SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to What Would Amber Do with your host, Amber Howard. Each week, Amber dances in conversation with inspirational leaders how to make a difference for what matters most to people. She brings you incredible guests who share their real life experiences of being a leader and what it looks like to live a truly creative life of service to others. And now, here is your host.

SPEAKER_04 0:28

Welcome back, everyone. Welcome back to What Would Amber Do? I am so excited, happy, thrilled this morning to be speaking with the extraordinary Sandy Parker. Sandy is an author, speaker, coach, and the founder and creative Spark behind the Creative Activation Institute. Sandy's can helps businesses and leaders retain employees, save money, broaden diversity, and sleep better at night. Who doesn't want that? Who doesn't want to sleep better at night? I'm really Sandy's commitment for people is that they, that each and every person knows that they have the power to create and create powerfully. Sandy, thank you so much for taking your time to share it with us this morning on the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

My privilege, my privilege, my privilege.

SPEAKER_04 1:21

So good. Well, you know, for the listeners, they know where this starts, right? What what brought you to this point, Sandy? How did you get to today? Tell me a little bit, tell us a little bit about your journey.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Okay, I will, but I'm first going to tell you my declaration for today. Please. Because I like to start by creating something. And uh you asked me this morning, you know, how do you normally get started? And I say, I show up, right? So here's my declaration. Magic runs through my veins, and wherever I am, there's invisible glitter. Now, why would I do that, right? Like, who cares about invisible glitter or magic? Well, if I create that in my mind and imagine it and declare it, who can possibly take that away from me? So in this very moment we've been together already, my day has been created. Right? Like people go, I'm not creative, you know. I don't do arts and crafts, I don't finger paint, I don't blah blah blah. And I'm like, okay, look, you show up. If you're in a moment of showing up, you're either generating it or creating it or riding it. Right? So, anyways, so I had to come out of the gate with a spark because that's who I am.

SPEAKER_04 3:03

Well, you I you know, for anyone who knows you, I think they would say you are literally like a walking glitter bomb. And like we're like waiting for this conversation. I've gotten to know you a little bit over the last few months, Sandy, and every interaction with you is just like, wow, this woman is just like energized and like bold, and you know, like you just can't, it the your energy is just such that, you know, and glitter is a great way to describe it. And it's like it's infectious, right? My daughter, I was just sharing with you before we started, her her brothers hate it, but Kayla will literally glitter bomb her brothers, and it brings her, and I think they secretly probably like it a little bit. I mean, they moan and groan and complain, or I complain because the glitter gets everywhere, but you know, like her delight in doing it, and there's just something about this like tiny, sparkly, shiny stuff that gets everywhere that's infectious, right? Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

Now, here's the funny question: why are the businesses not craving that? You know, I sell creativity, right? Nobody's looking for it. I mean, when I call on a company, I go, yeah, um, where would I do a creativity workshop in your company? They go, you might try marketing. Yeah, you might try, I don't know, you might ask HR. I'm like, I'm not gonna ask HR. I know on that list she does not have creativity. Isn't that crazy?

SPEAKER_04 4:46

It's funny because I hadn't really thought about it that way. And I've been in business for decades, right? But until you said that, and I'm like, yeah, well, I mean, businesses themselves are a creation, right? Like they get created from nothing, we create them, and then it, you know, it starts becoming about something else.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

If they don't continue to create the business they are, they'll be talking about the business they were.

SPEAKER_03 5:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

And everybody's going, um, you know, so anyway, I just I find that ironic because uh I I just was reading, I think it was hardware, but I might be wrong. But uh, 50% of the people think they're creative. So I have a quiz on my website, Creative Activation Institute.com, and you fill it out, and it's true. People uh one of the questions is do you think you're one of the most creative people you know? And hardly anybody says yes. Like we're comparing each other to a concept that isn't even finished, like we don't even know what it is, and we're already comparing ourselves to everybody else. So 50% of the people don't think they're creative, and 75% of the people think they are not fulfilling their creative potential.

SPEAKER_03 6:09

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Now, what does that tell us about the accounting department?

