Heart Soul Wisdom Podcast

Your Path to Prosperity

June 08, 2020 Moira Sutton Season 1 Episode 7
Heart Soul Wisdom Podcast
Your Path to Prosperity
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Show Notes Transcript

Entrepreneurship
Health & Well Being
Freedom & Fulfillment
Spirituality
Mindset
Passion & Purpose

Your Path to Prosperity

It wasn't until Steve nearly lost everything that he took the time to look at his life and really began to find a better. way. On the outside, he looked successful, on the inside, though, Steve felt empty and lost. The playbook he was using in life was not working anymore & despite all the books he had read on success and purpose centered living, he did not find the answers he needed. So, Steve left all of this behind to figure out how to write his own story and in order to find the way, he had to first learn to go within. Steve will share his own personal journey and share his wisdom if you have ever felt lost and alone or lost your way.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the heart soul wisdom podcast, a journey of self discovery and transformation. With Moira Sutton and her amazing guests who share real life stories, tools, and strategies to inspire and empower you to create and live your best life. Come along on the journey and finally blast through any fears, obstacles, and challenges that have held you back in the past so you can live your life with the joy, passion, and happiness that you desire. Now here's your host. Create the life you love. Empowerment life coach, Moira Sutton.

:

Welcome to episode seven your path to prosperity with story architect, Steve Garvin. It wasn't until Steve nearly lost everything that he took the time to look at his life and he really began to find a better way on the outside. He looks successful, a successful degree in marketing and an advanced degree in accounting. He had a good position within a fortune 200 company. He was respected for his solid business skills, helping major corporations improve their processes and build wealth on the inside. Those do you felt empty. The playbook he was using in life was not working anymore. And despite all the books he had read on success and purpose center living, he did not find the answers he needed. So Steve left all of this behind to figure out how to write his own story. And in order to find the way he had to first learn to go within, if you have been looking for your own way, but it seems to elude you, Steve will be sharing his wisdom today and what he has learned along the way on his journey.

Speaker 3:

So you too can create the life that you love. So without further adue, it is my pleasure to introduce you to my dear friend story architect Steve Garvin. Welcome Steve.

:

Thank you Moira. It's awesome to be with you. Very, very cool. We've known each other now a lot of years and our friendship was built and I just love that we share things, we collaborate, we help each other, and we're there for each other. Absolutely. And it's been a pleasure. It's been great. And you have so many talents and we have both found our way and we're going to dive in today to this path to prosperity, which we both know means a lot more than just money. It means you know, all levels in our life. So Steve, what is prosperity and how do you define this? The way I look at prosperity is a little bit, well, quite a bit different than the way that I was trained to look at it. My background involves, as you mentioned, the bio, you know, advanced studies and accounting and doing lots of number crunching and so forth. And in that world profits and prosperity and wealth all have a very specific, relatively easy calculated meaning. And while I find that actually helpful in some respects, I find that there's lots of stuff that is not included on the typical balance sheet or financial statements. Like, you know, how happy are you? How fulfilled are you? What do you look forward to when you wake up in the morning? Are you excited about starting your day or is it like you like I wasn't one time on Sunday morning? Rocking in the hallway and fetal position crying because you know, you've got to go into work again. The next day. You know and at that point I had money in the bank and you know, zero debt and a nice house.

Speaker 4:

And on the outside it looked like, you know, things were great, but on the inside it was awful. And while you could look at my financial statements at that time and say, you know, I was prosperous. If you looked on my internal, statements, I was emotionally bankrupt. And I think that it's important to look at our lives more holistically. And one of the things that I've come across in the time since I left corporate finance was the idea of self determinism, which looks at three different things. And there are lots of different ways to express in the way that I tend to look at it as through the three words, people, purpose and performance. And with people, part of our prosperity are the relationships we have in our lives. You know, we can look at, in our family, we look at our friends, we can look at our communities, you know, and one of the great wealth that I enjoy now is having lots of amazing friends who are there and available like you are to support me on my journey and that who I can also support on their journey. That it is not a solo venture, but that we are all interconnected.

Speaker 3:

Definitely. We're not solopreneurs, we're entrepreneurs, like you said with building relationships. And I know Tony Robbins goes into this topic quite a lot, that relationships are key to our life and that when you are happy or sad, you know, first of all, happy. Who do you want to share that with? You want to share it with people you love and you care for in your community and when you're sad to reach out for help and know that's okay. That relationships are a big key to our life for sure.

