Sept. 5, 2025
Why Your Unique Story Deserves to Be Heard: Lessons I learned from a Cyndi Lauper Concert
In this heartfelt episode, I open up about my personal journey and the experiences that led me to podcasting. From childhood dance recitals to a recent Cyndi Lauper concert, I reflect on the power of storytelling and its impact on our lives.
I share my unexpected path from higher education to podcast coaching, including the challenges and uncertainties I've faced along the way. This episode is a reminder that it's okay to question your direction and feel uncertain at times - we all do.
Key themes explored in this episode:
- The importance of sharing our stories, especially for women and marginalized voices
- How life experiences shape our personal and professional journeys
- Navigating career transitions and finding your passion
- The therapeutic and connective power of podcasting
- Balancing self-doubt with the drive to make a difference
I also discuss the various ways I support podcasters and aspiring speakers, from budget-friendly podcast launches to strategic guest appearances.
A call to action for listeners:
I invite you to reach out and share your podcasting needs, challenges, and goals. What support are you looking for? How can I help you amplify your voice and story? Email me and let me know: julie@podcastyourstorynow.com
This episode serves as a reminder that your experiences and perspective matter. Even in moments of doubt, remember: your story deserves to be heard, and someone out there needs to hear it.
Your Story Matters
Women's Story Matter
Thanks for the Reminder Cyndi!
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00:00 - Introduction and Personal Reflection
04:20 - Cyndi Lauper's Final Concert Experience
10:33 - The Importance of Sharing Stories
22:58 - My Career Journey and Health Challenges
29:27 - Transitioning to Podcasting and Business
35:28 - How I Help Others and Looking Forward
WEBVTT
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Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of Podcast your Story.
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I am your host, julie Marty Pearson.
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I apologize if my throat is a little scratchy, fighting a bit of a cold, but I realized that one of the things I haven't done on this podcast is really tell a little bit more of my own story and share with all of you who I am, why I have a podcast, what I do in my business and what got me here.
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Do in my business and what got me here.
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I'm not going to make it a huge long story, which I can do Podcasters are really good at that and I've shared parts of my story here before.
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I've shared parts of my story on other people's podcasts that I've been guesting on.
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But I really wanted to talk to you a little bit about just who I am now and like what really got me here.
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And I think some of this was brought up by a recent event that I attended.
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I was lucky enough to attend a concert a few days ago.
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A few days ago, that concert was Cyndi Lauper.
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All my fellow Gen Xers, xennials, etc.
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Understand the importance of Cyndi.
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You know I grew up in the time of Girls Just Want to have Fun, 1984.
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I don't know how many times I listened to that song over and over again on our cassette players or requesting it on the radio, which is what you had to do back in the day.
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And you know we love Cindy, we loved her energy and her message and her fun music.
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And in 1984 I was a part of a very fancy dance recital held in my childhood home's garage with big white I don't think they were curtains, I think they were sheets hung around the back so you couldn't see all the junk piled up.
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And also, which is a really funny thing that we laugh about now is in the photos, which I will share some when I put this episode out, the oil pans that were down for the two cars in the garage.
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You know, to catch the oil they didn't move those.
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We had to dance around them.
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That was a funny thought that just came to me.
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I'm a very visual person so when I think about things like, the images pop in my head.
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And that just popped in my head Now.
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We all danced my sister and I, many of my friends did, you know, dance classes and did official dance recitals on real stages and all of that.
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But this was a summer, let's do something fun, have a project.
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So we all wore mostly outfits we, you know, had from other dance recitals.
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I wore part of one of mine and my friend who is the same age as me, but I was always much bigger than everyone.
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I was a head or so taller than anyone my age.
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She was wearing my outfit from a year or two before All of that to say that summer, our neighborhood girls.
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So I lived on a cul-de-sac and there were a few boys on the street, but all of the girls hung out together.
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We went house to house, swimming and playing and doing all the fun things.
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There was myself, my sister who was in charge, and then three other girls my age and a little younger, and so we each had a solo.
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My solo was to Like a Virgin and we have watched we have a VHS of this, we have a video that we've watched over the years that we were like our moms, let us dance to Like a Virgin, like it's just so funny, had my signature hip move, just so many fun memories.
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But our finale that all five of us danced together was Cyndi Lauper's Girls Just Wanna have Fun, and so you know she's an icon to us.
