Hi there and welcome back to the community strategy podcast. My name is Deb Shell. I'm a creator turned community builder after launching my online community in 2020. I have a passion for online events and bringing people together. I now consult business owners and leaders just like yourself who have a message their life's work or a vision for helping others transform through their online courses, cohorts or memberships on this interview style podcast, you'll hear conversations with community leaders, passion for bringing people together online. Our goal is to provide you with interesting conversations to inspire you to build launch and grow an online community with energy, confidence and purpose. Let's get started. Hello and welcome back to the community strategy podcast. My name is Dev I'm the host today. We're celebrating our final episode, episode 100. It has been quite a journey for me um as a brand new podcast, er starting out knowing nothing about podcasting in 2020 and and and going along anyway and just doing it and so um I'm super excited about today's episode.

We're gonna talk about a couple of different things um celebrating today with me um carol chapman. She is um she's one of the founding members of fine calm here. She's one of the people that had inspired me to start a consulting business in the first place when I um wasn't sure what to do as far as my community building journey. One of my community launch failed. She was along with me on that whole world um and and she's been one of my best friends and supporters along the way. So she's joining us today, Carol's a heart centered practitioner who was called to leave her corporate career and spend time doing meaningful work. She's co founded several businesses and focusing on heart centered conscious business practices. This led her to launch her new podcast called The Hearts Rise Up podcast. She's a certified coach, author, speaker and writer. She's traveled extensively, lived abroad and currently resides in Atlanta Georgia and I have her collaborator that we're going to also talk about today.

Her name is linda polio. Thank you. Uh she is a consciousness dola and author of the award winning best selling visionary novel, trusting the currents. She's been always been deeply committed to elevating human consciousness and as a consciousness doula, she helps people and businesses understand consciousness and connect to energetic frequencies that expand self awareness for personal and global transformation. She recently moved from new york city to Sedona Arizona. Uh and linda and carol are collaborating on a new program that they are putting together, which is a seven week series called wisdom Keepers to help others explore what it means to be awake and discovered their innate inner resonance signature and uh really dig into what it means to be a wisdom keeper and I'm super excited that you are both here to join me on the community strategy podcast.

Thank you. Thank you. Very exciting. It's a pleasure to be here and I must say you have been a big supporter of mine as well um over these last few years and um I just wanted to thank you and honor you for the work that you're bringing to the world and uh and it's uh it's an honor also to be your friend, Oh shucks, I love it, and um super excited to talk about what you're doing together, but kind of maybe carol kick us off on what brought you to this collaboration um and if there's somewhere differently that you need to go to start that conversation, that's fine too, well, I think um and thank you for that, I think a lot of it really um is kind of driven by kind of my own story of, you know, where I've been and where I've come from and my awareness and cultivation of the wisdom keeper within me and I hadn't used that term until I had met up with um linda and we started talking about this concept that she had um many years ago wisdom keeping, and it originally my my journey originally started, I would say probably 20 years ago when I had an initial when I would call awakening, but it was more of a, at that time an external awakening which led me to leave a very successful corporate career and I had been in corporate for 20 some odd years and and the reason I left was because I realized that I was chasing an external dream dream and I was chasing all the things that given my cultural conditioning at the time, that I grew up being a baby boomer, you know, title money position, you know, you if you work hard and you go work for a company and you and you, you you you do everything you can and you work up the corporate ladder, everything's gonna be great, you're gonna have a wonderful life, and and I actually, I had done all of that and I realized that this is not a great life, I was exhausted, I was in um I had so much stress at the time and I finally decided I needed to cut the corporate cord and make a make a major shift in my life.

And you know, basically, it it brought me to the point of recognizing the delusions of the dream life and I realized that I was seeking something outside of myself, I wasn't really digging deep within what brought me joy in my life and that set me on a windy twisting journey of self discovery to really understand my own purpose, the nature of my existence, my human experience, why am I here? What am I doing? And I realized that the world is not what it seems and the external awakening kind of led me into an inner journey of, of awakening basically, and what happened was after I left the corporate arena two months later I had a suffered a brain aneurysm, So that was a life threatening major event in my life that just put a tail spin on everything and just I just really, I mean not only was that external awakening, awakening and leaving the corporate world a blessing, but it also really inspired me to really dig deep and I I started really um on on a path of just inner inner work um a personal journey of personal development and and and and really just working on myself and truly trying to find out more of who who I am.

