440. The Power of a Dream

I’m Jody Moore and this is Better Than Happy, episode 440, The Power of a Dream.

This is Better Than Happy, the podcast where we study what the healthiest, most successful people in today’s world think, feel and do. And we leverage this knowledge to create our best lives. Are you ready, little bird? Let’s fly.

Hey, there everybody, how we doing? Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Happy Kwanzaa. Happy whatever holiday you are celebrating right now or happy winter. I gave a talk a while ago at an event that we did in Salt Lake with a couple thousand of you came, and it was an amazing day and it was actually a full day where we had a bunch of speakers. But being the event planner and organizer, I went ahead and let myself be the keynote speaker. Thanks me.

And I went back and watched it the other day, I’m not sure why, I just decided to go listen to it. Now, I will say I can only tolerate listening to myself if I speed myself up to one and a half speed at least. Some of you are like, “I can only listen to you that speed also Jody Moore.” So whatever, I’m in. But my point is I listened to this and I was like, “Man, that’s a good story.” And I don’t know if I’ve told everyone that story or given that message so I decided to put it on the podcast.

And I’ll tell you, there’s a few things in here that I normally don’t talk about on the podcast but after listening to it, I decided I think it’s time that we share that on the podcast. So that’s what I have in store for you today. So you’re going to notice the audio sounds a little bit different once the talk comes on because this is a recording from a big event we did in the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City.

But gosh, just my heart goes out to all of you who were there and I’m missing you. And I have some plans for some other live events happening next year, so stay tuned for that. But I wanted to share this message with you today about the power of a dream. And I hope that it inspires you to have the kind of relationship you want to have with your dream and I hope you have a lovely holiday weekend and I’ll see you next week.

                                                                                                                   

I want to talk about the difference between a dream and a goal. What is the difference, do you think? Is a dream the same as a goal? No, I’m glad you’re participating by the way, I’m going to ask for more participation. We have some mics out there somewhere, don’t we? There they are. Perfect. A dream, I like to think of as being somewhat nonsensical. Do you ever have a dream that you get in a fight with your husband and then you wake up and you’re very angry at your husband, you’re not really sure why?

I also have a daughter who recently told me that she had a dream that our dog, Finn, died and we got puppies because it’s her dream to have a puppy, but we tell her we can’t have a puppy because we already have a dog. So in her dream, Finn died and we had puppies and those puppies told her she shouldn’t go to school. So dreams don’t exactly make sense.

Goals on the other hand, I think are kind of boring. I mean, goals are great, if you want to have goals, that’s fine. But usually when I ask people about their goals they say things like, “Drinking more water. Just reading my scriptures every day.” Things that I think just should be on your to-do list, I guess, if you want. But a dream is outrageous. A dream doesn’t really make sense, at least to most people, it might not make sense.

Have you ever heard of the term pipe dream? Yeah, you know where that comes from? Back in the 1800s, they were smoking opium way back then and they used to have hallucinations from the opium. And so they started calling them opium dreams or opium pipe dreams and then it got shortened to just pipe dreams. It’s something that doesn’t exactly make sense, but it feels really euphoric and exciting. So who will come to the mic and tell me your dream? Don’t be shy. Come on up, Tyson Bradley. Let’s hear it for the men.

Tyson: For the men. Okay, my dream is to be number one New York Times bestselling author.

Number one New York Times bestselling author, Tyson Bradley right here. Thank you, Tyson. Who else will tell us your dream? We’ve got a mic on this side. Yes.

Dara: My dream is to have 10,000 quilters in this space, because I’m a weight loss coach for quilters and we’re all going to donate quilts, just up Temple Square.

I love it. And I have one of Dara’s gorgeous quilts she made me. Love it. Who else has a dream? Come on up.

I am going to be a singer and songwriter.

Yes. Good. If my talk goes short, I’m going to call you up and we’ll get you started here today. One more person, tell us your dream.

Jody, I want to write a book that impacts women all over the world.

She’s going to write a book. I love it. She’s going to beat Tyson on the bestseller list. Just kidding, they’re both going to make it. Go ahead, we’ve got another dream.

Sorry I was over here when you said one more already and I didn’t want to go back. I’m going to fix the broken mental healthcare insurance system so people can actually access it.

Please do that for us. I love it.

Alright, well, when it comes to dreams there’s probably nobody more qualified to speak to it in my mind anyway than Dr. Martin Luther King Junior. So I just want to briefly share a portion of his, I have a dream famous speech. He says, “Even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

I have a dream that one day on the Red Hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification. One day right down in Alabama, little Black boys and Black girls will be able to join hands with the white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.”

I have a dream today. Back when Martin Luther King gave that speech, that dream was just that, it was a ridiculous dream. It was a pipe dream. It seemed impossible. And while we still have a long way to go, we have made some progress I think towards the fulfilling of his dream. So we called this event, I named this event, I should say, Impact 2.0. And nobody really asked me why, but I’m going to tell you why. Because Impact 1.0 is still important. It’s something that you’re probably all doing.

