Dave O’Neil and Wendy Bird – Pearls of Wisdom for Powerful Connections

In this inspiring episode, Dave O’Neil and Wendy Bird, founders of Pearls with Purpose, share their journey and discuss the transformative “Unstick the Stuck” program, emphasizing the importance of personal development and rewriting relationship narratives for fulfilling connections.

Join the Unstick the Stuck Facebook Group

Discover more at CoachWendyBird.com

Email Dave and Wendy at Help@unstickthestuck.com

Check out the PearlswithPurpose.org website

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Transcript

00:00:01

Hi and welcome to the You World Order Showcase podcast. Today we are.

00:00:06

Blessed to have Dave and Wendy O'Neill joining us, and they are authors.

00:00:13

And they are the founders of.

00:00:17

Pearls with purpose, which we're going to talk about. This is a fascinating thing that they're doing there and they are the founders of ‘Unstick the Stuck’, which is a program that's strengthening and growing from the inside out.

00:00:34

Strengthening all the relationships, starting with your own relationship with yourself. Hope I.

00:00:41

Got that right

00:00:42

Got better ourselves. OK, good. Welcome to the show.

00:00:46

Dave and Wendy.

00:00:48

Thank you so.

00:00:48

Much, yeah. We're so.

00:00:49

So glad to be here.

00:00:50

Glad to be here. Thanks for your time today. We deeply appreciate it, Jill.

00:00:55

Well, I am really excited to dive into all the pieces of what you're doing out there. I know that we really want to focus on the, ‘Unstick the Stuck’ part, but can you just give us a quick rundown on the pearls with purpose? I think that's so fascinating. What you guys have done over the years and.

00:01:15

It's helped so many people undoubtedly.

00:01:19

It has and I think honestly looking at that and our past is what really explains you know some of the reason why we are doing so well with the relationship coaching and helping people there. So I'll let Wendy tell you a little bit about.

00:01:31

It because that's her story.

00:01:33

Yeah. So I started pearls with purpose in 2001 and I would stay at home on the 5

00:01:39

Kids. I had been pregnant or nursing for a decade straight and toilet training, as you know, being a mom of 5 kids yourself. and had lost my identity. My husband at the time said, you know, you're a certified gemologist. Why don't you make some jewelry, go sell it at Saturday's market? I was like, that's a great idea. And I'm sure you're familiar with AOL.

00:02:01

Dial up Internet days.

00:02:03

I sent out a bunch of random emails to those addresses, some addresses that I'd made-up. You know, pearls for sell at EDS and Mail Pearl jewelry at Hotmail, things like that. Got some factory responses, but I did get one response from a live human being to her, and she and the body of her e-mail stated if you imported finished pieces of jewelry.

00:02:23

From me rather than loose pearls, you would change women's lives in my country.

00:02:27

And it floored me. I didn't know. You know what to think. I was like, well, I'm looking to change my life. I have no idea where the Philippines is. I don't have a passport, and so I emailed her back and said, well, how would that work? And she said, I will find the women. You just teach me what to do. And so we did, you know, over the course of a couple of years since several tutorials, trainings and different things.

00:02:49

All through AOL and went with four women, then 23 women, then 64 women, all women from squatters villages.

00:02:59

And then people heard what I was doing, so we were able to strategically align with a lot of really incredible organizations and things evolved into the tsunami devastation survivors of the tsunami, and then an orphanage in Cambodia then leprosy afflicted women in India. Then women who had been human trafficked and rescued in Peru.

00:03:19

And Dominican Republic and Kenya, so we.

00:03:22

Kind of just ebbed.

00:03:23

And flowed where we were invited to go to help, you know, other individuals.

00:03:30

But here's where the ‘Unstick the Stuck’ comes in. In 2017, on a trip to the Philippines, I was approached by several women that I didn't remember their names. I didn't recognize them, and so I was, you know, hey, I know what your name was like when? When were you trained? Oh, you didn't train me. You. You trained my mom.

00:03:50

Nanette. I am her daughter, and because of the training I graduated college. I'm married. I have a baby. I built a house. I did this. I did that, and I was just like, oh, my gosh, this generational cycle of poverty is now completely broken. And when I was going out to interact and meet with the women.

00:04:11

It was not. I need food. I need a house. I need a job. It was what's next, Wendy? How do I contribute? How do I do what you're doing? How can I help other people? How can I make my

00:04:23

Marriage better and I.

00:04:24

Was just like, I don't know.

00:04:26

Like I had built everything around. Let's just get you off the ground and going.

00:04:31

And so I had to, you know, come back to America and be like, how can I grow? How can I?

00:04:37

Improve and so I became a CHPC. It's a certified high performance coach and that's a whole story. And in doing that, I realized, you know, Maslow's hierarchy of needs and human development. And once we have clothing, food, shelter, and that base foundational level of his hierarchy established, we can then ascend into.

00:04:57

Educating, educating for ourselves, educating others. We can then ascend into contribution to society, to community, to family, to friends, and then we can ascend even further into self actualization.

