Justen Arnold Don’t Be Afraid To Express Yourself

 

Episode Transcription

 

Intro Plays

 

Summary:

 Justen Arnold is a father, business owner, coach, author, and podcast host. He has been hit with a lot of bricks. From being a victim of sexual assault as a young child, attempted murder, car crashes, and so much more! He describes some of his experiences and the whispers that helped him throughout his life. He reminds us not to hope for a perfect life but the strength to endure a difficult one. Life is not ideal for anyone, but we can remain realistically optimistic about our lives. Enjoy both the highs and lows of life. Both are a gift. Finding ways to express ourselves is vital for ourselves and can also help others. He also points out that self-care is not selfish. It allows us to give those we love the best version of us.

 

Show notes:

 https://justenarnold.com/

https://flexxmp.com/

https://justenarnold.com/podcast/

bemore@justenarnold.com

https://www.facebook.com/justen.arnold

 

Episode Transcription

 

Intro Plays

  

Ari: Welcome to whispers and bricks. My name is Barry Sherman. I’m your host I have with me as a guest Justin Arnold’s who is just an Arnold well, just an aural is a committed husband, active father of three adventurer nutritionist, strength and conditioning coach, musician, best selling author, public speaker, consultant, and multi certified movement and life optimization coach. Man, I’m tired just reading all that. He is the founder of flex mobility and performance a multifaceted health and wellness organization, and host of the successful podcast one step further. With more than 15 years in the health and fitness industry. He also runs a popular YouTube channel and has written or contributed to dozens of articles for various blogs, publications and podcasts. As a survivor of severe childhood sexual and psychological abuse, attempted murder, and severe trauma. Justin is on a mission to take care of all people, whether it’s families, individuals or acquaintances through his holistic philosophy regarding physical, nutritional, mental and spiritual well being. He believes that if people have access to the best tools and knowledge in a sympathetic environment, they will be able to achieve their fullest human potential. When he’s not working out reading or writing, you can find them hiking, playing drums, drawing or meditating, sometimes with his family, sometimes by himself, because he believes to be the best version to others. You have to work you have to do the inner work and find time to love and work on yourself. From a philanthropic standpoint he regularly donates to and volunteers with various organizations, including his church and mission work with NGO ministries. Please help me welcome Justin Arnold. Justin, how are you?

 

Justen: I’m doing great. I didn’t you realize when you hear those things, you do that and I am all those things. So it’s just incredible. In this short life, I’ll actually be 41 Tomorrow I’m having a birthday and it’s just I still feel, I think 40 One’s a new 21. For me, I feel like I’m in the best shape of my life. I’m living a really good life. And I feel super blessed. But it wasn’t always that way as you got a little bit of a taste in that story. And, and yeah, I mean, we, before we got on here, like I was telling you like, like, life definitely comes in seasons. I was literally just in Mexico a couple of weeks ago with my wife on a movement retreat. And here I am back in Rochester, New York, where we just got like two feet of snow. Yes. It’s kind of a euphemism for life. Right.

 

Ari: You go. There you go. Let me ask you something. How do you deal with having two first names?

 

Justen: You take my middle name, man. Yeah. Oh, Shane Arnold, my middle name is Shane Shane.

 

Ari: Three first names?

 

Justen: I do I have three first names. How do I deal with that? It’s not the first time that even asked that on a podcast and for some of Vanessa. I don’t know. I gotta get Steve his name for a reason. Maybe it’s a joke. I don’t know. I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you a funny story with my first name. It’s for those that are listening. And don’t know me it’s spelled with an EN. So as J usde. In instead of n i n. People ask me why I was like, you’re gonna have talked to my parents. My mom was a hippie. So maybe they that was their way of being different in 81. But the funny story is in first grade talk about like, this wasn’t the most traumatic thing, but obviously, it must have been traumatic it as a first grader. My teacher literally sent me to the principal’s office for purposely spelling my name wrong. I was spelling it right. Which I did not believe me. Oh, you’re not believe me that it was an E? And she’s like, No, nobody spells her name with an E and I’m like, It’s yet and then people were like, Are you related to Arnold Schwarzenegger? And I’m like, No, that’s is my last name. Like, all these weird things. And then there’s other stuff like, oh, man, oh, the way people pronounce it or you pronounce just 10 like they will emphasize Chen. Just just it like just a name and I don’t go butchering all your all his name. It is what it is. I am happy with it.

 

Ari: Yeah, I guess your parents were having fun with it as well. Okay, so as you know, the name of this podcast is whispers and bricks, the whispers of those voices telling us what the right thing to do is and they represent the good in life. And the bricks represent the bad things that we go through in life and trust me, everybody has a brick thrown at them at some point in time or another in their lives. Some more bricks, some less bricks, some bigger bricks, some smaller bricks, but life is not a straight ride. It’s not a straight path. You know, there are many, many ups and downs. Now there were several reasons why I asked you to be a guest on the show. See on the outside looking in, you look like anybody else good marriage, great kids, business owner, etc. But after our initial conversation, the real truth came out the bricks that you were hit with sexual abuse, broken neck, car crashes, etc, which we’ll get to later on. It was then that I knew that there were people, my audience, were going through some of the same things that you had gone through. They had been hit with brick after brick, much like what you had gone through. And they needed to hear and to know that they could get through the trials and tribulations, the same way that you did. They needed to know that the old whispers out there that could save them. You got hit with some really, really bad bricks, and it started at an early age. Can you take us back to those early years? And tell us what was happening? What was going on with

 

you? 

 

Justen: Yeah, for sure. So we all have stories, and you know, I don’t want when I go on mine, I don’t want to act like what was me. And that’s not why I put my story out there. I want it to be encouragement. And like you said, we all got breaks, we’ve all got stories, we’ve all got pain, male got trauma. Yeah, mine started at a very early age, even before I you know, I guess we’re developing the memories of swords. Apparently, I was supposed to be I had a twin that didn’t survive. Somehow I survived, you know, and my twin did not come birth. My mom can go down the explanation of that. That’s just the information I was given. I know, it’s something about the umbilical cord or whatever. But at about age five, six, yeah. You know, this is the time I’m living in the south of Chicago. And I had two older siblings and, and, and, you know, my parents just doing the best job that they can chose the babysitter that was a family friendly, think family friendly, good idea. Well, between the ages of five and six, so for about a year or so I would be molested and abused and, and and you know, without going into great detail like use your imagination, like some of the worst things you can imagine somebody doing to a five or six year old boy or happening. And because it was so traumatic as we know now with psychology, that stuff sticks, so that you know those things are in my mind. And they have been and if you really know the science behind things that happen before the age of seven, literally get ingrained into your central nervous system. And so that’s where like health is such a big deal with me, because I’m aware of these things. So I know other people who do physical pain or issues or things like that, why I’m also a life coach kind of manifests itself at a very early age. And so like, you know, a father, yelling at his wife, or neglecting his kids could have been because of some traumatic event that happened when you’re younger. Me being self having the self awareness and knowing that makes me more aware of these situations, because I’m able to honestly address it and know that just because he’s happened to me, I didn’t have control over it. So we sometimes when we go through these things, we tend to blame ourselves or we try to avoid it and run away from it. But we never really actually can run really got to face it. And some of these can have a purpose to them. Even though it’s suck, let’s be honest. You’re I’m five or six. So I’m not weak for just because I’m a man now and I was avoidant, and doesn’t make me weak for this, like I allowed that to happen to it. But sometimes as men, we can look at it as a weak point or light. So we don’t want to talk about it. But I think we need to because it’s still festered that it’s even if we don’t think so. So a little bit more like besides the molestation, like, it got so bad to the point that he knew there was no way out, I assume I’m not his mind. But he wanted to set the house on fire with us inside. But you ended up leaving my oldest brother who did survive. But he eventually last minute he took me in my other brother, and got us out, took us to the neighbors and look like an almighty savior. And he got away with it for a little bit. Until I I was the one that spoke up. And I only know that I spoke up because my mom told me later on I don’t really remember, I just remember my mom beating this stereo steering wheel and this one this parts in the book beating this year. And I was like saying I’m gonna kill him, I’m gonna kill him. But what parent wouldn’t want to kill somebody that you entrusted your children and again, this is going on for a year. The crazy thing is, you know, we go into a new life and, and moving into a house and the court cases with that is going on. And you know, you think, oh, a new fresh start, but an older sibling comes into our house and continues abuse or that babysitter left off. And that went on until about I was the age of nine. And and so yeah, very early age people. You know, this wasn’t at all over there that I realized, like love and care if people were supposed to care about me care about me literally like was altered until I was like, able to address it because it’s like, it’s like the people that were supposed to take care of me love me, you know, protect me we’re doing pretty much the opposite. Like are abusing me and raping me and and and treating me like like, just not ideal, you know and I could have and I went through bouts of you know, mental health and and things when I was younger but it was really like finally like finding various outlets and tools and and realize, man this this is just a chapter in my life that occurred and and while it was it was a horrible thing that happened at I would, in my mind, I want to say I was like 12, or 13, when I was like, they control me for so long, and I’m not gonna let them control me and my mental state, and I knew that being depressed or sad, or even trying to run away, and we, like I said, can’t really run away, they’re still in control. So from a very 12 year old, like, like, I’m not gonna let you control me kind of attitude, it’s evolved in a much more mature approach. But in that beginning stages, it was like, it was actually a good approach to kind of like, you know, what, I can’t control what they did, but I can control myself and my mindset around everything moving forward, because I knew that if I let these events continue to affect my mind, State and other things, and if I didn’t have the self awareness around it, it would affect all my relationships moving forward for the rest of my life. So anyways, I know I kind of went on there. But yeah, it started at a fairly early age, there’s other things I had. And I remember neighbor, kids, like even going on, like, throw me down in the gutter and, and, like, beat me up pretty regularly. And, and being called names and, and being bullied. No, I was, I was, I was never a fat kid. But I was only a chunkier kid. But even back then, people were me. You were mean to me, and like, it’s like, I look back, and it’s like, you know, it just was part of life. But you know, I know people deal with some of these things now, or have dealt with it. And I, you know, I, and I get it, like, there’s times where you want to give up. But I really truly believe we’re all meant for a purpose on this planet. And I really believe that, like, the devil was in overtime, for lack of a better way to phrase it to really get rid of me quick. And, you know, in my stubborn, optimistic, you know, realist perspective, and I was like, you know, what, I’m gonna do everything I can to make this world a better place, because there’s a lot of pain. And I realized, hurt people hurt people. So even though it sucked, what happened to me, these people are hurting too. And they’re just trying to put their pain onto me. And I’m not going to let that I’m not going to let them win in that. So if anything, I want to help younger people, I want to help people with whatever whether it be it started with physical with my personal training, and then I do the live coaching with the metal because I realized if I can help you in just a few people here and there, hopefully, hopefully, it’ll have a domino effect in the lives that they come in contact with, to prevent things that happen to me and may sound simple, but I truly believe work like this can help. So

 

Ari: no, I hear. And it’s, you know, so you had all those bricks thrown at you early on. But then the Wisner started to come into you saying, like, No, you don’t need to suffer, you don’t need to, you know, take this into yourself, and, you know, just, you know, hide it, so to speak, or, you know, not let anybody know about it, it’s, you know, they say it’s very important, you know, part of the healing process, in general is speaking is talking about it, all right, because if you suppress it, it can be so much worse. So, you know, my hat’s off to you that you’re willing to talk about it and you’re willing to, you know, let people into your life, you know, in a certain area where most people would not, you know, want to do that. But you know, I think you have, you know, an altruistic motive. And my hat’s off to you to tell it tell us a little bit more about you. I mean, you mentioned to me you had broken your neck. Uh, you you were in carpet. What what? Yeah. Talk to me, man. Talk to me,

 

Justen: like, so like, yeah, like, like, yeah, so, like you mentioned early on, people look at me, and they assume everything’s good. And I’ve even had people like, you’ve got great genetics, and everything’s good. Everything always works. I’ve had people say that. And that was part of motivation of like, even writing the book, I had a friend and plant the idea when I was on a mission trip to write the book, but then I was like, Nah, nobody wants to hear my stuff. Like, you know, everyone’s got stuff to deal with. But I realized I kind of had to, and if I could, like, positively affect one person by this book, even if that person is me. But yeah, so So yeah, a lot has happened. We again, we all have stuff, but like, they may look like I’m chasing pain, and maybe I was at one point, but I’m just an adventurer, and I want to enjoy life. You got one life. And you know, even I say this, like even though there’s storms, storms happen all the time, like life never gets easy. It’s always challenging. It’s not like if you make a certain amount of money, it’s all of a sudden going to be rainbows and unicorns, that’s not going to happen. But even through the pain, even though the trauma even through the hardship, you can still enjoy some of those times when I’m trying to enjoy life. Yeah, accidents happen. So I’ve been in several car wrecks. Not all my faults, and one thing I’m like driving crazy. One was in 2005, for example, where I was managing a restaurant at the time when I was going to pick up supplies and this I lived in Kentucky. And it never snows really where we’re at like, like so they don’t really know how to handle it. So the roads are like super slick. And I remember I don’t I remember all the details. I just remember somebody some of the blades and next thing I knew somebody in front of me slammed on the brakes. I said I knew I was in the hospital. The police report basically said that I would propelled like a helicopter basically airborne and slammed into another vehicle. I guess my vehicle lost control, I hit a pole and then I hit a vehicle or something. Anyways, I was found in the path hanging out the passenger side window because my seatbelt had ripped off, broken off. I ended up having nine staples in my head, I fractured at least one vertebrae in my neck. So basically a break been on a clean break where I was paralyzed, but it did affect some nerve endings in my body. And so I had a neck brace, I had this like mountain on top of my head, it looked like it was literally like, somebody had put a softball inside it. And and, and I took months to recover from In fact, my dad was in Illinois came back and so this was 2005. So you’re looking at is like, you know, so I’m like about 2425 years old. And my dad came two days later, thank God he was there literally my vehicles destroyed and I can’t drive him drugged up and everything else he might bring in a penetrating pen hemorrhaging, so I had to go back to the hospital and get a drain because it was like the pain literally felt like it was my head was gonna explode. 2007 I had a snowboarding accident again, just avid outdoors person avid snowboarding, this wasn’t my first time just on some like, click some hills in southern Indiana. And, and again, it snows there but not like it did that day. It was like we hit a middle of a snowstorm. And so they they it’s like a mixture of manmade. So this is a way to explain to me that mixture of manmade snow and just right between the snowstorm and the wind and it was really slick. So when I came off a jump, I landed and I just normally I’m fine. But I had no control. I lost control. I don’t really remember what happened. It just felt like I broke my arm. I didn’t break my arm, I broken my neck, or fractured my neck in two places so bad. Somehow I was able to walk. I’m not making this up. But apparently the way the doctor it affected again, all the nerve endings in my left arm went to this Podunk