Impact 1.0 is choosing to be nice, choosing kindness as often as you can anyway. It’s apologizing when you don’t, when you make a mistake. It’s just trying to be honest. It’s taking care of your family. It’s doing your best not to judge other people and not judge yourself when you can’t do it perfectly. It’s getting up when you fall down. It’s choosing love. Impact 1.0 matters. But Impact 2.0 is something different.

Impact 2.0 is when you’re going to step outside your comfort zone and you’re going to do hard things that you don’t really want to do because you believe in the impact that you have the potential to make. Impact 2.0 requires that you have a dream, that sounds kind of crazy, that some people might think that’s not even possible or I don’t know why you would want that.

When I first found coaching years ago, I wanted to help moms. I wanted to help women who were like myself who were members of my faith or had similar values, who loved their kids but struggled with the responsibilities of being a mom. And I just knew, I thought if I can just teach what I have learned to enough women like me, that will impact their kids because happier, healthier, more well-rounded mothers make better mothers. Therefore, I will be also impacting the kids without having to work with kids because I don’t really like kids.

And so I hoped that I would be able to make an impact on those women. What I didn’t anticipate at all was that their kids would be listening as their moms listened to me. So any of you who have seen me on Zoom on our coaching calls, know that I always have a mic just like this one on. And recently one of those moms who I’ve been able to fortunately make an impact on, posted this video on Instagram:

Did you stick a pen in your ear?

Yeah. And then [inaudible] speaking.

I’m a Barbie. My dream come true. It’s my real dream. That was Brooklyn Dunn and her sweet mom, Kaylee gave me permission to show you that video. But when I started getting messages about people saying, “My kids know your name and they know your voice when it comes on and some of them like it, some of them don’t.”

But I realized that this little girl, Brooklyn, I’m not sure how old she is, but I’ve been doing this for eight years. So my guess is that ever since she’s been born I’ve been putting messages out in the world. And as long as her mom’s been listening, she’s been hearing it and it’s making an impact in a way I didn’t even anticipate.

I recently went to an event in Utah. I got to film a course with an amazing company named Faith Matters with an amazing family, Bill and Susan Turnbull. You can see Susan in the middle there. And these are Susan’s daughters and granddaughters. And after the event, Susan said, “My granddaughters have been waiting to meet you. They can’t wait.” In fact, the little one that she’s holding, who was three years old with the cute curls, said, “I can’t wait to meet Jody Moore, but I’m really nervous.”

And her mom said, “What are you going to ask her?” She said, “I’m going to ask if she has a middle name.” So here’s the thing, there’s an entire impact that you’re going to make in the world that you don’t even realize. You don’t even have to figure that part out. Your only responsibility is to pay attention to your dream. But here’s the thing, dreams don’t happen by chance, they don’t just suddenly show up.

Sometimes I coach women who are afraid to dream. They’re afraid of what they’re going to become or what’s going to happen. I say, “Don’t worry, your dream isn’t just going to overtake you. It’s going to require a lot of work and a lot of decisions and a lot of steps along the way. It’s not going to happen by chance.”

In 2014, eight years ago I had two kids at the time and I was pregnant with our third child. And I had recently been let go from my corporate job at University of Phoenix that I’ve been at for about 15 years. Now, I knew the layoff was coming because it sort of happened in rounds, everybody was getting laid off. But still, I was somewhat lost. I thought, am I supposed to be at home with my kids now? My husband had a great job, he was able to support us, although going down to one income meant some adjustments, so money felt tight for us.

The best way I can describe it is, I was somewhat lost. I didn’t know if I should go get another job or just be at home, I wasn’t getting enough sleep. And that is when The Life Coach School, Brooke Castillo, opened up the first ever in person coach training. Before this, she had done all of the trainings over the phone because this was eight years ago. So I didn’t really want to get trained as a life coach over the phone.

But when she suddenly opened up an in person training less than an hour away from where we happened to be living, I said to my husband, “Jake, I really want to go to this class and it’s very expensive and I just feel like I need to go and I don’t know what I’m going to do with it.” And he said, “Alright, we’ll figure out a way to make it happen.” Because he’s a pretty good guy that Jake Moore.

And so I enrolled at The Life Coach School. I had zero, I remember telling friends, “Yeah, I’m busy next week I’m going to this coach training and this life coach training.” And they would say. “Are you going to be a life coach?” And I was like, “No. No.” Because all I could picture was how would I get clients? What am I going to do at church, walk up and down the hall and be like, “Would you like some life coaching?” No, I’m not going to do that.

Or the only other way I could think of to market was to put up one of those flyers in Albertsons with your phone number that people can tear off on the bottom. And that seemed kind of hopeless too. So I was like, “No, I’m just going to this class because I’m lost.” And one thing I know I love is what I’ve learned so far from Brooke Castillo on her blog because she didn’t have a podcast yet. It tells you how long ago this was.

So I went to The Life Coach School and it was six days. And on the last day Brooks said, “Now all of you are going to have to go learn about business if you want to start a business. We have an extra hour, so let me just teach you a little bit about online marketing.” And she got her whiteboard marker and showed us a little bit about how an opt-in from a Facebook ad works and how it generates clients and I just saw the light in that one hour. I was like, “Oh, you know what? I am going to be a life coach.”