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We call ourselves the Marnie Lane girls Get to hang out together once in a while through the years of all the different weddings and babies and graduations and all those things.
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But that was like a seminal moment in our lives, captured on VHS and in photos that I've shared before on social.
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When it came up that Cindy was playing in LA at the Hollywood Bowl, which is a little less than two hours from me my friend Karen, who was one of the ones dancing with us that day or night I do have to go back when we say it was a dance recital.
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We practiced.
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It was at night, so it was in the evening.
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We had the whole garage cleared out for us to dance.
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We had folding chairs lined up in the driveway.
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The boys several of the boys in the neighborhood were DJs.
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They were on the boom box playing the music for us.
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We made up little pamphlets.
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We had popcorn.
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It was a full production on Marnie Lane.
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All the neighbors came out whether one of their kids were in it or not.
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So this was a big deal and Cindy was a very big part of my childhood.
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I never saw her in concert.
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It wasn't everything, ever anything that ever came across my experience, that would be something I could do, and so my friend had seen that she was playing at the Hollywood Bowl after she had taken one of her sons to see Jesus Christ Superstar there recently, and so she said we should go.
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So we said, yes, we got tickets, and then we realized the night we were supposed to go, her other son was leading the band at the high school football team, and so we're like, oh well, we can't go.
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So we thought we'll have to sell them whatever.
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That didn't happen.
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Long story short, hollywood Bowl.
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Let us switch it to the next night, to the Saturday night that we did not know until we were there that it was her final concert of her farewell tour, her last concert she was ever doing.
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It was a full production.
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They were filming it for a TV or a movie or something.
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Several times they actually redid the whole song because she wasn't happy with it or something happened that wasn't right.
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It was crazy and it was one of those things that could have easily been like oh, we can't go.
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It didn't happen, but it did and we were there and we had no idea.
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It was crazy and it was one of those things that could have easily been like, oh, we can't go.
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It didn't happen but it did and we were there and we had no idea it was the very last show ever and they kept talking about how we have all these special guests.
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These special guests and the opening act was like special guests.
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One of them made me cry when I met them and we were like what is happening?
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What is happening Throughout the concert.
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Of course, she played all the big songs, but one of the things that really struck me is, before almost every song, she told us a story behind the song of why it was written when it was written, what was happening in her life, her career and as a podcaster as someone who has a podcast called Podcast your Story, who one of my taglines is your Story Matters and I was actually wearing my your Story Matters t-shirt at the concert.
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It was like, okay, there's a reason I'm here, there's a reason I'm hearing this, there's a reason I'm like, yes, our stories matter, our stories need to be told, women's stories matter, women's stories need to be told, and so it was this kind of existential experience.
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But also seeing Cindy, and she was exactly who you think she is like, exactly what you've ever seen of her.
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That's her personality, the way she talks and she did voices and she's just an amazing human being and singer and performer and artist.
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And yeah, it was a very powerful experience, but also a community experience because we were all bonding with all these strangers around us as we're like who's coming next, oh my God, and I have video and you could actually hear us like freaking out as different people joined her.
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So it started with about halfway through her part of the concert she was joined on stage by the one and only Joni Mitchell.
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Now I will say that's not somebody that I would have ever even like had come to my mind.
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I know that she is older now and when I have seen her on TV or something, she's always sitting.
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You know, her mobility may be not great, but I mean the crowd literally lost our minds once we realized that's who it was and there was a little blip when they sang it and I think Joni had coughed at one point.
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So they redid the whole song.
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It was amazing.
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We got to hear it twice.
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And then I'm trying to think time after time, she had us all put our you know, phone lights on, so the whole 15,000 or whatever people at the Hollywood Bowl had our lights on and Cindy talked about how we're all lights but how we're all a community, and she was singing.
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And then John Legend walked out in this amazing full length black sparkle coat and I mean, his voice is amazing.
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Someone I love, I've never seen a concert.
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And so we all freaked out.
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And then True Colors, which you know is so important, such an important song about being who you are and owning who you are and showing yourself fully but also allowing everybody to be exactly who they are yourself fully, but also allowing everybody to be exactly who they are.
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And then she was joined on stage during that by SZA and at the end they held up the pride flag and and then they redid that one again.
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It was just it was such a weird experience because we, you know, you were like a part of the making of this story and artist and all of these things and getting to watch them kind of be like that wasn't right.
