Against All Odds Podcast, The Less than 1% Chance with Maria Aponte
Maria highlights stories of people that have been the "less than 1% chance" and have come out of their situations thriving and seeing life as happening FOR them and not TO them! Inspiring and empowering stories that will show you that against all odds you can make it through anything!
Against All Odds Podcast, The Less than 1% Chance with Maria Aponte
Thriving Through Adversity: Shannon Sellers on Resilience, Self-Love, and Empowering Women
Can setting boundaries really transform your life? In this episode of Against All Odds the Less Than 1% Chance podcast, join me, Maria Aponte, as I sit down with the incredible Shannon Sellers—a business owner and coach with over three decades of experience empowering women. Shannon’s journey from hairdresser to motivational coach is nothing short of awe-inspiring. We talk about her natural talent for uplifting others, her transition from informal therapy during hair appointments to a structured coaching business during the COVID-19 pandemic, and her unique methods like vision boards for accountability. Plus, hear how Shannon balanced her thriving career while being a devoted single mother.
Shannon shares her personal stories of loss, resilience, and the extraordinary strength it takes to support loved ones while managing personal grief. By expressing gratitude and finding blessings even in the toughest situations, Shannon shows us the true essence of resilience.
What does it mean to truly love oneself? In our conversation, we explore the transformative power of perspective, emphasizing that life happens for us, not to us. With insights inspired by mentors like Tony Robbins and Bob Proctor, Maria and Shannon talk about how unresolved emotional trauma can manifest as physical illness and the crucial importance of forgiveness and empathy in the healing process. Through her own battles, Shannon underscores the power of self-love and maintaining a positive outlook. Finally, we celebrate the joy of meaningful connections and the extraordinary value they bring to our lives, fostering a community of positivity and inspiration. Don't miss this heartfelt episode—tune in and feel empowered to love your life.
Find Shannon:
Website: https://www.showingmyroots.com
Instagram: @Showingmyroots
Linkedin: Shannon Sellers
Facebook: Showing My Roots
YouTube: Showing My Roots by Shannon Sellers
Apps Mentions:
Growth Day
ThinkUp
GrowthDay app offers tools, content, coaching, and community for self-improvement and success.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Follow Maria on Facebook HERE
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Welcome back to the Against All Odds the Less Than 1% Chance podcast with your host, maria Aponte, where we will hear stories of incredible people thriving against all odds, and my hope is that we can all see how life is always happening for us, even when we are the Less Than 1% Chance.
Speaker 2:Hey, hey, welcome back to, against All Odds, the Less Than 1% Chance Podcast with your host, maria Aponte. I hope you are doing fantastic today. We are in for a treat today. Our guest is Shannon Sellers. She empowers women to love and believe in themselves. She's a business owner, a coach, a motivator, who knows that our problems don't define us. She believes that everyone is capable of extraordinary things and it's her mission to help others get there. You are never too old to start a new journey in your life. And she encourages women to get rooted and set their vision for a life that they want and desire. Start by turning your pain into power, and that is what she feels so passionate about, and I am so excited for you to hear her story. Hello, shannon, welcome.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thank you for having me oh absolutely.
Speaker 2:I feel like we share a lot of the same beliefs and I love that. Like attracts, like that. It's empowering to be able to say, oh, I'm not alone in this mindset of let's just get better and understand that, against all odds, we're so powerful. So give us a little bit of background about because your story from what I heard, you've been doing something for 32 years that you were not being paid for 32 years that you were not being paid for.
Speaker 3:Yes, I, by trade, was a hairdresser now going on 32 years but I always had the ability to make people feel good on the outside, and in the process of doing that, I realized that it was as much therapy and coaching as it was my ability.
Speaker 3:So I decided that I was going to separate the two and get paid separate and have a little more of a quiet session. I love it and it fuels me. I love to see the light go from people's eyes. I've had people smiling, crying for the good, the bad realizing and it is just a God given ability that everybody does not have. Yeah, I agree, and took it with a coat of armor and excited about it yeah, that's amazing, I agree.