And again at that point where I was struggling the most was in my role as a mother and a wife and my own personal work. And so that is where I felt a call to serve. My dream sort of started to take root that day, the sixth day of life coach training. It was sort of like when you get the kindling for the fire and it’s just starting. It just started within me. I didn’t know how still, I didn’t know. I had only, like I said, gotten one hour of entrepreneurship training but it was taking root.

Shortly after that, a friend of mine named Shelley Anderson says to me casually, we’re at dinner one night, her husband and my husband and myself and she says, “Do you want to go with me to Time Out for Women?” And I said, “Shelley, I have no idea what Time Out for Women is, but I’m there, count me in.” And then she got tickets and she told me later that it was a church sponsored event. And I thought, oh, great, this is going to be very boring but it wasn’t. I loved it.

The speakers were great and the music was half good and half interesting but it was still an inspiring event and I loved it. And as I watched those people on the stage at Time Out for Women, I went, “That’s where I need to be. That’s where I’m going to be able to find my clients. If I can get on that stage at Time Out for Women and I can teach the model then I can impact all those women I want to impact and I can build my coaching practice. I’m going to have to do that.”

But I don’t know how because the people on the stage were Sheri Dew and Hank Smith and Hilary Weeks and people who are Mormon famous, but here’s the thing. In that moment, my dream became a little bit more crystallized. I turned my dream into speaking at Time Out for Women.

Now, I heard around that same time, Gabrielle Bernstein. Do you guys know Gabby Bernstein? Yes, love her. She’s a little bit more woo woo than me sometimes. She said, “Whenever you see the clock with all the same numbers, like 3:33, that’s the universe telling you it has your back.” And I decided I don’t know Gabby Bernstein, if I believe in science to that extent, but I like where you’re going with this. Every time I see the clock on all the same numbers, I’m just going to decide that I’m going to speak at Time Out for Women one day and so I did 3:33.

It’s going to be cool when I speak at Time Out for Women, I would think and then I go on with my day. My dream of speaking at Time Out for Women I just want to acknowledge is a ridiculous, stupid dream. Who wants to give a talk for their dream? Only me. Maybe a couple of you are weird like me. Most people don’t answer the phone to the person they know is calling to ask them to give a talk. What is Time Out for Women? Most people don’t know or care. It doesn’t matter, it’s your dream. Dreams are personal.

Whatever you want to do in the world, let yourself want it if it’s righteous and good and doesn’t harm other people. Whatever you want is the right thing to want. Don’t judge it. You don’t have to tell other people if you don’t want to, it can be your little secret. But you’re going to have to have a relationship with your dream, and I recommend that you choose the relationship consciously. You choose a relationship that’s healthy.

At that time, when I decided 3:33, I’m going to speak at Time Out for Women. I entered into a relationship with my dream where I would nurture it a little bit and I would pay attention to it and I would think about it. And I wasn’t in a rush and I wasn’t mad at it for taking too long. I just let it be there. You’re not going to know how to achieve your dream. That’s almost always the case. I would dare say always the case, even if you think you know how, you’re probably going to be wrong. That’s been my experience anyway.

After Time Out for Women, which is sponsored by Deseret Book. I went home and we did have the internet back then, so I got online and I emailed Deseret Book. And I said, “I would like to speak at Time Out for Women. Can you please let me know the application process?” And some nice person replied to me surprisingly, and they said, “In order to speak at Time Out for Women, you’ll have to have a book or a CD or something published by Deseret Book.” And then I put two and two together and realized this is a marketing event in the back of the room, they’re selling books and music.

When you hear a great speaker you want to buy their book, I get it now except that I’m not writing a book. So I thanked them and decided, I don’t know how I’m going to speak at Time Out for Women now but I guess we’ll just see. So I dove in and I started learning more about online business at this point. I started listening to podcasts by Amy Porterfield and taking little courses whenever I could find them, and I started trying out what I was learning, which is the best learning of all, by the way, trying it out.

And I realized, according to what I had been taught, that I needed to create what we call an opt-in or a freebie. Some of you have heard of this, yes? Yes, thank you. So an opt-in or freebie is just something that you give away for free, like online social media or somewhere. And people give you their name and email address in exchange for it. and that way you can keep making them offers and helping them and ultimately hoping that they hire you one day. So I needed to create an opt-in.

So I created possibly the worst opt-in you’ve ever seen. It was a three-part video series and I gave it the really clever name, Three Quick Tips for Moms. Tips for what, I don’t know, that’s just what I called it, I thought they need to be quick, moms are busy, so I’ll call it Three Quick Tips. The moms are going to want this. I had a laptop actually, so that was valuable but I didn’t have a camera or a mic or good lighting or any experience making videos.

I remember in our little house in Roseville, California, clearing the junk out of the way, so you couldn’t see it, closing the bathroom door behind me to make it look like a nice space. And then I got this little step ladder out of the garage that my husband had and I set the laptop on top of it and I hit record. And do you want to see the first video I made, that I ran ads to? Here we go.