SPEAKER_04 6:13

The math's off there a little bit, right? It's interesting because there is this whole network of conversations, and I would even say for myself, like I for a while there I kind of fell into this like, oh, I'm not a creative person because I don't paint, or I, you know, I'm not a dancer, I'm not an artist. And and so I think that, and and it's interesting because now that I'm talking about this with you, Sandy, and talking about LAD, it's like all of those, like, unless you become famous for your art, all of the so-called creative endeavors in life don't pay really well, and we don't encourage our children to go do them, right? So, like, no wonder there's a lack of creativity in business because in the language and the networks of conversations about creativity, it it's associated with not making money.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

I like that. You know, I just learned something from you. That's true. The other thing that I find is the older we get, the less creative we are. It's sort of been beat out of us. Right? Go to go to a park. A kid knows what to do with some grass. They're like, right? They are dirt. Like I laugh about rocks, yeah. Like making mud pies. You know, we used to make, did you make mud pies when you were a kid? I did. You know, so you've got this beautiful thing, and you go, oh my gosh, look at that amazing mud pie. And if you're with somebody else, they're like, it is the best, the best mud pie I've ever had. Well, but life isn't like that anymore. We're not going, Amber, the miracle of Zoom, check it out.

SPEAKER_04 7:58

It's actually, you know, marveling this morning, right? So I'm getting ready to head off to Bali for a leadership summit for this incredible uh new, and there'll be more to come about that. So I don't want to make this conversation about that, but they're an incredible new um company tech platform that I'm gonna be working with. And um, and I was just so moved this morning when I looked at my life, like Sandy, and I was like, oh my God, I created this. Like, all of it, you know, and there's not like there's some stuff I had strip throat this week. It was a nightmare, like, but like I created that too. Like, I really do believe and I love your your message and your commitment that people really get. Because I think this is something that is a little bit of a heartbreak for me, is that most human beings walk around powerless in their own lives, not realizing that like they they are the ultimate creators of all of it. And that, you know, so if they can create a life that they hate, they can create a life that they don't want to get out of bed into in the morning by you know, by default, then they could also create a life that they loved.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Well, I have a story that I like to use when I when I'm in a speaking gig, um, and it's related to let's say you inherited a house. You got a house, and it had the grossest decoration, like muted colors you don't like, a kitchen laid out where the silverware isn't even where it ought to be, and you know, the front yard's a mess. Like, let's say you inherited this place, but you lived in it over and over and over for years, and it never occurred to you to decorate it in a way that would inspire you, and you go, I hate this couch, it's so old, and blah blah blah blah blah. But the truth of it is our life is like that. We inherited a lot, we inherited culture, we inherited customs, we inherited uh inherited what we do and don't do as children. I knew at two years old what I was able to do and not able to do, right? And so now here I am, 65, and I could say, you know what, I am redecorating my whole house to be black and white and totally modern with a big vase of white calalilies on the table, and then wake up to a to a house I love. Well, we see that in interior design, right? We love those makeover shows. But we could be a makeover show, right?

SPEAKER_04 10:51

I love it. No, I it's it's such a perfect analogy because um because it's so apt. You know, we are we get born into networks of conversations, we get born into a life, we get given a name, we, you know, by the time we're even really old enough to realize it, we've been given an identity by the people around us who view us a certain way. And then we make, you know, like we all of those things start to filter the world for us, and then we make decisions about the world and take actions based on those decisions and collect more and more evidence about this house and the way it is and the way we are and the furniture that's in the house and how it has, you know, and it you could just you could really play in that. And you know, you could also take a freaking wreck ball to the house. You could be like, I don't like this house anymore. I don't want to live in a house, I want to live in a condo, or I want to live on a houseboat, or you know, like I I'm gonna, I'm and and uh when I really look back, it's interesting. I just heard a podcast interview about my and it was incredible, and I'm I'm really grateful about my journey from victim to victory. And uh there are parts of my life that really feel like a completely different life now.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Isn't that beautiful? It is you can hardly remember it, yeah. Right? Well, um, I have two tricks for people if they want to know where their house might be decorated in the wrong way.