Indiana hospital, they don’t know what’s wrong, they put me in a sling and send them away. So I’m back to back to Lexington, Kentucky, which in the time was like an hour and a half drive hitting all these bumps and everything else. I get a call at 7am I’m not like trying to dramatize this. This is a legit story. 7am I get a call from Lexington hospital. And she’s like one of the best hospitals in the country. Like they’re like don’t move again and what’s on the way and they don’t tell me anything else. You just hang up. I’m like, what’s going on? I found out I got to the hospital and I just saw like doctors shaking their head looking at me like they got me in the neck brace they got me like, like when the they picked me up, they put me in one of those like, like orange like, like I was like basically I couldn’t move. And I’m like what’s going on? Anyways, apparently, that hospital sent my X rays down there and overnight, they checked him out my my vertebrae to the two vertebrae that were fractured. I think C six and C seven but don’t quote me on that. I’d have to go look, the two that were fractured was was bad enough that like if I would have hit the wrong bump, if I would have slept the wrong way the night before. Like if I would have turned my head like I could have completely broken them and been paralyzed. Like this is what the doctor was telling me. No, I did not sue anybody or anything else. It is what it is. And I looked at it again. People call me crazy. I was grateful. Like I was optimistic I could have been and this is like my whole life. This is just the story like this happens. Things could have been way worse. Like with the correct things could have been I could have been dead. Like with the birth. I think it all started with a birth like I was born in my twin was not like I’m grateful I get life to do again and do better. And that’s why like I show up in the relationship so I can go on and on source. Yeah, I broke my neck. I’ve torn this shoulder like all four rotator cuff muscles in his shoulder. I’ve injured my hip. i i What are some other crazy things that have happened? I remember one car wreck where my vehicle completely flipped over I was in the hospital. I owe to a week before I was gonna get married. Here’s another one a week before I was gonna get married. And maybe people can relate to this might even have worse stories but like it’ll be an optimist and be a realist. But like a week before I got married, I was rushed to the hospital felt like literally someone who’s ripping my skull open.

 

Real quick. I went to a doctor, they just thought I had migraines. I’ve never had my hair in my life and I took this medicine I woke up at midnight and literally felt like somebody’s taking their hands and ripping over the back of my skull. It’s like it had to be the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life. It brought me to tears and like I was like it was I can’t really connect it any other pain I’ve ever add to my life. And so they did a spinal tap juice and fluid did all these tests, I stayed for a few days, they really didn’t know. Finally, I think like three or so days later, they came in and said I had a rare or new form of meningitis. So they sent it off to the state lab to be researched. They asked my permission, I said, Sure, whatever is in the hospital for another weekend. And so that just kind of like wiped me. And then we got married. And then a month later, I was in the hospital because my appendix almost burst which they correlated to the meningitis. It didn’t burst, thank God, but it almost burst. And so like that I removed, which completely being in the health and wellness and nutrition actually helped me because I work with a lot of people have gut issues. I was one of those guys before the appendix thing. I could eat and do whatever I want. As long as I stayed active, you know what I mean? Like nothing really bothered me, as long as I stayed active, which I’m a pretty active guy. After that, like everything, I became lactose intolerant, I couldn’t handle breads, I couldn’t handle all these different things. My gut would inflame for no reason I became really gassy. And I’m like, I can’t do this. So But it got me to really explore food and nutrition. And because I’m all this person to like, I don’t want to just eat chicken, broccoli, rice and salad. I want to eat delicious foods. How can we do this, but keep in planning the inflammation down. And so I’ve really discovered that this was in 2011 ish when this happened. So are 2010. So we’re looking at 11 years over the last 11 or 12 years or so I’ve really just really hammered in like delicious food. And as I say, my clients, it’s low inflammation that’s good for people like so I’ve worked with everybody with, you know, different kinds of gut issues, from GI issues to appendix issues. You know, even when I was writing this book, like, you know, life comes in storms, I’ll here’s one more story and then we can move on. But I ended up having coming back from the Dominican Republic where I was on a mission trip. And I just was having weird stuff going on in my stomach. And I went to a gastroenterologist to do some stuff because everything I was knew that I was doing wasn’t working. I found out Yeah, I became sugar intolerant, but it wasn’t just that they ended up asking if I’d like to do a colonoscopy. And a lot of people know that now because colon cancer is on the rise. But I’m 41 typically don’t do it till mid to late 40s. She’s like, we don’t have to do it. But I’m like, Hey, man, if you’re offering I’m taking, I’m all about it. I want to know, so I did it. We all know colonoscopy, the prep all this is fun. But if you can have some relief, I want it relief I want to know is up. And I’m glad I did it. They found two precancerous polyps, which I, which I know can happen. So they remove those and I gotta go back pretty much every year. But after they took those out, I actually felt a lot better. You know? So it shows that even though it wasn’t a major thing, it does happen. And it’s not like a rare thing. I know. It’s pretty common. A lot of people find precancerous polyps. But once they removed those two precancerous polyps, my gut felt better. So it’s just like, you know, if anything, especially the male ego can get away with doctors and all these different things and, and our past stories like, this is part of the life experience. And I think the more we can open up, not necessarily everyone got to go right or both. But like we can just you can just like journal like I offer a free journal because I think writing is very therapeutic. Like just being honest with your life and not sugarcoating. And just like we all experienced life, we all got our ups and downs, nobody’s living like the Instagram life. That’s perfect. We all got trials, whether we’re rich, or was the report whether in the middle, we’ve all got challenges, and some of our emotions and feelings attached to those challenges might be similar. And by sharing a little bit with even just a journal might feel better, but even just share with a friend or maybe even on social media, you might help one person I think we need to get past the point of like being vulnerable. And know that vulnerability is a strength and is masculine. And being vulnerable isn’t a weakness and like for especially for things that you have no control, you have no control over what a grown ass man did to you when you were 5678 years old. So just be honest and be okay and move on. And don’t let that person who did that stuff to you have any more control of your life anymore. So yeah,

 

Ari: wow. Wow. Just remind me once you remind me not to get into a car with you.

 

Justen: Somebody said I blew past my nine lives. I can’t remember who said that. My mom said it. My wife has said I think somebody read my books like man do you have like, if you’re like a cat, but I think you’ve got I think I think we just I’ve been reading this book called What is it? It’s called Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl and it kind of points out like if you have a purpose in your mind if you’re meant for more and you know that there’s something out there the will to survive. It’s great. This guy went through the concentration camp and his will to survive was greater than anything he put through. Like he went through sports things and I’ve feel I’ve gone through so it’s like, I think that we’ll just survive and being an optimistic realist is has real power in it and just knowing that like we’re meant for more we’re built for more. We’re meant to help people just like this podcast is probably helping so many people. So

 

Ari: I gotta tell you something It’s really funny that you that you mentioned Viktor Frankl because I interviewed a guy yesterday, who went through the London bombing in July of 2005. Wow. All right. And he also mentioned Viktor Frankl. You know what he had gone through?

is that? No, absolutely, absolutely. It was, it was fascinating. Anyway,

 

Justen: have you read the book? Have you read the book?

 

Ari: I have not read his book. I have not read

Justen: it. But yeah, it’s, it’s definitely a deep one. And then again, like with any book, I always tell people don’t treat any book as religion and there might be some meat in there, you don’t have to, you know, take the meat leave the bones is kind of what I say. I’m not saying it’s that fair. But it might be for some people, like, there might be some, like, things that you may not agree with in there. And, but I think in the overall conferencing message that like, you know, you know, we’re here to help people and, and, and, you know, there are driving purposes survive, we can do a lot of great things. And, and that’s kind of it, like, it’s awesome on this planet. And I get breath in my lungs, like, you know, when I have good and bad days, but I just want to, like make the most of it and keep trucking on and just learn and grow from the challenges that are presented before me.

 

Ari: Absolutely. Let me ask you this, did you ever get to a point that you got so low in your life that you said to yourself, you know, I quit, I can’t do this anymore? I’ve given up on my dreams? I don’t care if you know, I’m gonna get a quality a little ball and die. I don’t, you know, you must have that must of course, at some point in time? And if so, let me finish if so, how did you climb out of it? How do you make that comeback, because obviously, you made that comeback.

 

Justen: mean, I went through like, and I talked about this a little bit in my book, I did go through though about bouts of like depression, and I contemplated and even poorly, poorly attempted suicide a couple of times. And, and this was in my teenage high school years. And, and again, this is me, so don’t no one, like, you know, don’t take this personal thing. But I kind of looked at, like, that was an easy route. And and, and that was giving up and, and I couldn’t do that, you know, and, and I looked at like, you know, even though this is easy for me, I really had this belief that it was going to be so much harder for everyone else, you know, even if we go through, like, nobody cares, but I was like, Wait, somebody’s gonna be like, like, and I’m like, oh, no, like farmers like then and it goes back to that, then I let them I let them being whatever it is, right, and you’re hurting me. And then I put it on myself. And so that happened during my teenage years. So I did get some pretty low moments. But, and even when I have some challenges, even in these moments, I always go back to like, I have tools. And now that’s why I always tell people like, don’t just go through life, like you know, like really like, like, have things in place. Because, you know, that’s why I write, it’s so therapeutic just to write down my thoughts. And not sure code them and just kind of get them on paper. There’s a flush there that I talked mentioned, in my bio meditation, I’m big on self care. I think sometimes especially I’m a father of three, especially as parents, especially I see this very common with women. Like they’re doing all these things with their children they needed like their health, the mental health or physical health, all of it. And they say because I’m doing it for them. And then you have the guys that are working 80 hours a week neglecting their health to mental and physical because I’m doing this all to them. But you can’t be the best father, the best husband the best way, unless you’re taking care of yourself. being selfish is selfless to a degree as long as it’s like working out getting eight hours sleep, or as much as you can, you know, you know taking some downtime. And if you can’t find it in your week, at least find a little bit in you know, each day like five minutes of meditation like truly like disconnecting and clearing your mind calming your mind call whatever you will, man, I’ve done five minutes of meditation, and I’ve even tracked it on various like they have all these devices now. It is it’s showing that even science of better recovery than eight hours of sleep if done correctly, because you can really just get out because sometimes we are so stressed that we we go to sleep and don’t really get sleep and we’re having nightmarish dreams and it’s just a vicious cycle or we’re heavily medicated to try to get to sleep to to escape our life. But you know, I think we need to find a better way so yeah, I did dance. Your question is I’ve gotten those I want to say sometimes the devil creeps in I was the first chapter in my book is The Devil doing push ups. That’s the name of the chapter and what that means is essentially like he’s always going to be there he’s always going to creep and so like again, it goes back to like, you know, be okay with your feelings and emotion. I’m not trying to say never be mad, never be upset, never be angry, never be emotional. Just be have the self awareness to address it and not hang out there too long and realize why You might be having those feelings and just be okay with it. But just know that other people are counting on you, you know, and you don’t always have to be 100%. But if you can be the best version of yourself that day or that moment, whether it be through your cell for your kids, for your wife, or whatever it might look like, then just be that person, there is no, you can’t be 100% every day, and be okay with that. But like just, it’s good to have tools, it’s good to it’s good to have control in your life and areas, when life can be so out of control. That’s why I do a morning routine and night routine, I scheduled these things. So when you do that, like okay, this is my standard, these things are going to happen. Even if there’s all these storms and chaos in the middle, at least I got these things, and I can find comfort in these things. Does that make sense?

 

 

Ari: Absolutely. Absolutely. That’s why That’s why I call this podcast whispers and bricks, because the bricks of the all the things that get thrown at you that you know, yeah, exactly. But all those other things that are those are the whispers that are talking to you that are helping you to avoid the bricks or to you know, deal with the bricks, etc. Let me ask you this, before we go, who’s the one person that you would point to that, that you would say had the most influence in your life? And why?

 

Justen: Man, the one person that had the most influence? You know, I’ve been asked this before, and I’ve always thought about trying to give a different answer.

 

Ari: But don’t give an answer give us a real answer.

 

 

Justen: But the real answer is, is honestly like, I wasn’t always a believer in a higher power of faith. But I honestly look to Jesus. And whether you’re religious or not, I look to Jesus and, and not to sound cliche or anything. For those that know I went through a period of not believing and even atheism. It was me on my own on myself that found it. And when I just looked at that guy, just because like this guy, like in a short period of time made such a massive impact. And he knew the benefits of you know, he could he could go into a crowd, but he could also when he could step away, he could work one on one, but he could also climb mountains, he was very physically strong to be able to climb Mount, we’re talking like Adirondack like cliffs in sandals in a row to go be by himself. He saw the value and personal element. You know, he saw the value of like meditation and prayer. And so like, for me, I just, you know, he could love people like that did some of the worst things and I can’t even buy that stuff done. So like, like, I look at that like, and I ended my book, I’d like to add just, you know, all the people that have created or all the people that may have challenged me or maybe weren’t ideal, like I realized, like all these challenges, I would never take back anything. I would never change anything that happened in my life. I am grateful for my life experiences, because it’s made me the father. It’s made me the husband, it’s made me the business owner. So, you know, I realized, well, it’s hard to stomach sometimes I don’t want a perfect life. And I got a quote on this wall. It says do not pray for an easy life pray for the strength to endure a difficult one. Because that that’s it, you know that wow,

 

Ari: that’s the key. Well, I was going to ask you for words of advice or words of wisdom, but you just laid it out right there. Right there. Would you can you can you repeat what that what that thing what you just said, please

 

 

Justen: do not pray for an easy life. Pray for the strength to endure a difference.  