Hi there, I’m Jody Moore from Bold New Mom. Do you love your kids and really appreciate your family but get irritated and frustrated and feel like you’re just grumpy a lot more than you want to be? Do you really want to follow the prophet and keep the commandments, but you just sometimes feel like you’re losing yourself in the midst of everything that you’re doing and kind of wonder what happened to that girl that was so much fun and laughed all the time and felt like she was really good at the things that she did?

Well, if so, you’re not alone. I can totally relate to that. And today I work with women who feel that same way. And I have three quick tips I want to share with you. Quick, easy things that you can try out right away just to give you some immediate relief and start to feel better. All you need to do is put in your name and your email address. I will see you in the next video.

That’s really humbling for me to watch. I’m not even looking at the camera. I’m looking at myself in the screen, rookie mistake, guys, look at the camera. I did all the editing myself. As you can see I figured out some video editing and had a little fun with it, just to mix it up. Do you know what the good news is? You’re going to be terrible at it and that’s okay. I was terrible at making videos. I’ve gotten a little bit better and I have made enough money to hire a videographer now, but there’s many other things that I’m terrible at now.

Every time I go to the next level, I’m terrible at something else. And do you know what? This is one thing I learned from Brooke Castillo, being willing to be terrible at it is the key. In fact, I’m just going to pick on my little brother since he’s not here and will never listen to this. A couple of years ago he thought maybe he wanted to start a business and he loves Gary Vee. I love Gary Vee. Who else loves Gary Vee? Yeah, my little brother really loves Gary Vee.

And he says to me, “Yeah, I’m going to help people.” He was going to help people with sales because he’s an insurance salesman, he’s very good at it. And I was trying to talk him through it. And he’s like, “Yeah, I’m just going to give them those pep talks like Gary Vee does about you’ve got to get out there and work, man. You’ve got to have a positive attitude. Stop complaining.” I said, “Yeah, Ben, do that.” And Ben made a video and he did not sound like Gary Vee. And next thing I know, Ben’s getting a job again and I said, “Ben, what happened to your business?”

He said, “I can’t do it. I sound so terrible.” I said, “Of course you do because Gary Vee’s been doing this for 18 years or something. You’ve got to put in the time that Gary Vee put in. You’ve got to be bad at it at first. It’s okay to be bad at your dream. It doesn’t mean you have your dream wrong. It doesn’t mean that you should give up. It means you’re doing it right.” Adults are not willing to be bad at things. Isn’t that odd? Kids are.

I decided to take up the piano again during the pandemic when we were all bored. Recently I was learning a new song and it was a church hymn, but it was a unique arrangement and so sometimes I’ll go find the song, thanks to the internet, you can find it online now and you can hear. I wanted to hear if I was playing it the right way. And so usually you can find whoever did the arrangement or somebody playing a song but not in this case. In this case the only video I could find of the song was a kid who looked like he’s about 11 years old in a bow tie named Caleb.

Caleb’s mother, as far as I can tell, got out her cell phone and recorded Caleb playing this song. And I still cannot play that song as well as Caleb but I’m going to catch him one day. And every time I sit down to play it and my kids roll their eyes because they don’t want to hear it again, I say, “I’ve got to catch up to Caleb.” You guys, he’s 11, looks like kind of a nerd, I’ll be honest. But he can sure play the heck out of that song.

Kids are willing to be bad at things and that’s why they get good at things, but we can be bad at things too, it’s okay, you’re going to have to be to pursue your dream. I want to get some input from you guys for a minute. I want to hear, what do you need to be bad at? What do you need to be willing to be bad at to go after your dream? What’s the next thing? You may not know all the things, but what’s the next thing, if you were just willing to be bad at it, you would move forward? Who wants to come to the mic and tell me? Don’t be shy.

Instagram posts.

Instagram posts. I’ve been doing some reels. They’re getting better, but I just told my team, “I’m going to do some terrible reels for a while, guys.” Get ready. That’s the only way to get better at Instagram. Good. What else?

Podcasting.

Podcasting, just do a podcast. Good news, in the beginning, no one’s listening. Just be bad at it. I’ll come back to you. Let’s go to this side.

How the heck do you do a webinar?

How in the heck do you do a webinar? You know how you do a webinar?

No.

The same way you do a phone call with your family.

Except you have to wear makeup.

You don’t have to wear makeup. You don’t even have to wear makeup because you know what kind of webinar I want you to do? A bad one.

You got it girl.

25 bad ones and then put some lip gloss on for the 30^th, 26^th. Over here, yeah.

Well, I’ve already created my YouTube channel and it’s really bad.

Perfect. You know how your YouTube channel’s going to get amazing? You’re going to do 50 more YouTube videos that will be not great then you’re going to take off. Let’s go to this side.

Online marketing.

Online marketing. Now, that’s a big, broad thing. What part of it specifically do you need to be bad at?

Creating a funnel.

Creating a funnel. Are you going to run ads to it?

That’s what I’m saying, because I don’t know what I’m doing.

Good, just do a funnel that doesn’t convert. I love it. Thank you.

Hosting photography workshops.