SPEAKER_03 12:24

Please bring them on. I love this.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Yeah, one is what area of your life do you just not like? And I have an inventory I can give you, or if anybody's interested, ask for it. And it'll take you right through your life and it'll go. Oh, you go, oh, that's fun. And then so that's a that's a cue. The other one is where you are resistant. I love this one. So when I do workshops, I start out of the gate with something that I expect will disrupt their happiness, right? In in a moment. I go, okay, we're gonna do a little exercise. It doesn't matter what I'm about to say, there will be resistance. So I'm like, okay, in yourself, listen to any resistance. Like somebody will go, who does she think she is, or why am I doing this? Or that what's inside of that? If we could write it down and capture it instead of focus on it and not gain from it, it would tell us so much about what could be altered in our house. Right? And um, yeah, so I just love that. And people go, I don't, I don't even like my resistance. I'm like, perfect, let's work on that. Where is it? Let's look at it, let's play with it, or like you said, let's dance with it and see what we can learn. And it often goes back to another time in our life when something happens and it reminds us of that, and that gives us a chance to recreate our life.

SPEAKER_04 14:09

I'm smiling right now, Sandy, because I'm just like getting we get born into these houses, we never remodel them or do anything about them, and then we live in a world of it shouldn't be that way. Like the house should be some other way than the house is, right? Because I think that's part of it as well. Because I think before you can start to create, there has to be a little bit of an acceptance of what's so, right? This is where I am today, right? This is like the reality of where I am in the moment, and then, you know, and also completion of what's come before. I think that's part of like, you know, because to me, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, you know, I believe, and it's funny as I'm saying this, it's like you get what you say. So if I say it, then it then it may I make it true for myself. But um, anyway, this moment in my life, I think there's some some truth to the this idea that you can't create on top of. And so if you really want to create from nothing, if you want to remodel the house, then there may be things that you need to look at and deal with from the past, not like to go and excavate and dig up and try and figure out why, but at least, you know, you perhaps forgive yourself or other people for those things. Perhaps, you know, give up whatever beliefs that you might have that came with that house, right? Around money or or or relationships or life, or you know, um, but it's in that as you clear those, and I think the resistance that you're speaking of point to perhaps those things that there are for us to complete or you know, to to just manage, even acknowledge, because I think sometimes the power is in just as you said, like speaking it, writing it down, so then then you can kind of release it.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Yeah, I had a client one time, she's one of my very, very favorite people, but um, you know, we have an allegiance to what we were given, even though we resist it and fight it. So, on one hand, if we just live in the house, decorated as it was, then we live like a victim. We just feel like we got given that, and that's what we get. But then there's an allegiance to we go to change it, we feel the pull. So this client, her name is Dorothy, she was like 80-something years old, living in the family house on a farm. And I in just in conversation, I said, You could live anywhere, where would it be? And she said, I'd live right downtown in a building with a Starbucks on the first floor. And I'm like, Dorothy, why are you living out in the country? And she goes, Well, this was this is my family home. I'm like, Okay, well, you have no kids, you're 80 years old. If you sold the family farm, who's gonna really be upset about it? So she she said, you know what? She started, she was married, and so she started talking to her husband about, I think I'll have an estate sale. And then, you know, he said, Oh my gosh, I love clearing this stuff out. And she goes, you know what? Who would it be like if we didn't have to take care of all this land? And he goes, Oh my gosh, it'd be fabulous. And she had this allegiance to her family farm, and there's nobody to be allegiant. I don't know, is that a word? Anyway, so now created it. I know, so now she lives downtown. She sold the farm. This is buddy, sold the farm for two million dollars. She bought a condo in a high rise downtown with a Starbucks on the on the first floor. And if we hadn't been in that conversation, she wouldn't even know what she wants. Now, how about that?

SPEAKER_04 18:11

So good. That that desire muscle gets weak over time, right? Because I think we gotta beat it out of children, and I don't mean that literally, but just like we grind it down by constantly, you know, teaching them from our own past beliefs and what we were taught. Hey, those things that, you know, those parts of the house that get handed down over and over again generationally, you know, about what's possible and what's not possible, and and don't ask for that, or do you know you want too much, or you know, and so we take the parts of children that are super creative and you know can see anything is possible, and then we we that slowly gets we we stop using that creativity, that muscle that in wanting, like just wanting. Someone said we I was uh leading this introduction on the weekend. We were talking about like you know, where in the areas of your life are you not living a created life, right? You know, and one of the people who was at the event was like, you know, wanting just for the sake of wanting, regardless of whether you got that thing or not. But just like what gets created inside of wanting.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Yeah, so check this out. Two things, you know, my mind is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. One is, you know how our wanting is diminished. Uh, we can see it when the lottery gets really big. The conversation starts going like this uh 400 million dollars, what would you do with it? And people go, oh, I would change my backyard, oh, I would go to Paris, oh, I would like our wantings, like that it's possible to have what we want, takes the top off, and we let ourselves start thinking about what we might want, which we don't normally do because what if we don't have a chance to get it? That's just one more, you know. So you're right, we have a cap on our wanting, right?