Speaker 4:

Absolutely. They're huge. And then just today, I had the opportunity to this morning to converse a little bit about, you know, just the work that I do. And as I said earlier, you know, there was a time when Sunday mornings I was literally in the hallway and fetal position crying because I knew I had to go into work the next morning and it was just, I mean it drained me and I had nothing left and it was just, you know, awful. And I, when I left that environment, I set out on a mission to find work that, you know, that excited me, that I look forward to doing rather than dreading or feeling like I've got to go through the motion again.

Speaker 3:

So when you left corporate America and you stepped out, was this a long process too? Like did you begin to tell your new story slowly or were you looking for your purpose or what did that look like and how did that unfold?

Speaker 4:

Yes to all the above. It was a long process and it's actually, yeah, it's been seven years since I left, since I last worked in a major corporation.

Speaker 3:

And I think that's important to share, Steve, because some people might think it's a snap, you know, like, Oh, I'm out of there and everything's perfect. But no, it's a journey. It's a journey and it's a journey of healing and growing and expansion.

Speaker 4:

And I think it really is important because you know, a lot of times, you know, we look at people and see how, you know, look at happy, successful people and say wow, they've just have it figured out. You know, it was just a snap of a fingers- sometimes that's the case, but most of the times it's not. And I think we do ourselves and our communities a disservice when we suggest that, you know, that, that it's just, you know, flip a switch and suddenly the lights come on and the music starts playing and you know, we're all dancing around the room

Speaker 3:

Or take a pill or, or go fix it, fill the gap. Right. But whatever that wholeness and to know that we're not broken, you know, we are whole. So it's important, like you said earlier, to look at the holistic view of your whole life. To what it encompasses, like what, you know, your relationships, your work, your contribution, your collaboration, the courage it takes to do the work.

Speaker 4:

Absolutely. Yeah. And it's learning to be patient with the process. You know, it reminds me when you and I first met and it was, I hosted a summit number of years ago and invited a bunch of people on and you were one of the people that participated in that. And at the time I was still pretty much in the work around the clock and you know, work to like drop type of mentality and you know, I was able to pull off and get the summit and get everybody together, get the website together, get all the recordings done, have it all delivered within just a few weeks. And which I look back at. And especially, you know, in looking at other trainings on how to do summits and so forth and not realizing in hindsight how crazy that was. I mean, it was a great experience and I'm grateful for the people that I met through it. But while I was in the midst of it feeling just frantic and that feeling my life a little bit about of control, cause I knew I had to do so much. And so little time I did a process that I and others called doing a soul scribble, which is basically just close my eyes and scribble on a piece of paper and see what I see on it.

Speaker 3:

I love the Soul Scribble, Oh, because you're so artistic and all the things that you draw. Oh that's excellent. So tell us about that. Because I love it!

Speaker 4:

So I, I did that. I asked a question, you know, kind of how am I, how do I deal with all this stuff that I'm dealing with right now? And I closed my eyes, scribble, look, and I see a turtle there and I'm like, Oh my gosh. That is like absolutely the wrong thing for me to see. I need to see a cheetah. Right. You know, not a turtle!

:

But a turtle is good. Well I didn't have that understanding of that time. Yes. Because the turtle is all about, I collect turtles, they're in our bathroom and everything like you know, wooden turtles when we traveled and it's all about creativity for me. So a turtle is a good thing, but I understand if you're looking for that cheetah and a turtle's different perspective.

Speaker 4:

Right, exactly. And it's like, okay, so, and I, my intention with doing the soul scribbles isn't just to see something but to make changes in my life that reflect what I see. And so I started to create borders in my wife, boundaries in my life. I stopped working on Saturday and Sunday at least now I actually write different work on Saturday and Sunday and it's more for enjoyment and time with family. And you know, it's when I go on my long runs and imperfect, different things like that. But I don't do my quote unquote work on Saturday or Sunday. I also don't work past six o'clock in the evening.

Speaker 3:

I do remember that when we met, and I told you my schedule that you always were, you really liked that. You said, I love that you turn, you know, shut the door and out you go and, and you know, off I go to make dinner, which is one of my passions- cooking. And you really, you thought, wow, that's great. And because it was something that you wanted there too. I'm kind to myself with that now if I am taping and writing that if for some reason I am editing on the weekend, I may take Monday off then. So I still honor my time, but it's flex differently, but I honor that time for sure.