Hosting photography workshops. Yes, you know what? When I first started, Be Bold, I went back because I thought maybe some of those courses I taught in the beginning, we would want to give away or something. We do not want to give them away. They’re so bad. We had everybody on camera, the style of Zoom that the church uses, everybody, the free Zoom where you could see everyone. There were kids coming and going.

And my sister Natalie, where’s Natalie? Is she here? Natalie was trying to mute people for me. And we had one woman getting out of the bath not knowing her camera was on. We got off the call and Natalie texted me, “Great call today and only one instance of nudity.” So you do that. Okay, I’m going to come back over here.

So I’m a singer songwriter and I think I need to get better at writing bad songs.

Yes, write a whole bunch of bad songs. You’re going to accidentally have a good one get in the mix when you do that. I love it.

For me it’s fashion design.

Give yourself permission to be like this kind of sucks, but it’s going down the runway. I love it. Okay, one more.

I own a kids’ swimsuit company and I feel like I need to be better at being okay with failing sometimes and not reaching the goals that I put out for myself and then I get too hard on myself if I don’t fulfill those goals.

Yes, girl. Amen. You know why? What is the purpose of a goal?

[Inaudible].

To move you forward. But you know what we use it for instead? To beat ourselves up, to judge ourselves, whether or not we can go, “Yay, I did it”, or, “I didn’t hit my goal.” But the goal we just make up, arbitrary. Don’t ever use it against yourself. Set a goal and go, “That was awesome. And now let’s set another one. I guess I was wrong about how many I could do or about what I could do.” Perfect. Alright, thank you guys for sharing. Be willing to be terrible at it. That’s how you get good at it. You won’t even be able to help yourself, you’ll just get good at it.

I also want to offer that you have the capacity to get good at anything that you truly desire to do. I really do believe that. You know how life coaches and motivational speakers like to walk around and say, “You can do anything you want to”. And now there’s this counter argument that says, “You can’t do anything you want to, you can’t do anything. I couldn’t be an NBA basketball star, a 47 year old white woman.” And I say, “No, you can do anything you want to do.” I don’t have the desire to be an NBA basketball star. Anything I have the desire to do, I have the potential to get good at.

Now, you can also do things that you don’t really want to do. So be careful. I’m not saying you should only do things you want to do. You’re going to have to do a bunch of stuff for your dream. Remember, you’re in a relationship with your dream. Your dream is going to take care of you, but you’ve got to take care of it. It’s not going to happen by chance. You’re going to have to do some stuff that you don’t want to do.

You’re going to have to even get relatively good at some things to a certain extent that you don’t really love doing, but you can do it. If you will do that, if you will do difficult things until they become easy, all of a sudden they will be easy. I know this is Earth shattering, let me say it again. Do difficult things until they become easy and suddenly posting on Instagram will become easy. Your YouTube channel will become easy. Creating a funnel, which is difficult, becomes easy at some point.

On July 16^th, 2015, I published podcast episode number one, July 16^th, 2015. Last week we published podcast episode number 366. Aren’t you sick of my voice? I am. Guess what? Recording a podcast is easy now that I’ve done 366. But it wasn’t easy in the beginning especially because I was the editor and the producer and the whatever, graphic designer and the writer and all the things. But remember, I had permission. I gave myself permission to do a not very good podcast. And I just did it over and over again until it became easy.

And then in the beginning of 2015, remember that terrible video I just showed you of me and Oliver? I got a message, I think it was an email, must have been an email back then, from a woman named Lindsey Peterson. I’ll never forget it because I didn’t know Lindsey Peterson before. She wasn’t like, “I used to work with you at University of Phoenix or your mom told me about you”, or something like that. No, she was just a random person.

And she said, “I was on social media and I saw your video and I showed it to my husband and he said, “That woman just described you better than you can describe yourself. How can you not call her?” And I went, “Ding.” Didn’t matter that I wasn’t looking at the camera and that my video was cheesy with overly dramatic music. That didn’t matter. What mattered was that the content in those three videos that she opted into spoke to her and it helped her and she wanted to know more.

And so Lindsey Peterson became my first paying client who came through a funnel. And then I looked at the clock and it said 11:11 and I thought it’s going to be a lot easier when I speak at Time Out for Women to get clients. I can’t wait for that day. And I also way back then started publishing an email called Take Tuesday because Amy Porterfield told me to. And Amy Porterfield made millions of dollars as an online marketer so I did what she said.

And I remember calling it Take Tuesday because I thought Monday is the day everybody hates and everybody loves Friday and Wednesday’s hump day and Thursday you’re almost through the week. And so I’m taking Tuesday. I literally did that in my mind, I will take Tuesday and I will call it Take Tuesday. That’s the genius behind my brain. I started publishing Take Tuesday and I almost always, pretty much always, Jake, yesterday I’m like, “We don’t really need to publish Take Tuesday, do we?” He was like, “We should, yeah, we should.”

But I almost always publish Take Tuesday for over eight years now. They’re little dumb messages. They’re not a big deal, but they do make an impact. Now, once years ago I published a Take Tuesday about school buses because my family and I had been living in California where we didn’t live where we had access to the bus. And then we relocated to Spokane, Washington out in the valley and we had school buses and I thought it was fantastic because I had a kid in elementary school, a kid in high school.