SPEAKER_04 20:14

There's this great. I oh sorry, that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

The other the other thing is we have to create that we can create. Like we, I in one of the workshops I did, I said, okay, we're gonna say I can create. We're gonna say it out loud, and we have to have a pass by everybody in the room. I am someone who can create, and they'll go, I'm someone who can create. You're like, oh boy, that's powerful. And we have to get to the point that we we are someone who can create.

SPEAKER_04 20:53

Because what's there by default is that I'm not creative.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

We inherited everything. We we just so talking about the seven uh principles of creative activation, which those two words creative activation mean something, it's in all of us, it just has to be activated, right? So the first two are are my favorite, but they're almost the simplest. And one is detect drift. If we're a boat on the water and we're adrift, then we're just going where the wind blows. But we don't know what we don't know in terms of where we're drifting. We we just aren't aware of it, and then the second one is crack constraint. Like, yeah, I know you're you are familiar with landmark, and I was a coach for one of the participants in the introduction leader program, and she just couldn't. Not be unreasonable. I mean, she was so reasonable and so polite and so pretty that if if I said, Okay, you got to do something unreasonable, let's crack that constraint. And she's like, No, no, I can't possibly. I said, Okay, look, get in the car, we're going to Starbucks. I love Starbucks, I guess you can tell. Um so we go, we go through the drive-thru and I say, I'd like a venti skinny crumble macchiato, but I'd like it in two cups. If you could put half in one cup and the other half in another cup, that would just tickle me pink. And this lady is like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I mean you could just feel it in the car that she was asking for something unreasonable. Or I was asking, and she was uncomfortable. So we got to the window, and the lady said, Here's your coffee. And I went, thank you so much for doing that. Did you wonder why I was asking for that? She was, well, I kind of wondered, but okay, whatever, no big deal. And I was showing uh gosh, I can't remember her name, but she was so uptight that she would ask of life something a little unreasonable. And I'm like, let's play with it, let's play with being unreasonable and crack out, break out, you know, into life. You know, there's a I think a quote that says break out of black and white into color. You know, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_04 23:38

Both of those steps or you know, principles speak to me of awareness, right? Like first I gotta like even get the awareness that I'm a drift, right? Like that I'm not, you know, like that is like a whole level, right? Of and and then the awareness of the constraint, the awareness of the limitation. And and it's so I'm I'm I'm very kind of that story about Starbucks. For me, I wouldn't, that wasn't the word I would use. For me, it's appropriateness. Like I spent my whole life having to be appropriate or avoiding being inappropriate, right? And and and according to whom? I don't even know, but at a very young age, it was like, I don't want to be a bad girl, or I'm a bad girl. And there's this whole, like in the wisdom course, uh, you know, which I know you're familiar with, Sandy. Like, we I just tracked this whole network of conversations that got started around the time I was four, that that I can see throughout my entire life, you know, that probably happened in response to something that had nothing to do with me, right? You know, like then nothing to do with me. And in that moment, I made a decision about something about myself and about life. And and then all of a sudden, what got created was Amber's gotta be appropriate.

SPEAKER_01 24:55

How limiting is appropriate? Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04 24:58