00:05:09

And so I pursued that with, like, a fervor that is still going today and was able to get myself out of a three decade highly toxic relationship.

00:05:21

And didn't even know right. You don't know what you don't know until you start to identify it, and then you're like, what have I allowed to transpire?

00:05:31

You know, and David was in a similar situation.

00:05:34

And we both were attending Tony Robbins. He's a high performance developer, a personal developer. His World Summit during October of 2020. Everything went virtual. 30,000 other people were attending. We happen to be in the same zoom room. He's on the East Coast. I'm on the West Coast and we got.

00:05:54

That in the same zoom room 29 and we chatted and developed a relationship and it was like.

00:06:03

Wow, you're healthy. I'm healthy because we’ve ‘Unstick the Stuck’, we knew what we had to do, you know, to not fall into those traps of what we both had experienced in our prior marriages.

00:06:16

And so we started creating this curriculum. We started teaching it because just the concept that in your 50s, there's hope to have.

00:06:26

A healthy, functioning dynamic relationship like that alone is mind blowing.

00:06:31

Between the two of us, with over 50 years of dysfunction and you know when you say that there isn't a higher purpose, there's no way we would have found each other. You know me from New Hampshire and her in Utah.

00:06:46

And yet it happened.

00:06:47

And what we realized very quickly was had we not done the work on ourselves, we never would have, you know whether even.

00:06:55

If we had talked to each.

00:06:57

Other it just wouldn't have clicked the.

00:06:59

Same way because.

00:07:01

We would have been stuck in our.

00:07:02

Own loop.

00:07:02

Right. Yeah, exactly. And it just never would have been an option. And so because we decided that, you know what, there may not be somebody else we may be by ourselves for.

00:07:11

The rest of.

00:07:12

Our lives and neither.

00:07:12

Of us was looking so yeah.

00:07:13

No, not at.

00:07:13

All but, but we wanted to become the.

00:07:16

Best version of ourselves

00:07:17

For us and simply by doing that I think it just opened up the doors to an amazing relationship and we really have come to determine that we think everybody should have this type of relationship. It's possible. It's just a matter of, you know, you got to do the work, but once you put in that time.

00:07:37

Everybody can just be this happy and feel this great and that's really what.

00:07:42

We're all about.

00:07:44

Yeah, that was a very long answer.

00:07:47

I know, sorry.

00:07:48

Ah, it's great. I was just thinking Tony Robbins.

00:07:53

I have a long history with Tony Robbins.

00:07:57

I lived in San Diego when he was first getting started and I went to one of his first seminars when there was maybe.

00:08:06

I don't know 40 or 50 people.

00:08:08

In the room.

00:08:09

And he got up to talk and he started.

00:08:09

It was good.

00:08:12

Talking about Mother Teresa and Captain Steve Coffey, well Captain Steve Coffey was my neighbor. He used to run around with.

00:08:21

His sons.

00:08:28

It is really a.

00:08:29

Small world. So when you're talking about the synchronicity of you guys.

00:08:32

Meeting in that room, it's just like, you know.

00:08:35

Things don't happen by accident, and I definitely believe in the.

00:08:38

That is correct.

00:08:44

The power of.

00:08:46

Figuring out who you are.

00:08:48

And then coming together as two whole people instead of two.

00:08:53

Broken people trying to like patch.

00:08:56

It together to make one whole one.

00:08:58

Which was the paradigm for oh so many years? So I'm really excited to see that you guys are living your.

00:09:09

What you teach?

00:09:11

In terms of healing yourself to get unstuck, so you told me before we started recording that you you've been actually teaching this for like a year now.

00:09:24

Yeah. So we go around into conferences and there is a one hour breakout and this course and ‘Unstick the Stuck’ has really.

00:09:34

We thought in the beginning because of our age bracket, it would kind of be something where there would be like, you know, 45 plus. You know, my marriage. I've been in it for 20 years, 30 years. Help me revive it or.

00:09:46

Whatever, let's bring.

00:09:47

It back, but the reality is we've had so many single people. We've had millennials, we've had, you know, people living together that are just going do I want.

00:09:56

To keep living with this.

00:09:57

Person like what are our things that we're grinding on all the time and as we continue to teach it and interact with people, whether it's in a coaching setting or in this curriculum course environment.

00:10:12

It's resonated with all ages because people are saying, yeah, I actually communicate that way and I didn't realize that wasn't the best way or I actually respond to my kids way or actually I'm super critical. I didn't understand. I could just offer a complaint instead of a criticism, and then they wouldn't hit their shame.

00:10:32

Cycle you know, and so there's just these epiphanies occurring because it isn't like, here's how you're gonna meet the person you're gonna fall in love with and be happily forever after, like.

00:10:41

That's not what.

00:10:42

We're about, you know, it's about. Here's who you're going to meet, and here's how you're going to create your happily ever after so you don't have to constantly be seeking somebody else to fill the void of intimacy or the void of I'm not enough. Or the void of I eat through my emotions. That's all the work you get to do.