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We're going to do that again.
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And other thing I loved is the whole time is you actually physically could see Cindy leading the band.
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It wasn't the band played and she followed.
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It was her counting and her moving her hand to conduct them and being like no faster up.
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This, you know, was such an immersive experience.
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And then, of course, the song of course I was waiting for, we were all waiting for.
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Girls Just Want to have Fun was her closing song, her very last song.
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She started singing it and she said I have a gal who you know, she's a little newer, you might know her.
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She's going to join me.
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She starts singing, she kind of moves to the stage.
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You can tell she's changing outfits again.
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She changed her outfit, she changed her wig.
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It was crazy, it was amazing.
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She even showed a little behind the scenes at one point of her being changed in the background while talking to us.
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So we see her putting on her coat for whatever this new visual image is for this last song.
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And as she's doing that, someone walks out from the middle of the stage and you know we're pretty far up and nobody saw it first.
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And then they show oh, it's Cher in a matching coat, with Cindy as she's changing and the two of them saying girls just want to have fun.
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And at the end Cindy also said you know they started singing, but they were singing and mixing it up and Cindy's like girls just want to have fundamental rights.
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People just want to have fundamental rights and that's a big campaign.
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Cindy has been a part of, using her voice, her song, her platform to advocate for women and it was just this energy that there's an energy at concerts, but it was on a whole other level because it really was like this immersive experience with them performing and everyone around us.
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And you know, this concert was full of Gen Xers and baby boomers, like very few millennials and down, I would say.
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Some kids were with parents, but for the most part it was us, it was women and gay men who Sunny was an icon for all different versions of people.
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But you know our generation, who she really spoke to and we were a part of her experience and her journey and her career.
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To get to experience that and you could tell a few times as she started to sing or was talking, she would get choked up and start to cry a little bit because we were all at the same time realizing we're witnessing her seeing some of these songs for possibly the last time ever live.
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And you know, sometimes they come back and do another Fair World tour or whatever.
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We don't know what all of that is, but it was such a powerful connective experience and I think there was a reason I was there in terms to remind myself that I very easily get down on what I'm doing with my business, with my podcast.
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Is anyone listening?
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Does anyone care?
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Does this matter?
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And especially in business?
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Because you know, there's so many online businesses, so many online coaches, so many podcasts, so many podcasters, that you feel like you're one in a sea of millions of the same.
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And I know that's not true, but we still get in our head.
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I get in my head all the time.
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And so, bringing all of this to why I'm having this episode to just kind of talk about myself and my own journey was I needed that reminder that there were points at which Cindy talked about, where she questioned herself, where she said, well, I did that and, like, I don't know what's next, I don't know how to keep this going, and other people would remind her.
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Well, there's chapters in our life.
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Every chapter has a close and a new beginning and you never may know what that is, but you have to just do it.
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You have to push yourself.
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And she talked about, you know, being involved in movies like the Goonies and writing songs that other people, sang and sharing her own story and why that was important, and talking about her upbringing in New York and how her family was all immigrants that came here and struggled and you just you forget this aspect of our.
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Stories are important because somebody else needs to hear that it's OK to be having a hard time, it's OK to question yourself, it's OK to feel like why am I doing this?
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Does this matter?
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Does anyone care?
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Does my voice matter?
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Does my story matter?
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Does what I'm doing in my business matter?
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I mean, the world is so overwhelming most days and so negative and not sure where everyone is listening from, but here in the United States, every day is a roller coaster of negativity and awfulness and sadness and you just think what could possibly come next.
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So all of that to say that, whatever you feel a calling to do or say or share or speak, do it, because it may not be immediately obvious why you needed to or who needed to hear it or who needed to see it, but there is this ripple effect and the only way we're going to get through anything hard, any struggles, struggles, any uphill battles, which I feel like everything is financial difficulty, losing loved ones, grief, loss all of it, whether it's the loss of a home or to a fire, which happened here this year for so many people, loss of a loved one, loss of a pet, loss of a job or a marriage, you know, there's just so many things that we're all grieving and you can't tell by looking at someone what they're going through.
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But one of the reasons podcasting is so powerful and so connective is because it is very intimate.
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All of you out there listening to this right now, wherever you are, you're choosing to turn it on on your computer or put it on in your headphones or your earpods or whatever it may be, or pull this up on YouTube.