Speaker 4:

Absolutely. And I think that's what's important is to recognize your own kind of rhythms and what works for you. I, for me, it's just, I'm kind of wired that I like to be busy. I like to be doing things. And so when I just stopped doing anything on the weekends, it was not very satisfying. That's how I started. Right, right. What's this? I started to focus, I'm currently in the process of writing three books. The way that I, and the way that it's turned out is that I write, I have them broken up one, they're very different books from one another, but two that I, I, there's a book that I work on Monday through Friday. There's a book out, the novel that I'm working on on Saturday and the more spiritual religious books that I work on on Sunday, I had an experienced this and it, it is amazing what can happen. Learning from the tortoise, the turtle, you know, I think one of the lessons of the turtle- tortoise.

Speaker 3:

I don't know when you say both, they're both the same, but I think when you said tortoise you know, I was thinking more about a grandfather a wise older, but they're both wise in their own way.

Speaker 4:

But you think of the parable of the tortoise and the hare, you know, and how the tortoise was the one that actually won. And the reason that the tortoise won was because he just, he or she maintained their pace throughout the race and didn't worry about, well, I've got to be like the hare. I've got to blast off the starting gate and run until I drop, which is literally what happened with the Hare and the tortoise made it to the finish line. So the persistence part there, right. So this past Sunday I was working on my book and one of the things that I do is I tally up how many words I've written so far and my intention is to write a thousand words a day toward as a contribution to finishing that book. And I've been working on this book for, I don't know, a year and a half or something much more consistently in the last six or so. And when I added my total to the bottom, to see how much I had written that day to the total for how much I've written for the book, I realized that I was at 49,327 words and my intention was to write 50,000 words on the first draft. And I'm like, wow, I'm actually done with this thing. The finished line is in sight and tomorrow, well not tomorrow on Sunday I intend to finish writing that and then printing it out and going through it and putting the pieces together that it was just surprising to me how close I was to the finish line without being aware of it and instead of, instead of it being stressful and you know, hectic and you know, I've got to squeeze all this in and you know, get us all done in three weeks or 24 hours or whatever. It's like, you know, just being consistent and doing small amounts consistently has contributed to getting to where I am.

Speaker 3:

So that would be, that would be you're crossing the finish line in life that you talk about and I agree with that in a sense. For me, my book's been in the working for five years and I was doing other things. I wasn't just not working, I was doing so many other things. I was learning in my business, but I wasn't inspired anymore. I was doing it other people's way and learning how to do online programs, how to create webinars. And you can even hear it in me. It was like, even if I was creating great material and you know, I went through the other day and found all this material I had created. It wasn't doing it my way. And so when I created this podcast, it just became, because this podcast started well more like 10 years ago, like it was live shot and it's on a DVD hard drive with, you know, 18 to 20 people that were filmed live. And when I went to do this, I knew it was right. I knew the title still was right for my message. And so everything flows now because you're in that flow and you're open to just allow it to flow with ease. And with my book, you know, I'm planning on launching it either August or September and now when I go work to finish it, it's a joy. I can't wait to go work on it and that, that's a whole different thing than, Oh, you got to get this done by next month. Absolutely. Yes. That, that doesn't work.

Speaker 4:

And that's for me. What part of prosperity is, you know, I mean, if, if getting to prosperity is a grind, you know, something that exhausts us, then you know, we're not going to arrive at our finish line with a smile on our face. You know, it's going to be, wow, I finally did it and I'm going to collapse on the other side.

Speaker 3:

And then it sort of then what sort of, because I know my father, he worked for a large corporation with computers and you know, and those days when you turn 60 they asked you leave and retire, which to me, sixties the new 50 or the 40 is a whole different number now. But, they sort of gave him a, at the very end, his last year, they took away his one group that was successful and gave him a very challenging group for his last year and then asked him to retire. And then he didn't have that purpose later, but it was that whole thing about you get to that place and then, Oh, okay, do I celebrate this? Like where am I with this? And so I agree with you with this path to prosperity, but what does it look like? And I think a big part of that is, you know, being an expression of our joy and gratitude every day. And, and when we talk about, y ou k now, questions that we a sk ourself, because w e're going to talk about language b ecause you are the story architect and in the sense that, you know, in our lives, if we change our results because of our language, what would you say about that? What w ould we say to ourselves? What do we say to others? And you talk about like the language of inspiration and different languages there. Can you touch upon that? Sure. Oh, and what does the language of love s ound like? I wanted to hear your opinion on that. I think that's awesome.