00:11:03

And when you're doing that work, if you have somebody by your side who

00:11:08

Was enrolled in the idea of how I don't have to save you, but I can be your friend and I can support you and I can be by your side and I cannot criticize you and shame you either. It's amazing what happens when you get those. Those two healthy dynamics together.

00:11:28

And it's just, it's all learning, right?

00:11:32

It kind of reminds me of I was a lifeguard for many years in Hawaii and.

00:11:40

One of the one of the things that you don't want to do is jump in to try to save someone who's drowning. If you're not trained to do it because you will both drowned.

00:11:51

And a lot of times relationships are like that. They both are victims and they're just drowning because they don't know how to empower themselves to be the hero of their own stories. And it sounds like that's what you do. You empower people to.

00:12:08

You know, pick up the sword.

00:12:09

And fight their battle and triumph and.

00:12:13

Tell the story on the other side.

00:12:15

It really comes down to in, in my opinion it is. You can't possibly love someone else and I don't care if it's a partner or a family member or a neighbor.

00:12:27

If you haven't figured out how to love yourself.

00:12:30

Because whatever story you're telling yourself that those words are going to come out when you're talking to other people. And so it really has to start with that, you know, loving yourself and you know, we both. Wendy obviously has had the chance over the last 20 years to travel to so many different places and help so many people and.

00:12:49

For me, my stories when I was 15, I got to see the poorest part of Mexico, and I got to see what it was like to not have things, but to have joy and happiness.

00:12:59

And that is really what's more important. And then the other thing that we talk about all the time and it's sad, but it's true as we're told, you know, you go to school and you find a spouse and you, you know, the right person and you get married and you live happily ever after. But nobody ever tells you how to do it. And so you don't know how to have the hard conversation.

00:13:21

And if you don't know how to do it and you try a couple of times and it turns into a big argument, well then your next step is going to be I'll just stop having those conversations and that's, you know, the death knell for, for a relationship. And so that people are just looking for, just like Wendy said, this those ideas and they're simple ideas.

00:13:41

Oh, I can do this and this will work. So, and that's what we just want to do is share that with as many people as Possible.

00:13:49

Part of the.

00:13:50

Reason why we got to that point where we didn't really know how to have relationships.

00:13:56

Is because it's really our parents and I'm thinking you guys are not.

00:14:04

Far behind the age that I am.

00:14:09

They were. I know my mom was a young woman when the Civil Rights Act was passed.

00:14:15

Most people are not aware that the Civil Rights Act was really the catalyst that allowed women to.

00:14:24

Be independent human beings rather than being chattel to their husbands, women used to go to college, not to get an education, because all they could be were teachers or nurses. But to find a husband, to support them and.

00:14:41

If you couldn't find a husband.

00:14:44

You were pretty much going to be.

00:14:47

Out of luck.

00:14:48

You weren't going to own a home. You weren't going to have a lot of the things that independent single women these days. You can have anything you want

00:14:56

But that wasn't always the case. And so we learned these relationship paradigms from our parents, our moms and dads who had a different dynamic going on. They weren't, you know, they got married and there was no divorce even before that. And then during the 70s and 80s, there was just like.

00:15:17

This explosion of people separating and divorcing and a lot of times there were like older women who didn't have careers they had to get started and it

00:15:31

Really kind of messed up a couple of decades worth of kids out there who didn't know how to have a relationship. B didn't really understand that as women, we could. We could be anything we wanted to be. We didn't have to fall into these boxes that had been set up by our parents to fit.

00:15:51

Their narrative and it.

00:15:54

It's refreshing to me to see it coming full circle and women are really starting to understand that they're responsible for themselves. They don't have to have a.

00:16:08

They don't have to have a family if they don't want to.

00:16:12

They can, but they don't have to. It's not a requirement, and it was for a long time. You know the standard from happiness was XY and Z and now.

00:16:22

It's just like we're.

00:16:22

Rewriting all of it, and it's so refreshing to.

00:16:25

See, you know.

00:16:27

What you're doing out there just kind of giving people a road map to say here.

00:16:31

Let's look at it.

00:16:33

From this perspective and see how this feels for you and maybe if this isn't working, maybe we can.

00:16:40

Try it.

00:16:40

This way.

00:16:42

Because there's not any like, you don't have to follow any certain path to get.

00:16:48

To this point that I think you're trying to help people get to becoming unstuck.

00:16:54

Well, alluding to that, what your parents did right, no parent is given a handbook. And so my hat is off to anyone who takes on.

00:17:03

The hat of parenting because it's tough and it's for every, every individual experiences. The throws of motherhood, fatherhood, parenthood in general, and but it reminds me of that story of, you know, the daughter who cuts off the ends of the meat to put in the pan and cook and the husband's like, why do you do that? That's like such a waste of meat. Well, that's how you do it.

00:17:26

You know what my mom taught me? And so he calls the mother and the mother's like, that's.