Speaker 2:I feel like my hairdresser knows more about me than most yeah, people, and she's my aunt, so she's known me for my entire life and it's funny because I feel like we trust our hairdressers more than most people. Like I can sit down and she's like what do you want? I was like whatever you like, as long as it's purple. There you go as long as it's purple Exactly as long as it's purple, do whatever you'd like. So she's had fun with my hair my entire life. It's so funny. She is definitely my therapist in some cases. So I see where you can correlate the two and where I think that it's so powerful that you were like wait a second, this is something that I could do, that I have a gift for. And you're right, it doesn't. It's not something that everyone has. So that is amazing that you did that. So how have you been able to separate everything and then come full circle and where you're at?
Speaker 3:now. Well, for me, being behind the chair, from being with your aunt, you've only have a certain amount of time and you can chit, chat and talk, but you can't really get into the meat and potatoes of everything all the time. So for me, I have an office set up in my home. You see how bright and pretty and colorful it is. So when COVID hit, it changed the whole thing, where everybody thought they had to be in person all the time. So it allows me to have some one-on-ones I can.
Speaker 3:I've done some classes, I've done some events. I believe in doing vision boards and creating a vision, because we talk about and give lip service all the time, but if you don't write it down or put it into action, you don't have that accountability. Yeah, so it has given me the opportunity to step away and even though I love my job being you know I'm fixing to knock out 52 and I am rocking it I will tell you two need replacements later I realized that I wanted to create some income that did not put me required to stand behind that chair all day even though I love it.
Speaker 2:You can't put all your eggs in one basket, absolutely and what? You never know what happens. My aunt she can't always blow dry my hair because her hands have all kinds of different issues, and so, yeah, I definitely agree that this will give you this longevity, that the actual physical work that you do won't stand up to what the body's like. I need a break now. Let's step back a little bit.
Speaker 3:Look, I'm out there at 4 30 in the morning doing hair. Yeah oh my gosh. I, when I had kids like you, I didn't want to be away from in the afternoons and evenings, so I told people they could come before they went to work. They couldn't tell me it was messing up anything but their sleep schedule. And I wasn't sitting there all the evenings because I was not going to miss things with my kids, because I had been a single parent for 12 years now. Yeah, my boys are not babies anymore.
Speaker 3:But they're always my babies. But, you know, I set my boundaries of what I was willing to give up and not, and, being the best mom, I was not willing to give that up. So I rearranged and made it happen.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. I love that. Yeah, and you were talking about vision boards. I look up because I have my vision board for 2024 up there and even just this podcast. So I'm launching.
Speaker 2:This will be season two of the podcast, and last year I had no idea that it was May 2023 that I went to a mindset conference and my mindset coach gave us a task, an action. That was a scary action to do and I had it on my heart for years that I wanted to do a podcast but never took action on it and I like never made it a priority and I was like I have a story to tell. I know that this is something that needs to happen. And he was like you need to take one big scary action on this, on whatever goal you have. He told the room and I was like I'm gonna go ahead and start that podcast and so that was like my big scary thing was I'm going to sign up for the platform and I'm already paying for it because I didn't get the free version. So it's going to happen. And that was like middle of May and by the end of May I created the artwork. It was like this yes, it was just amazing Like I got all these things done and I had no clue what I was doing.
Speaker 2:I was like just Googling hey, how do I create an intro and an outro to the podcast? It was just like this, like all of this adrenaline from this one action season or first year of it it was solo episodes with stories that I had myself and then friends that I knew had really against all odd moments in their life and all kinds of different topics. And so when I found this Facebook page, I had recorded an episode, but I was going to launch it that one week and I was like you know what? No, I'm going to hold off. This is going to be the beginner of season two.
Speaker 2:Had no plan on how I was going to continue and this like fell into place. But where I'm getting with this is on my vision board up here it says number one podcast against all odds. Board up here, it says number one podcast against all odds. And so all of a sudden, in like the last two weeks, I've recorded like 20 episodes, yay. And I'm like, oh my gosh, this is awesome the way like things fall into place, but when you have it in front of you that you look like I literally sit down on my desk. I look up and there's like all of my things that I want to do and that must I get ready?
Speaker 3:I sit at a vanity in the morning and when I look one of my big things is my why is on the board. And when I do the class, I tell people to bring pictures of their why. And do you know how many people never bring a picture of their self? And I said you got to want it for you as much as anybody else. You've got to give yourself some love and some attention, and so I'll ask them to do that. I asked him to write a three and six month letter to their self.