And to drive them to school meant driving one down the hill, drop them off, come back up, pick up the other one because they start at different times. And then do that again on the way home. It was a two hour chunk of my day total. But now there was this school bus so I decided to write a Take Tuesday just to help remind people how amazing the world is. And it said this, school buses. Have you paused to consider them? Amazing. They pick my kids up a half block away from our front door. Then they drop them off at school on time every day.

And as if this wasn’t enough, they’re there waiting when the kids get out of school. They bring them back to me a half block away from our front door again. My kids get to ride to and from school with their friends and I get an extra two hours in my day. What a great country we live in that has school buses. What a fantastic world it is. Haven’t you noticed? Raise your hand if you’re offended by that email. Well, some people were. Some people were, about four or five people replied to my school bus email. And I’ll just read one of those messages for you.

It says, “Dear Jody, this email about school buses was very upsetting to me. I find it very sad when I hear a mom say things about getting two more hours without kids. I’ve raised five kids and yes, I needed breaks. But to add two more hours onto a long day for my kids seems very selfish and thoughtless concerning what kids need. I would ask myself really, would I want to ride on a bus to school? Would I be so excited to sit with friends on a bus every day? I don’t think so. In fact, my kids enjoyed being home, were ready for downtime when school was over and enjoyed the break from the social to just relax.

I think many today are fooling themselves into thinking that their kids enjoy this and it’s very selfish. In conference, we heard a while back about a mother’s time and what it was given to us for on Earth.” That was her summary of it. “I believe the most important work we can do is to bring children into the world and to love and teach them and let them grow up in a healthy and loving home. And too many today continue to act as if kids can be pushed aside or not taken into consideration above the mom’s needs. It’s a very selfish generation around us.

I say think of kids first, don’t talk yourself into thinking that kids don’t mind being away from home.” Let’s see. Let me wrap this up here. She says, “God’s greatest creation is man. We have that opportunity to make them our highest priority for a very short period of time and then you can move on with your desires. Sincerely.” I will leave her name anonymous.

Now, sometimes I get people offended at things that I say and write and sometimes they’re topics that I would expect might be a little triggering. But I did not expect school buses to trigger so many negative emails about my own selfish desires of which I do have many but school buses I don’t think are one of them. And so that week, when I sat down to record my podcast episode, I thought, what should I talk about? How about judging others? Now, listen, I don’t recommend that you do that. I don’t want you to focus on the people who are offended by your school bus email.

I want you to focus on the people who want what you have to offer. But there will always be people who don’t want what you have to offer. There will always be people who think that you’re wrong, your priorities are out of whack, or you’re selfish or you’re ignorant, or you don’t know what you’re talking about. I just like to agree with them personally, point taken. I can be very selfish and sometimes want to brush my kids aside. Thank you for your input.

I see this slow a lot of people down from chasing and pursuing their dream. Remember, your dream is personal and your methods might be personal too. The truth is the haters are always a small minority, it’s just that in our brains, they’re really loud. Your brain will get that one email and hear it as somebody shouting at you even though it’s just some person with an opinion. Focus on the people who want what you offer, not the ones who don’t.

Recently I got to go to an event at The Life Coach School Mastermind, some of you were there. Yeah, we got some coaches in there. And so Mastermind is just an event that The Life Coach School puts on every year for certified coaches to come to. And so The Life Coach School attracts a nice variety of diversity of people you might say. So, a little bit more colorful event than this one. Yes, I see some people nodding in the front row. That’s partly what I think is so fun about it.

I see a lot of people, a lot of you there and a lot of my clients are there, a lot of people that I know, a lot of people who have similar values to me and that’s so fun. I love seeing people and having them tell me how my work has impacted them. But this one moment really impacted me a lot. When this woman stopped me in the lobby at the hotel and said, “Can I get a picture with you?” She said, “My name is Sarah and I am a life coach for Muslim women and I just want to thank you for showing us how to put God in the model.”

She said, “I love The Life Coach School, but I love the way you bring God and religion. I feel strongly about my religion too and I coach Muslim women.” We took a selfie. There are people who want what you have to offer, even people you won’t even know about that you’re impacting. Do your podcast for them, not on judgment to the other woman.

Aright, so we’re going to fast forward in my story to 2019 just before a worldwide pandemic hit, remember? So I had grown a much bigger following at this point, I’d had some success with my online marketing, I had, the podcast was doing well. My email list was growing. We had launched a membership program a few years before where we were able to serve a lot more clients at a more affordable rate. And my husband had since left his corporate job to work in the business with me. That was fun.

And I would run into people, in fact, every time I went into the little store where we buy garments, the woman would tell me the story again about how I got her through her divorce, was very sweet. People were telling me all the time how I’d impacted them. And that’s when I got an email from a woman named Celia Barnes. And Celia Barnes said, “I am with Deseret Book and I’m responsible for finding authors and producing content and I’ve followed your work a little bit. I like what you’re doing. And I’m wondering if you’ve ever thought of writing a book?”