00:17:29

What my mom taught me. And then?

00:17:31

They called the great grandma, you know, grandma, why we always cut off the ends. Ohh, cause my pan was so small. That's the only way the meat would fit.

00:17:39

In it. And so here they were, practicing the same ritual with cooking this roast and losing a lot of value. A lot of protein, a lot of expensive cuts of meat, simply because of the size of a pan and a faulty belief system from a predecessor, you know, generationally down. And when you look.

00:17:59

At the plethora of.

00:18:02

Therapy. EMDR, like any rewiring abilities that are out there today, we really don't have an excuse to stay stuck unless we are choosing victimization. Rationalization, you know, causation like it's a choice.

00:18:21

You know, to simply say, like Carol Dweck and her open mindset book, I'm going to be closed off. You know, I'm going to continue with my life like this. And that's on you at that point. You know, you've got to be willing to open up those blinders and say maybe there is.

00:18:39

Just a different way and maybe that different way will actually kind of cut some bonds that have been chaining you down to the wrong thing.

00:18:48

For a while.

00:18:51

Yeah. And those paradigms that we.

00:18:55

Take with us that aren't serving us. You just have to keep looking at your life and saying, hey, was this decision good or?

00:19:05

Could I maybe make a different decision to get a different result?

00:19:10

But when you do that and you have become a whole and happy person, now imagine what you can give to your partner or to your children, or to you know. And so because you don't, you're no longer seeking that happiness, that validation, that strength from anybody else.

00:19:28

You've created it within yourself and now you get to share that. And so when you get two people who joined together and they've already gone through that journey, that's where you're going to find that real happiness. Because neither one of them is looking to get it from the other one. They've already found their happiness, but then they find that then when they do things together.

00:19:49

They're even more happy. They get even more joy out of sharing those experiences. And so that's what we're really all about. And that's it's just been.

00:19:57

So much fun.

00:19:58

Like when it spills out to the community.

00:19:58

We we're.

00:20:01

Yeah, it does. We were interacting with a couple just recently and he said and they were on second marriage and he said that his divorce happened because when they got married about five years in, his ex-wife had said I never want kids never want a family and didn't say it before they got married.

00:20:19

Did not say it before they got there.

00:20:22

And he was just kind of like.

00:20:24

Oh my gosh. Well, then the next five years, it was OK. We will never be having kids, so I'm going to basically be an adult slash boy slash Playboy. Like, I'm just gonna have fun because I don't have to. I can be a little reckless. I can get my little boy toys and I can go do my little ski weekends, and I can have a good time over here. And I'm never going to have this responsibility of parenthood.

00:20:45

That's OK. Well that.

00:20:45

And he literally got a.

00:20:47

Job in the sporting goods industry.

00:20:48

Yeah, his do all his fun.

00:20:49

So he could travel the world, get sales events and.

00:20:52

Do all the fun things.

00:20:53

And then Fast forward five more years and she flipped the script and she said, I'm ready to have kids. And he's like, I was 44.

00:20:55

Guess what?

00:21:01

He said my, you know, I was never in my mind gonna have kids. And so they did. They had a couple kids, but it just was like, so he, he said I couldn't ever like reconciling. And he his ex-wife is a therapist and. And so it's like, you know, we were just constantly at these odds in these battles.

00:21:22

He's remarried now. Super happy and they have this blended family of his two kids from his first.

00:21:27

Marriage and hers, but.

00:21:30

He like think of.

00:21:32

You know you're going one way with a person who you didn't even have the conversation at the get go.

00:21:38

Right.

00:21:39

Do you want to?

00:21:40

Have a family.

00:21:41

Do you know and how? How critical is that? And I mean, I know when I first got married, those weren't the questions we were asking, you know?

00:21:50

You said there was almost an.

00:21:51

Assumption right was that's what you do.

00:21:54

Yeah. And nowadays it's no, let's now some of these hard questions, these are pivotal for whether or not we can have something sustainable.

00:22:03

Yeah, it's, it's if you want it to go the distance, you need to think about what it's going to look like when you get to that point, even early on. And I, you know.

00:22:18

And there's so many different ways you can have relationships today. It's not getting married is just one option you can live with people you can have long distance relationships where you only see each other. You know, once a.

00:22:31

Month or twice a year.

00:22:33

That works for some people, and the millennials are doing crazy things. I mean, they just like.

00:22:42

And it's working for them.

00:22:44

Yeah. So.

00:22:48

I mean to some degree, right?

00:22:48

There's a lot that's not.

00:22:50

Working for that age bracket that I mean, they may have a different way of approaching relationships that they're telling themselves is working, but then they have that spike in mental and illness, depression, suicide.

00:22:52

Yeah, yeah.

00:23:02

Ideation, social anxieties, like all of that, is spiking. And a.

00:23:07

Lot of that.

00:23:07

Is completely correlated to the decline of defining your moral values and living out of congruency with what your core belief.