Speaker 3:But, there is something just like when he asked you to do that, you had talked about it, but when you verbally committed or wrote it down, it was like, oh my God. Like if you're probably competitive like me to a degree and I hate to lose, I might not even want the prize, but I'm willing to go, or even if I give it to somebody else, I'll do anything for a T-shirt, yeah, so with that it was like, ok, and so I'll get him to do that. I was like you can sell it and give it to me or you can put it on your board and read it for yourself, but the accountability, I think, was the big thing. So I love that.
Speaker 3:But kudos to you, good job it made you know that you're doing what you're called to do?
Speaker 2:yeah, it definitely. I listen to an app every morning, so I have like a ritual. So I get up, try to, before I get out of bed, think of at least one thing that I am grateful for. But I put on my headphones and I listened to an app by Brendan Burchard. It's called Growth Day and so I listened to what he calls a daily fire. So every morning he does a daily inspirational, motivational, in your face framework of something and to start your day, and he has a journal attached. It's so good, so I start that every morning. And then, after that is done, as I'm like brushing my teeth and doing my face creams and all that stuff, I listened to this app called Think Up, and in the Think Up app you can record yourself saying affirmations or maybe recording your own vision or whatever, and so it has music that goes behind it and you can listen to yourself. Oh, that's cool. It is the coolest thing, because when you, like, I used to listen to a YouTube video or whatever of like affirmations or whatever, but it was somebody else's voice. Yeah, and this is my voice. That is like talking to myself and it's like a more subconscious thing, like it gets in there and had a goal of speaking on stages. So those things, little by little, have come to fruition and it's just the coolest thing.
Speaker 2:And today, actually, I was listening to a podcast with the super trainer, sean T. He's with Beachbody used to be Beachbody, now his body and he is responsible for transforming so many people's lives, including myself. I started his program and that's what changed my trajectory completely. And he talks about vision boards and sometimes on vision boards people put pictures of other people on there and that doesn't feel right. It should be a picture of when you felt your best, yes, and I was like, well, that's, I didn't even think of that, but I had a picture of when I felt my best and I have it up there and it's. And when I'm listening to him, as I'm like getting putting my makeup on and whatever, and I look up and I'm like, look at that, I did what he said even before I even knew about it was just it's. I love the power of vision boards. I just truly believe that, like when you see it, when you write it, when you feel it just elevates that vibration in your body to attract that and just love it so much.
Speaker 3:Well, I love the fact that, when you were talking about doing the app for yourself, that you realize that your voice matters and that you were able to get it from inside out, and I do think sometimes, when you actually verbalize it outward, it makes you more responsible for it. Yeah, absolutely. Make it happen, so I love that.
Speaker 2:That is really good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's for a long time. 16, I was sexually assaulted and when and I stayed quiet, I didn't say anything for three years Nobody knew about it. I turned 18 and I had cervical cancer. At my first pap smear. At my first pap smear, I was, and I knew why it happened like between what the doctor told me and I knew why it happened, which made it that much harder to deal with, and then went back six months later it was fine. Six months after that the cancer had come back. And so at 19, again cervical cancer.
Speaker 2:And by that time I was like in a tailspin of depression and I knew, like why I was depressed, but nobody knew, nobody could understand. And and when I finally spoke it up, it was like this release of wow, just by saying it, the weight that came off of my shoulders, the weight that left my chest and don't get me wrong, I wasn't healed already Like it took many years of healing, but it was like hearing my voice finally say it, rather than just keeping it inside. That, I feel like, did such a huge difference in my life that, yeah, I think that the our voice is so important and when we hear it back, sometimes we listen back to our voice and we're like god, that sounds so weird because that's not what I hear in my head, but it's so beautiful because your subconscious knows and, like that, that internal you knows that's you speaking and so, yeah, I think that's so powerful.
Speaker 3:I did too, I'm like you. I am so southern. When I did too, I'm like you. I am so Southern. When I hear myself back, I'm like Jesus. I love it so much. I just think that we were blessed with having our own opinion and stuff, and I said look.
Speaker 3:I said, I was made unique and I'm not apologizing for it and I love who I am and I love to share and I'm just. I am unapologetic and bold about it. But sometimes calling your own self out on the carpet it does a big difference and I'll jerk myself on the carpet as quick as I will anybody else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. Give us like a little bit of background. What is your against all odds story?