So um let's let's just fast forward. Um I've had several different businesses and I left that corporate world, so I could find myself but also at the same time bring more more, more meaning and impact not only in my own life but to the lives of others. I mean what am I here for? And so you know, several businesses later I, you know, I co founded Hearts Rise Up and one thing led to another, I met linda a few years back, I interviewed her on my podcast and we just had a connection uh an immediate connection but this collaboration of wisdom keeping didn't start back then. Um it really has taken us a few years to kind of cultivate this uh friendship and I'm really excited about where we're going with this and how we can help um business owners, entrepreneurs, um professionals, everyone that's out there that needs to have some direction in their life by um really getting digging deep and understanding their own innate wisdom and I'll leave it at that, I'll let linda take it from here, wow, it's a hard act to follow.

Um you know, like Harrell, I think um I've also had a very kind of long and winding and unexpected road, um I actually was very spiritual as a child and I was always having mystical experiences when I was young, so that wasn't something that came to me later, but what happened to me was, you know, as a child, you're told it's all your imagination and just, you know, put it away and, and I learned to hide it, and then as I went into school and I came out of college, you know, I was in my twenties, it was time to go to work and just like carol, I'm also a boomer, I mean, I think, you know, both of us as elders now, we have a lifetime of experience and knowledge and skills and wisdom, which is usually hard earned, and um that's part of what we're bringing to this, but in my twenties I was just living in new york, I didn't really know what I wanted to do, I bounced around from job to job, I was, you know, going to astrologers and kind of trying to find myself and I stumbled into advertising and I was good at it, I ran new business for ad agencies for a number of years.

I was very good at multitasking and a very good communicator and a good creative person and had all the skills that were necessary for advertising at that time. So um I just quickly went through the system when I became a vice president and then a senior vice president and executive vice president and then I decided that I really didn't want to be working in a corporation anymore. I was always a free spirit, I I always had to keep moving. So I left and I started consulting and I was doing mostly at the time, new business consulting. I worked with all kinds of agencies and I did a lot of relationship counseling between agency and client and you know, that was sort of the last of my truly just corporate world. And suddenly I got a phone call in the middle of all this that my father had had a heart attack and he was dying. Um I hadn't seen him in 17 years. My father was an alcoholic and it kind of broke up the family but my uncle called and said you know he's going to die.

Um do you want to see him to say goodbye? And of course I said yes and my brother and I went out to pennsylvania where he was living at the time and we walked in and he was in a coma and at the time I had been, I've been studying the healing arts. I had studied reiki and therapeutic touch and we're working with crystals and sort of got into all the frequency medicines. So I began doing some energy work on him after signing all the do not resuscitate orders. And I started going back every day for a month and doing energy work on him. And slowly he came out of his coma and a month later he was let out of the hospital. And the I asked the doctors how long does he have? And the doctor said, I don't know how he's walking out of here. So I don't know. So my father said you know I just want one. I just want one year with you kids to make up for you know your childhoods and the struggles that I put you through. So long story short, my father had his year. He died one day to the year later.

Um I was with him when he died and about three days after he passed I was waking up in the morning and I heard a voice say go to Sedona and I heard of Sedona which is in Arizona which is where I live now. And I just had this compulsion to go. So I got on a plane and three weeks later I had nowhere to stay. I didn't know why I was going and I end up staying for five months the first time I came and that sort of re awoken all of my spiritual connections that I had had as a child. I was having all kinds of mystical experiences I was communicating with insects or so I thought, but it was a very huge awakening and all these layers of social conditioning that I had been, you know, brought up into, you know, I was I was a daughter and I was a sister and I was executive and I was a girlfriend and all those layers. It was like an onion being peeled away until one day I just remember feeling me, I can that you know, which is what carol and I now call her in her residents signature.

There was this note in me, this cellular song that was only me and that for the first time I could see it had nothing to do with anyone else. And that just brought me into a whole other way of life. So I finally went back to new york because I literally had my mother and my boyfriend at the time ready to do an intervention. They didn't know what happened to me. They didn't know why I can't come home. So I came home and but I had been transformed during that period of time. So I could not go back to advertising the way that I had before I wanted to like carol with her experience. I had to make a difference in the world. And I had to also use my, my continuing exploration into my own inner world as part of that journey. So it was the beginning of conscious business practices. It was people that were Lojas and conscious capitalism and all these organizations that were beginning to build um solar energy and organics and personal development was coming in big and I got very involved, I became a thought leader and all that and was very connected to all these amazing startup companies that really were committed to the environment and to health and to people just getting to know themselves on a more intimate level.