Speaker 4:

Well, I think that I can tell you what my answers are. I think we all, I'll speak our own, have our own vocabulary, if you will. Our own style of speaking for me, love the language of love is being there for somebody you know. You know, just as my wife was with by, thereby as I was going through the really dark days of struggling with depression, you know, that, that she didn't give up on me and that she saw better days ahead even when I didn't see them.

Speaker 3:

She saw that light at the end of the tunnel and she was your major cheerleader? Yeah. That's unconditional love.

Speaker 4:

And I see that with you and cliff, you know, as he's dealing with the cancer that he's dealing with. I don't know if you're speaking about that publicly or not.

Speaker 3:

I wasn't- we shared this with close friends like yourself. I was, but yeah, it's very different. We talked about this as friends that, you know, we didn't want to share it at the beginning because we didn't want that to be the whole focus or the dialogue versus looking at, you know, the end result again. And like you were saying, we do gratitude every day. We're in that space. And I think when you get a wake up call like that, you really, really, when you're told it, you know, it's a shock to your system because it's not somebody else being told you're being told. And so in my case with cliff, you know, he was told I was there with him, but we both were both quite emotional for sure. And, and then no thank you. We, have an amazing marriage, but we've worked on our marriage, you know, we're 30 years together and I love him more today than the day I married him and I loved him a lot when I married him.

:

So I hear you, we've been married 27 years and you stayed there and you support the person through the good, the bad, the ugly, the turns, the ups, the downs, the valleys. Because that's again, life. Everyone has challenges in their life. Right. You know, how do you deal with it and how, you know, you talk about navigating the creative wilderness without losing your heart or your mind. That might be a good segue to go into that to tell us about how do people navigate their creative wilderness and you know, without losing their heart or their minds. Yeah.

Speaker 4:

And I think one of the, so I, I literally navigate the wilderness fairly often. I enjoy hiking and outdoors and so forth. One of the reasons I navigate towards that, those analogies, those metaphors. And one of the things that I discovered was, again, going back to the idea of self determinism and people purpose and performance, that in hiking through an unfamiliar territory, you know, we need to be aware, get our bearings and in life, you know, we have our ways of getting bearings too. And I think it's important too, to be mindful of our internal bearings. You know, one of the things that speak to us, one of the things that resonate with us, you know, our creative expressions, you know, my drawing, your cooking, you know, um, these things that, you know, some might say that are frivolous or unnecessary or maybe even unproductive, but they give us joy and they, they, they put fuel in the tank. You know, maybe Cliff bars and the backpack for our creative wilderness journey so that we don't end up empty, you know, out there in the middle of the wilderness. Um, you know, it's, it's one thing to, know the path. It's another thing to be able to walk, to walk the path and especially to be able to walk the path with a smile on your face. You know, my intention, I've had enough with, uh, you know, really dark days and depression and all that. I don't really intend to walk those paths again. And so, you know, I look for, you know, where are the paths that I do want to walk? What are the things that I do want to create? And one of the things, the ironic thing is, is that much of what I've discovered that brings me joy, I discovered while I was on those really dark paths, that the thing that helped me find my way out of those dark forest was looking for the light in my life. You know, one of the things that really spoke to me, we were the type of people that I really resonated with. What was it? What were the activities that I really enjoyed doing and what were the things that I could do with, you know, some degree of mastery or even if I wasn't able to, to that time, do it with mastery. What were the things that I cared about enough that I was willing to go through the work that it would take me to get to where I could do things with a greater degree of mastery.

Speaker 3:

I know that, um, especially right now with the coven 19 virus, you know, we've been given a gift, which I believe in. People hear me say this all the time. It's my future book coming out. What is the gift of this? And that's what I say to my clients that I believe there's a gift in everything. It's about looking deeper and finding what the gift is and that I always say, and I, you know, right now this isn't being done to us. It's being done for us. The world had to change. And we had to wake up, look after mother earth and each other. So it's one of inclusivity and oneness and unity consciousness. And you know the gift right now, I believe our life for many was put on pause. So again, look at, you know, maybe you were given a gift, you don't want that job anymore. You can't go to it or whatever it is. Look at your health. You can go bike ride more. I just got a new bike, the cruiser for Mother's Day! But you know, also we're seeing families for the first time walking in our neighborhood I've never seen before. With their dogs and their children. And none of them have that phone, you know, they're not looking down. They are talking to each other. And that is huge. So you know, if we, and you t alk about intention, you know, I love Wayne Dyer's book, the power of intention and intention is huge in our lives. You know, what do we intend? A nd to get really clear on what that is in our life and then pay attention to what shows up and step into those opportunities. And explore them because you just, you know, the universe aligns. I t's o rchestrates everything in our life. So I believe in a higher power and to surrender to that power, which is powerful. It's not weak by surrendering and allowing what shows up- people and circumstances. And you know, there again there's walking in nature and meditation, all those things are times for us to get quiet and not be busy, busy, busy or work, work, work or the way that you were in the corporate world, which many people still are and, but some of those people can't go to work now. So they are given a different way of being at home and you know, they're not traveling an hour every day or that they have an extra two hours or more. You know, I know close clients, people that w ere traveling more than two hours a day to work and back and now they have that time with their family. It's totally, totally different.