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And that's a powerful thing to know that people choose to listen to you and your voice and what you have to say.
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And a lot of times in podcasting you don't know, you feel like, is anybody listening?
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Does anybody care?
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We can look at numbers and data that say this many people hit download or this many people listen for five minutes or whatever it may be, but it really is in a vacuum in a lot of ways.
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And there are so many incredible people in podcasting.
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There are so many incredible women that I have often talked to myself out of talking about things or doing things because it's like, oh well, they've done that, that's fine, they did it so well.
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No one wants to hear my version, but also, that's what podcasting is, is no one?
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Of course, no one else is going to be like me, or I can't be like them, because we're all uniquely different, from the genetics that made us, to our experiences, to where we live, and you know how we were raised.
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Whatever it may be, and as someone who, five years ago, I probably wouldn't believe you if someone told me I was going to have a podcast, let alone two, let alone multiple other ideas for podcasts in my head, I've always had something to say, but I've always been a quieter person, definitely an introvert with respect to.
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I regain my energy alone or with one or two people, or at home, but I've always had something to say.
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It's a matter of feeling like knowing when is the right time to say it, and I've held a lot back over the years, and even over the last few years.
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You know, I started this podcast, I put five episodes out and then I'm like what am I even doing?
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I'm just putting it out.
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There's no rhyme or reason.
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This doesn't make any sense.
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This is not even what I teach people to do.
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So I paused it and I really just immersed myself in the online space and networking and talking to women and talking to other podcasters, and so I re-released it and then I kind of felt lost again and I want to continue to share other people's stories here because I think it's important it's important especially for women to share our stories and really put ourselves out there and help put other women out there.
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But I also realized that I need to share more of me and what I do every day, as well as my own experiences and things I've been through, and I did originally start this podcast with that in mind.
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In the very first episode of this podcast, I shared a lot of my physical health issues and battles that I have been through and again, I would have never, ever thought that I would do that.
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You know I talk openly about my Sjogren's syndrome, which caused I can't think of the word to use, but irreversible damage to my mouth and my teeth, and so at 32, I had what was left of my teeth removed and now we're dentures and have since then and at the time that happened.
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It was a very difficult process to go through, not just the physicalness of it, which was very painful and hard Just at 32 to have your teeth taken out and know you're going to be wearing dentures the rest of your life and not knowing what you would look like and how it's going to change over time and it continues to change over time.
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Very few people even knew I went through that, as I was going through it because I was very protective of that.
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It had been something.
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I had a lot of shame and guilt around the physicalness of what my teeth looked like, even though genetically there was nothing I could do to keep it from happening.
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And before I knew that there was a lot of negativity from dentists and doctors like do you want to brush your teeth?
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It was a lot of.
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I didn't realize at the time grief and trauma had gone through because of that.
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But I guess I found in podcasting a space where I can say all the things I've ever wanted to say and even if people have a negative reaction or don't like it, I don't always hear it.
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So it's like I can put it out there and just know I've kind of released it.
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And so what comes up a lot for me is podcasting can be therapeutic, it can be healing, but it's also about our legacy and I think that I've heard legacy come up in conversation and in my thinking a lot and then going to back to Cindy's concert like we were a part of her legacy, of her last concert, of her experience, of her sharing of her music, and you know that's really powerful.
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And one of the things I've toyed with doing for a long time and I know I will at some point it's figuring out what it looks like is.
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I have a lot of my dad's stories written down.
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He hand wrote a lot of his life stories for many years before he passed away and we're very lucky to have those and I have electronic versions of them that I've taken photos of all of the pages and a lot of his stories talk about his childhood.
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You know he was born in 1923.
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Yes, he was 54 when I was born, so people who do math are like wait what?
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And he lived through World War II.
00:21:14.480 --> 00:21:28.123
He was in the army, he served in World War II for the last several years of the war and came home after it was over, and so I know there's important history and stories and legacy there that I want to share in some format.
00:21:28.798 --> 00:21:41.324
I haven't decided if it's going to be an audio only or a video version with some of his images that I have, but that's an important legacy for me to leave, because I am his legacy and I need to carry that on for him.
00:21:41.324 --> 00:22:00.623
I don't have kids to pass it on to, but there's a whole world that needs to not forget what they went through and what the world went through, and I think even more so now that we need to see it and hear it, because we're about to go through it again if people don't stand up and fight against what's happening here in the United States.