Speaker 3:It's in two separate parts, but I unfortunately, in your cancer thing stuck with me. I've lost my bonus dad, my biological dad and my mom out of cancer and my bonus dad and my biological dad I was losing at the very same time and I lost one in August and one in November of the very same year and I am the baby of the family on that side. But yet I still was a big advocate and I fought and challenged the doctors and we flew one to the cancer center.
Speaker 3:I had one that wanted to do nothing and I was dealing with hospice and going back and forth to the cancer center I had my youngest son was a senior in high school, my oldest son was in college and we were single and I was self-employed. So guess what, when you're flying and not working, you're not getting paid. But that was the biggest time that I saw that definitely what I was made of, and instead of sitting in the corner, poor woe is me. I knew my kids were watching and I had to set the example and I had to push through it. It was devastating. It was horrible, unlike anything else, because those were my. When I divorced, those were my two rocks. I loved my biological dad and my bonus dad and they were two totally different personalities but I loved them both and when I had asked for divorce I didn't need them financially but they were just like my men. So my whole world was getting rocked within that short timeframe. So we got through that.
Speaker 3:Some other things went. My aunt got non-alcoholic cirrhosis of liver. She has no kids, so I advocated for her and challenged some of the doctors and was going back and forth to a large hospital. She did get her liver. It's been successful. She's doing well and my mom we did not have cancer running on that side of the family and then last September we found out she had stage four liver and lung cancer. So instead of beating down and stuff, we just had to learn that things in life are lesson of lesson and when I would get mad that I am fixing to be 52 and don't have parents.
Speaker 3:I put my big girl pants on and realized some people never got to know their parents, Some people never loved by their parents. So I try to always, no matter what the situation is, see the blessing in it. Just like you said, when I get out of bed I always think of what I'm blessed for and gratitude. I always have gratitude and it was tough, but I was just blessed that, working for myself, that I was able to be everything that my mama needed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's, I feel you. My dad passed away in 2022 and I've been daddy's girl since we had our own business. He was a watch repairman, so we had a jewelry shop for as long as I could remember, and since I was eight years old, whenever I wasn't in school in the summers, on Saturdays, I would be in the shop with him and I could barely get over the showcase and I would ask customers how can I help you? And whatever. So it was me and him were so close and 2020 happened and he found out that he had bladder cancer that same summer, so he had to have surgery and no one could go to the hospital. He was 72 years old, I believe, at the time, and had never been in a hospital for himself, and so he was healthy his whole entire life. And then, all of a sudden, this is like smacking us in the face and I felt so blessed that I I worked for myself and that I could be there, and when my mom was working, she didn't have to worry. I was always there, and so it was a huge blessing.
Speaker 2:He didn't want to do any treatment, so he had the surgery, didn't want to do any treatment and totally against everything that. I was like, dad, just go to the oncologist and just talk to them, you don't have to do anything, just go talk. And he's like, nope, not happening, I'm not doing anything. The treatment was what killed my mom. It was what killed my brother. It wasn't the cancer itself, it was the treatment. And I was like, okay, okay, my love, whatever you say. And so I was there for all of it.
Speaker 2:And then, probably like six months after, like he started feeling so this crazy pain in like the bottom of his feet and I'm like what is happening? And he wouldn't go and he tried to remedy it every other way and he's like, but I'm just getting older and I'm still working, and blah, blah, blah. And I was like, go get checked, go get checked, go get checked. He didn't, until he couldn't handle it the pain anymore. And he had.
Speaker 2:I think at that point it was a diverticulitis that was inflamed, that was pinching a nerve, and from that, thankfully, they found that there was spots of cancer that had metastasized. And I was like, okay, we're not going without a fight now, so we're gonna go see an oncologist and you don't have to do anything. If you don't want to, let's go and see this doctor. She was like an angel sent from heaven, the most caring. She explained everything to him, told him, put him at ease. If this doesn't feel good, mr Manuel, then I am not here to push anything on you. I'm here to guide you, and if you don't feel comfortable with it, then we won't do it. And he felt so incredibly comfortable that immediately he was like I'll do whatever you want, I'll do whatever you suggest.