Speaker 4:

It is. And you know, it is an opportunity for us to look and see what is the normal that we want to get back to when things get back to normal. What is a normal that we want to create now again, exactly to be created.

:

Normal because we're not going back to the old normal and you know, it's, I always use the analogy of the butterfly- that butterfly goes through a lot of struggle to come out and look what comes out of the end of that cocoon. Yes, so it's g oing t o be a new way of being in a new way on earth and I'm excited about that personally and you know, our m essages, like a lot of people are as Lightworkers and people who are bringing inspiration, empowerment to people to create their best life on their terms is really important to me. And it's what the show's all about. Absolutely. Steve, how does someone start to enrich their emotional vocabulary? Because I know both you and I like words and I like play on words. Like, you know, I was reading the other day, righteousness means the right use of the mind, which is love. And somebody shared with me on the podcast, they word because meaning Be+ Cause and you're the cause of everything. You're the center of your own universe. And what are you causing? What are you wanting to cause? So tell me how you would share with people, how they can enrich their emotional vocabulary?

Speaker 4:

I think there's two parts to that. There's the emotional part of it and there's the vocabulary. Part of the emotional part of it is just, you know, becoming more in tune with your emotions. One of the things that I do, and it feels a little bit silly doing it, but I do it because it helps me. And that is every morning I go through different, expressions while I'm looking at myself in the mirror. So, you know, I'm happy, I'm sad, I'm fearful, I'm angry, I'm contemptuous, I'm disgusted, I'm surprised. I'm just...

Speaker 3:

I have never heard of those. I've heard Louis Hayes say, you know, I love you, I love you. And a lot of people have a hard time looking in their eyes saying because they're talking to their soul. But what you're saying, you're allowing yourself to feel all those emotions.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. And so there's like the kind of like the light and the dark, but then there's also another set that I do that are more all positive, but so there's things, I don't know if I can remember exactly. Um, but happiness, exactly. It's joy, inspiration, love, hope& happiness. Yes. And, but just by- a brief moment experiencing that, and showing that, you know, physically with my facial expression, with body gestures, that I literally experienced them. And so that it gives me access to them. And the reason that I started doing it was because I am a very active member of Toastmasters and speak publicly frequently. And one of the comments, the evaluations that I got was that my, I was not very expressive either with my voice or with my gestures and my facial expressions. And so I started to a practice of working on that just for a few minutes each day. Wow! Look at what the gift that came out with that feedback!

:

Right. I wasn't expecting at all that by working on that expression that I had a side benefit that I did not consider at all, like I said, was that I would allow me to get more in tune with my emotions to be able to feel, you know, what does inspired, inspired look like? Or what does it feel like? What does all feel like? What does contempt feel like? What does disgust feel like, you know, and so that when those things show up in our lives instead of our emotions having us is sometimes we say that we have our emotions and we can decide, okay, is this the emotion that I want to be having or do I want to be experienced in something else? How do I want to be showing up for people? And by being more masterful with our awareness of our emotions and more masterful with our expression of our emotions, t hen we can be also more masterful in our relationship with other people because we have seen and experienced those things more fully. So that going all that from your question about emotional vocabulary, that's the emotional side of it. The vocabulary side of it is words have power and words have a history t hat the words that we use today have origins that are thousands of years old. You know, one of the things that I like to do is to, when I'm considering what word to use in a certain case, I like to go to the dictionary or search online to find out what the etymology of the word, what is the actual, what's the history of the word. So things like passion, you know, if you look at p assionate and you think about, you know, passionate romance. Or, you know, there's this one thing that I like like you said- I have a passion for cooking.