Well, and it's so funny because until you start talking about it with people, I met someone who's like, oh, I never feel the need to be appropriate, like it's not even a consideration. And then you get, oh wow, there's all of these different people out there, and they don't, they're not made up of the same things as me. And there are some people who never feel that need to be appropriate. They, you know, it's not even part of their thinking. And um, and that's beautiful. And before I want to hear the other principles, but before we go too much further, what you were saying earlier about wanting, I I, you know, I've discovered something. There's this great app, and I'm I'm I'm not an affiliate or anything, everyone. So, but it's even if I was, it wouldn't matter, I guess. But it's called the Secret to Money app, and it's like $6.99 Canadian. And every day, you start off with a $250 check. So every day, and you can put your money goals in there, and there's like money, you know, all of these affirmations and stuff like that. But every day you log on to the app and you get a check. And the checks, if you spend the whole check, right, they go up and they eventually increase if you play it long enough to you're getting a million dollars every morning. And as long as you spend the entire check, you'll wake up the next day and though in your app, there will be another million dollar check. And why it was so powerful for me is I got to see how limited my wanting was. And right when I first started playing it, it was like, you know, 250 bucks. Oh, I need a new bedsheets, or I need this, or and but as the checks got bigger and bigger, and they kept, you know, there was a period I like I didn't know what to spend the money on anymore. And I thought, oh my lord, I need a bigger shopping list. Not, you know, like, oh, what charities? And then I realized the more money every day the million dollars came in. I started getting like everyone was getting a house and like people were going on vacations. I was taking the whole, you know, my whole community in Toronto on vacation. I was renting out a resort, I was like paying off people's debt because I think that's what you know, they say money accelerates what's already there. And if you're a generous person by nature, the more of it you have, the more you want to contribute to other people, right? I just thought that was really interesting, and it was a good way. Me seeing.

SPEAKER_01 27:20

I love that, you know, because I don't know if you've ever played the giving game, but what in you know, youth group or something that we would all get a roll of uh pennies, okay, and then your the object of the game is to give all the one with the least amount of pennies wins, and you can't give away fast enough because people are giving to you, and you're trying, you can't give away fast enough to get to nothing, and it's it's a real visual because you go, I can't ever be without. Like there's there's that much coming to me that I can't give it away. And we just had a conversation the other day, and we were talking about uh Chris Kickless, who you know, he was like, I'm gonna give you $10,000, I'm gonna give you $500, how you're gonna spend it, I'm gonna give you $500,000, how you're gonna spend it, I'm gonna give you five million dollars. And the more money was there, the more extravagant people got. And on the lower end, just like you were saying about that app, you know, if I had an extra five dollars, I'll buy a cup of coffee. You know, it's not that extravagant. So, anyway, I love that. I'm gonna play a game with that. Well, of course, you know I love to play games, so I know you love to play games, yes.

SPEAKER_04 28:39

So tell me more about these principles. I'd love to hear more about the principles of creative activation.

SPEAKER_01 28:44

Well, I will tell you, and I want to go all the way back to how I think I got this.

SPEAKER_03 28:51

Okay. And you know, dancing in conversation with you, Sandy. It's like a day, it's like a dance I've never done before.

SPEAKER_04 28:58

I'm like, I'm like, I don't know these, I don't know these steps. It's like, oh, I think I know what dancing in conversation is. And then I dance with Sandy Parker, and I'm like, oh, we are literally inventing a new step every moment. It's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

I hope it's not exhausting. No, I actually think it's invigorating. Well, what's what's really funny about what I'm gonna say, it's the least likely source of this attitude. Do you know the movie The Sound of Music?

SPEAKER_04 29:29

Oh, I love that movie.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

I it's my favorite movie. So I was about six or seven when it came out, and I saw this nun who was apt to be inappropriate, apt to be up to the hills with her guitar, apt to be up to what's the not the next thing a nun would do. Right? And I thought, I want to be, I want to be a nun, and I want to be a nun like that. Well, I didn't even know you had to be Catholic to be a nun, so I'm just going, okay, I'm gonna be a nun, I'm gonna be a nun like that. I'm gonna play the guitar, I'm gonna teach children, you know. I got this whole concept around being free, like from a movie. Is that the craziest thing?

SPEAKER_04 30:25

I love it. And I'm like sitting here going, I probably watched that movie and thought that Maria was like a rule breaker. And it's so interesting the different ways in which we interact with something, right? I loved the movie, I thought it was great, but again, like the you know, like viewed through, like if your world view is from appropriate, not appropriate, then anything that seemed, and and you know, those standards came from somewhere. In my family, they were you know, Judeo-Christian, most of them, right? Um, because that was the kind of you know, um upbringing I had. But it's interesting because there's also been, you know, talk about a kind of a paradoxical human being, as much as what's driven most of my life has been appropriate, not appropriate, from a very young age. There's also been this very rebellious street to me, right? So it's like you're not gonna tell me what to do. I don't want to be controlled. I'm gonna do what I, you know, so it's like that tension that gets created, but even the rebellion is a response to it's not created rebellion.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

If you could do anything you want, you wouldn't be, you wouldn't be creating out of not being able to do something.