Speaker 2:And I was like, oh my God, oh my God, that's the best thing that's ever happened. Listen, he went from being in pain every single day to his first chemo treatment, immediately found relief and had energy and, like it was just this crazy thought process, I wholeheartedly believe that he needed to pass, knowing that treatment wasn't evil there's benefits to it as well, because he was so dead set on not having that. But I felt so blessed that I was at every single appointment. I took him to every chemo. I took him to all the follow ups. I took him and he did really great on that treatment. And then when he got put on immunotherapy, it actually regressed, and so that's when his health started to decline. And again, I was there at all of the appointments, all of the hospital visits. I would stay with him, and so it did end up being in his liver. It had then progressed into other places and hospice. I was there the whole time. So I empathize so much with you because I've been through some loss in my life. But that took the.
Speaker 3:That definitely took it from me hospice on my biological dad and my mom. It was tough because you're you know what you're asking. But I said I'd rather have quality over quantity. But yeah, I was like my mom was right here in my house, this was her safe place where she liked to be, so she was in my bedroom, she was at my house and I would not change it for anything. Yeah, but until somebody endures it, they'll never understand it. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was both beautiful and completely heartbreaking all at the same time, absolutely.
Speaker 3:I would be trying to. I don't like to cry. I usually have a little war room where I go cry and stuff and mama would say somebody better slap her when I die so she'll cry. But as it was going I couldn't hardly walk in the room without losing it. She said I'm not happy, you're upset, but I'm glad you cried.
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's funny because they know, they know what we need and we try to be so tough and I gave him his last bath and just things like that. It's just, it's beautiful and heartbreaking all at once and and until you go through it you have it's like a club that I didn't want to be a part of.
Speaker 3:No, I was with all three when they left the world that was yeah, yeah, but. But kudos to you and to me and all the other ones that have been able to, because, even though you don't love seeing them like that, I would never want her to be somewhere where we're not there and not with her every second, and I had a whole tribe that rallied for support and love, and that's when you truly will find out who your people are. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Anybody can be with you for when it's good, but not everybody is staying beside you when it's bad.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. He had all. His children were four. He had all his children, most of his grandchildren, nieces, nephews like my mom it was we couldn't. There was no room in his bedroom, like we were all surrounding him till his last breath and it was just beautiful. But it is so hard and if I have to say anything about grief is let yourself experience it.
Speaker 3:Well, that's right. Some people try to answer with food. Some people try to answer with alcohol, and it's tempting, but all you're doing is band-aiding it. The best thing I tell people to do is to plant your feet, walk through it. Hurt, feel it, cry, have a little depression. Just don't stay there. Have a day you lay in bed, but I don't, you can't outrun it.
Speaker 2:It is going to find you, so yeah, and in the craziest moments too, that you're like I was just fine. How was it that I'm like dying right now? I have found a lot of solace in so, once he passed away, people started like sending things with cardinals on it because they say that's your loved ones from heaven, and I started seeing cardinals everywhere and now I have a bird feeder and I am the bird lady now. Like I know the bird calls for cardinals. I go on a walk every morning and I watch cardinals play and fly around. It is the craziest thing and that is me talking to him, like I'm on my walk and I'm like good morning and thanks for sending me blessings.
Speaker 2:You know that today it's just, it's my grieving process of like still feeling the connection that we had, and it's just beautiful. Like you just have to find what, like my friend and her dad, is butterflies, what, like my friend and her dad, is butterflies. So, whatever you feel that connection, just know that like that's it, that's it, that it's not. That's not you going crazy, it's literally you feeling that connection and their spirit there and still guiding you, and it's beautiful anyways. But now what are your goals? Going forward with your coaching and all of that? Well, I'm like you.
Speaker 3:I enjoy the talking and empowering as well and I have a podcast back upon the stuff.
Speaker 3:But when all that happened, I had to back it up and put my priorities where they needed to be.
Speaker 3:So I am good about stepping back, but I won't forget it and it was just not the right time.