00:23:15

Is, so you have to careful.

00:23:16

I think.

00:23:17

Part of that has to do.

00:23:19

And with, we don't really teach people how to define their core values or.

00:23:27

That Specific group of people also.

00:23:31

They're trying to come of age and figure out relationships in an age where so much is done online and so much is done in an artificial reality. A lot of these people are gamers and a lot of them have drug habits.

00:23:54

It's becoming more mainstream even than when we were young and it.

00:23:59

Yeah, they're just keep them from having to address what they're feeling, right.

00:23:59

Was kind of like.

00:24:04

Whether it's through a game, through a substance, it's numb.

00:24:07

Yeah. And it's not, you know, just drugs or alcohol. It could be, you know, hitting those Monster Energy drinks and nothing against monster. But you know, when you're constantly feeding yourself chemicals to alter your.

00:24:18

State, but it is. You're right, I think.

00:24:20

You're either, you know, buried in a game or buried in a cell phone, or.

00:24:24

You know it's. It's alright. Yeah, yeah.

00:24:25

A movie a binge on Netflix like, there's so many ways.

00:24:28

And it's hard.

00:24:29

To see people face to face and talk to people, face to face. And again it is it. It is difficult to have those conversations. One of my favorite quotes of Wendy's is that yeah, you. If you and I'll probably say it all.

00:24:42

Wrong, but you can make the choice to avoid.

00:24:46

You know that conversation?

00:24:46

I'll say it can't be the same.

00:24:50

Avoiding difficult conversations trades, short term discomfort for long term dysfunction.

00:24:59

The thing is.

00:24:59

That's the cracks, so.

00:25:00

The, the and the. The problem is a lot of.

00:25:04

People, young people.

00:25:04

Especially, but a lot of people don't know that, so their assumption is if I just avoid that short term discomfort, it will go away. Guess what?

00:25:14

It just creates.

00:25:15

These dysfunctional responses to functional, dysfunctional habits and behaviors.

00:25:21

That cement in a less than feeling for their relationship partner. Or we had one who said I just felt invisible, like we were together all the time, but we.

00:25:34

Were always.

00:25:34

On our phones and it's like, OK, you may be together physically, but are you together energetically, emotionally.

00:25:41

Spiritually, like all of those components need to be addressed in the dynamic of our relationship, because I can stand by Dave all day long and if we're not conversing or engaged or looking eye to eye, those neurons aren't firing between us, I can come out of it saying I haven't spent any time with you.

00:26:00

Right. Yeah. And I think that's a that's a problem that is really.

00:26:08

It's evolving more, more rapidly now with the way society is going.

00:26:16

With all of the electronics.

00:26:18

Yeah, he has rewired the brain neurons and the earlier a individual has access to that technology, whether it's just sitting in front of a screen or on the phone or an iPad, the earlier age that hits, the greater rewiring.

00:26:37

Is occurring on those brain neurons

00:26:39

And there's actually studies on the spike in autism and autistic behaviors because of that rewiring, there's studies on mental illness, incline and suicide ideation, incline because of technology.

00:26:59

Primary Adam Alter wrote a book called Irresistible, and in this book He Tracks Clear Back to the Vietnam War on what has been done for brain wiring processes.

00:27:15

And then he pulls in, and here's how technology impacts those neurons. And taking it even to the fact that the apple guy, I forgot his name, Steve Jobs, he wouldn't even give his kids the iPhone and the iPad until.

00:27:34

After the age of 18, he said your brains aren't fully formed and I don't want to create addiction for you and it's like, OK, if the creator of these tools is actually holding back on, giving them to his own kids, what does.

00:27:49

That say to us.

00:27:50

As parents, you know, we.

00:27:52

Have to be pretty diligent.

00:27:53

School systems are going to everything being online.

00:27:57

It's just like.

00:27:59

That's crazy to me. I homeschooled my last three and we had real tight rules about the Internet. They didn't even have.

00:28:08

Computers until they were.

00:28:10

Access to computers other than in my room until they were in their teens and TV was.

00:28:19

TV just isn't on very often in our house.

00:28:22

We don't even have a TV in our living room and.

00:28:27

Yeah, I didn't have TV at all when I was growing up. I was a teenager before I was. We even had a television in the House.

00:28:36

That's fortunate. I you know, I grew up watching, you know, when as soon as we could get cable with all the channels we did and then I see my parents now in their 80s and the TV turns on at about noon and it stays on until 10.

00:28:49

Yeah. And that's what they do. And so and yet you know again you go back to the younger age. We've got a friend or a couple friend out East. And I never forgot when they when they were moving in, they had a 1L shaped desk and they got another l-shaped desk so they could put them across from each other. And I thought that's cute.

00:29:10

Right. They can work together. No, they set up banks of screens between them so that they can game.

00:29:15

Together, they can't see each other, but.

00:29:17

They they're gaming in the same room, looking at screens, not even looking at each other.

00:29:22

And so that's what they're doing together, you know whereas.