And I said, “Yes, Celia, I have thought about writing a book.” And so I told her my idea for my book, that I would want to marry gospel principles with coaching principles. And I would want to show how the two have impacted my life, teach the model along with gospel values, and she liked it. And so she took my little outline and things to a marketing meeting and she said, “They loved it. In fact, they think you should call the book Better Than Happy like your podcast and they want us to do merchandise and everything. And I thought maybe we’re going to have a Jody Moore, action figure or something.”

I don’t think that’s what they meant. So this was exciting and I said, “Deseret Book Time Out for Women. Oh, I see what’s happening here.” And I asked Celia, I said, “I really want to speak at Time Out for Women, Celia. It’s always been a goal of mine. Is that a possibility?” She said, “Yeah, well, I can’t guarantee that, but you need to publish with us and then that’s a separate committee. But you do seem like a good fit.” She was trying to tell me probably yes without overpromising. So now I had to write a book.

You guys, writing a book is horrible. Actually, that’s not true. Writing the book is not that bad. Editing the book over and over because I don’t even read books anymore, I have to have audible because I can’t focus for that long. So I had to read my own book over and over again. Every time I wrote sections and I would send it off to Celia and then she would make suggestions and say, “This part doesn’t make any sense at all and this part is very boring and this is weird coach talk, nobody says that.” And I would have to go through it and rewrite it over and over again.

And then she would send it to other people to read who would have similar feedback, “I don’t like this part at all. I’m very offended at how you said that, could you please change it.” And this went on for about a year and a half back and forth, back and forth. Meanwhile, a pandemic starts happening so that’s helpful because I don’t have a lot of other things to do. But at one point I remember saying to my assistant, Melissa, who’s backstage, hi, Melissa.

I said, “Melissa, I don’t know how to cite references, so I’m just not going to put any in this book. I’m just going to make sure I only use my own words so that I’m not plagiarizing.” And she’s laughing at me, “Maybe that’s not the best idea. Maybe you should learn how to cite references.” And sure enough, Ceilia Barnes came back and said, “You’re going to need to back up what you’re saying.” So I had to do a whole bunch of research and in the end we have over 80 references in that book. So back and forth and back and forth and blood and sweat and tears.

And then finally, Celia says, “Okay, I think we have the manuscript ready to go to the board.” The way it works at Deseret Book is there is a board that approves anything that gets published. And she said, “I’m going to take this to the board meeting next week. And there are three possibilities, number one, they will say this looks good, we will move forward with the rest of the editing process. Number two, they kick it back and they ask you to revise some things and change it and resubmit it. Or number three, they just reject it altogether.” And I said, “Okay.”

And she’s took that book to the board and then on November 19^th, 2020, I got an email from Celia Barnes titled News. And she said, “Hi Jody, I have some news for you. The board reviewed your manuscript and had a lengthy and robust discussion about it. They are incredibly impressed with all the work you’ve done and how many people you’ve helped. They also found the information in the book to be based on good sound research. And they noted how you unabashedly bear your testimony and proclaim your faith as a member of the church.”

They had many, many positive things to say about the book. That is why it was such a tough thing to hear when they decided that it would be best for Deseret Brook to pass on publishing it. And then she went on to explain that there were certain people on the board who weren’t sure that life coaching was really a real thing and it’s just hard to change opinions. And I was really mad and I was really sad. It was November, which is the dead of winter in Spokane. And I remember going for a walk in the cold and crying. Crying to my husband, who’s really sweet but not really sure what to say.

And so I called my sister, Natalie, who doesn’t know what to say. She said, “Let’s go slash their tires.” You know what’s going to happen when you pursue your dream? You’re going to feel bad sometimes. You’re going to be mad and sad and disappointed. You’re going to be afraid. You’re going to be frustrated. You’re going to be overwhelmed. You’re going to be confused. You’re going to be ashamed, embarrassed.

And that doesn’t mean you’ve got it wrong. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be pursuing that dream. It doesn’t mean that you should necessarily give up or stop. Most people, when they feel some kind of negative emotion. They just give up. When they feel overwhelmed or confused, they’re like, “I don’t know, maybe I should do the dishes.” You can’t do that to your dream. You’ve got to be there for your dream. You’re going to have to feel bad. You know what? It’s okay to feel bad. My poor kids, they’re like, “Mom, I feel scared.” I’m like, “Yes, what does that feel like in your body?

It’s okay, it’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to be anxious. It’s okay to be mad even. I was mad that day but then I looked down at the clock and it said 2:22. And I thought, I wonder how I’m going to speak at Time Out for Women now. I thought that was going to be the way, this book I’d been writing for two years. And I kind of thought, I do sort of have my own Time Out for Women events, maybe. Maybe that dream has already served me, but I don’t know. Maybe I’m going to write another book. I don’t know.

And literally one week later after I did not slash the tires of anyone at Deseret Book, by the way. I got an email from Thomas McConkey. Thomas McConkey is an amazing teacher of meditation. He had been on my podcast before, so we’d developed a little bit of a relationship. And he had been working with a company called Faith Matters. He emailed me and said, “Jody, Bill Turnbull, who’s the head of Faith Matters, was wondering if I would introduce you to him. Is it alright if I email, introduce you two?” And I said, “Sure.” And so he did.