Do not pray for an easy life. Pray for the strength to endure. That’s that life is hard. Like brilliant, brilliant, brilliant ring.

 

Ari: Wow.

So Justin, before we go, if people want to get a hold of you, what will be the best way of doing that? Whether they just want to talk or they have issues or they’re looking for coaching or whatever it is, whatever. What’s the best way to get a hold of you? You have a website? Yeah, email. What is it?

 

Justen: Yeah, I’ll give you an all D so you can go to my website. And there you can actually find information on my blog, purpose and pain. My personal website is Justin arnall.com. And if you’re listening this podcast is  https://justenarnold.com/

Pretty simple. You can also check on my gym website, which is www.Flexxmp.com And then my email address is like you know, I’m always looking for people to be more be better be the greatest version themselves. and then I’m on social media, from LinkedIn to Facebook and Instagram. I’m all over the place. And if you want to see some of my drumming, I throw some of that up on this whole tick tock. I’m not a big, big thing on tick tock, but I’m on there as well. So

 

Ari: great. Thanks so much, Justin. Thank you, Justin. I want to thank you so much for sharing your story with me and my audience. Really good luck going forward. I know you’re doing some great things. I know that you’re helping people and You know, with this podcast, you’re going to be helping a whole lot more people. It’s just what you’re doing is great. You know, again, I don’t know if I would have your strength, right giving, given everything that you’ve gone through. I don’t know if I’d be able to do that. So my hat’s off to you continue doing what you’re doing. All right. I’m, I’m proud to call you my friend. And, you know, just just keep on keepin on. All right.

 

Justen: Appreciate it. I appreciate it very much. Thank you so much for having me on here, man. It’s been a real blast. And yeah, hopefully people find comfort in this and you said, you don’t think you could? I think anything’s possible. Again, I find comfort in a higher power. Because like, it’s easy to just I got a chatroom says Let go Let God because like, I will take care what I can you can take care of the rest. And again, whether you believe it or not, there’s comfort in that. So maybe just give it a try. See if it helps.

 

Ari: There you go. There you go. Thanks so much. You’ve been listening to whispers in Brixton. I’m your host Ari Schonbrun. Remember, if you feel like you’re stuck in the mud, like you’re spinning your wheels, wasting time, your career, your business your life. If you know you’re not enjoying all the success, satisfaction significance that you desire, then it’s time for you to book a call with me at call with ari.com Check out my whispers and bricks Coaching Academy and until next time, listen to the whispers avoid the bricks and never, ever give up on your dreams. Bye for now.

 

  Lizbeth Meredith Rescues Her Kidnapped Children

Summary:

Lizbeth Meredith shares her remarkable story and shows what you can do when you reach out for help. She details the huge brick she faced of her ex-husband kidnapping her children and taking them to Greece. Lizbeth describes the people and whispers that helped her find and rescue them, how she helped her kids deal with the trauma and how she has used her experience to help others.

Episode Transcription

 

Intro Plays

 

Ari: Welcome to whispers and bricks. My name is Ari Shonbrun. I’m your host. I have my special guest today. lisabeth Meredith. She is an author speaker, an online teacher who recently relocated from Anchorage, Alaska to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Her memoir, pieces of me rescuing my kidnapped daughters is in production and expected to be on Lifetime Television. As stolen hearts. The Elizabeth Meredith story, you can connect with her at La meredith.com. Please help me welcome Lisbeth. Meredith. Elizabeth, how are you? I am so well. Thank you, Ari. I’m so happy to be with you tonight. Well, thank you so much. I’m very excited about you coming on the show. I think you’ve got a lot to offer my audience and I think they’re going to be really, really excited.

 

Ari:  So but before we begin, I have to ask you, okay, your first name is Lizbeth. Yogi, at the beginning? No, Elizabeth No. A in the middle. Okay. Oh, is that how your parents named you? And is there any significance to that? You know, what my parents weren’t the people that you would rely on to tell you why the name was the way it was. But I always said later, like, my parents could not afford the vowels. And that was that’s stuck. You know, we were poor. They meant well, they wanted something different. So I lost the E and the A, and I’m just playing all this back. Wow. Wow. That’s great. That’s really great. Okay, that was I was been wondering about that. Okay, so Well, let me ask you this, then what are your parents names?

 

Lizbeth:: My dad was Cova, which I love that name. Kate ov a beautiful name. And my mother was Mary. And somehow or another those two happened together and thought that I should be Lizbeth. So for that, I am grateful. Now where is where was your father from?

 

Good question. He was from Kentucky and I was born in Kentucky myself. And my mother, I’m thinking was Louisiana, but I cannot be for sure. Now that you just said that. I think she was born in Louisiana. That’s where her kin folks are. But I may be wrong about that. Uh huh. Okay, so the purebred Americans basically. Yes, exactly. Very interesting. And I’ll tell you why. Cova or ICAO, VA in Hebrew in Hebrew means hat. Really? Yep.

 

Ari: It means hat. I love the name Koba. Koba and marry I love those names. Yeah, go. That’s that’s a good thing, because they’re your parents. So it’s actually like, quite right. I didn’t meet my Mayakoba till I was 20. But what a fascinating me, you know, I was fascinated. He wasn’t a SAM, he wasn’t a John, he was Cova. Wow. Okay. Well, as you know, the name of the podcast is whispers bricks, and the whispers of those voices telling you what the right thing to do is, and they represent the good in life. The bricks represent the bad things we go through in life. And God knows everybody, at some point in time in their life has a brick thrown at them, some bigger bricks, some smaller bricks, some more bricks, some less bricks, but at the end of the day, we people, people in general, go through something. Now,

 

I asked you to be my guest on the show. Because there are people in my audience who are, believe it or not, are probably going through some of the same things that you have gone through. They’ve been hit with, you know, brick after brick, much like what you had gone through. And they needed to hear and to know that they could get through the trials and tribulations, the same way that you did. They needed to know that there were whispers out there that could save them. Now in your life, you’ve had many bricks thrown at you from a marriage that ended in divorce, with children being kidnapped or taken to a foreign country just to name a few. But before we get to that, can you tell us a little bit about about you in the formative years? You went to college?

 

You know, what’s what what did you major in? What’s your story?

 

Lizbeth: Sure. And thank you, I love being here at whispers and bricks. And so my story

 

Is that I was a young, you know, kid growing up in a home where, you know, we inherit our parents, we didn’t ask for them, but we’re glad for them. And I felt like as a young child, like, wow, I’m going to be a little bit different than the parents that I’m growing up with, I’m going to be somebody who is intentional about the way things turn out because I was a child of divorce. I felt like divorce was chaotic. It was bad. And then my parents split, and I didn’t meet my dad till I found an attorney to find him. So he’s 20 years old before I met my father. And so I just, I felt like you know what, I’m going to be a different person, and really didn’t realize that you have to do much more than just wish for something better, to create something better. And so, even though I wanted to be someone who, you know, had a stable life, and a college education, my parents were smart people and hardworking people, but they didn’t have the benefit of getting to go to school. And to choose what they wanted to do. They sort of were born not necessarily rich, and did what they could to survive. And they were scrappy, and I admire that about them. But when I was growing up, I thought, Why waste my home life so chaotic, what is wrong with these people? And, you know, I was very judgmental, and then realized later, oh, they were living out their inheritance. And so when I was looking for stability, what I did was I landed on, like, what would be the ideal, I wish that I was married. I wish I had kids, I wish that I would never get divorced. I wish that my children would have everything I did not. And so the first person that really gave me a lot of attention, I was like, perfect. You know, you love me, you think I’m great. Good enough. And that’s what happened was, you know, I hadn’t I frankly ignored the whispers. And there were people trying to tell me when I was young, hey, maybe you want to rethink the choice you’re about to make? Hey, maybe you don’t want to end up marrying this person you knew for very little time. Hey, maybe you want to recalibrate and decide how you want your life to be. And I was like, No, I’m smart. I’m doing different. And bricks, bricks pummeled me after that. Wow. So

 

Ari: what what were you doing? In other words, what kind of job did you land? What were you doing in your work life? When I was a young person, you mean when I was about to get married?

 

Lizbeth: Yeah, I had gone to a little bit of college, which like I said, my parents didn’t have that option. So they were they hadn’t graduated high school, either one of them. And here I was, I graduated high school. And I went to college for a little bit. And you know, was going to school and then realize that I didn’t have any direction. So I went back to my home state of Alaska, where I had grown up mostly, and got a job in a hotel.

 

I love tourism. I love hotels, I love all things travel. And so there I was in a hotel thinking, wow, look at me, I’m so fancy, and met someone a little bit older, and from a different culture and thought, he likes me perfect. Let’s get married. He wants to get married. We’ll get married. So that’s where I was. I hadn’t finished school yet. Didn’t have any assets just had good intentions and a lot of dreams. Wow. Okay, so,

 

Ari: so far things sound pretty good. Yeah. Right. I have to admit, you know, if I was looking at that, I’d say Hey, she’s pretty she’s got a pretty good, she’s got a good job. She’s got a nice husband. Okay. What happened next? 

 

Lizbeth: Well, the thing is, I just I don’t know that I had a nice husband, I had a husband. And for me when I was young, it was like musical chairs. Like back in my generation. There were certain expectations. And when the music stopped, you jump to the next thing. So I graduated high school I tried to go to college hadn’t finished quite yet. Then the music stopped and I’m like, I’m 20 years old. Marriage. And, you know, I was at a job where there were some interesting people and I went with the first person who showed intense interest in me. And there I was married at when I first turned 21 Little dating experience that mattered really no, no long term boyfriends that were real significant.

 

I just got married, and boom, there it was. Alaska, marry. Okay, so you’re in Alaska and you’re married. Alright.

 

Then, along came the two kids. I was so excited. I knew that I wanted to be a mom. Soon after I married, I knew I had married someone that would never make me happy. And that sounds horrible. But it was true. I married someone and I thought I won’t be divorced, I will not look at the marriage so much. But children. Yes. And so I had two little girls in rapid succession. And they were and are amazing. And what I thought because it wasn’t too wise, and it wasn’t very educated. I didn’t have a family system that supported it deep thinking. I thought, you know, kids, that’s my consolation prize, my husband may be mean, and may not be the person that I thought he was, but

 

I will be a good mother. And that will be enough. And I will give them a two parent family, not like I grew up with. Wow, it sounds. You know, it sounds like

 

you know, trying to make the best out of a bad situation.

 

That’s That’s what it sounds like to me.

 

arI: So there must have been some troublesome years, I assume. You girls growing up and and then the proverbial big break hit?

 

Lizbeth: repeatedly? It did. You know, I don’t think I thought deeply about what it was that children needed. I thought what it was, that would make me happy. I knew I wanted to be a mom. I knew I’d married the wrong person. I was young enough to think children. Wow, you know, consolation prize, how incredible will it be to be a mother. And so I had these amazing children, and a marriage that just got worse and worse and worse. And so while I was focused on them, he was focused on why aren’t you focusing on me, and what’s wrong with you, I am your husband. And

 

I didn’t realize at the time that there were people in life and had nothing to do with his culture and a lot to do with him. But there are people in life who will try to strip you away from everything you knew, to make themselves feel bigger, to make themselves feel powerful, and strong. And so I was with someone who did not appreciate that we were having children, he was threatened by it. And so as I grew stronger, and loving the role of being a mom, he grew more and more jealous, and scary and controlling. And so while I started out with some friends and interests and goals, couple years later, I had nothing except for these two beautiful kids, and a husband, who was monitoring my friendships, my spending my movements, and threatening that if I ever left him, that would be the end. Now, you talked about, you talked about his culture.

 

Ari: What culture was that? What’s what what was he from, I mean,

 

Lizbeth: I married someone who worked with me at the particular hotel I worked at, and he was Greek. And so he was an American citizen when I met him, but he was from Greece. And he was a different generation, he was older than I was, and very intent on him ruling the roost, and me falling in line. And not all Greek men are like that. And Greece is a beautiful place. However, he was someone with a lot of baggage. And I felt like you know what, whatever he needs so that we can stay married and I can raise children in a home that was, quote, unquote, intact. That’s what I’ll do.

 

And that’s what you did. And I actually did. Okay. Now.

 

Ari: What was your obviously I read your bio when it said something to the something to the effect of

 

your children being kidnapped? Yes. All right. What was that all about? 

 

Lizbeth: So eventually, so here I was in my early 20s, having two little daughters and a marriage. And I was committed to staying until the day came when he strangled me in front of our oldest child, and she was only two.

 

Back in the day in 1990, when this happened, I think modern psychology believed that if a child was super young, they would never remember what happened traumatic events if they were too young.

 

have memories, it would not impact them. But here was my little girl watching me be strangled. And I knew at that time, I’m not sticking around for any more. They don’t deserve this, I didn’t believe I deserve better. I knew that my kids deserve to grow up better. And so I decided to leave. And

 

you know, this was 1990. In America, we didn’t talk about what happened in the home, we didn’t talk about violence in families, you know, Nicole Brown Simpson, quite frankly, had not yet been murdered. And so we that was a huge pivotal point in our history and talking about domestic abuse. So we weren’t there yet. I got a protective, I went to a shelter took my kids got a protective order. Just thought, I’m going to look forward and get a college degree, I’m going to not ask for child support, I’m not going to remarry right away, I’m going to make good choices, and do something different and get my girls a different future. Not realizing that the stronger I became, the more threatened he became. And so I finished college two years later, I got a degree in journalism, I got a job, I loved my life, I didn’t get any child support. I made $10 an hour, and supported two little girls. And the happier I was, the scarier he became. And then four years after I left him, so I left in March of 1990. In March of 1994, he took the children on a visit and left the country.

 

Ari: And that was that a collateral? A bit of collateral damage, and an unintended consequence of me leaving.