00:22:00.623 --> 00:22:12.621
And you know, that's one image, one piece of my story that I feel like I really do need to share, but it's also kind of figuring out what it is I'm doing with all of this.
00:22:12.621 --> 00:22:18.317
I think it's really hard right now because of the economy and money and everything costing more.
00:22:18.317 --> 00:22:28.787
You know you put out offers, you start programs and good response, no response, a little response, and you're constantly kind of fighting like is this what people need?
00:22:28.787 --> 00:22:30.377
Is this what I should be doing?
00:22:30.377 --> 00:22:37.016
And so I really kind of maybe a call to action to all of you to say what is it that you're here for?
00:22:37.016 --> 00:22:38.380
What are you looking for?
00:22:38.380 --> 00:22:41.169
Is it just to be inspired by other people?
00:22:41.169 --> 00:22:42.815
Is it specific support?
00:22:42.815 --> 00:22:46.909
You want Specific understanding and knowledge, and all of that.
00:22:47.832 --> 00:22:50.679
I've done a lot of different things since I started my business.
00:22:50.679 --> 00:22:55.729
Before COVID we all used that I worked in higher education.
00:22:55.729 --> 00:22:59.778
Covid we all used that I worked in higher education.
00:22:59.778 --> 00:23:01.161
I had been in that world for almost 20 years.
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I loved school.
00:23:01.761 --> 00:23:02.624
I was always good at school.
00:23:02.624 --> 00:23:03.506
As a good student.
00:23:03.506 --> 00:23:06.195
I did all the things you know.
00:23:06.195 --> 00:23:09.564
Undergrad I was a research assistant, a teaching assistant.
00:23:09.564 --> 00:23:11.695
I thought I wanted to be a therapist.
00:23:11.776 --> 00:23:19.865
I started a doctoral program in clinical psychology and I could have done it, but I didn't know at the time.
00:23:19.865 --> 00:23:28.584
I was starting to have the early effects of the several autoimmune illnesses I have and I was also burned out.
00:23:28.584 --> 00:23:35.000
I went through undergrad into my first master's, straight into this doctoral program, and so I was also burned out.
00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:38.241
Master's straight into this doctoral program, and so I was also burnt out.
00:23:38.241 --> 00:23:42.258
But it was my first time moving away from home and everyone I knew to a place I didn't know, even though it was up in the Bay Area, and I loved that.
00:23:43.038 --> 00:23:55.527
About six weeks, maybe less, after I moved there and started my doctoral program, started school 9-11 happened and that was very scary to be in a place I didn't know.
00:23:55.527 --> 00:23:57.490
Well, I didn't really know anyone.
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I'd barely been in classes for a week or two and the whole world shut not the whole world, but the United States shuts down and a lot of the world too.
00:24:07.404 --> 00:24:19.978
And being right outside of San Francisco, there were army people, there were tanks and trucks and the bridges were shut down and we had cell phones but they weren't what they are now.
00:24:19.978 --> 00:24:24.919
You could call each other but it wasn't like immediate texting and everything we have now.
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And you know, we had to do the dial-up modem still and I had cable television so I could watch the news.
00:24:30.797 --> 00:24:36.406
But it was very scary to be alone in that and we were all so scared, just in general.
00:24:36.406 --> 00:24:42.164
And that really impacted me, I think, staying there and continuing that program.
00:24:43.307 --> 00:24:59.747
And so I went through a devolution of different jobs and different things, but throughout my career I always went back to higher education, whether it was teaching part-time adjunct at a community college or university or having a full-time job at a school.
00:24:59.747 --> 00:25:18.849
That was really where I always went back to because I loved that world, and I eventually went back and finished a doctorate in organizational psychology and at the time my dissertation was on something I was doing at my job at one of the colleges I worked at.
00:25:18.849 --> 00:25:22.945
So then, once I had that, I went to the next college and the next college.
00:25:22.945 --> 00:25:25.884
But really to move up in higher ed you have to move schools.
00:25:25.884 --> 00:25:39.678
So I literally commuted all over California anywhere from an hour to five hours away from home an hour to five hours away from home.
00:25:39.698 --> 00:25:44.916
The last six years or so of my career I was living in a different place and coming home on the weekends to where I live with my husband, and so that was hard.