So I got involved with that for many years and um I was working as a consultant and I was doing branding and marketing and communications but you know with the idea that I am working with companies that are committed to doing well in the world. Um so I finally um decided that I wanted to bring what I call chief consciousness officer into corporate mainstream because at the time um I saw that just as when digital technologies came into the planet and it was all a bunch of weird people talking about this new energy coming in and these new technologies and no one really understood what they were talking about or who they were and they were sitting in addicts and garages and speaking in weird tongue um about using language that no one actually heard of before. Um these people started coming together and they started building businesses and they started building language ng around these businesses and eventually companies had to listen and companies had to create a brand new position that had never existed before called the chief technology officer.

So um and then the world changed around technology and I really looked at consciousness as the next technology and it was human technologies of wisdom, intuition, compassion, empathy, forgiveness and gratitude. And I believed that corporations needed a chief consciousness officer so that they could help educate, inform and put together programs to bring these human technologies into their consumer programs and their employee programs and their partnerships. And so I struggled for years, you know knocking on lots of agency doors um and I got close a couple of times but just couldn't quite do it. And then finally um I met with a woman who was a futurist marketing consultant and she had a you know, successful company and um she hired me as the Chief consciousness officer. I told her about the position and she saw the vision for it. So she gave me the opportunity to do that.

So I went into the company and I was doing new business because that's what I really, that was my corporate background was in was in business development but I also was able to bring the ideas of consciousness into the C. E. O. S and cmos, unfortunate 100 companies and really begin to educate them to what the world was about to go through. I mean I've always been a little bit of a profit that way. I've always seen things coming and I knew that we were going to be going into a major global transformation, had no idea the way that it was going to unfold, but I knew it was coming and that we were going to need people to move into their hearts and move into understanding what is unseen around us. So I worked with them for about a year and a half and I decided to then start my own business. And uh year and a half later as I'm getting ready to start my own business, my mother fell and shattered her femur and I went into nine years of 24 7 care and during that period of time I started hearing the voice of an old black southern woman.

I know this is a long crazy story but this was my life. Um and I ended up channeling a book called trusting the currents. It took me almost 10 years to write And um it was all African American characters and me writing it. Um but it's done well, it's won 13 awards and so you know, as my mother finally passed in 2018 and I decided to leave New York, which I had been in my entire life and absolutely love New York but I wanted to spend some time in Sedona and I wanted to really go deeper and deeper and deeper into my own spirituality and my own consciousness and around then is when I met Carol and Carol invited me to be on her podcast and I was fairly terrified because I was extremely shy. I had studied at the child, so my ability to communicate or the way I thought was very scary, but she was very kind and she has as you can tell an extremely soothing voice, so she kind of, you know, nurtured me through that first experience and, you know, since then I've done others and it's really been a way for me to bring out into the world the experiences that I've had and and like carol, I mean we both, I think want to share our journeys and what we've learned, so that, you know, maybe we could help other people that are in business or deciding whether to stay in business or love their jobs, but they're going through internal shifts of their own and they don't understand what's happening.

So we, you know, I had this literally this idea for wisdom keeping probably 15 years ago, but I just wrote it down, stuck it in a file and about a year ago Caroline, I just started talking about it and I feel that, you know, what we're trying to do now with wisdom, keeping is is really bring together, you know, both of our journeys and both of our experience like levels of everything that we've done both, you know together and apart and and bring a new way of looking at the world to people who are going through difficult times and that maybe look into a little bit of the unseen world. I mean, there there's a lot going on um beyond the veil and, you know, I always tell people that are looking um at, you know, consciousness and what is that, and I don't get it, and you know, if you're not into it, it's like looking at a frozen lake, you really don't see anything, you don't know what we're talking about. But eventually what happens is there's cracks in that lake and you start seeing in, and maybe you're having experiences that no one around you understands, and maybe you're feeling isolated and and you're feeling like you don't understand what's happening with you because the things you used to want to do no longer give you pleasure and joy, and so we developed wisdom keeping it to help people understand what the process that they will go through as they continue to awaken and as they continue to learn more about themselves and the world around them and their interconnectedness.