00:29:26

You know us.

00:29:26

Old folks, we're out going for hikes and the holding hands and walking through nature and like Wendy said, we're talking, we're looking at each other. And I you know you can have a relationship that way. I'm not saying there's only one way to do it.

00:29:39

It's just like you said, there's many ways to do it.

00:29:42

But ultimately, if you want to be happy, there are certain things that you do kind of have to do and. And that's the thing, you know, let's just if we can help you be happy, that's what we want we're looking for.

00:29:54

And it's not just relationships. You know with somebody.

00:29:57

That you want.

00:29:58

To be married to or be intimate with this is we're talking about relationships with everybody.

00:30:05

Yep. Yep. We've had mother daughters. We've had all sorts of people that we've been able to work with, but the core communication skills and the core ideas. They again, they're starting with, with your relationship with yourself. So they're going to work with everyone.

00:30:21

And that's the whole goal, because ultimately everybody's in a different place in life. But yeah, they may have a wonderful relationship with their spouse, but there's that one child. They just cannot get through to. And so if we can help with that, then yeah, but we just.

00:30:36

One yeah. One of our well, a thing that meant a lot to me. One of a biggest breakthrough for a woman who was in her 60s school teacher getting ready to retire. Had kids of her own. Had grandkids even.

00:30:36

Happy to do it.

00:30:50

And during the course last year on complaint versus criticism, she came up afterwards just crying and said I wish I would have understood that difference when I was raising my kids. And now with the school kids, she said. I think I have shamed.

00:31:11

Every child.

00:31:12

Failed in my life and I didn't know I was shaming them because it was. Why don't you do this? And this is such a mess. And da, da, da and just, you know, belaboring it versus the complaint, the observation of hey, these are on the floor. You want to help me pick them up for you know your dad works really hard to earn the money for the clothes.

00:31:32

And what if we hang them on the hanger? You know, that's observation versus you did this. You made this mess. You need to clean it up. You don't take care of things. You're worthless. Is all the child years at that point. And she just talked about how during the day at school she was loving and kind to the kids. But.

00:31:50

It was. You didn't do the homework right? And you need help. You know you need to change your penmanship. You know, whatever it was. And she said I look back and just wish.

00:31:59

I would have.

00:31:59

Had that distinction between complaint and criticism for my kids and I was like, wow, so just, you know, one thing just one thing.

00:32:09

Can make a big difference, yeah.

00:32:12

And you spread that out.

00:32:13

Over, you know.

00:32:14

All the teachers out there, you.

00:32:16

Tell one teacher and she tells somebody else and then they tell two people.

00:32:21

How am I changing the world?

00:32:23

And I'm all about that.

00:32:26

The ripple effect of what you're doing is huge because you know really I'm making a joke about it, but it works that way. You fix yourself and you understand a few of these key concepts like you know.

00:32:35

It does.

00:32:41

Criticism versus.

00:32:43

Observation or.

00:32:46

What did you say?

00:32:47

Two C’s complaint versus criticism.

00:32:50

Complaint versus criticism.

00:32:53

ISM is the shame cycle where the individual is the person at fault for whatever it is. It's happening the critics. The complaint is the observation of something's wrong here in this scenario and we can work together to correct it.

00:33:09

Yeah, and.

00:33:10

Like not a bad.

00:33:12

Person because your clothes are on the floor.

00:33:13

Right.

00:33:14

Right.

00:33:17

But we would like.

00:33:18

It if the clothes weren't on the floor.

00:33:19

Yeah. And what we're observing.

00:33:22

But it doesn't make you a.

00:33:24

Bad putting them there, but it would.

00:33:25

Make you a better person.

00:33:26

If you pick them up.

00:33:29

But teaching people these concepts, these little basic things has an effect on the people that are. They're around and their spouse and their kids, but then it branches out into the larger community because, you know, they interact with other people.

00:33:45

Too, you know, maybe it's for their job.

00:33:47

Or and then by living the example.

00:33:51

it helps other people to start to live that example too, because people mirror back to you what you give them.

00:33:58

You know if.

00:33:59

If you're constantly criticizing kids, they're not going.

00:34:02

To like you very.

00:34:03

Much. And then you're not going to like.

00:34:06

Them because they don't.

00:34:07

Like you, it's really hard, you know that.

00:34:09

That going back and forth, happens.

00:34:13

But when you, you get one person to change that paradigm. It shifts the paradigm for everybody.

00:34:21

It's a feedback loop and you know, just like there are those examples every so often of one person paying for the dinner for the guy behind them in the drive through line, and then it keeps going.

00:34:32

Right. And.

00:34:34

That we are wired right and when we learn something new that is helpful and beneficial, we're for sure.

00:34:41

Gonna tell our friends and you know, girlfriends and.

00:34:44

Neighbors and it just. It's just the way it is. And so you're right there is. And we just hope that that we can get in touch as many people as possible because you know, once you find that something that you know works. And I went through over 20 years of criticism versus complaint and it's not.