 

Wow, now, I guess,

 

you know, that’s not something that you can do. Today, let’s say,

 

Lizbeth: I know, way back when

 

it was easy, you know, you took you wanted to take your kids, you know, on an airplane, it was no big deal. I took the kids on an airplane, there was no there were no checks and balances, so to speak. There was nothing there was nothing going on. It was a free for all,

 

like something that that could not happen today. I don’t think he would be able to get on a plane, you know, they’d have to get well, you always needed a passport. But

 

you know, but even so, I mean, it’s you know, I think that would be a a problem. Okay. But back then I guess there was there was no problem. So he, so four years later, he upped, and he took how old we kids at the time, the best ages, like those ages that we pray for in life with our kids. So they were four and six, and they could not have been any cuter. Yeah. And I will say this, it is harder today to take kids and leave the state or leave the country, but it’s still possible. And so there are 1000s of kids every year taken out of our country by one parent who’s decided that they want to what go to their home country or retaliate against the other parents. So it still happens. But it was much easier than right. So my former husband was smarter. I mean, he’s a smart man. So he knew to change the girls names by a couple of letters. And to apply for passports and then saying, Oh, I don’t know why this birth certificate doesn’t match their spelling. But this is their true names. Right? That kind of so he was very wise. And you know, was able to do that. And for my children, it was terrifying.

 

So

 

Ari: how long? How long did that last?

 

Lizbeth: I said goodbye to my daughters in March of 1994. When they went to have a weekend visit with him. I didn’t see them again until 1996. And by the time that I coordinated and got back with them, and of course I was on a very small budget. Having to travel across the globe. These girls didn’t speak English any longer. They had lived in hiding. They barely attended school, and they no longer spoke the language where that I spoke. Wow, how did you how did you find them? How did you know what they were?

 

I didn’t and so I hired a private investigator and a couple of lawyers on my tiny little budget and we had fundraiser after fundraiser. One awesome thing and many amazing things happened at the time. But you know, this was pre internet. This was a time of like, Hey everyone.

 

Do do a GoFundMe and find my kids. Yeah, you know, I really relied on people who cared about what happened to the suffering of another person. And so people across the globe literally extended themselves to help me to connect with my children. And it was pretty incredible. You know, $10 an hour doesn’t get you much for $100,000 problem. Wow. Yet I was able to hire interpreters hire lawyers, go across country, and eventually find my daughter’s. Wow, did he? Did you ever? Like, did he ever?

 

Did he ever stand trial for kidnapping? Or did he ever come back to this country? Did he stay in Greece? Do you know what happened to him? Yes, I went over, you know, a couple of times. I mean, it’s a longer story. But I went over a couple of times to try to get my kids. First time I failed. And second time, I was able to reconnect with my children. And he was briefly arrested in Greece for child kidnapping, but released before I could leave the country. And then I was arrested for kidnapping. My daughter’s when I was able to take them out of country. He pressed charges against me. I’m in a foreign country, and I was arrested. Oh, my God, a mess. Right. So let’s go. Yeah, so got out of that mess, and travelled home and then went through federal courts to stand my ground, it was very difficult. I think the hardest thing seemed like getting my kids out of a foreign country dealing with different governments and agencies and all of that. That was nothing that was baby food. The real heavy lifting came when my daughters were home had to learn to speak the language. And we dealt with their old traumas. That was the hard part. But again, with support with resources, you know, that are we’re in the community with amazing people in Alaska, and in Greece and other places. And with persistence, we were able to make a new life. 

 

Ari: Wow, I’m gonna ask a question. I think I know the answer to it. But I’m gonna ask it anyway. Was there ever a point in your life where you just said to yourself, you know what, I can’t do this anymore. I just give up. It’s too hard. I just, I’m given about my dreams, you know? And, and if you did get to that point, all right. How did you overcome? What was what was the you know? What pushed you What motivated you? Such a good question. 

 

Lizbeth: I definitely have hit those spots in different times in my life, no question. I didn’t have a parent to rely on, I didn’t have that silver lining in the family was not there. And there were a lot of deficits in myself. So I hit spots where I think, if I can’t pull this off, if I can’t rescue my daughters, if I can’t reconnect, I won’t continue to keep trying after X amount of time. And so I would tell myself, you have two years to find your kids, and then figure it out if you can’t. And so I maybe would extend a deadline. But I would give myself sort of a fake deadline, and then work really hard to be sure that I did my best for my daughter’s and for myself, it was selfish, as much as anything else. It wasn’t just for them. I’m no mother, Teresa. But this was these were the most inspirational people I’d ever met these little girls. And so they need, they gave me something to live for. And I owe them so much for creating a life that was beneath them. You know, I married chaotically I married because it seemed like that’s what you did. I didn’t put enough thought into so many things. And I knew that I owed them better. They deserved more. Wow. So you finally got him back. And you started teaching them English again. But the school and today, Where are the girls today? They’re amazing people. And you know, when I was like I said back in the early 90s and the mid 90s. Even when they came home from Greece, modern psychology would have told you that while they were young, then they’d be just fine. It will never bother them. They won’t remember. We know more now. And so eventually I got a graduate degree in psychology, and later on realized, oh, wait, they remember everything. It’s written in their bodies. And so they have suffered plenty in adulthood and one has a lot of

 

Problems physical, the other has more mental health concerns. But they’re both mighty Phoenix’s. They both graduated college, neither of them decided to marry early. And to this date, no one has kids yet. But their girls and their young women in their mid 30s, who are just fabulous humans, and they’re making a difference in their world. Wow. And for that I am so grateful just to know them much less to have been able to parent them imperfectly as I did. Wow. And they’re both married. Neither, neither are married. Yeah, no, they’re married both, you know, longer relationships, neither married and neither choosing parenthood at this time, they’re making choices, rather than living in a musical chair society where they just live with other people’s expectations. Right. So wow, that’s just an amazing, amazing story.

 

Ari: So but you, you went to college for journalism, and then you got a degree in psychology?

 

Lizbeth:  I did, like, you know, was that because of what you were going through at the time? I don’t think I would have said, so when I was going to school in psychology, I felt like even as a young kid, like I was always fascinated and why people did what they did. And so eventually, when I got my graduate degree, I’ve never regretted it. I didn’t want to be a therapist. But I loved the inner workings of the human mind and intergenerational traumas and what it would take to change them. So I loved the schooling I did. I went to graduate school. And some of it was bad reasoning. But my poor parents weren’t even able to finish high school. They were brilliant. But I think both of them very smart. But they didn’t have that opportunity in their generation and what was going on in their families. So for me, I always looked at, like with travel that I’ve done, or with schooling, what can I do to go as far as I can, and get as far as a way far away from my origins as possible, and make different choices, you know, what can I do? And what opportunities should I not take for granted? That I have now that they just frankly, did not?

 

Ari: Wow, that’s, that’s just amazing. So did you do anything with a psychology degree? Did you? Did you IT job wise? Or?

 

Lizbeth: Oh, gosh, yes. I mean, not only did I write a lot about, you know, the stuff that I’ve been through in essays and the book, I’m with some reflection on things that we know now, but I worked in as a domestic violence advocate for many years still work in the field a little bit. Also then as a child abuse investigator, and then later, 20 years as a juvenile probation supervisor. So I absolutely worked in the field and loved it. Oh, my, that’s, that’s, that’s absolutely amazing. That is totally, totally amazing. That’s, that’s great. And I’m sure that helped you as well with, you know, re acclimating with your children, and you know, helping them to grow up basically, because you’ve seen so much and you studied so much, that you able to deal with it and work with it. And that was, those were the whispers that you were getting, I think, you know, after being hit with such breaks, those were the whispers telling you, you know, hey, this is what you need to do this, how you need to take care of your kids. This is how it’s going to be all better. And it’s never all better. I know that right. Okay. But, you know, at least you had the tools to deal with it in a way that needed that it needed to be dealt with. And I think that’s, I think that’s terrific. I really do.

 

Ari: So, before we go, all right, let me just ask you this. Do you have any words of wisdom words of advice for my audience?

 

Lizbeth: I do. And I think, you know, I loved working in the field, because I saw people with much more difficult lives than I could ever imagine living who still survived and showed up in life. And I feel like

 

if people understand that they there’s always someone available to reach out and grab their hand and go through a tough time them, whether they have substance abuse problems, or intergenerational traumas or domestic abuse or whatever, maybe different things. Maybe it’s a learning disability, mental health, whatever, there is help out there. And they don’t have to go through it alone. And in fact, that’s never a good idea. You know, we are pack animals and even if your family of origin isn’t able to help you recalibrate with whatever it is, you’re

 

going through, there are people out there who are just two steps ahead of you, who would walk with you across a bridge. And I think that’s something that’s helped me because I’m not very strong. I’m not as you know, superhero, I’m not terribly strong or smart at all. But I find that there are people who are, who can help. And they’re willing to. So just by being shy about going ahead and asking for help, there’s nothing to be gained by trying to go through things by yourself.

 

You don’t have the wisdom, the collective wisdom that others can offer you. 

 

Ari: Wow, such words of wisdom, I gotta tell you, my wife is my wife is in the education field.

 

She’s got a master’s in special ed. And she’s been running a program within a girls school girls use Shiva. And it’s, you know, it’s, it’s hard. But she talks about the successes that she has with, you know, even, you know, parents coming to her, you know, she, she works with the kids for the most part. But, you know, she obviously, she deals with parents, because kids need certain things, you know, special needs and the like. And she says, she tells me all the time about these, you know, different parents who come in, they say, No, you know, we could never have done this alone, you know, how can we possibly Thank you, you know, it’s so wonderful to have an advocate to have somebody who knows what we’re going through, that can be there to help us that can help us, you know, through all the red tape, you know, because when you talk about education, there’s a whole bunch of red tape that’s there. And, you know, so I get it. And I get what you’re saying that, you know, you’re right, you don’t have to do it alone. And you’re now that person that people can talk to, that they don’t have to go it alone, because you did. And you’ve been through it’s you know what it’s all about. And that is, don’t tell me you’re not a superhero, because in my book, 

You’re a superhero. 

 

Lizbeth: Thank you, Ari, I, I don’t feel like I am. But I have a lot of support. And it’s been just so gratifying to then be able to give some support.

 

 Ari: Absolutely. Absolutely. So let me ask you this. If people want to get a hold of you, how can they do that? You know, what’s, what’s the best way? Do you have a website? Do you have an email Do you have? What’s the best way to contact you? 

 

Lizbeth: All of the above, and I have a podcast also. So la narrative.com. They’ll find out about my podcast my writing and how to get a hold of me right there. La Meredith calm. My middle name is Anne with an E. So it was my first two initials and the last name Veritas. Wow. 

 

Ari: That’s amazing. Elizabeth, thanks so much for sharing your story with my audience. I’m sure you’ve touched the hearts of many of my audience. Good luck going forward. You been listening to whispers and bricks, and I’m your host, Gary shum. Remember, if you feel like you’re stuck in the mud, like you’re spinning your wheels, wasting time in your career, your business your life. If you know you’re not enjoying all the success and satisfaction and significance that you desire, then it’s time for you to book a call with me at call with ari.com. Check out my whispers and bricks Academy and until next time, listen to the whispers avoid the bricks and never ever give up on your dreams. Bye for now.

 

  Lizbeth Meredith Rescues Her Kidnapped Children

Summary:

Lizbeth Meredith shares her remarkable story and shows what you can do when you reach out for help. She details the huge brick she faced of her ex-husband kidnapping her children and taking them to Greece. Lizbeth describes the people and whispers that helped her find and rescue them, how she helped her kids deal with the trauma and how she has used her experience to help others.

Episode Transcription

 

Intro Plays

 

Ari: Welcome to whispers and bricks. My name is Ari Shonbrun. I’m your host. I have my special guest today. lisabeth Meredith. She is an author speaker, an online teacher who recently relocated from Anchorage, Alaska to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Her memoir, pieces of me rescuing my kidnapped daughters is in production and expected to be on Lifetime Television. As stolen hearts. The Elizabeth Meredith story, you can connect with her at La meredith.com. Please help me welcome Lisbeth. Meredith. Elizabeth, how are you? I am so well. Thank you, Ari. I’m so happy to be with you tonight. Well, thank you so much. I’m very excited about you coming on the show. I think you’ve got a lot to offer my audience and I think they’re going to be really, really excited.

 

Ari:  So but before we begin, I have to ask you, okay, your first name is Lizbeth. Yogi, at the beginning? No, Elizabeth No. A in the middle. Okay. Oh, is that how your parents named you? And is there any significance to that? You know, what my parents weren’t the people that you would rely on to tell you why the name was the way it was. But I always said later, like, my parents could not afford the vowels. And that was that’s stuck. You know, we were poor. They meant well, they wanted something different. So I lost the E and the A, and I’m just playing all this back. Wow. Wow. That’s great. That’s really great. Okay, that was I was been wondering about that. Okay, so Well, let me ask you this, then what are your parents names?

 

Lizbeth:: My dad was Cova, which I love that name. Kate ov a beautiful name. And my mother was Mary. And somehow or another those two happened together and thought that I should be Lizbeth. So for that, I am grateful. Now where is where was your father from?

 

Good question. He was from Kentucky and I was born in Kentucky myself. And my mother, I’m thinking was Louisiana, but I cannot be for sure. Now that you just said that. I think she was born in Louisiana. That’s where her kin folks are. But I may be wrong about that. Uh huh. Okay, so the purebred Americans basically. Yes, exactly. Very interesting. And I’ll tell you why. Cova or ICAO, VA in Hebrew in Hebrew means hat. Really? Yep.

 

Ari: It means hat. I love the name Koba. Koba and marry I love those names. Yeah, go. That’s that’s a good thing, because they’re your parents. So it’s actually like, quite right. I didn’t meet my Mayakoba till I was 20. But what a fascinating me, you know, I was fascinated. He wasn’t a SAM, he wasn’t a John, he was Cova. Wow. Okay. Well, as you know, the name of the podcast is whispers bricks, and the whispers of those voices telling you what the right thing to do is, and they represent the good in life. The bricks represent the bad things we go through in life. And God knows everybody, at some point in time in their life has a brick thrown at them, some bigger bricks, some smaller bricks, some more bricks, some less bricks, but at the end of the day, we people, people in general, go through something. Now,

 

I asked you to be my guest on the show. Because there are people in my audience who are, believe it or not, are probably going through some of the same things that you have gone through. They’ve been hit with, you know, brick after brick, much like what you had gone through. And they needed to hear and to know that they could get through the trials and tribulations, the same way that you did. They needed to know that there were whispers out there that could save them. Now in your life, you’ve had many bricks thrown at you from a marriage that ended in divorce, with children being kidnapped or taken to a foreign country just to name a few. But before we get to that, can you tell us a little bit about about you in the formative years? You went to college?