So, I mean, I literally feel like, you know, all of us are coming together at this point in time and it's not just carol and I there are people all over the world that are doing amazing things in this world and and you know, trying to work with the planet and the animals and with each other and and learning how to deal with our own inner traumas and Um yeah, so that's kind of, I think where we are right now and I think going into 2023 as we continue this global transformation, it's, you know, not going to get any easier in the near term. So how can we help other people um, navigate this with an open heart and interconnectedness to each other on the planet? So many things from both of your journeys that I love. Um just the, whether you call it purpose it to me, what, what kept coming up was like your purpose. Um, and I can reason, like really relate to this in a sense of three years ago, basically this week I quit my corporate job and I walked out and I didn't have a plan, like I didn't have another job lined up, I had a studio kind of a plan, but um that all completely, I had a plan to become a travel writer And I was pitching travel publications in three months into 2020, we know what happened, but it, it seems like whether you want to call it the universe or whatever you call it, these different elements.

Um either blatantly say, go this way or don't go this way or, or some, some a matter of some way that brings you to this, there's more, there's got to be more, there's gotta be something different, there's gotta be a better experience here, there's got to be um more ways for me to connect deeper to myself and to others in a more purposeful and meaningful way which sounds like both of you different journeys but like had that experience of um you know being on a path and then that path changing regardless of whether you change the path or the you know the universe changed it for you. And um and just this awakening and you know what your you know there were reawakening and this idea of consciousness and I was curious about maybe if if you could both kind of clarify for me, what does that mean to you as like consciousness, I know there's you know some formal definitions but what does it mean for you?

And I think we'll start with um we'll go with um linda first if that works. Um well I mean and it's easiest form, I mean ultimately we don't really know what it is. So we're all in a state of creating belief systems and those belief systems are based on our knowledge or information or intuition or experience. So I can speak from my experience of consciousness and I have been you know committed to this for a very long time and in its simplest forms, consciousness is awareness. The more conscious you are, the more aware you are. So whether that awareness is, oh I'm really paying attention to my environment and oh I'm looking at this tree over here or I'm looking at the way the sun is hitting or whether it's you know your own consciousness where you're really beginning to become more observant of your emotions and the way that you're feeling about things and and um you know it's it's consciousness is sort of the soil that everything comes out of.

So the more cultivated your consciousness is the more self aware you are, the more you are in touch with your inner traumas. And we all have them. We all have issues from our childhood. We all have ancestral traumas that are locked in our D. N. A. And most of it is unconscious and those unconscious traumas um make decisions for us. So consciousness is a way of becoming aware of our inner trauma so that we can navigate them and allow them to release so that we can get them out so that we can make decisions from a more conscious place within us. But for me in the simplest forms consciousness is is awareness. But it's the basis for everything. Everything is conscious. It's just a matter of the level of consciousness that you're at. And that's one of the things that you know we want to help is um when you're more conscious you can make better life decisions and we want to help people do that carol.

Oh I would agree wholeheartedly. I think really the only thing I would add is that consciousness is of course awareness, but it's being in the present, being in the moment. And so many of us have these patterns where we are. So we've been driven to and with our conditioning to focus on past experiences and we get hung up on those past experiences and those past experiences. Um Oftentimes get blown out of proportion um because those are the traumas maybe that we've experienced or maybe they're even blissful experiences but they can get kind of blown out of proportion if we if we dwell on them and then then there's the, you know, focusing on the future and being anxious about the future. We can't control the past or the future. All we have is the present moment because the past was the present moment and it's it's it's gone now, the memories are there but we, every time we draw up a memory from the past it gets distorted. So that's why it's so important to be more present in in the moment and that's what awareness is and that's what consciousness is to me.

And it's also about really discovering and a lot of people right now are really waking up to exploring the truth of who they really are because our thoughts create our create our reality. So we need to be conscious of our thoughts because each and every thought it if you continue to have the same thoughts, particularly if they're negative, that's going to bring your consciousness down is going to put you into a um a denser uh frequency or vibration or a way of thinking because our thoughts affect our feelings. So thoughts drive feelings and they're like two sides of the same coin. And so that's why it's important when you are. Um as far as consciousness goes, it's it's a it's it's about really being conscious of what you're thinking and how you are operating in relation to your world and how you perceive that world.

And so you when you begin to become more conscious and become more aware and like for instance me when I began to become more conscious and aware, there was no turning back, I couldn't go back to the old way of being. I had to allow myself to explore and and experience a new way of being. And that's part of what awareness and consciousness is all about, what it teaches you. It's that self awareness, it's that observation. And it can be very, very frightening because sometimes you dig deep down you see these things that you've been experiencing or thinking about. Um but you know, I don't mean to be getting getting off on a tangent here, but thoughts are transient, they come and go and that's why it's important to be in the moment, every single opportunity that you get because then you are observant as to what is happening and you're in your body and you're feeling what that state of being is.