Speaker 4:

You have a passion for nature and photography, right, exactly. All these things that just bring you total joy and bliss. If you look at the root of that word of passion, it's actually rooted to related to the same root for things like empathy or sympathy that it has as much to do about feeling and suffering as it does about the more positive things that we tend to think about.

:

Compassion. Right. Right, exactly. With passion, with feeling that you're willing to suffer with someone at the things that you're passionate about, whether that be your marriage or your work or your health or whatever. But it doesn't mean that it's always sunny and sunshine and dandelions and you know, unicorns and all that kind of thing.

Speaker 3:

And what about how boring it would be if we had every day predicted, it would be like the Groundhog day waking up every day you know, it's the same old, same old, which to me, I'm all about adventure and new experiences. That's like shooting myself. Like, it's just, you know, it's like, no, you want the life you want, you want to experience all. So I love this, this exercise that you do every morning. That's amazing! I hope that's going to be in your spiritual book. I think that would help a lot of people.

Speaker 4:

Hmm. Well thank you. Yeah, it is interesting how if we look at the words that we use and not just use the words, but really look at them and see what are the words telling us? What's the history of the word? How has the word changed? What feelings do these words bring us? You know, that by being more conscious of the words that we're using rather than just filling space, filling time, b ut that we intentionally look and say, okay, well what is it that I'm trying to create? Again, like we were talking about with the Covid 19 and everything, you know, what is it, what's on the other side that we want to get to? And words oftentimes are the path that we follow in order to get to the other side. You know, one of the primary ways that I got out of the depression that I was dealing with was by being much more conscious of the words that I was telling myself and the words that I u se when I was in conversation with other people. And by being more mindful about those words and the choices that I was making, I could start making choices that brought a more positive experience that you know, that were more fulfilling, more satisfying, more enriching than just the everyday lazy language, if you will, that I had gotten into the habit of using

Speaker 3:

Well, you think about it today too, with the virus that, you know, people are hearing all this through the media fear and that and they are getting tidbits of people doing all these wonderful things and playing musical instruments on balconies and the great thing that's happening with mother earth and animals showing up and all that. It's a choice there again, what we're focused on and what we're listening to and then what you're saying to yourself. Because if you buy into that fear model, that's a downward spiral and you know versus, choose to look at that love, focus on that all the time. Your brain is looking at that. Steve, how would you tell people how, like I work with people like this, but I want to know how you do it. How someone would discover their own unique gifts and purpose and how they can turn that into gold because that's one of your programs, right? Gifts into gold. So how would you tell somebody? Because people say, I don't know my life's purpose. I don't have a purpose, but everyone has a life purpose and it really, the bigger picture is love, right? How they can turn something that they're passionate about and find that purpose and turn it into gold. Meaning for me, turning into gold is yes, prosperity. But again, prosperity on all levels, physical, mental, emotional, you know, in all areas of our life. But also then the next step is the contribution. What's your contribution to the world? How can you be a service? Because that changes your whole trajectory and where you're going. That's a big question, but that's how you and I talk.

Speaker 4:

Sure. Yes. And I'm happy to explore that. What I would say and what I did, it's interesting. My business is called gifts into gold. And I started using that term a few years ago and it all came from, you know, I was on a program where we're all encouraged to defined our elevator pitch, if you will. And I started using the phrase, and I like to play with words. So I just like to see what will happen if I use a certain phrase. And the phrase that I'd been playing with was gifts in the gold. And I noticed when I use that phrase that people really responded well to it, but then I realized, you know, so I've got this thing, gifts into the gold, but I really don't know what that means. So I began a process and the process that I continued to today, but for different reasons, but started a process of while I was out of my daily walk, I'd pull out my phone and open up the, the voice recorder and just share my thoughts on what gifts into gold was. And by being curious about what those words meant to me and just being curious about, you know, what is it that I'm trying to create? Because I wasn't sure what I was trying to create. I just kind of had a sense of what I was trying to create. And by being curious that and being open and willing to experiment and to play into the navigate my creative wilderness, you know, I began to see paths and see the way through the forest that I had not seen before, that I've just, by being mindful of my environment, my response to my environment and my environments are a response to me. So you know how people respond to me, that kind of thing that uh, you know, the, the words became much more meaningful and I started to realize, you know, that, that our gifts into gold for me specifically has to do a story. You know, that the way that I express my gifts is through story.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Each one of us has powerful stories. So that's, that's a good tie in I feel to also discovering your purpose because we each have our unique story that we can help others through sharing our stories.