00:25:44.916 --> 00:25:53.023
That was hard on me physically, it was hard on us financially, it was hard on marriage, living away and being together.
00:25:53.023 --> 00:25:56.202
Only part of the time I lived out of a suitcase.
00:25:56.202 --> 00:26:05.849
But in a couple of years leading up to COVID, I had more health issues that led to my kidney disease diagnosis.
00:26:05.849 --> 00:26:10.349
Then my dad passed away and I lost a job and I lost another job.
00:26:10.349 --> 00:26:12.217
Just because there was so much going on.
00:26:12.217 --> 00:26:14.564
There was no normalcy and consistency.
00:26:14.564 --> 00:26:29.926
So it was actually the fall of 2019, and I had left my last job and was now having a hysterectomy, which in the end was good for me physically, but it was a huge process, both physically and emotionally, to go through.
00:26:29.926 --> 00:26:33.762
So I was just coming out of all of that when COVID hit.
00:26:33.762 --> 00:26:43.944
So I was unemployed, I had just gone through some pretty big physical changes and it was like, oh, what am I going to do with the rest of my life?
00:26:43.944 --> 00:26:52.338
And I couldn't go get a job in the world I had been in because the schools were all closed and they certainly weren't hiring even once they opened up again.
00:26:52.338 --> 00:27:02.626
So the last five years have been really hard A lot of ups and downs and uncertainty and not knowing and not understanding and oh gosh.
00:27:03.790 --> 00:27:07.500
So originally I started my business in career coaching because obviously that's what I knew.
00:27:07.500 --> 00:27:15.804
I worked in schools, I knew a lot about career tracks and job changes and you know just lots of things.
00:27:15.804 --> 00:27:18.009
So I did that fairly easily.
00:27:18.009 --> 00:27:33.781
I mean, it wasn't necessarily easy to find clients, but I knew how to do resumes and Vitas and interest letters and talk about career choices and I'd applied to enough different jobs in my life, just because you have to kind of move up and move around.
00:27:33.781 --> 00:27:41.286
That I knew that whole process but it wasn't exciting to me, it wasn't super like, I didn't feel like it was my passion in any way.
00:27:41.286 --> 00:27:46.803
And so when I took a class on podcasting, they kept saying you have to do it on your business.
00:27:46.803 --> 00:27:54.884
It's like, well, I kept thinking I had to, but then I didn't because it's oh yeah, let's talk about resumes and form letters and asking for references.
00:27:54.884 --> 00:27:58.135
Like no, that wasn't exciting or interesting to me in any way.
00:27:58.817 --> 00:28:07.145
So that is when I started my podcast about pets, because it was like what can I talk about for any given time, any moment, without preparation?
00:28:07.145 --> 00:28:10.415
Animals Plenty of those stories to share.
00:28:10.415 --> 00:28:25.119
And so that's where my first podcast started was to just test out podcasting and see if it was even something I wanted to do or made sense for me and that really reignited my love of animals, which has always been a part of my life.
00:28:25.119 --> 00:28:31.540
And I got more involved in animal rescue and I volunteered at my shelter.
00:28:31.540 --> 00:28:48.346
I worked at one of my shelters for a while, I fostered and, even though I couldn't really do that, because physically and emotionally again, that world is very hard Shout out to shelter workers and rescuers because they see the worst of humanity every single day and they keep going.
00:28:48.346 --> 00:28:50.201
I could not.
00:28:50.201 --> 00:28:53.362
Actually, my blood pressure went up and we couldn't get it to come down.
00:28:53.362 --> 00:28:55.962
The doctor's like this is not the right place for you.
00:28:55.962 --> 00:29:05.928
And so I keep the story of my pet podcast going because that's my way of giving back by advocating and educating and allowing people to come on and share what they do to help animals.
00:29:06.795 --> 00:29:41.201
But I also started realizing like gosh, so many people need to use this medium of podcasting to help themselves, others to really educate, and so that's when I decided to start doing my whole business around podcasting and helping other people start podcasts, grow podcasts, and now a large portion of what I do is helping people be podcast guests and use that to whether it's advocating for something or helping grow their business or helping people buy their book, whatever it may be.
00:29:41.201 --> 00:29:55.348
So that's really what led me to where I am now with Podcast your Story the podcast with Podcast your Story community, which has a membership where I do a lot of workshops and group coaching and things.
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