And and so that's what in in some respects what wisdom keeping is all about, is to help us tap back into who we who we truly are as linda said that um that inner resonance signature is, is really brought out by being conscious and and in the moment and that's what yeah, that's what consciousness is to me. I remember a few months ago you and I talked carol and I was having a really hard day and I've been having a lot of really hard days this year and a lot of that is because I've been stuck in the past and really struggling with the present and being afraid of the future and it's so it's human, this is what humans do. I think we are. It's a new, I think for me it's definitely new.

Um newer, I've been working um in the mindfulness space for myself to have a better understanding of myself over the last few years. Um and when I, the call that we had a few weeks ago, you kept reminding me and I was struggling at the time to really receive the message. But the one thing that I was able to receive was that you said to just sit and when I did that what blossoms was a re connection to to who Deb is not this physical form, but that the Deb inside the carol sees that linda sees that other people see because that's hard for me to see and it allowed me to, I was stuck in a place of imposter syndrome of not who you know, why would somebody, I'm writing a book right now called creator to community builder? Why would somebody read this book? What do I have to say? Like all of these negative things that are really about fear and I moved past it by really recognizing that I have these in eat things and one of the things that you said, I think I don't remember our last call, but at some point you have everything you need.

And I have been saying that to myself every time I go to look on shopping online where every time I go to do something that's distracting me away from the present moment, that's uncomfortable and I've been working on sitting in those uncomfortable moments and it's it's it's a, it's a hard, it's it's challenging work. I wouldn't say hard, but just challenging work when you, when you're willing to take it on and once I think once you get past um it really opens up to a place of just awareness of different possibility of, oh if all this moment is all I have, then I can be right here and I'm today, I'm safe in this moment, I'm safe in this moment, I'm peaceful and supported. So I just wanted to like bring it around to just these are things that I think personally in the last few years everybody on a global level has now at some way, shape or form kind of started to think about because of the situation that happened.

Um people were, you know, the great resignation led to people quitting their jobs, the, you know, layoffs this year, whether you wanted to quit your job or not, some people just got laid off regardless and now they have to decide what's next. But I think this conversation that you're talking about of of just being aware of this present moment and is this what, what is this moment and how am I gonna move through this and and connect with others and build relationships? I think is super powerful. Um tell me a little bit about the the program, um you know, I don't know if you call it a program, I forget what you call it, but you tell me in your words well, um uh it really doesn't matter where you are on your journey um of self awareness or awakening or whatever term resonates with you, but this program will connect you with where you are at, at this time in your life and we basically want to take people behind the veil of the unseen to see the potential and the possibilities and to tap into their own innate wisdom and um it were in a world world state right now where we all have to take personal accountability to do the inner work necessary to release us from suffering and fear and anxiety and stress and because the all of that gets in the way of really living our best lives basically.

And so it's it's ready for its it's time for each of us to really step into our own power and that's what this program does. It helps you begin the inner work to begin to connect with your heart and to tap into your own inner wisdom. But also it's incumbent to take care of your um your your well your overall well being, physically mentally, emotionally and spiritually as you, as you as as you go through the the opportunity to really explore more of your own magnificent and divine divine essence of who you are basically. And if you really want to um improve your life, it's it's it takes work. We're not going to say that you know, it's going to happen in an instant, It's been a life journey for me and and particularly when, I you know started out 20 years ago, I have learned so much and there have been so many layers of awakening that it's it's it's continual.

I am continuing to evolve and learn more about myself the world and what um what makes things tick and I'll turn it over to linda. Um yeah it's great. Um you know, wisdom wisdom keepers are part of an ancient tradition of people in indigenous tribes who were the keepers of the knowledge of the tribe because they were the shamans, they were the ones that were going into the darkness so that they could bring back the pearls of of you know, wisdom that came out of the darkness and you know, as we're all going through this insane time right now and we are having awakenings all over the place and once you wake up, there is no going back and you may not know what's happening to you and you may not have people around you who understand, you may not understand, you may be struggling with the way you perceive life.