Speaker 4:

Right. Exactly. And so what is, what is the gift that I have? What is a gift of my story that I use that I can use in order to help other people through their own dark nights, you know, through navigating their own creative wildernesses and, and by being mindful of what those stories are and finding the pieces within those stories so that we can lead people more comfortably and an elegant way through their own dark nights and creative wildernesses that, you know, we can realize our gifts, our gold and our purpose.

Speaker 3:

I love that you brought this up, one of the things, many things in what you just said, but one of the things that I think is wonderful there is curiosity. When we become curious, we get more into that playful state like when we were younger and you don't know what's going to show up. When you get curious, you know, you're open to the possibility. It's not closed door, you're open. So curiosity is a huge part of that. Now you have this, we're going to talk about the gift later that you're giving to our audience, which is very cool. Um, but you have in there, just talk a little bit about, they're going to get that and understand what it is, but how, talk about a cozy cottage and then the prosperity and the palace. I know I've done this exercise with you and I, I loved it and it brought up a lot for myself. Gave me a lot of clarity on different things that I was thinking and, and beliefs and all those things.

Speaker 4:

Sure. One of the things that I've discovered is that I, that having a, an image that I can consider have in mind while I'm dealing with a challenge really helps me to, to see things more fully. And on the path to prosperity, they starting point is the cozy cottage.

:

And which sounds really great to me- seeing that I love the small house movement and I want to live on a sailboat. So it's like, Cozy!

Speaker 4:

Yeah. Yes. And honestly, that's very intentional because, you know, a lot of times we go through life and we just want to be comfortable. You know, I don't want to have to go climb a mountain in order to get there. I mean, there are awesome things about climbing mountains, but you know, I don't want to be spending my life feeling like I'm climbing a mountain, especially when the mountains, you know, coming down on me or you know, while I'm going up the mountain or dragons on the other side or whatever. Um, you know, we want to just be comfortable. We want to have a life of ease and prosperity. But in order to enjoy and experience that life of ease and prosperity, we've gotta be willing to leave our cozy cottage in order to pursue our palace of prosperity.

:

You know, and whatever that looks like for us, whether that be business or relationship or personal expression or whatever, that can also be very scary for people. Like right now, a lot of people are feeling this uncertainty right now, which is real. But like you're saying, even becoming an entrepreneur, you know, when we all started this, we didn't have that paycheck anymore and that's a big leap and step into that and have belief and the courage to see what that new path looks like. So that's coming out of that cozy cottage you're talking about, right? It's facing the creative wilderness. You know, when I left corporate America and the way I share it is, you know, I felt like literally felt like, you know, doing cartwheels out the door. Because I was so elated, so excited that I was no longer going to have to go back to that environment. I can visually see you going down the hallway? You could do that- I know that you're doing cartwheels out of the corporate world. Right? But what I soon realized was, is that on the outside was that I soon found myself in the creative wilderness and it's like, Oh my gosh, I have so much choice as to what I'm going to do next. I have no idea what to do next. You know, kind of like a kid in the candy store, you know? And I realized, you know, having choice and freedom is awesome, but it's also frightening, you know, and also responsibility to it. And responsibility. Like again, you and I like words, you know, responsibilities. How do you respond to something you're not reactive, you know, you're proactive and responsibility- I don't think people understand, at least in my coaching, you know, to allow somebody to go through that. When you take full responsibility for your life, that could be scary at the beginning. But then you realize, I'm the key person here, the director of my story. And you know and taking that responsibility. I think that's a for a lot of people. At least that's what I've seen.

Speaker 4:

Absolutely. And you know, it's giving the pencil to the author in our lives, you know, which is, which is us, that, you know, we get to get a say in how our story is going to end up, you know and so in my work, one of the things that I had people do is to design their prosperity palace. You know, what are the things you want to experience when you're in that place, you know, who are the people that you want to be with? What are the things you want to be feeling? And by being clear on what it is that we're trying to create. And this is where my story architect comes in and we get clear on what it is that we want to envision to bring to life and to realize it helps us to navigate, to find our way through the creative wilderness, you know, to look for those things in the creative wilderness that will help us to create the palace that we want to have on the other side. You know, it gives us direction and to go off the idea that Stephen Covey shared sometime ago about beginning with the end in mind, you know that when, if we were just to throw things together, you know, grab whatever we come across while we're on the paths of life, you know, what we end up with at the end might just be a jumble of rocks and twigs. You know, because we didn't really have a design and intention, a clear intention as to how we wanted things to unfold them to manifest on the other side.