Speaker 3:So I want to get that going and been working on the website, doing some speaking, getting in some health and wellness stuff and just loving myself and taking care of myself, because when you are an advocate and everything for everybody else and as a woman in general, it is easy to put ourselves last because we feel like we have to give everything we've got to everybody else. We've got to fix what we've got to make and sometimes when we do that, we leave nothing for us. So instead of being selfish, I'm going to be self-full and fill myself up and my kids hook me up with a massage and a facial and I've got some stuff going on that I'm just pampering myself a little bit. That is a grief and grace time for me, and then rejuvenate and ready to bust it wide open. So I am working on a book and I was working on that, but then I got really emotional with it and emotions are great people, but I just can only handle so much of the time.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, so that's still there, and when I have those moments that I want to work on it, I do, because it's not a feast for famine. It's just like you, I've got a story. There's some life lessons and learning to turn your lessons into blessings instead of being a victim. I think a lot of times, no matter what we have, people have always had it worse, and that what is minor to us and us sharing it and the things you shared make a difference for somebody else and not making them feel alone, and I love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. So my mindset coach got this, I believe, from Tony Robbins, which I also love, but he says life is always happening for you and not to you, and it's the difference between seeing the perspective of a victim or someone that has understood this is something that's happening and how is it going to happen for me. So what are the blessings that come from it and how is it going to happen for me? So what are the blessings that come from it? And I resonate with that so much because I had a lot of victim mentality before, with dealing with cancer and 18 years old and dealing with sexual assault at 16 years old and all of the repercussions that came from it, infertility and just so many different things. And I could feel that that victim mentality in my body and my body started when I followed a mentor called Bob Proctor for many, many, many years. I still do, but he's passed.
Speaker 2:But he said he talks about when there's dis-ease in the body, it creates disease, and that was my cancer, was this disease, this dis-ease that I continued to create in my body because I could have had not healed from the situation that I had gone through when I was 16. I was still stuck in that emotion, and so I learned how to like, let's say, forgive myself for all of the things that I felt I could have done better or different or whatever, and forgive that person, because I truly feel that for someone to hurt someone in that way, they have to be hurting so much and it's finding like an empathy that not that I will ever forget, but I will be able to let go of that. I tell my kids, even when something as silly as somebody cuts you off, they're probably pooping in their pants and they have to go. So it's like flipping that script as to oh this jerk just cut me off to oh, he's got to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 3:But see the difference in laughing versus being frustrated with it. And one of my big words I love to use is flawsome. And that's pretty much what we're saying Learning to love yourself, flaws and all. And I'm like whenever somebody's done you wrong or talked about you, whatever you letting them harbor in here and it causing you grief, you're still letting them win. And I tell everybody.
Speaker 3:I said, the best revenge you will ever have in your life on somebody is being happy. It's being happy because people can't handle it. They don't understand why you're smiling, why you're okay, why what they're saying is not bothering you, but you know what they don't deserve that part of you and it's only you that can give it to them.
Speaker 2:Bothering you, but you know what they don't deserve that part of you and it's only you that can give it to them. Yeah, absolutely. I used to get asked, which I always found so funny, but now I can understand that obviously they were just not in the same healing journey as I was. But I used to get asked why I was so happy all the time. What, what kind of question is that? It just, I'm like, because I'm still alive. I had cancer four times in my life. I went through a surgery where they had to do a blood transfusion because they almost lost me. I lost so much blood, they almost lost me, I was 28 years old at that point. So much blood they almost lost me. I was 28 years old at that point. I was 32 when I had cancer twice that year. I am alive. I am here. I'm still. There is a reason, there is a purpose behind me still being here. I overcame against all odds, hence the name of the podcast. I guess all odds.
Speaker 2:I have overcome so many things in my life and I feel like that in itself is something to be happy about.
Speaker 3:Well, that was what I laughed. I told somebody. I said well, I've totaled three cars in my lifetime. I walked away from every one of them. I said so I still have a purpose. He's still keeping me here for a reason Exactly. And it's not to be a race car driver, exactly.
Speaker 2:I find again, I love that somehow or another, we kind of people gravitate towards each other and it is beautiful to me that because I feel like so much of this world needs our happiness and not it doesn't mean that we can't be unhappy or we can't go through situations, but so much of the world needs to know that there could be circumstances in your lives that are not easy. That doesn't take away from you putting a smile on your face and loving yourself and putting your oxygen mask on first and taking care of you before you take care of everyone else. I learned that the hard way and I learned that my health journey was important and if I didn't take care of myself, my kids wouldn't have seen me here anymore and instead of, at 40, 39 years old, burying their mom or whatever at that age, like I did with my dad, they would have been little kids 12, 11, like that was, yeah, that was. That was not okay for me, so I needed to learn how to love them and still put them after me and it.