Um you don't know, maybe you're in a dark night of the soul, maybe you're trying to move into your heart in a more meaningful way, maybe you have patterns that you need to break in your life, maybe you need to take better care of your health and you also need to learn to the wisdom that is in your body. And as we're going through all these different processes, awakening is sort of like a Russian doll. It's you have a little bit of awakening and then you kind of get settled in that and then it happens again and again and again and again and you can't wake anyone up who is not awake. It's not something, it's an inside job. So if you're trying to figure out how to do it, just relax. It'll happen eventually. Um and if you are having these experiences, it can be very lonely. I mean you know carol and I, you know came into this at the time in life where we didn't talk about, no one talked about consciousness. No one talked about any of this, it was just woo, it was New Age and it was woo.

But really it's there's a physics behind all of this. So you know, what we want to do is sort of gather people together who are having these meaningful experiences. They may not be easy, they may be traumatic, but they are meaningful and gather them together and share our journeys and share what we've learned through this seven week program or this series, We actually call it an experience because you will have an experience. I mean our goal, one of our goals is to help you feel your inner residents signature. We want to help Ewan peel all those layers of social conditioning so that you get to feel who you really are. And then you can start making decisions from that place and start creating from that place. You won't be able to stay there because the outside world will constantly be coming in on you. But once you find it, you can go back to it and you know, so our our plan here, you know, and we are just winging it to a large degree based on our experience.

We really want to help people that are going through the experience find both the the resources, the community, the connection, the knowledge, the information so that they can make it through this journey easier than we had it. We want to share our journey so that yours is easier because it's not easy and the world is, will continue to become conflicted and polar and um more and more people are going to suffer and you know, it's not truly as necessary as people think it is. So this is our first program that we're putting together and we hope that it's something that will help people to their journey and then we're planning on being there a long time because as I said, you know, we've gotten to our elder years now and you know what with elder hood comes wisdom, you know, we all, we've you know, you kind of passed through hell on the way to getting old and you can help and so that's you know, I think that's that's really the foundation of what we're trying to do with wisdom keeping is to bring wisdom to people maybe before they need it too much.

I love, I love so many things. I was laughing earlier because you said ease and my word, I've just decided um I did a reflection 22 event with the community earlier today and was really thinking about like what this year was and how that was experienced and then thinking about future going to into 2023 and as we're recording, this this is the last episode in December of 2022 And my word is ease for 2023 because I want life to feel easier. I want to have others feel like it's an easy thing to be in a relationship or community with me. I want just everything about us is just really feeling like that's what I want to experience next year and and in this moment, and one of the things I wanted to ask and whoever feels like they want to answer is is great here. But what brought you to do this program or series or experience instead of a podcast or writing a collaborative book or any other?

There's lots of other ways a methods but why is community specifically being in community with others and helping them transform um over that seven week experience, why was that the choice for this work? Because community is the future. You know, there's no way we're getting through our current world environment without finding those who are resonating with us. I'm I'm very much about frequencies and energy. So everything to me, creating a community is about creating resonating frequencies. So if you could get people together who are sharing the same journey, sharing the same experiences, sharing the same fears and hopes and and um passions and ambitions and you start working together and you start being honest and open and vulnerable with with uh with each other. I think that's how the world changes and that's how we change as individuals. So um I think community, we can't do this in isolation.

Um a part of it has to be done in isolation, it's a solitary experience. Um awakening is a solitary experience, but community is what drives us forward and gives us the the willpower and the sense of heart that we need carol. Did you want to share anything? Can't really add to that? I think that's a beautiful uh response and description of really where we're at and I think it's really interesting to to just note that um you know, there's a lot of synchronicities that occur in life and linda and I just came together at the right time the right moment and it was a series of things that culminated that brought us together and um and from that point we saw the potential of this collaboration and how it could really help others on their journey wherever they're at uh in that journey, because there's just too much suffering in the world today and we don't need to to suffer.

Uh part of it is our really our own perspective and and and creating a shift in perception, helping others as as that perception is shifting, helping them to navigate that that shift in perception and because that's all awareness is it's a shift in perception and and that's why community also is very, very important because it brings people together who are sharing a common um you know, maybe various levels of of the awakening or the awareness process, but it brings them together to help one another and that's really kind of what it's all about, it's so um so I one of the things that I really um work with clients on is this idea of everyone has a shared sense of wisdom that they bring into either an impressive space or a virtual one, and just the idea that community cultivates this shared wisdom and really helps individuals, but also we always have something we can give and we always need something that to take.

And so when I started building community and carol, I met you um in the beginning of my virtual online community journey and you know, I think you and I um both felt that that we wanted to in the communities that we lead at the time, um we really wanted to rise up the for lack of a better term, rise up the individuals in the community, that and and really elevate them and let them know that their voice is important. Um I talk a lot in community, building about um people in your community, the member experience, they want to be seen valued and heard, and so offering that ability to them and then acknowledging their shared wisdom that they bring to that community is, I think what makes so much sense with what your work is really, it can't be done in like you're both saying it, it really can't be done in any other format other than community and thankfully you have each other.