00:35:04

Nice. You know. And so then all of a sudden, when you realize there's a different way to.

00:35:08

Do it my.

00:35:09

Gosh, everybody should know this. And you want everybody to know it so they can feel that that same joy.

00:35:17

Yeah. So you guys are moving online. I know you were doing a.

00:35:21

Lot of this in in, in person in conferences and stuff. So how does how is that looking and how? How do people reach out and?

00:35:31

Be part of what you're doing or take advantage of what you're teaching.

00:35:35

Yeah. So we've got online courses that are going to be starting towards the end of this year. We've got in person retreats that will be starting next year.

00:35:44

Ohh, we do have a retreat for Kenya.

00:35:46

That's correct.

00:35:46

So people that want to go on.

00:35:48

A safari and become very adventurous and also work alongside the nonprofit.

00:35:53

And, you know, help unstick their stuck in the relationship that will be occurring May 9th to the 22nd. And so that's already on the calendar. And then we're building out a retreat here in Sedona, which will be a shorter time frame like 3 day type thing.

00:36:07

There'll be a three day weekend and if you see that roughly there's.

00:36:12

There's some Sedona beauty for you right there, but we want to get that hopefully on the calendar in the next like 6 months, hopefully before the Kenya one.

00:36:23

So what we've got now we're working on, we've we own, unstick the stuck.com. So we're working on building that out. But in the meantime, anyone can reach us at by e-mail at help at unstick the stuck dot com. And so that'll come to both of us. So that's one way to reach us right now. And then of course through pearls with.

00:36:43

Purpose. That's through we.

00:36:43

No, the Facebook page, so they have the Facebook group.

00:36:45

Do have a place look through.

00:36:47

And that is accessible through the.

00:36:47

You should probably hold up.

00:36:49

If you are.

00:36:51

Yeah, that's we can actually show you that. So this PDF workbook is free. It's 30 pages of what we've probably previously been doing for a long time and ways to do it differently. So that QR code will get people to that.

00:37:12

Unstick the Stuck Facebook group and that meets every Sunday night at 7, and so you'll be looking for that type of logo.

00:37:19

and during that Facebook time we will go into we we've got a workbook so people can actually get their hands on how do I start this rewiring process? What are the questions I should be asking? How should we I set myself up? How should I set my month up so we've got tools?

00:37:39

And then this weekly some people need an accountability piece so that Sundays at 7 is that accountability piece where if they had a rough week or still haven't started their planner or they could step in on Sunday night and be like, OK, I'm committed, I'm in, I'm doing this and.

00:37:57

And it's just that we've got a different topic. So you know we're going to, we've got an area focus every month, but each week is a different topic. So we're going to go over that topic. But also you know it's a Facebook live. And so hey, if somebody has something in particular, they really want to listen to or hear us talk about, they can chat as well and I will sneak this in, if you notice that both the planner and the workbook.

00:38:18

Are all in black and white. That's done on purpose because one of the innate human drives.

00:38:25

Is creativity. And so we want to keep it so that you can go and play with it, color it in and you know, have fun with it. You'll see it in the in the workbook as well as the planner. But it and there's questions to answer on.

00:38:38

Both like this.

00:38:39

Is interactive. This is not something where you're going to get this, read it and be fixed. You have to do the work.

00:38:45

There are questions you have to answer, but once you start that process, you'll find it does moving forward much easier.

00:38:55

That's awesome. And I'll make sure that I put the links in the show notes so that people can get in touch.

00:39:00

With you and for the people that are listening to this as a podcast.

00:39:00

Perfect.

00:39:04

They won't be able to see.

00:39:05

The QR code.

00:39:07

It'll be on YouTube.

00:39:10

‘Unstick the Stuck’. Is the Facebook page, so yeah, definitely we'll connect it in, definitely send.

00:39:14

Yeah, definitely send them there. So what's the one thing you want to?

00:39:20

Leave the audience with today.

00:39:23

You want to go first otherwise.

00:39:25

Can we each say one?

00:39:26

Yeah, absolutely.

00:39:28

All right. I will go first in my background.

00:39:34

As I said.

00:39:34

I had a 20 year marriage that did not go well.

00:39:37

And because I am probably the nice quiet guy who doesn't want to make waves and rock the boat, I just put up with it and I thought I was doing it for the benefit of my son and what I was doing was giving him probably about 13 years of listening to his parents argue, which is probably not very healthy. Right. So I.

00:39:55

Realized that now.

00:39:57

But the one thing I want people to realize is, you know, problems in your relationships, whatever relationship there, they don't necessarily mean the end of the relationship, but it does mean that there's work that needs to be done.

00:40:08

So don't be afraid to do the work. You know there are people out there, whether it's us or other people. There are people out there who've been through it and they've come through it and succeeded.

00:40:21

Find those people and hear what they have to say and try it because it can make the difference between living an unhappy, unfulfilled life and just being amazingly happy and waking up with joy and really, truly every single day.