Speaker 3:

And it doesn't mean we know the exact path. It just means having that attention and the clarity of what you want, what that looks like, and then seeing how all those pieces come together. Life's puzzle boxes. You use an analogy about because your palace in your exercise, you know, a big part of my palace is a sailboat. Now is that going to change? It might with everything happening in the world, I don't know what that looks like, but I totally believe in, you know, I go experience that and I want that again. Then that will show up in whatever way that's going to show up, but by experiencing the feelings around this and the emotions around it and I get excited when I think about it and warm weather, beaches and those things.

Speaker 4:

Yes. Yeah. And it's allowing ourselves to experience that. You know, when an opportunity presents itself that leads towards that vision, then we can, you know, more clearly in a greater resolution conviction say yes to that opportunity, you know? Whereas if, if that isn't clear that that's what we want or that, that that is what we're trying to create on the other side, then you know, we might have the opportunity to walk right by us without us being aware of it.

Speaker 3:

That makes me think of looking for, they say men do it, but women do it too. Looking for something in your fridge or your cupboard and you can't find it. It's right in front of you because you just don't see it.

Speaker 4:

Well, honestly, that's the way story showed up for me. I mean, I've been doing stories since I was literally six years old. I mean I wrote, you know, all kinds of stuff. I didn't Dawn on me until I went through this exercise of listing all the activities that I enjoy doing and then ranking those things and finding at the top of the list of the hundred things that I ranked, that story was at the top and it was so obvious in hindsight, but it was so, I missed it so much in the process without stopping, without taking account of, the things in our lives, you know, it's really easy to, the analogy that's coming to mind as you know, it's really easy to lose those quarters in the sofa cushions because you know, we're not paying attention. You know, you know, when you lift the cushion and you find, a whole bunch of money in there and it's like, Oh my gosh, where did that come from?

:

Yeah. It's interesting. I opened up a book that I haven't read for a while and like you, I have a lot of books and I opened it up and inside there was a hundred dollar bill sitting there and I thought, oh my goodness. And I mean it was years ago, that I looked at this maybe five years ago, I'm like,when did I put a hundred dollars in there? I thought that's kind of cool. A little surprise, right? And it's been there all along. It's just we weren't looking to it, we weren't looking for it and we weren't, didn't have access to it.

Speaker 3:

And I think there's a timing for everything to unfold. Absolutely. If we don't say it has, that's the other side of the coin though. It has to happen this way, this way, this way. When you do that, you can really create a lot of problems for yourself versus again, leaving this to the universe, higher power, God, whatever it is for the person to say, this is what I want. And this is like the law of attraction, asking what you want, believe, know, trust and allowing, which you talked about to allow how that shows up and how exciting is that. That's where the magic is and magic is real, you know, good magic and you surprises that show up in our life and miracles. So if we could go on, I love talking to you, but I'm going to ask you if you could share today with our listeners what is the unique gift that you've created for them? It's very special and everyone will know that all the links to Steve and where you can find him and his beautiful gift will be listed below this episode. So if you can share that with us.

Speaker 4:

Sure. So I've created a literal map that I call it the path to prosperity(Healer's Journey Treasure Map) and as we talked earlier, it's the journey from our cozy cottage to our palace of prosperity. And along the way, you know, we encounter different things. And by through this map, the intention is to help people to the ask the questions and to see perhaps, a hundred dollar bill that are in our book of life so that we can, you know, create the life that we want, that we can use our currency of life to, to make the difference that we want to make.

Speaker 3:

And I think you're going to be adding in some of your beautiful dragons because you're so artistic and you have your three headed dragon and your breakthrough dragon. I think people would have fun with them because your art's just so playful and fun.

:

Yes, yes. Yeah. Dragons are becoming a regular part of my life, so I love that and I'm welcoming them instead of resisting them and you know, trying to run from them. I'm learning that the power really is in facing our dragons and learning about the dragons in our lives so that we can discover their magic.

Speaker 3:

Oh, that's such a beautiful gift Steve. Thank you so much for sharing from your heart and soul your wisdom on how each one of us can tell a new story, one that inspires and empowers us to live the life we love on our own terms.

:

Namaste Steve.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to the heart soul wisdom podcast with Moira Sutton. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Please join our community@moirasutton.com and continue the discussion on our Facebook page. Create the life you love. You will be part of a global movement, connecting with other heart-centered people who are consciously creating the life they love on their own terms. Together we can raise our consciousness for the greater good of humanity and for our planet.