I think one of the other important components is is to have some people on your team when you're building a community or a group or or something. Um one of the things that I really learned this year was that um building a community really does take a team. Uh it really is, is it's to have it on one person's shoulders um to carry it, it really can get um quite overwhelming very quickly. And um and so I think that that's a great um example what you're sharing there is your journey, how you met organically and then this this relationship blossomed over the last few years and now um you're you're creating this amazing experience in community with others. And so I really think it's a beautiful example of what my book is going to be a lot about, which is shared wisdom and really honoring people and how do we, you know, how do we cultivate that as community facilitators and and and people and and that's what you're, you know, you're, you've been talking about in this sense of wanting people to show up just how they are, um not expecting them to have prerequisites or something.

Um which is really amazing because I think that creates safety, it creates the ability to have vulnerability and the willingness to do the work together. So I think the program and what you're talking about this experience sounds amazing. I wanted to ask if you could give some details for people, for the individuals who are listening to this um, about that program. I believe it's virtual. Uh, if you can confirm that and then some maybe dates or approximations on when this all might happen. Well, we're looking at a target, um shooting for March of next year, March 2023. And we are in the process right now of building a landing page where people can get information from us and and just find out a little bit more about the program in the meantime. Um, um, you can certainly reach out to us via email and uh, directly and um, and we'll be happy to answer any questions.

Um, but that's really kind of the, the target date for it and linda anything else you'd like to add? Did I miss anything? Um, yeah, no, I think that, you know, we are, we're just creating this as we go along now and um we're in the process of, you know, putting together the technology of it and we really want this to be something that that people can come to and really feel like they have a home base there for their own humanity. I mean a big part of this is, you know, we're inviting humans, we're not inviting business people, we're inviting the human part of the business person to come and participate and learn more about their human self, and maybe a little bit about their divine self so that they can take what they've learned and bring them into their business practices in a more meaningful way, so that they have more joy and they can perceive the way that they live their life differently and hopefully have more successive at what they're doing.

So, you know, wisdom keeping is simply going to be about, you know, the seven week program about bringing people through the different phases of the awakening experience, because you'll probably hit all of them along the way and so knowing what's coming actually is helpful because it um it can be quite shocking when it arrives. So um yeah, and then and then it's about, you know, bringing bringing the community together, that's part of it, so that they can share their own experiences because, you know, Caroline may have gone down to be down the road a little bit further than than most of the people that will probably be on this um this experience to serious experience, but there's wisdom that's in every single person who shows up will have their own wisdom and that you'd be surprised that piece of wisdom that you have, maybe the thing that somebody else there needs. So we're really more guides than anything else and, you know, we're kind of putting this together as we go along and we're very committed to it and we hope that we can help as many people as possible.

And we're open like carol said, reach out to either of us. Both of us will be happy to answer more questions and as soon as it's um we should have a splash page up very soon and put your email in there and then as soon as we get things going, we will reach out to everyone and and we'll let you know exactly what this is and And see whether this is something that is resonating with you and that will, you know, be a benefit to your life in 2023. Yeah, there will be i in the show notes. So if you're listening to this, go to the show notes and there will be a link there to connect with both carol and linda and to learn more about that program that they've been talking about in March. Um also thank you both so much for just sharing all of these amazing experiences. Um I really took to heart so much of the learnings that you've experienced and with the honoring of this being the final episode of the community strategy podcast.

I really love that you you really have thought about your community strategy in relation to the member experience, which is really what I talk about when I work with clients and what I'm writing a lot about in the book is what's this place going to be or what's this online community or whatever you want to title it, this experience going to be for these individuals and how can we remember that there are human being? Because I think that we tend to a lot of people in this online community space when we're talking about technology, want to uh systematized and automate and you know, figure out the ways to like make it all run without them being in front of their keyboard, making all the things happen. And that takes out a lot of human al it e out of it. Um It takes time to build relationships and communities are about building a relationship with human beings. It's not about um getting, you know, 1000 people into a membership, It's really about how do we make an impact and um elevate the members of this community and help them maybe not suffer so many much um the way we've suffered in different elements.