00:40:38

Yeah. Yeah. And along that similar line, I'll close it out with the story. That's it, just kind of embraces that concept. So my youngest daughter, who's now 25, was 8 years old, and she was a flower girl. in her cousins wedding.

00:40:59

And she got a purple.

00:41:00

Dress. And she loved this purple dress, but she did what all little kids do and she started to grow. She outgrew the dress. It was too small. There's buttons missing. She was super frustrated.

00:41:10

But it was her favorite dress, and so running the nonprofit I said Jerika you should, you know, donate your dress. It could help somebody. Oh, it's my favorite dress. Don't make me give it up, mom, but.

00:41:21

I said look, it's.

00:41:22

Too small, so we sewed the buttons on, fix the sash and it went off in a container that went to this date.

00:41:29

We've shipped over 260,000 tons of clothing, food, educational supplies, different things.

00:41:35

Medical supplies into 42 provinces and so I had no idea.

00:41:40

Where that container?

00:41:40

Was going two years.

00:41:42

After it shipped.

00:41:43

My oldest daughter and I, they were filming a documentary on my nonprofit and a couple of other ones located in the Philippines, and we got off on this overnight bus in the area called Augusta City. And as we got off, there was a girl wearing this purple dress and.

00:41:57

My older daughter grabbed my arm.

00:41:58

That's Jerika’s dress

00:42:00

And I was like, no, no, no. It's shipped 2 years ago. There's no way that dress shipped.

00:42:05

Mom, it's her dress, you know? So we go running down and we see this little girl and we're just like, hey, what's your name? Grace Caballero. Where did you get such a beautiful dress? Two years ago, An Angel from America. Ship boxes to my village. I'd always wanted a dress to wear to church. Isn't it beautiful? And she spins around.

00:42:25

We see these two missing buttons. We're swiping the tears. We're taking pictures.

00:42:29

And she says.

00:42:31

I live out in the jungle and here in the Guspy city. And do you want to come meet my family? And so we get to go out. You.

00:42:39

Know to the jungle.

00:42:40

And we get to go see her house, which.

00:42:43

Is a.

00:42:44

The shack and she changes out of this beautiful purple dress and puts on tank top and shorts, comes out with a machete. Are you thirsty? Shimmies up a coconut tree. Machetes down a coconut. She hands me the coconut and I'm just like, what is going on? And I said, well, where's your dress? Ohh. When I am too big, my little sister will have her first dress.

00:43:06

So from that moment on.

00:43:09

Who understood contribution?

00:43:14

I did my older daughter did and that is something I feel that's missing in relationship in doing the work because the clearer we are on the impact we can have with our healing, with our contribution, with showing up as our best self, the greater our ability.

00:43:33

Is to give to to contribute, to be our best self.

00:43:38

We just have to.

00:43:39

Be clear and we have to know. Ohh my gosh, that potential's there Jerika is like she runs the show. She gets asked to sign the purple dress book, you know, because she.

00:43:49

Here's the author, but nobody wants her autograph.

00:43:51

But yeah, it's the star.

00:43:54

Here's this little girl who had a transformational experience because at age 10, she understood the impact of giving up something.

00:44:04

That she loved.

00:44:06

And how it impacted somebody else and that made her, you know, I want to give my Barbies. Mom, I want to give my favorite books. I want to do. Do you think they need this? Like, it's given her this leadership skill and core belief system of I can help.

00:44:23

And so when we reach that understanding here within ours, I'm pointing to my chest within our.

00:44:29

Selves, and we realize, oh, that's important to me. It doesn't matter if we have kids or not. We're role modeling all day long. We are we are leaders. If we're over the age of 15, we're a leader and it doesn't matter if they're related to us or not. We can lead down that pathway of growth.

00:44:49

And progression and just like long term sustained levels of joy and happiness and purpose. Or we can lead into, I'm going to keep numbing. I don't wanna process. I don't wanna deal this happened. Therefore my life will always be this way.

00:45:06

And there's no.

00:45:07

Joy in that so my how I would want to leave people is like Dave was saying do the work but look at it from that perspective of if nothing changes nothing changes.

00:45:23

So do the do. Be the change.

00:45:28

Thank you so much for sharing that.

00:45:32

By the way.

00:45:33

The book is now in in print.

00:45:35

That was the.

00:45:35

Yeah. Yeah, we do have a plug.

00:45:36

The grace of COVID is all of a sudden we couldn't travel, so we finally had time to put that book down on paper and that is all available on the pearls with purpose.org website.

00:45:45

Ohpearlspurpose.org the pearls of Purpose website does have the purple and it does have the planner as well. So we do have an active website, just not an unstick the stuck.

00:45:56

It'll be active by the time this.

00:45:59

This airs, though, so yeah, no worries there.

00:46:00

Perfect.

00:46:03

Thank you so much for sharing with us today.

00:46:07

We’ve really had fun.

00:46:07

You've really moved.

00:46:08

Me. Glad to hear that.

00:46:10

OK.

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