 

You know, what’s what what did you major in? What’s your story?

 

Lizbeth: Sure. And thank you, I love being here at whispers and bricks. And so my story

 

Is that I was a young, you know, kid growing up in a home where, you know, we inherit our parents, we didn’t ask for them, but we’re glad for them. And I felt like as a young child, like, wow, I’m going to be a little bit different than the parents that I’m growing up with, I’m going to be somebody who is intentional about the way things turn out because I was a child of divorce. I felt like divorce was chaotic. It was bad. And then my parents split, and I didn’t meet my dad till I found an attorney to find him. So he’s 20 years old before I met my father. And so I just, I felt like you know what, I’m going to be a different person, and really didn’t realize that you have to do much more than just wish for something better, to create something better. And so, even though I wanted to be someone who, you know, had a stable life, and a college education, my parents were smart people and hardworking people, but they didn’t have the benefit of getting to go to school. And to choose what they wanted to do. They sort of were born not necessarily rich, and did what they could to survive. And they were scrappy, and I admire that about them. But when I was growing up, I thought, Why waste my home life so chaotic, what is wrong with these people? And, you know, I was very judgmental, and then realized later, oh, they were living out their inheritance. And so when I was looking for stability, what I did was I landed on, like, what would be the ideal, I wish that I was married. I wish I had kids, I wish that I would never get divorced. I wish that my children would have everything I did not. And so the first person that really gave me a lot of attention, I was like, perfect. You know, you love me, you think I’m great. Good enough. And that’s what happened was, you know, I hadn’t I frankly ignored the whispers. And there were people trying to tell me when I was young, hey, maybe you want to rethink the choice you’re about to make? Hey, maybe you don’t want to end up marrying this person you knew for very little time. Hey, maybe you want to recalibrate and decide how you want your life to be. And I was like, No, I’m smart. I’m doing different. And bricks, bricks pummeled me after that. Wow. So

 

Ari: what what were you doing? In other words, what kind of job did you land? What were you doing in your work life? When I was a young person, you mean when I was about to get married?

 

Lizbeth: Yeah, I had gone to a little bit of college, which like I said, my parents didn’t have that option. So they were they hadn’t graduated high school, either one of them. And here I was, I graduated high school. And I went to college for a little bit. And you know, was going to school and then realize that I didn’t have any direction. So I went back to my home state of Alaska, where I had grown up mostly, and got a job in a hotel.

 

I love tourism. I love hotels, I love all things travel. And so there I was in a hotel thinking, wow, look at me, I’m so fancy, and met someone a little bit older, and from a different culture and thought, he likes me perfect. Let’s get married. He wants to get married. We’ll get married. So that’s where I was. I hadn’t finished school yet. Didn’t have any assets just had good intentions and a lot of dreams. Wow. Okay, so,

 

Ari: so far things sound pretty good. Yeah. Right. I have to admit, you know, if I was looking at that, I’d say Hey, she’s pretty she’s got a pretty good, she’s got a good job. She’s got a nice husband. Okay. What happened next? 

 

Lizbeth: Well, the thing is, I just I don’t know that I had a nice husband, I had a husband. And for me when I was young, it was like musical chairs. Like back in my generation. There were certain expectations. And when the music stopped, you jump to the next thing. So I graduated high school I tried to go to college hadn’t finished quite yet. Then the music stopped and I’m like, I’m 20 years old. Marriage. And, you know, I was at a job where there were some interesting people and I went with the first person who showed intense interest in me. And there I was married at when I first turned 21 Little dating experience that mattered really no, no long term boyfriends that were real significant.

 

I just got married, and boom, there it was. Alaska, marry. Okay, so you’re in Alaska and you’re married. Alright.

 

Then, along came the two kids. I was so excited. I knew that I wanted to be a mom. Soon after I married, I knew I had married someone that would never make me happy. And that sounds horrible. But it was true. I married someone and I thought I won’t be divorced, I will not look at the marriage so much. But children. Yes. And so I had two little girls in rapid succession. And they were and are amazing. And what I thought because it wasn’t too wise, and it wasn’t very educated. I didn’t have a family system that supported it deep thinking. I thought, you know, kids, that’s my consolation prize, my husband may be mean, and may not be the person that I thought he was, but

 

I will be a good mother. And that will be enough. And I will give them a two parent family, not like I grew up with. Wow, it sounds. You know, it sounds like

 

you know, trying to make the best out of a bad situation.

 

That’s That’s what it sounds like to me.

 

arI: So there must have been some troublesome years, I assume. You girls growing up and and then the proverbial big break hit?

 

Lizbeth: repeatedly? It did. You know, I don’t think I thought deeply about what it was that children needed. I thought what it was, that would make me happy. I knew I wanted to be a mom. I knew I’d married the wrong person. I was young enough to think children. Wow, you know, consolation prize, how incredible will it be to be a mother. And so I had these amazing children, and a marriage that just got worse and worse and worse. And so while I was focused on them, he was focused on why aren’t you focusing on me, and what’s wrong with you, I am your husband. And

 

I didn’t realize at the time that there were people in life and had nothing to do with his culture and a lot to do with him. But there are people in life who will try to strip you away from everything you knew, to make themselves feel bigger, to make themselves feel powerful, and strong. And so I was with someone who did not appreciate that we were having children, he was threatened by it. And so as I grew stronger, and loving the role of being a mom, he grew more and more jealous, and scary and controlling. And so while I started out with some friends and interests and goals, couple years later, I had nothing except for these two beautiful kids, and a husband, who was monitoring my friendships, my spending my movements, and threatening that if I ever left him, that would be the end. Now, you talked about, you talked about his culture.

 

Ari: What culture was that? What’s what what was he from, I mean,

 

Lizbeth: I married someone who worked with me at the particular hotel I worked at, and he was Greek. And so he was an American citizen when I met him, but he was from Greece. And he was a different generation, he was older than I was, and very intent on him ruling the roost, and me falling in line. And not all Greek men are like that. And Greece is a beautiful place. However, he was someone with a lot of baggage. And I felt like you know what, whatever he needs so that we can stay married and I can raise children in a home that was, quote, unquote, intact. That’s what I’ll do.

 

And that’s what you did. And I actually did. Okay. Now.

 

Ari: What was your obviously I read your bio when it said something to the something to the effect of

 

your children being kidnapped? Yes. All right. What was that all about? 

 

Lizbeth: So eventually, so here I was in my early 20s, having two little daughters and a marriage. And I was committed to staying until the day came when he strangled me in front of our oldest child, and she was only two.

 

Back in the day in 1990, when this happened, I think modern psychology believed that if a child was super young, they would never remember what happened traumatic events if they were too young.

 

have memories, it would not impact them. But here was my little girl watching me be strangled. And I knew at that time, I’m not sticking around for any more. They don’t deserve this, I didn’t believe I deserve better. I knew that my kids deserve to grow up better. And so I decided to leave. And

 

you know, this was 1990. In America, we didn’t talk about what happened in the home, we didn’t talk about violence in families, you know, Nicole Brown Simpson, quite frankly, had not yet been murdered. And so we that was a huge pivotal point in our history and talking about domestic abuse. So we weren’t there yet. I got a protective, I went to a shelter took my kids got a protective order. Just thought, I’m going to look forward and get a college degree, I’m going to not ask for child support, I’m not going to remarry right away, I’m going to make good choices, and do something different and get my girls a different future. Not realizing that the stronger I became, the more threatened he became. And so I finished college two years later, I got a degree in journalism, I got a job, I loved my life, I didn’t get any child support. I made $10 an hour, and supported two little girls. And the happier I was, the scarier he became. And then four years after I left him, so I left in March of 1990. In March of 1994, he took the children on a visit and left the country.

 

Ari: And that was that a collateral? A bit of collateral damage, and an unintended consequence of me leaving.

 

Wow, now, I guess,

 

you know, that’s not something that you can do. Today, let’s say,

 

Lizbeth: I know, way back when

 

it was easy, you know, you took you wanted to take your kids, you know, on an airplane, it was no big deal. I took the kids on an airplane, there was no there were no checks and balances, so to speak. There was nothing there was nothing going on. It was a free for all,

 

like something that that could not happen today. I don’t think he would be able to get on a plane, you know, they’d have to get well, you always needed a passport. But

 

you know, but even so, I mean, it’s you know, I think that would be a a problem. Okay. But back then I guess there was there was no problem. So he, so four years later, he upped, and he took how old we kids at the time, the best ages, like those ages that we pray for in life with our kids. So they were four and six, and they could not have been any cuter. Yeah. And I will say this, it is harder today to take kids and leave the state or leave the country, but it’s still possible. And so there are 1000s of kids every year taken out of our country by one parent who’s decided that they want to what go to their home country or retaliate against the other parents. So it still happens. But it was much easier than right. So my former husband was smarter. I mean, he’s a smart man. So he knew to change the girls names by a couple of letters. And to apply for passports and then saying, Oh, I don’t know why this birth certificate doesn’t match their spelling. But this is their true names. Right? That kind of so he was very wise. And you know, was able to do that. And for my children, it was terrifying.

 

So

 

Ari: how long? How long did that last?

 

Lizbeth: I said goodbye to my daughters in March of 1994. When they went to have a weekend visit with him. I didn’t see them again until 1996. And by the time that I coordinated and got back with them, and of course I was on a very small budget. Having to travel across the globe. These girls didn’t speak English any longer. They had lived in hiding. They barely attended school, and they no longer spoke the language where that I spoke. Wow, how did you how did you find them? How did you know what they were?

 

I didn’t and so I hired a private investigator and a couple of lawyers on my tiny little budget and we had fundraiser after fundraiser. One awesome thing and many amazing things happened at the time. But you know, this was pre internet. This was a time of like, Hey everyone.

 

Do do a GoFundMe and find my kids. Yeah, you know, I really relied on people who cared about what happened to the suffering of another person. And so people across the globe literally extended themselves to help me to connect with my children. And it was pretty incredible. You know, $10 an hour doesn’t get you much for $100,000 problem. Wow. Yet I was able to hire interpreters hire lawyers, go across country, and eventually find my daughter’s. Wow, did he? Did you ever? Like, did he ever?

 

Did he ever stand trial for kidnapping? Or did he ever come back to this country? Did he stay in Greece? Do you know what happened to him? Yes, I went over, you know, a couple of times. I mean, it’s a longer story. But I went over a couple of times to try to get my kids. First time I failed. And second time, I was able to reconnect with my children. And he was briefly arrested in Greece for child kidnapping, but released before I could leave the country. And then I was arrested for kidnapping. My daughter’s when I was able to take them out of country. He pressed charges against me. I’m in a foreign country, and I was arrested. Oh, my God, a mess. Right. So let’s go. Yeah, so got out of that mess, and travelled home and then went through federal courts to stand my ground, it was very difficult. I think the hardest thing seemed like getting my kids out of a foreign country dealing with different governments and agencies and all of that. That was nothing that was baby food. The real heavy lifting came when my daughters were home had to learn to speak the language. And we dealt with their old traumas. That was the hard part. But again, with support with resources, you know, that are we’re in the community with amazing people in Alaska, and in Greece and other places. And with persistence, we were able to make a new life. 

 

Ari: Wow, I’m gonna ask a question. I think I know the answer to it. But I’m gonna ask it anyway. Was there ever a point in your life where you just said to yourself, you know what, I can’t do this anymore. I just give up. It’s too hard. I just, I’m given about my dreams, you know? And, and if you did get to that point, all right. How did you overcome? What was what was the you know? What pushed you What motivated you? Such a good question. 

 

Lizbeth: I definitely have hit those spots in different times in my life, no question. I didn’t have a parent to rely on, I didn’t have that silver lining in the family was not there. And there were a lot of deficits in myself. So I hit spots where I think, if I can’t pull this off, if I can’t rescue my daughters, if I can’t reconnect, I won’t continue to keep trying after X amount of time. And so I would tell myself, you have two years to find your kids, and then figure it out if you can’t. And so I maybe would extend a deadline. But I would give myself sort of a fake deadline, and then work really hard to be sure that I did my best for my daughter’s and for myself, it was selfish, as much as anything else. It wasn’t just for them. I’m no mother, Teresa. But this was these were the most inspirational people I’d ever met these little girls. And so they need, they gave me something to live for. And I owe them so much for creating a life that was beneath them. You know, I married chaotically I married because it seemed like that’s what you did. I didn’t put enough thought into so many things. And I knew that I owed them better. They deserved more. Wow. So you finally got him back. And you started teaching them English again. But the school and today, Where are the girls today? They’re amazing people. And you know, when I was like I said back in the early 90s and the mid 90s. Even when they came home from Greece, modern psychology would have told you that while they were young, then they’d be just fine. It will never bother them. They won’t remember. We know more now. And so eventually I got a graduate degree in psychology, and later on realized, oh, wait, they remember everything. It’s written in their bodies. And so they have suffered plenty in adulthood and one has a lot of

 

Problems physical, the other has more mental health concerns. But they’re both mighty Phoenix’s. They both graduated college, neither of them decided to marry early. And to this date, no one has kids yet. But their girls and their young women in their mid 30s, who are just fabulous humans, and they’re making a difference in their world. Wow. And for that I am so grateful just to know them much less to have been able to parent them imperfectly as I did. Wow. And they’re both married. Neither, neither are married. Yeah, no, they’re married both, you know, longer relationships, neither married and neither choosing parenthood at this time, they’re making choices, rather than living in a musical chair society where they just live with other people’s expectations. Right. So wow, that’s just an amazing, amazing story.

 

Ari: So but you, you went to college for journalism, and then you got a degree in psychology?