So I thank you for sharing that community strategy and that the tech is like the last component, which is really great because so many people get stuck on the tech part first and don't work through what's this actually going to be for the member and what is it? So um if you're listening to this episode um and you're like, I haven't really thought about that, maybe you wanna, you know, just write out like, you know, what's the purpose of this community, Why is it important to them? What's in it for them? One of the things you said earlier was you can't guide somebody else's ship, you can't do it for them or want it more than they do. And that's a big lesson I learned this year was that I had clients and friends and people I worked with that, you know, there was moments where I'm like why don't you, I want this thing, I want this thing, why don't you want it? But they they have to want it. And so it was, it's really um it's really a gift to to be able to share in community this this experience of um wanting to dive deeper, be aware, be more present.

One of the things that I've really worked on is awareness and it's one of the, when I worked on the calm acronym, which is clarity awareness, learning emotion awareness was a in calm and um it's been very much a guiding light for me. I'm going into 2023 transitioning a lot. So for everybody who's listening, this is the final episode of the community strategy podcast, I am going to transition to more of a coaching role and it's gonna be really focused on alignment of business and personal values and purpose. So really connecting what you, I want to do or be in your life as a human and how does that reflect in your everyday client interactions, your customer interactions, the way you work with your team, the way you work with others or maybe you're transitioning and you you're you're ready to leave your full time corporate job or something to that effect.

Um I just became certified in a program called You Map which is an assessment program that helps you align your um strengths with your values with your um preferred skills and your burnout skills so that you can avoid doing stuff that burns you out and really focus on stuff that lights you up so that's what's going to be coming um on the fine calm here website in 2023. So keep an eye out for that. Um And thank you again to both my guests for today. Um It was lovely to have you here. Yeah, thank you so much. Deb it's been really fun and we really are grateful for um you know you're kind of giving us a voice particularly in this very big number for you and we I mean we wish you well, I wish you very very well, I'm glad to have met you and I'm sure that we will Pass again in 2023. Absolutely. And I just want to thank you so much for your interest and your perspective.

You've offered a really interesting and I think very valuable insightful perspective for for others and I love the direction that you're headed as well because I see that you will be very very successful with that. So thank you for inviting us. Yes, of course. Um Thank you, I appreciate all of the kind words and yeah, it's been quite the journey. Um and I do always have a different perspective, don't I? Absolutely, but it's you know what it's it's it's a good thing. It really is because it shows that you have something, you know, additional additional insight to offer sometimes doesn't always kind of come out. Yeah. One of one of my um learning lessons of 2022 was uh that a colleague had said to me um you'd say things or ask questions that I would never think about and you come from a whole different perspective.

So you're not the first person, like several people have told me in this year um that you just bring this different perspective and that's what you get from working, you know, from, you know, I have a background in journalism and asking a lot of questions and all that stuff, but also just kind of being aware of my personal learnings and how I've developed over the last, you know, 42 years of my life that that better that I'm sitting here bringing that today. And so that's what we talk about when anybody's asking, what does shared wisdom really mean? It means that you each individually have had life experiences that validate the fact that you are an amazing human being. I mean generally Bradley, right? Um speaking of that, you can speak to your personal experience, you don't have to have an N. B. A. Or a degree or write seven books or have any lots of money. So as you talked about success, success is defined in different ways. But this um shared wisdom that we share in a community is really based on your individual wisdom that you bring based on all of your experiences, your learning your lessons and that ability to sit in a room with people virtually or in person.

Um and listen to those and that insight that you learn could save you from having a little bit of heartbreak or suffering as well as you you have wisdom that you can share with people in the community that they're going to inspire them to maybe do something brave or make a choice differently. So just keep that in the back pocket for right now, I am going to be a part of your program in March. I can't wait for this experience because I want to be experiencing it. Um and I think I'll be in a place where I'll be ready at that point because the book will be written in an in an editor's hands and hopefully be on the way to getting published. Um Publishing date might be pushed back at this point. But yeah. Um So many things, but thank you again, we're gonna we're gonna cap it because I know we've gone quite a bit over for for the for the two of you for our time together um for all who are listening, I hope you're finding calm in this day in this moment, because, like Carol said, that's all we have.

Um and I hope you have a wonderful rest of 2022 and looking forward to 2023. Um I'm sure it will be amazing and challenging and a life experience that will never forget. So, um thanks to all who have listened to these podcast episodes, who've been supporting me throughout the crowdfunding campaign that I launched over the past four months, and that's it for today. So take care until the next time we need either in person or virtually find calm and I'll see you later. Bye!