Speaker 3:Well, we always say, like on the plane, that's the first thing to tell you about, but we don't think it is to real life. But it is and it's. So everybody does not understand our happiness, our laughing, but I tell everybody. I said I know I'm not everybody's cup of tea, but I'm not asking everybody to take a sip either. You know you have to do what it says. You're so on fire and makes you happy, and sitting around the house all sad and pathetic does not make me happy. So, so therefore I'm not doing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm not serving anything or anyone like that. Been there, done that that didn't help anybody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I again. I love that. I love that this is the kind of conversations we get to have on a Wednesday. I coined my Wednesdays Wonder Woman Wednesday, and normally I work out every morning so I'll have the Wonder Woman sports bra and a Wonder Woman shirt.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I feel like that needs to be celebrated. I think that's part of loving yourself is learning how to celebrate yourself and be like well, look at me and these kids, like I have my son graduating. That's my second child graduating on Friday and I'm like, well, damn, look, I feel good and he's a good kid, exactly Like there's something to celebrate and we don't. I don't think we do that enough, especially as women. I think that as women, we don't do that enough. I feel like it's not that I don't want to say easier for men, but it comes more second nature to men to praise themselves, where we're like, oh my God, that that looks wrong, that we get to do that and we do so much and carry so much weight on of everything, and I think that it's important that we celebrate ourselves.
Speaker 3:So I celebrate you, I'll celebrate you, I'll holler our praises all day long, yeah exactly.
Speaker 2:I love this so much Anything else that you feel that's on your heart?
Speaker 3:My biggest thing for people is just like you said. I tell everybody. I said, if you want to really know if you love yourself, get up in the morning and it's going to sound funny, but you get dressed in the mirror and get ready, or get yourself ready in the mirror and naked for five days in a row. If you don't love what you're doing, God give you the ability to get up to change it. Quit whining about it. Don't blame it on nobody else. It's all up to you. Quit whining about it. Don't blame it on nobody else. It's all up to you. You've got to make the choices. You've got to make the changes and don't make it sound like it's a punishment. Biggest thing, if you're able to, I get in the kitchen with my kids and we take the unhealthy stuff and learn to make it healthy, but enjoy it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but every day you get up is a chance to be a better you, and if you miss it on that, shame on you. But quit negotiating with yourself what all you do. We are master negotiators with ourself on talking ourself out of stuff. I've been there, done it, still doing on some things not on some things, but being aware and learning to love yourself. Because when you do love yourself just like talking to you you pure shine, your smile is bright and you've got a healthy attitude and you look healthy and it makes a difference and that attracts people and people love it because we smile or say we're a little different, so don't live in a cookie cutter world.
Speaker 3:We're all individually made different, so quit trying to look and compare yourself to everybody else. Just be the best you. And I say healthy. Healthy is not always the size of your ass, it is your insides as well. Because I would be real healthy.
Speaker 3:So it is just giving yourself a little bit of grace, but pushing yourself in the process and breaking the cycle. I lost my parents at 61, 63 and 71. I'm not going to do that for my kids. I'm going to stay healthy, unless some accident happens, I'm going to break the cycle. So just no matter what you've come from, whether it's amazing or bad, that still doesn't always have to be your path. You are in charge of your path.
Speaker 2:So take responsibility.
Speaker 3:Put your pants on and let's go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had a podcast interview yesterday that I interviewed this man that grew up homeless, sometimes in with his mom in tents and his siblings in tents and cars, when he has a multi-million dollar portfolio. Oh, wow, and I'm like that is amazing. Yes, like that, talk about not living in your circumstances and instead letting those circumstances fuel you to become a better you and break that cycle.
Speaker 3:I totally agree. One hundred percent, yeah. So it's just, I just love this so much to become a better you and break that cycle. I totally agree 100%.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's just. I just love this so much. I love that this is the kind of conversations we get to have. I am so incredibly honored that you are here with us today and truly, just I want to continue to connect. I think that this is good. I love this.
Speaker 3:Yes, it is.
Speaker 2:But I'll give all of our listeners all of your information on the show notes, so look out for that. I am so incredibly grateful to have you here today, thank you, thank you. Thank you so much, shannon and listeners, I hope you got a lot out of today, just like I did, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day out of today, just like I did, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day.
Speaker 3:Peace out, guys. Love your life. Bye.