 

Lizbeth:  I did, like, you know, was that because of what you were going through at the time? I don’t think I would have said, so when I was going to school in psychology, I felt like even as a young kid, like I was always fascinated and why people did what they did. And so eventually, when I got my graduate degree, I’ve never regretted it. I didn’t want to be a therapist. But I loved the inner workings of the human mind and intergenerational traumas and what it would take to change them. So I loved the schooling I did. I went to graduate school. And some of it was bad reasoning. But my poor parents weren’t even able to finish high school. They were brilliant. But I think both of them very smart. But they didn’t have that opportunity in their generation and what was going on in their families. So for me, I always looked at, like with travel that I’ve done, or with schooling, what can I do to go as far as I can, and get as far as a way far away from my origins as possible, and make different choices, you know, what can I do? And what opportunities should I not take for granted? That I have now that they just frankly, did not?

 

Ari: Wow, that’s, that’s just amazing. So did you do anything with a psychology degree? Did you? Did you IT job wise? Or?

 

Lizbeth: Oh, gosh, yes. I mean, not only did I write a lot about, you know, the stuff that I’ve been through in essays and the book, I’m with some reflection on things that we know now, but I worked in as a domestic violence advocate for many years still work in the field a little bit. Also then as a child abuse investigator, and then later, 20 years as a juvenile probation supervisor. So I absolutely worked in the field and loved it. Oh, my, that’s, that’s, that’s absolutely amazing. That is totally, totally amazing. That’s, that’s great. And I’m sure that helped you as well with, you know, re acclimating with your children, and you know, helping them to grow up basically, because you’ve seen so much and you studied so much, that you able to deal with it and work with it. And that was, those were the whispers that you were getting, I think, you know, after being hit with such breaks, those were the whispers telling you, you know, hey, this is what you need to do this, how you need to take care of your kids. This is how it’s going to be all better. And it’s never all better. I know that right. Okay. But, you know, at least you had the tools to deal with it in a way that needed that it needed to be dealt with. And I think that’s, I think that’s terrific. I really do.

 

Ari: So, before we go, all right, let me just ask you this. Do you have any words of wisdom words of advice for my audience?

 

Lizbeth: I do. And I think, you know, I loved working in the field, because I saw people with much more difficult lives than I could ever imagine living who still survived and showed up in life. And I feel like

 

if people understand that they there’s always someone available to reach out and grab their hand and go through a tough time them, whether they have substance abuse problems, or intergenerational traumas or domestic abuse or whatever, maybe different things. Maybe it’s a learning disability, mental health, whatever, there is help out there. And they don’t have to go through it alone. And in fact, that’s never a good idea. You know, we are pack animals and even if your family of origin isn’t able to help you recalibrate with whatever it is, you’re

 

going through, there are people out there who are just two steps ahead of you, who would walk with you across a bridge. And I think that’s something that’s helped me because I’m not very strong. I’m not as you know, superhero, I’m not terribly strong or smart at all. But I find that there are people who are, who can help. And they’re willing to. So just by being shy about going ahead and asking for help, there’s nothing to be gained by trying to go through things by yourself.

 

You don’t have the wisdom, the collective wisdom that others can offer you. 

 

Ari: Wow, such words of wisdom, I gotta tell you, my wife is my wife is in the education field.

 

She’s got a master’s in special ed. And she’s been running a program within a girls school girls use Shiva. And it’s, you know, it’s, it’s hard. But she talks about the successes that she has with, you know, even, you know, parents coming to her, you know, she, she works with the kids for the most part. But, you know, she obviously, she deals with parents, because kids need certain things, you know, special needs and the like. And she says, she tells me all the time about these, you know, different parents who come in, they say, No, you know, we could never have done this alone, you know, how can we possibly Thank you, you know, it’s so wonderful to have an advocate to have somebody who knows what we’re going through, that can be there to help us that can help us, you know, through all the red tape, you know, because when you talk about education, there’s a whole bunch of red tape that’s there. And, you know, so I get it. And I get what you’re saying that, you know, you’re right, you don’t have to do it alone. And you’re now that person that people can talk to, that they don’t have to go it alone, because you did. And you’ve been through it’s you know what it’s all about. And that is, don’t tell me you’re not a superhero, because in my book, 

You’re a superhero. 

 

Lizbeth: Thank you, Ari, I, I don’t feel like I am. But I have a lot of support. And it’s been just so gratifying to then be able to give some support.

 

 Ari: Absolutely. Absolutely. So let me ask you this. If people want to get a hold of you, how can they do that? You know, what’s, what’s the best way? Do you have a website? Do you have an email Do you have? What’s the best way to contact you? 

 

Lizbeth: All of the above, and I have a podcast also. So la narrative.com. They’ll find out about my podcast my writing and how to get a hold of me right there. La Meredith calm. My middle name is Anne with an E. So it was my first two initials and the last name Veritas. Wow. 

 

Ari: That’s amazing. Elizabeth, thanks so much for sharing your story with my audience. I’m sure you’ve touched the hearts of many of my audience. Good luck going forward. You been listening to whispers and bricks, and I’m your host, Gary shum. Remember, if you feel like you’re stuck in the mud, like you’re spinning your wheels, wasting time in your career, your business your life. If you know you’re not enjoying all the success and satisfaction and significance that you desire, then it’s time for you to book a call with me at call with ari.com. Check out my whispers and bricks Academy and until next time, listen to the whispers avoid the bricks and never ever give up on your dreams. Bye for now.

 

 Lidia Curanaj Always Listen To Your Inner Voice

Summary:

I had the great honor of interviewing well-known radio host Lidia Curanaj. First, she describes what it was like growing up as an Albanian immigrant in Brooklyn. Then, she details how becoming a radio host became her dream as a child and how she accomplished that goal. Next, she tells us about bricks she faced along the way and the whispers that kept her going. Finally, she describes why she loves what she is doing now and how this is her dream job. You don’t want to miss this episode.

Episode Transcription

Intro Plays

Ari: Welcome to Space bricks. My name is Iris showing I’m your host. First off, I want to wish everybody a Happy New Year and I hope you will enjoy your holidays. Ours was great. And we are now starting a new season season two starting in starting in 2022. And we’re going to start with a real bang. No, not the 911 type, but rather the July 4 Fireworks type. My first guest for season two is a very well known radio star who co hosts a show on 77 W ABC Radio in New York with John catsimatidis He’s the owner of the station. Her name is Lydia Serrana. Liddy was born and brought up in the Bronx, New York. She has four siblings and is of Albanian heritage. Her parents were Albanian immigrants. She attended and graduated Cardinal Spellman High School in New York City. And after high school Liddy received a full scholarship to Iona College, where she studied Mass Communication and Media Studies. She graduated summa cum loud. Liddy began a career as a production assistant with CBS News and worked her way up to become the coordinating producer for the CBS Evening News. From there she traveled to South Carolina to begin her on air career as a reporter and anchor where she broke numerous stories. missing home, Lydia came back to New York City and reported and anchored for news 12 Westchester. After only two years there, she moved on to Fox five and reported there for almost seven years. Along the way, Liddy has won several journalism awards, including two Emmys. In 2012, she was honored for elevating the image of Albanian women in the USA by the Albanian American women’s organization. In October 2015. She was honored at the Albanian American success stories soiree as one of the few Albanian Americans to work for TV in the US. Lydia is currently news director and talk show hosts for 77 ws W ABC News Radio, working alongside John Katz Matys Lydia’s dream job has been realized. Lydia’s goal has always been to report and tell the truth. And that’s exactly what she gets to do now every single day. Lydia currently currently lives in Hartsdale, New York with her husband, Victor, and has been blessed with a wonderful children. Please help me welcome Lydia Serrano, Aye. Aye, Lydia, welcome to whispers and bricks. Have you been good are about you? Great. I am so honored to have you on my show. You’ve been an inspiration to me and to my audience.

Lydia: Really, oh my goodness, that that means so much to me, because I just kind of got into the whole radio game. And it’s just such an honor and a privilege to be able to do this for a living.

Ari: Yeah, I hear you. We’re gonna get into that too. As you know, the name of the podcast is whispers in bricks. Now the whispers are those voices telling us what the right thing to do is and they represent the good in life. The bricks represent the bad things that we go through in life and let’s be real, nobody in this world ghost has a perfect life. Everybody gets hit with a brick of some sort at some point in time or another. Some get bigger bricks, some get smaller bricks, some get more, some get less. But at the end of the day, everybody has something they have to go through. Now, you your parents were Albanian immigrants. But you were born in the Bronx. Correct. Okay, now, look, it appears as though you excelled in high school and college based upon your bio. Right? You then had some great jobs and it appears as though you had like a dream life. But what I’ve learned is that most often when somebody’s life seems to be too good, there is usually some issues what I call bricks that they had to deal with. Now, let’s start with this. What was the early years like growing up with immigrant parents who came from a communist country in order to make a better life for themselves and their children? What was that like?

Lydia: It was difficult because you always felt like you were an outsider. That’s how I always felt. I grew up in a very Irish neighborhood. And I wanted to be I was upset that I was all have skins and I had dark hair and dark eyes and I wanted so badly there freckles and red hair. And, you know, while they’re eating, you know, peanut butter jelly sandwiches, my mother was making us like, you know, porcelain book that’s like a stew with like bread. And so I always kind of felt like an outsider. And my parents would say, I’m Mexican American, and my first language wasn’t even English. It was Albanian. So I struggled in kindergarten. At first they thought there was something, you know, back then they didn’t have ESL classes. So I was put in I remember k three. And I my teacher’s name was Mrs. Gilmore. It’s crazy the things you remember. And then we took a test and she realized that I was actually intelligent. But yeah, it’s it’s insane. But yeah, you just you, you this, it’s kind of like a culture shock. And the parents, my parents were like, obsessed with kind of keeping us isolated and preserving our identity in our culture, but you want so badly as a kid to just be like everybody else.

Yeah. But you know what, that’s really important. Also, you know, you speak to any immigrant or speak to any minority group, as much as they want to, you know, melt into the melting pot or whatever, they still want to maintain their identity, their culture, their their customs, alright, it’s what makes us who we are. And it’s what makes it by the way, it’s what makes the US such a great country, because we have that melting pot. It’s wonderful. Now, let me ask you this. At what point in your life did you know that TV and radio was going to be your career path? And and how did it happen?

I was watching my dad in order to learn English with watch Eyewitness News, CHANNEL SEVEN Eyewitness News, it was Ernie annacis. And Katie Tong, those were the main anchors, and we would watch the five o’clock, the six o’clock then the 10 o’clock, we turn it over to Fox five, and then back at I mean, we were watching the news all the time. And my dad was they wanted to know what was going on. And so I guess maybe internally, I saw just how much my parents looked up to these people. Because back then you would watch the news and really be like, wow, you know, those people are, you know, providing a service. They’re telling everybody what’s going on. And so I said, You know what, I want to do that. And then you know, as you get older, I would say I can’t do it. But my mother would say to me if I can come to this country with absolutely nothing. And we’re doing so well for ourselves. If you want to be on TV, you want to be on the radio, you can do whatever you want, because this is America.

Ari: Wow. Wow. So how old? Were you at that point? I mean, we

I was 12 I read when I was about 12 when I decided I want to be a journalist.

Yeah, uh huh. You didn’t want to be but mitzvah did you when you were 12.

Lydia: I wanted to be a Yeah, I just I said I want to be a journalist. I want to be a writer. I want to be this investigative reporter. When I had we did a show in the Bronx, it was called news and views on it was like a Catholic. We I went to a Catholic school. And it was kind of like this cable station type of thing. And I won an Emmy Award, which is like a play on an Emmy Award. And I got to meet Katie Tong. Wow was like my idol back then I wrote a paper about her. And to this day, I haven’t met her again. So I have friends that know her. But she’s the now she’s an anchor for pix 11 news, but she was somebody I idolized. Growing up.

Okay. Wow. All right. So let me let me ask you this, you know, what my listeners would like to know? Like, what was some of the struggles and possible failures, some of the bricks that you got hit with when you were starting out in your career, and throughout your career? How what was going on?

I think the biggest break that hit my life was when I was 10 years old. My brother was diagnosed with leukemia. I had a and he died in 2000. And he suffered for a good 10 years. And my mother couldn’t sorry, thank you. Yes, it was a right before. He died in May of 2000. And so I that’s when I had just graduated college, but he was sick for a good 10 years prior. And I was with my mother with the doctor’s appointments because my mother couldn’t speak English. So she would bring one of the kids along and it was me. And I remember the doctor saying to me, I remember the doctor. His name is Dr. Koh, Nick. And he said to me, your brother has cancer. He has leukemia, and he was one and a half. And he was sitting on my mother’s lap. And he was very advanced for his age and my mother starts crying because she knows what cancer means. And I have to translate it. I’m 11 years old, 10 1011 years old, and I’m translating for her that my brother has cancer as I’m crying. And my little brother, he’s one and a half and he literally said, Mommy Don’t cry. That’s what he kept saying was like, Mommy Don’t cry. So that whole experience for 10 years and I was kind of the primary caretaker as well at home because my sister, she was busy with school and she ended up getting married at 19 She got married, young fell in love got married young, and I you know, I had to take care of him at home a lot while my mother worked at night. My father and I so that put a lot of things in perspective and I think that’s where my faith and my ability to kind of just keep pushing came through from him because he just had such an amazing spirit. My brother, his name was Mark,

Mark. Okay, Mark Serrana

Well, no mark Mark weak I Serrano’s my husband’s last name.

Oh, I’m sorry. You know, I’m

so stupid. Yeah, no, no, no, no, you’re right. Most women keep their maiden names but right. That’s one of the

that’s kind of what I was thinking anyway. Yeah, no. So and and the fact that you’re Albanian, you know, so I obviously is my husband’s Albanian too. Okay, okay. All right now it’s coming together. All right, but that must have been that so what was your maiden

name? week i It means wolf in Albanian week a week I uj KJ it means Wolf.

Wow. Okay. Yeah, well, shall come from a tough tough stock. Yeah, Schoenbrunn my name. Alright, the last the last part it’s Schoenbrunn. Brawn or bone is a is a bear. In Yiddish, it’s a it’s a bear. So you’re the wolf. I’m the bear. You know, you go together will conquer the world. Wow. So he must have been something amazing. Something special. I mean, 10 years is a long time to to survive.

You know, relapsing? Yeah. And

you know, oh, my God. So you were huge. I mean, you’re about nine years old, eight and a half years older than he was?

