evaluating our own stories, and lifting ourselves and others to greater places because of our control over our stories. This podcast is about empowerment and giving you, the listener, ideas to work with in making your stories work for you. Power serves you best when you know how to use it. Last week we talked about those devastating one liners and weeding them out. This week we’re telling stories about how you really get to have the things you want most. What it means to do what it takes to make something happen. When I was 18 I launched my own little hand-made jewelry business. I strung beautiful handmade beads on leather and I sold to ski resort gift shops. This was well before jewelery making was cool, or Michael’s a had a whole a

Little stories – one-liners, are sometimes the most powerful kryptonite in the story arsenal. Kryptonite had the power to drain Superman’s strength – it was the one thing that could bring him down. His Achilles heel. In fact, in the original comic it was suggested that he was a boring character because he had NO weaknesses. That was the point that Kryptonite was introduced into the story. We humans are anything but boring. Complex and filled with beautiful gifts, we also all have this voice in our heads that speaks to us, most often in derogative, critical tones, if not outright comments about our worth and our abilities. Let’s talk about this voice, these powerful one-liners, because they do the same thing to humans that kryptonite does to Superman. They take away our power, leave us weak and unable to use our strong and capable gifts. It’s time to get rid of them. Stories are our lives in language. Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. I’m Lori Lee, and I’m excited for our future together of telling stori

Rumi said, “People want to be happy. Don’t keep serving them your pain.” Forgiveness can be one of the most difficult things we get to do. Stay tuned for why that serves us, not the offender. And how holding onto the dark days means that we keep serving up our pasts to everyone we come in contact with. Stories are our lives in language. Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast.  I’m Lori Lee, and I’m excited for our future together of telling stories, evaluating our own stories, and lifting ourselves and others to greater places because of our control over our stories. This podcast is about empowerment and giving you, the listener, ideas to work with in making your stories work for you. Power serves you best when you know how to use it! Last week we looked at personal narrative research project I did and what I discovered about how we engage with risk. This week we are going to look at some ideas on forgiveness. At an emotional intelligence conference I attended mid-year 2016, I and a couple hundred other folks