SPEAKER_03 31:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

So for me, I go like in just this one moment, like I know every word in the movie, right? A captain and seven children was so fearsome about that. Oh, I must stop these doubts, all these worries. If I don't, I just know I'll turn back. I must seek for the things I'm seeking, right? I'm seeking the courage I lack. Well, if we went into the moments of life like that, I must do it before I turn back, right? I just gotta get in it. What a great message for a young girl. So I got that. I was given that at a young age. Isn't that so great?

SPEAKER_04 32:28

The power of creativity, right? Like you got your whole life out of, you know, this this movie that got created by someone, you know, um at the age of seven, you know.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

It's I mean, it's really interesting for you to say, you know, you thought she was inappropriate. I thought she was like everything you should be. Like the thing. You know, I even learned to sew. I mean, it was like I'm taking all this on. This is who I'm gonna be. So I started creating my life, and and I'm very different from my family. My family, they were all athletes. My dad was a golf pro, my mother played tennis all the time, my brother was a jock, and I was sewing and writing music and you know, laying in the grass. One of my very favorite things was to get up in the morning and go lay in the grass and just go, oh my god, this dude is just a miracle. Um, I just thought that was the greatest thing that the earth woke up like that and just had this freshness. So I'm a little bit off. You can tell, but hey, I've lived in my life. I love it. I love it, I love it, I love it. So back to the principles. Do we we a do we really need principles? We don't, and they're there. So there you they're used, it's a toolbox, right? So in a workshop, I can give people tools. So if they name it and declare it and own it and work on it, they can get close to it, right? But we don't really need those tools as much as we need the awareness of where we don't have those tools.

SPEAKER_04 34:17

I love that. You know, I have frameworks that I use in my business, you know, the toolkits, different things that I pull from. And I think um it's it's great when they don't become the truth about something, right? It's like doesn't have to be this way, like you just said. We don't, but they can help direct us to focus on something or help us give us language, because I think that's part of it. You know, when I started my my career in business, I kind of fell into fell into business. I, you know, I didn't wasn't formally trained in it or anything, and I learned on the job for like three years, and then I went out to try and find more work, and I kept going to job interviews and I'd get turned down time and time again, even though I had experience, it was because I didn't know the language that they were speaking, I didn't understand that when they said something, it meant this. And yeah, I had done that, but I didn't know how to talk about it in terms of the language that they were using. So I think, you know, if you've someone who's gone through your entire life inside of this view of I'm not creative and that inherited house, then you know having new language to be able to create with.

SPEAKER_01 36:06

You know, because I was thinking what's really funny is people go creative. Well, accounting is the last place. They want anybody to be creative, right? But but someone created QuickBooks and they created QuickBooks using accounting principles, like accounts receivable, accounts payable. If there wasn't accounts receivable and accounts payable, it couldn't be formed, it couldn't be created. So uh it's funny. Boy, that accounting is like the last place where people want to be creative. But the truth is, if you've ever tried to reconcile books and you don't go look outside of the lines, you're not gonna find the answer. You have to actually go create possibility, even in accounting, to reconcile the books. So it's funny, we're it is so about what we inherited that um storytelling is the best way to invigorate your creativity, uh, to just start telling a story about it and run into the characters, right? Like we used to do this. I don't know if I made it up or somebody, we used to take Bible stories and do this back in school or in uh uh church. What if you were every character in the story? What would you be feeling and what would you be thinking? So you can do that in the workplace. Like, what if you're everybody in this scene? What would you be thinking and what would you be feeling? Because your perspective or your context is everything.