Right? I was yes. And it was just it was it was hard. It was really hard.

Ari: I can imagine. When you went to college, did you go away? Or you know, at home?

I went to Iona college. My parents were very old school. They didn’t want me to go away. That was the other thing too. My parents were very strict. They were all about, like, you know, you know, my sister follow the right path as soon like, I mean, it sounds crazy. But in the Albanian culture, this is back then you turn 18 It’s time to start looking for a husband. You know, and yeah, my God, not

Ari: not much different than the Jewish world. Or the Orthodox Jewish world. Yes. All right. Or the ultra orthodox Jewish world you turn 18 girl turns 18 It’s game over. You know, it’s like, okay, you gotta get married, you know, when they do they get married? 1819 20. You know, 21 is already old. You know? So yeah,

Lydia; yeah, I get it. You’re over the hill. And my we would have guys come like, this sounds crazy. I have never told the story in public before. But we had an Albanian culture. This is back then this is like 20 years ago, guys would come and ask for you for your hands in marriage. You didn’t even know who these guys were. And they would come to your home and check you out. And then about a week with somebody else. And then about a week later, they would make a phone call and asked that to my father that they wanted my hand in marriage. And this happened multiple multiple times to me, because I came from a very nice family. They know I went to church and this and that. And I was just like, hell no. I was. No, no, no, no, I was. I just didn’t want to do it. I didn’t not that there’s anything wrong with it. My cousins all did. I have cousins that got married at 17. They’re still married to this day. Yes, thank god knock on wood. My sister still married, happily married. But I was just like, I want to focus on my school in my career. And, you know, I didn’t get married. I was considered very old. I didn’t get married till I was about 30. Wow, that’s considered very, very old in the Albanian culture.

Ari: Yeah, I hear you. I hear you. Wow, that’s that’s just amazing. But you were a fighter. You don’t you don’t get to do the jobs that you did without being a fighter. So let me ask you this. Did you ever get to a point in your life where you sunk so low? You know, stuffed was just wasn’t going right, whatever. And you finally said these up? You know what? I quit? I can’t do this anymore. I can’t take the fight anymore. I’m giving up my dreams. You know, I’m gonna go home and you know, maybe I just be a happy housewife and game over. Did you ever reach that point? If you did? How did you make that comeback? Because I know you made that comeback.

Lydia: I kind of it happened. Like twice me. it first happened when my brother died when I was 21. I said, you know, I was always in my I was very strong in my faith. I’m Catholic. And when he died and I the suffering that I saw, I said there’s no God like, How could How could this happen? What kind of God allows this but certain things happened and that I realized there is a God and have to keep fighting. I sank kind of in its into a deep depression away. I stopped eating. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat because I just I couldn’t believe I sounds crazy. I never thought he was going to die. I never thought it because he just always got better. And then we’d go into the hospital. We’d stay a couple of months, but he’d always come home and it just once he didn’t come home anymore. So around 21 I went through a really tough period. And then I pulled myself out of it. I don’t know I just prayer. I just prayed a lot. I did. I prayed and prayed and I had the rosary. And I would pray it every every night, and something. And then I got a job at CBS News. Yeah. And I worked with, you know, Dan Rather as a production assistant and I worked my way up to become the coordinating producer for Dan Rather, which was like, huge to do that in four years. And then I went to South Carolina to pursue my on air career. And then I think my other low point was, when I left Fox, I was there for seven years, I left there in about 2018. I had a difficult situation there, I sued for pregnancy discrimination, because I’ll tell this, I got pregnant, I was extremely happy. I had some issues getting pregnant. I mean, I was pregnant, but I had suffered some miscarriages, so So to be pregnant, was such a blessing. And I was so happy and then to be told, Well, you can’t work here anymore. I mean, literally, that’s what, that’s what he said to me. Once you have the baby, you won’t be able to work here anymore. You know, because we were not going to make accommodations for you. And if you know me, I’m not the type of person that asks for any kind. I

Ari: was gonna say, you’re not the type of person who’s gonna say, oh, I need accommodations. Yes. I figured, yeah, I had you pegged that a long time ago.

Lydia: I’m that type that I will be without sleep and this and that. I already talked about it with my mother. So the writing was on the wall. They had cut my hours down from being, you know, working five days a week, they didn’t give me a contract. I went to part time and all that. And so I went to just speak to the lawyer and the lawyers, like, that’s illegal. You can’t penalize somebody for being pregnant. Right? So I ended up leaving amicably because they gave me you know, some money and I said, bye bye. And I was like, That’s it. I’m done. I’m done with the media. They’re horrible people. They’re evil. Like, they know, I’m done. And I tried to get a job in the hospital system. I was trying, I was like, I’ll do PR I’ll do this. And then, you know, WA BC kind of fell into my lap. I yeah, I just started. A friend of mine worked at WBC Her name is Juliet. Hudy.

Ari: I know, Joey. Well, I know, Julie. I know. I know. Juliet from the radio. You know, I mean, she’s the bee’s knees. Oh, yeah. She’s with what’s his name? Frank Marino. Frank Morano.

Lydia: Right. So she was with Curtis at the time. Yeah, said hey, we need a backup newsperson. So then I started filling in doing the news there. And then all of a sudden, the news direct the program director there Dave lob, Rosie says to me, we had a conversation. He said, You should be a talk show host I said, Oh my God. That’s my dream. I would love to be a talk show host so you kidding me? Ah, yeah, right. And so, and then I got to fill in with Curtis and the first time I ever filled in with Curtis Lee was I didn’t sleep all night long. Curtis is the guardian angels. I

you know what? I remember him in that from the 70s. Okay, yes, I remember. That started.

I was nervous. I was freaking out. I couldn’t believe it. Oh my god. I’m starting my career sitting alongside the guardian angels founder the legendary Curtis Liwa. And, and it just kind of blew up from there. And now I’m, you know, I’m with John Cassavetes at five and he I

Ari: know that. I know that I listened. I listened to that. Oh, I listened to him all the time. I listened to you. I listened to him person. Oh, he’s unbelievable. At heart of gold. You know, you could just tell heart of gold. very philanthropic. I mean, just Yeah, absolutely. I think I think WAC WBC was very very lucky to have him by the station. You know, because it turned it around 100%

Lydia: Our ratings have like quadrupled since he bought it in a year but but it’s forget about even that he he honestly says I don’t care what you guys whatever, he doesn’t care if you’re right or left. He doesn’t care about your political leanings. He just says just tell the truth, whatever it is just correct. And then that’s what we do. And so he you know, we get along he has a great sense of humor. And so I’m just like really, really blessed. I mean, there are hard days to you know, when I’m there I had a show at four o’clock there and it got canceled. It got cancelled because they brought in a you know, somebody with a bigger name Rush Limbaugh has producer boasts nerdly they said okay, you know, he’s he’s famous you know, I’m a nobody.

I’m not a nobody. Well,

you know what I you know, I’m not You’re

Ari: not, you’re not you, you you know what? You’re famous now and you’re going to be a superstar. I’m telling you right now, you’ve just got it. You’ve got it all and you’re going to be a superstar. Let me ask you this. Who’s the one person your life you can point to that you would say had the most influence on your life and why?

Lydia: My mother, my mother, I she five kids, someone a five and then my brother who passed away he was the fifth he was the baby of the family. She kept a full time job, clean house and she never complains and just worked her butt off like she was a cleaning lady. Both of my parents came here with nothing and they do very well. They have No mortgages. My dad still doesn’t own a credit card. They have homes that they have bought. They’re millionaires like they’re millionaires. And I don’t understand how they did it to be honest with you. I don’t know how they did it. They came here with no education, but it’s just hard work. So that’s, that’s an that’s John Katz material. It’s really kind of meant to be that I’m working now for a guy that reminds me of my own father, very similar type of situation where he, John Cassavetes came from nothing. His father was a busboy, and then he became a millionaire at 22 or something like that. I mean, it’s just incredible. His story, too. You should get him on the podcast.

Ari: Yeah. Okay. Well, I’ll leave that to you to make the recommendation. Okay. Oh, wow. That’s amazing. Okay. You’re

amazing people. My parents, I’m very lucky. Yeah,

just FYI. Okay. 80% of the responses to that question is, mother. All right. You should just know that, you know, so moms are the is it your mom? 

Um, no, it wasn’t my mom was my dad. My dad was was such an inspiration to me. He was, you know, he was the smartest man I ever knew. And he was he was just amazing. He was big. He was six foot 220. You know, really in great shape. He married my he was 18. When he got married, he married my mom, my mom was 19. And he was just nothing stood in his way. He would never let anything stand in his way. If he wanted to do something. He went out and did it. So he was yeah, he was my hero. He was definitely my hero. I lost him. I lost him about six years ago. And you know, my parents were living in Israel at the time my dad passed away. It was on the Saturday. And I like, you know, I didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye. But I will tell you this. And this is not I don’t know why I’m doing this, because this shouldn’t be about me. It’s about you. But But I will tell you that he died in February. And I remember he had he had dementia. Right. So he was losing it. And I and I will talk to some of my siblings. And I said, You know what, I’m going to visit daddy, because I want to see him while he still knows who I am. So in November, prior to the February, November, I went to Israel, I spent a week with him and we we went that he couldn’t walk in the apartment is able to walk but in the street, you know, he had to be in a wheelchair. And so I would wheel them to a coffee shop and we’d have coffee together we go to the park together. It was just such a special special week that I had with him that I was so happy that I did that. Because you know, those are the memories that are going to that are going to be with me, you know, my whole life. And so, you know, is what I was just glad that I did that. You know, he’s, but he was a great man. Now, quick question. We’re almost done. Okay, unfortunately. Do you have any words of wisdom for my audience? Before we go any words of advice?

Lydia: I think the most important thing is to listen to that inner voice, though is the whispers exactly the whispers You got to listen to that voice. I remember a homily at Dupree Homily is when the priest speaks during Mass and he said, You know, God speaks to us every single day. And peep right. It says

that’s what I say in my talks. When I talk from stage when I you know, I do motivational speaking. Yes, I know. And I said God talks to us every single day he whispers to our minds and whispers to our hearts, hearts. But we’re so busy running through life that we don’t pay any attention. You know what? That gives me goosebumps. That’s why he throws a brick at us. Right?

Ari: Up next. Oh my god, it’s so true. It’s so true. And you just got to kind of listen to that inner voice listen to God, he’s speaking through you. And you know, some people like well, how do you know God exists? You know, I didn’t see him. I can’t touch him. We know love exists, right? Because we feel it all around us. We know when we love somebody we know when we’re in love. Can you touch love? Can you mold it? Can you put it in a box? No, but it exists. It’s there, because you feel it to the depths of your soul. And that’s how I feel with God. I hear him talking to me. And I listen to the voice. And I feel like the sounds maybe a little corny. Like this was what I was meant to do to try to lift people up and inspire them. And, you know, if I can just help one person, then that’s it. I’m good.

You’re following my footsteps. Talking about getting goosebumps? 

Ari: Oh my gosh, that’s exactly what I tell people all the time. I’ve never heard the analogy of love. I really like that. I really like that. Can I use that? Of course. Of course. All right. No, that’s great. Because I tell people, you know, you have a belief in God and they say I can’t even I can’t touch whatever. I said if you could see him or touch and if I can prove to you that he existed, then it wouldn’t be faith anymore. Then it’s just fact. Okay, you have a fact you know, you want to prove something you know, you can touch you can feel you can see it alright then it’s not a belief anymore. The eyes Dia is yes, you can’t touch them. You can’t you, alright, but I believe that he is there and he runs the world, plain and

simple. He does, he does. And it’s that love that endures and lasts forever. And it’s the most important thing. And God loves us unconditionally. Just like we love our own children unconditionally. Just like my parents love me unconditionally. And I, you know, it’s, it’s what keeps me going. I know, it’s what keeps you going. So I’m sure your dad is so proud of you right now to

Lydia: oh my god, like, I hope so. I hope I didn’t disappoint him. No. Okay, so listen. And if people want to get in touch with you, you know, for I think

Ari: Twitter, Twitter, I have my email there at Lydia news, Li dia, ne Ws, that’s the best way and they can direct message me I have my email address on there, too. So at Lydia news is probably the best way to get in touch with Twitter, or my Instagram, you know, I’m pretty I get a lot of messages. And people tell me that the prayer that I say at the end of a say, at the end of my show, when I lifted them up, and

oh, I just said, I love that, by the way. It’s so nice. It’s just because it’s so nice to hear God being mentioned the talked about you know, in a world today where they’re trying their best to get God out of schools, get God out of the system, you know, it’s like, and you just bring it all back.

Lydia: I’m just a regular girl. That’s it. I’m just a regular person. And I tell it, that’s why it’s okay.

Ari: Yeah, you let you like Supergirl. Okay, I’m just a person until I put my Superman on. Lydia, I want to say thank you so much for sharing your story with me and my audience. You are truly truly an inspiration. Good luck going forward. I know that you’re going to see we’re gonna see some great things from you.

Lydia: Oh, thank you so much, Ari anytime and you inspire me as well. And I hope we can continue this friendship for a very long time.

Ari: I hope so. You have been listening to whispers in Brixton. I’m your host iwi Schomer. Remember, if you feel like you’re stuck in the mud, like you’re spinning your wheels, wasting time in your career, your business or your life. If you know you’re not enjoying all the success, satisfaction and significance that you desire, then it’s time for you to book a call with me at call with REI comm check out my whispers and bricks Academy coaching. Until next time, listen to the whispers avoid the bricks and never ever give up on your dreams.

Katie Choncas Believe in Yourself!

Summary:

Katie Choncas Is a very talented artist. She is an actor and singer, and voice-over actor. Sharing the screen with many well-known

actors and actresses. She describes her decision to pursue her career and have children later in life. She describes her journey as an actress and how she learned to invest and believe in herself. She hopes her story will help other women do the same.

Episode Transcription

Intro Plays

Ari: Welcome to this person bricks. My name is Ari show and I’m your host I have with me today Katie Elizabeth shanaka ‘s Katie is a Greek American artist working in the entertainment industry for two decades. On Katie’s website Janaka stock calm. You’ll see some of the creative ventures she’s been a part of TV, film, acting, voiceovers, music, podcasting, and articles that she has written on Arianna Huffington publications. Katie is a multidisciplinary artist who utilizes her voice to inspire change and transformation in people who want to make an impact on the world. Katie is a Greek international actress who made her first onscreen network television appearance in 2005 gracing the Scylla screens ever since Janaki says globalized network television landing roles on top television series such as CBS, a CSI New York Cold Case, FX networks It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Law and Order SVU just to name a few. Janaka has also excelled in film as she booked supporting roles in films with ALPA chino. Robert De Niro, Jessica Simpson Morgan Freeman Antonio Banderas, Nicolas Cage, oh my god, the list goes on and on. Janaka has worked with 19 legendary ala stars in one year. A working professional voiceover actor in the entertainment industry. Katie specializes in cartoon animation voices with a branded name cartoon Katy shanaka is brought to life characters such as soup from Minecraft, and Georgia as Nancy Drew’s best friend. Katie has a raspy golden voice in voiceover such as Emma Stone, Scarlett Johansson and Demi Moore. Katie loves being a part of the voiceover entertainment industry. She’s a published author of a new poetry book titled A lovers fair Terry lovers fairy tale. Please help me welcome Katie Janaka. Katie, how are you?

Katie: Hey, Ari, I’m so grateful. Thank

you so much. My heart feels very full warm right now after hearing the intro. I

appreciate you. Thank

you. Thank you so much.

Ari: My pleasure, man, you’ve it sounds like you’ve got you’ve had quite a career, you have quite a career going forward. You know, you’re still very, very young. So I know you’re gonna do a lot of a lot of good things in the future as well. So let me just welcome you to whispers and bricks. And as you know, the whispers are those voices telling us what the right thing to do is, and they represent the good in life. And the bricks represent the bad things that we go through in life. And let’s be real, everybody has a brick thrown at them at some point in time or another some more bricks than others, some less bricks, some bigger bricks and some smaller bricks. But everybody goes through something alive. Nobody’s got the perfect life. Okay. Now you come from a large Greek family. And early on, you had this idea that you wanted to have a bunch of kids, but you also had these dreams and goals about having a career. Why don’t you talk to us about that a little bit? Sure, sure.

Katie: It’s a great analogy. It’s a great analogy. Whispering brakes love that.

So

well, the whispers I feel like are the intuitive hits, you know, the the angel, the whispers in the bricks I feel are the things that are the stagnant things that can hold us back, but it’s about going around that emotion, you know, going going past the bricks, breaking the bricks going through the bricks, so

that but when I was a kid, you know, I grew up from a middle class family, my grandparents immigrated from America. And my mom and dad were like kids, 18 years old, having kids. So they would, you know, work that typical, like 40 hours a week, nine to five provide us lunch, we my mom would cook meals and we’d had a family meal together every single day. That was just the routine. But I grew up very independent. I had a lot of space after school when I wasn’t at cross country, right running cross country. And I learned about short term, medium term, long term goals. And when I was younger, and I had this knowing of like my big fantasies, my dreams, my goals, my purpose of like, who I wasn’t what I wanted to do, I knew I was so powerful, and going on this journey that I wanted children later on. I looked up to quote unquote masculine male genders in society, thinking Because I was brainwashed and conditioned and observed at a young age of people saying it was a man’s world, right? A man’s business world, right. And so I instead of looking at, instead of looking at the females and the divine femininity, instead of looking up to that, I look for that masculine yang energy, right. And I look outside of myself for investors, because I, you know, the four quadrants, the popular book, and there’s the, you know, like all the most successful people, the IV investor, they don’t use their own money, they use other people’s money, it’s like, you know, like a joke or a thing that people do, like, you use other people’s money, not your own money. So I was investing my time, my energy, my education, my skill sets, my talent, studying classes, network, meeting people, and I was doing everything to be an entrepreneur and getting my hands dirty, my feet wet, like using my brain traveling the world, like going around the world TWICE, Like doing all these things, in it to win it. But when it came to money, financial, like I was paying for my, you know, I was doing test shoots with photographers, I never paid as a model to shoot photos. But my music production, acting classes, asking coaches, I mean, it costs $100, just to coach for like an hour. And then acting classes $1,000 a month, like in like, for a paint studio $24,000 a year like these budgets all add up. I mean, just for coaching alone two times a week, it’s like, you know, like, it can be over $6,000 Just for coaching with a private coach before you go in for an audition, right? That’s just coaching alone. That’s not even classes, and then all the other seminars and workshops and things that you can do anyways. So I would invest in those kinds of things. But I’m talking like, and now they have merch lines, like through RedBubble, where you can like put your merch up and sell it. And you don’t need to like preorder and like, spend all the money on supplies and ship it from Vietnam or China or wherever. And like sell it and like have all that overhead. There’s no overhead because of the hybrid world and everything being digital, which is cost, cuts, costs and the hacks in the 21st century, which is amazing of, you know, for artists and entrepreneurs. But before they didn’t have that, so I was looking to men outside of myself, and I was looking for that financial stability from something outside of myself from other people. And so what I would do is another impart would be I would self sabotage and I would have all these things going on podcasting, acting modeling, DJ comedy drama, film voiceovers, and fashion line, women empowerment, like spirituality. And I would go up and come down come up, it was like building up coming down and building up and everyone was seeing around me like the closest people to me, but I wouldn’t see, I wouldn’t see it, I didn’t understand it, because I was doing myself up. And once I got on, like about to get on the caboose to leave the train station, I would abandon it, I would abandon myself, I would abandon my business. And I would just go left and go, if I was focused on acting as do music, and I was so scared of success. And I was so scared of empowering myself and actually getting to that level of the caboose to go off the train tracks because I thought it was gonna die. I was so in my ego. And so thinking I had everything in control, but through the pandemic through 2020, and through a lot of self reflection, and through a lot of deep realization, and dismantling the two decades of my blueprint, and creating a new blueprint for myself, and actually opening myself up to a deeper vulnerability of trusting not only myself, but like my internal team, then I was able to bring them all up, put them all on the caboose. And they they’ve all left the train station. So now I’m like this oak tree. And what I did was I invested in myself financially in the way that I’ve been trying for two decades to have this man over here that I can network and maybe he would invest in my business, right? No, they all just wanted to have sex with me. They’re all like, Oh, pretty little girl, you’re, you’re pretty little girl, or who do you know, and make the connection and leave me out and not give me a 5% Consulting deal for making the connections. So there will be all these people doing these things. And it was just a cycle. And so what happened was, I actually took, and I was so scared, you know, I was so scared. But I took that money. And on a micro level, step by step one step at a time, a micro level, and started investing. And everything started flourishing. And I’m this oak tree. And now they all have legs of their own. And all these magical, wonderful, beautiful things are happening. And it’s so much bigger than me. And the message and the mission and the people I’m connecting to, are you gratitude because they’re helping and they’re a part of the same collective mission and we can do it together holding hands, instead of like doing it all on my own feeling isolated and abandoned in all the pressure. It’s like I’m actually doing less and being more and it’s just been so rewarding and fulfilling and the glowing and like I mean look where I am and like I’m always in this situation, but I’ve always been but I was also getting in my way and I’m not getting my way. anymore, I’ve learned how to craft my own code and get a step out of my way, and allow God’s grace in the universe, to have a life of its own when you have like your intention of your ethics, morals and values and who you are, and always be open to discovering, and hacking and pivoting, scaling and shifting for life are personal and business with self and with others. And it’s been a harmonious blend, and it’s so, so beautiful. So that’s something I really think I can make an impact. And I’m sharing that and I do one on one coaching with people. And you know, I’m speaking at events, women empowerment events, and I’m telling me, my stories, and it’s not right or wrong, I’m just sharing what I gone through. And if it took me two decades, and if it took me 10 years, maybe you could do it in six months, maybe you can hack it, and then you know, because we can’t go to the 70s and 80s. But we were in the 21st century, where are we going? You can take some of the tools that I’ve learned.

Ari: Let me ask you this. Did you ever fall to a point so low? That you said to yourself, you know what, I quit a kid do it anymore. I’ve given up on my dreams, I don’t care anymore. I’m just gonna, you know, get into bed, you know, roll to a ball and just sleep away my life. I mean, you ever did you ever get that bad? And if it did, alright, well, obviously, we know how you came out of it, because you just explained that to us. But what was what was it like was Did it ever happen?

Katie: Not the way that you’re saying no, never, never, never, because I’m not a quitter. And I think it’s okay to take a day off, or three days off, or a week off and just rest and sleep. It’s the way it’s the number one way our immune system can repair ourselves actually, in our immune system through sleeping, it’s so it’s so good. If if one is depressed, it’s good to like, take a nap and sleep it off. Or like you have a big meal, just like sleep it off. Because it takes four hours for the food to digest, you know, from our system. But there have been times multiple times where I’m doing so much where I’m, um, for years, I’m just like, okay, what can I unload? What can I unload? What can I unload? So I’m always looking, you know, as a producer, I’m always filtering filtering to, you know, be more minimalistic, so I can have my health, wealth and prosperity. But there’s never a time of, I’m throwing in the towel and forgetting about it. Because, you know, I have joked around and said okay, like, I’m gonna retire from my career and just have a family. You know, II mean. But that’s, that’s, that’s a job within itself. But, um, yeah, so I’ve never been a person to be a quitter. Like, I’m an athlete, you know, and so I don’t, I wasn’t raised that way. And that’s not my mentality. Right? I just love I love I love life so much in the arts and being human, and just the experience of being here. So no matter on our highest or worst days, it’s a part of the process. And I can take it and learn and apply it to a canvas or to a character, or to an experience of something I’m going through and put it into my craft. So I look at everything. You know, if I’m feeling this way, that means I experienced something the extreme opposite of the rainbow of such joy, right?

Mm hmm. Wow,

this, this too shall pass.

Ari: Yeah, absolutely. Let me ask you this, who is the one person that you could point to that you would say had the most influence in your life and why?

Katie: My Yeah, my 92 year old grandmother, who’s my bestest friend in the world, and who I’m named after actually, kids get ki St. Kitty, Jackie. She was a martyr, her name’s Sunday. In Greek, Kitty, I came in Sunday. And she taught me unconditional love. I can tell her the worst thing that I think is the worst thing in my life. And she’ll just pat me on the shoulder and just feed me some food. You know, like, she’s so understanding, but culture risk, she came from the old country from Greece. She went 10 hours each way on the donkey to pick blueberries for her job. And, you know, she came to America to provide a better life for her family and for us. And so, you know, I’m in deep gratitude and honor for my, my grandmother. She’s amazing. She’s so sweet. And she’s just she’s taught me everything. You know, she’s taught me so many beautiful things, but probably most importantly, the culture and in love and the joy of the Spirit and remembering homage she always says homage in Greek that means like, the the land, the dirt the country, like never forgetting your roots where you come from, you know, and always paying it respect no matter what.

Ari: Wow, absolutely. She’s still around.

Katie: She is she’s well, growing so healthy. She’s so healthy. She’s great. Thank god.

Ari: Wow, that’s, that’s amazing. And there’s something to be said, you know, for the old country culture. You know, it’s so important that you know, that we take what we can, that we learn from our elders. Because, you know, as much as we think that, you know, what do they know, this is a new world, they’re from the old world, but they know a lot. And they can guide us very, very well, if we’ll just take the time to listen. I know my mom, my mom has taught me a tremendous amount she is, you know, thank God, she’s going on. She’s 90 years old. And you know, she’s still going strong. And, you know, she’s been she’s been a pillar for the family. All right. And and and I think it’s wonderful. So let me ask you, do you have any words of wisdom for my audience?

Katie: Yeah, of course, some words of wisdom would be just do it. It’s, it’s Nike. It’s a Greek word, it means to win. And so my mentality at a very young age was just to do it. So it’s like the whisper and bricks, when you have an intuitive hit that comes, just go and do it. Everything else after that is fear. It’s an analytical, it’s in your head. So just just go and do it. Also, it’s really important to have a good community around and communication and we’re only as strong as our weakest link. So if something feels heavy or strong, it’s really important just to communicate that to someone because they can help. Mm hmm.

Ari: Wow. So what what what are you doing now? What’s your next project? What are you looking for?

Katie: I’m looking to get on TV as a household name. So I’m going out for TV shows right now. I’m going out for animation roles for voiceovers. So that’d be awesome to book some elite and an animation series to go out for commercials video games for voiceovers and season for my podcast. It’s a women empowerment series exploring divine femininity and all genders. And so that’s gonna launch in January. So I’m excited, you know, to explore that, because not only am I doing it for the people, I’m doing it for myself, because of the story I told you of me looking to a masculine man in, in the world. And so I didn’t have a lot of space of divine femininity, a lot of space of my my own grace, although I am graceful, but to be more vulnerable with my emotions, and it’s okay to not be okay, and to fully express myself and cry, and, you know, it can be in all gender. So I’m really excited to endow that relationship with my own self to,

Ari: okay. Now, if people want to get in touch with you, you know, they interested in maybe a career of their own, or they just want some advice. Or maybe they’re going through some of the things that you went through and trying to figure out how to get past it. What’s the best way for them to do that? What’s the best way to get in touch with you? Would it be email? Would it be social media? What what’s the best way to connect with you?

Katie: Yeah, I do industry coaching for people. So it’s right on my website, they can sign up and have an appointment chinachem COMM ch O N, ac as.com. And I am on all social media accounts. Okay, great. And you can email me through my website, if you want to email me about anything a question or something. Yeah.

Ari: Awesome. Katie, thank you so much for sharing your story with my audience. You’ve been a great guest. I’m very excited. Good luck going forward. I know you’re going to do some great things. I mean, you just you you’ve got that personality. You’ve got that drive. And I know we’re gonna see great things from you. Thanks again. You’ve been listening to whispers and bricks and I’m your host Irie Sharma remember, if you feel like you’re stuck in the mud, like you’re spinning your wheels, wasting time, your career, your business or your life. If you know you’re not enjoying all the success, satisfaction and significance that you desire. Then it’s time for you to book a call with me at call with ari.com Check out my whispers bricks Academy and until next time, listen to the whispers avoid the bricks.