SPEAKER_04 38:07

That that just right there is so brilliant, Sadie, because it would really give people the ability to have grace and compassion. Like if I can, you know, and that's something that's hugely missing, especially right now with everything that's going on in the world and and what's been we've been dealing with for the last two years. And um, you know, I remember I remember talking to one of the VPs of the hospital about, you know, just people and what's been going on. And she said, you know, I really do think there are two groups of people in all of this, like around the pandemic, goes people who've like been running at the speed of, you know, like they haven't been able to stop because, you know, they either because they're trying to save their businesses or they work in healthcare and they're responsible for people's lives, and or they have people they're caring for, or but people haven't been able to stop. And then other people who've been at the effect of whatever constraints have been put on them. And she goes, and they've each got their own set of stresses and concerns and views, and they just don't understand the other perspective. They just can't understand if you're someone who's been running for your life, you can't understand someone who's so upset and angry by the constraints. And if you haven't been running for your life, then you can't understand the constraints, right? And I and I only bring that up as an example because, like back to the workplace, it's like the more I can, and I, you know, it's we've we've heard it our whole lives, walk a mile in someone else's shoes, you know, like get over there where they are and try and understand the world from their perspective. What must it be like to be a leader right now in the world? What must it like to be, you know, prime minister or president of a country, given the current set of circumstances? What must it like to be a mother or a father with not knowing what's going to happen with your kids and their education and you know, how are they gonna be impacted? What's it like to be a new person entering the workforce after, you know, never having been in, you know, they may never go into an office their whole work life now, maybe yeah. I thought about all that a little while ago. It's like there are people who entered the workforce during COVID and they may never go into the traditional office. Well, how does that impact socialization and relationship building and all of these things that we take for granted that the office provided, right? So it's like, but if I could, as you said, from a point of storytelling, like put myself in their story, you know, it would give me access to grace and grace and compassion and empathy.

SPEAKER_01 40:47

Well, um, you know, I'm an author and I wrote a book. Yes, you did. And um, what's funny is I don't, it's not that I don't like children, it's that, but I wrote a children's book, right? But uh I don't like reading to children in a group. Like you go to a children's library and there's a hundred of them, and you go, oh my god, I'm gonna go crazy. I mean, it's just not what I want to do. But this book that I wrote called uh Lumi Finds Her Light is my story of finding what lights me up. And I did this real um unusual training um coaching school in Spain, and everything around this coaching school is based on what lights you up. And I'm gonna show you in my face so you can just see, but I know you're listening audibly to this, so just imagine when I ask someone what they do for work, they go, I'm an um, you know, I'm in marketing or whatever. And then you say, well, if you could do anything you wanted, what would it be? And they they they go like this. Well, I would like their face expands, their eyes open, their cheeks lift. There's this real animation of humanness, of vitality that happens when someone is doing or thinking about what really lights them up, like light as in energetically boosts their um their spirit. What are you thinking? I'm so so curious now. I see your face. I'm like, tell me what you're thinking.

SPEAKER_04 42:37

Well, that's that's why I get out of bed every morning. Because I my commitment is that people get to live a created life of their own design based on what they authentically want, right? So it's like that, whatever pulls, you know, you like literally, like you guys people listening to the show can't but see Sandy. But when she asked that question and she, you know, like you literally got pulled forward. And I think like whatever it is that lights us up pulls us forward towards something, it doesn't like, you know. I mean, if people, you know, some of the people in my life, like in your Europe up to a lot too, like no one has to convince me to get out of bed in the morning because I'm living a life that pulls me forward. And and and that is that, you know, I think this is a um, I could talk to you forever, and I I think there'll probably be lots of upper more opportunities to have you back on the show, Sandy, at some other point in time. But really, like I think this is the perfect place to end this conversation for right now and for the listeners to really be in that inquiry. Because if you could do anything with your life, you know, what would you do? What pulls you forward, what lights you up? And um, Sandy, you are just oh, I don't even know if there's language to express.

SPEAKER_01 43:58

Well, there is a word, bright light.

SPEAKER_04 44:01

You are bright light, you are a spark, you are joyful, you are delightful, you are uh all of that and so much more. You are to bring it full circle to your declaration. You are the invisible glitter in life, and just thank you so much for being here. And uh my day is just gonna sparkle, like you're gonna tell. You know, I my day is just gonna sparkle from having been around Gioa. So just thank you so much for being here.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

Thank you for being you, Amber. And I love being with you. And um, I'll come back, we'll do more.

SPEAKER_04 44:37

Yes, we will. For anyone listening to this conversation, you can find out how to get a hold of Sandy and check out her book. And and you know, there's lots that she's up to in the world, and and so many things around people's bodies and spirits and and businesses. So all of that will be available in the show notes. Thank you so much for joining in and listening to us this morning. Have a great week.

SPEAKER_00 44:59

Thank you so much for joining us for this week's episode. For more information on the show and our extraordinary guests, check out whatwoodamberdo.com.