He introduced us via email and Bill Turnbull said, “Here at Faith Matters, we have a brand new division of our organization, that’s a publishing wing. And we’ve recently published some books and I was wondering if I could send you some. And if you like them, maybe you would mention them on your podcast.” And I said, “Sure, Bill, I’d love to read your books and also I have a book that I wrote, a manuscript, I should say, would you be interested in reading it?” And he said, “I would love to read your manuscript. Please send it over right away.”

And I did, and they quickly called together a meeting. They invited me to a Zoom call, I got on the Zoom call. There were a dozen people there. I was overwhelmed. I thought, I think this is how I should be treated. I think they should be selling. They were selling me on why I should let them publish my book. They were telling me all about why they loved it and how it really aligned with the mission of Faith Matters, which is to expand our understanding of our religion and our application of it in our lives.

And so we signed a contract and not too long after that they put me up on a billboard in Utah. I mean, look at me. And they also got me into Costco right next to Stephen King. I mean me and all the horror books, it’s perfect. And not only that, but because Bill Turnbull is such a genius, he even got me into Deseret Book. Now, that was awesome, meeting the Turnbulls and all the folks at Faith Matters has been such a blessing in my life. Thank goodness it happened that way.

But even cooler, was the email that I got one day in 2021 from a woman named Michelle Torsak titled, ‘Deseret Book, can we chat?’ She says, “Well, hello, Jody Moore. My name is Miss Michelle Torsak and I’m the Director of Content and Communities for Deseret Book. And I’m a huge fan of your work. I especially love the way you present. You have a gift for inspiring reason and calm in the most fun matter of fact way. We really need more of that in the world.

I know you’ve been down the publishing road with us before, in parentheses, kind of tricky for a whole lot of reasons. But we need your voice.” And then she goes on to explain that they’re creating a program called Magnify and she wants to know if I would be willing to create a course for their Magnify program. She says, “Number one, create a masterclass and some content for Magnify. And then number two, to speak as a Magnify guest speaker at our Time Out for Women events, which is where we will launch the new Magnify brand.”

And I calmly said, “Yes, Michelle Torsak, I’d be very happy to talk with you, let me know when.” You know what’s the coolest thing about your dream? It’s going to happen in a way that you never could have guessed. Even when you think you know the way, most times you’re going to be wrong. It’s going to happen in a different way but it’s not going to happen on accident. It’s not going to happen by chance. You still have to take steps forward. You have to be bad at things until you get good at them.

You have to feel negative emotion. You have to keep serving and helping in the world in whatever way you see that you are able to serve and help, until you can serve and help in the way that you really want to. That’s how it goes with dreams. That’s what’s so awesome about them. So far I have been able to speak at Time Out for Women in Atlanta and Raleigh. And I still get to speak in Logan, Cincinnati, Boston, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, Sacramento, Boise and Spokane. So fun.

Now, here’s the thing, people keep saying to me, “I know this has been your dream forever and now it’s here, is it awesome?” I’m like, “Yeah.” But what’s awesome about it is not what I thought would be awesome about it. What’s so awesome about it is the people I’ve been able to meet, all the other presenters and musicians and speakers.

This blonde woman on the far left of that photo is Elaine Dalton, former General Young Women’s President, who’s sort of my idol. Be honest, she’s just darling and sweet and the first time I met her at this event, she said, “I know you. You’re Jody Moore.” And I was like, “You do?” I don’t know if I should be afraid. What do you know about me? The people that I’ve been able to meet and getting out on the road and seeing some of my clients.

You know what I thought was going to be awesome about speaking at Time Out for Women? I thought then I’ll be able to find clients to teach them the model. But it turns out I had to learn how to find clients and teach them the model in order to speak at Time Out for Women. That’s how it always goes with your dream, you guys.

The thing that you think you’re going to achieve, the person you think you’re going to become, the result you think you’re going to get from achieving the dream is the thing you have to do in order to get the dream. That’s what’s awesome and crazy about it. And then they sell my book in the back of the room at Time Out for Women. And at the first event they said, “We’ve sold out of your books.” And I said, “I know. Don’t you wish you would have published it?” Not really, I kept that part inside. Inside voice.

And the truth is, I have a very good relationship with Deseret Book and I’ve gone on to do more work with them. And I love the people there so much, and it all worked out exactly how it was supposed to. But here’s the thing, when you choose to go after your dream, whatever it is, I don’t care if it seems selfish and trivial or silly or unrealistic. If you have the desire, that is a God given thing, I believe. And I believe that when you pursue your dreams, when you achieve your dreams, the entire world benefits. The entire world benefits.

People say, “I just don’t think it’s all about, it shouldn’t just be all about what I want.” And I say, “I think it is all about what you want.” Because do you know what I want? I want to achieve my dreams but I also want to take care of my kids. I still want to consider my husband’s opinion. I’m not just a monster, none of us are monsters in here. It is all about what you want. When you pursue what you want you will serve the world.

So, Brooke Castillo is the owner of The Life Coach school and a friend of mine. And she and I have pretty different values in many areas of our lives, different ideas about the world, different religions, different politics, different priorities, different things that motivate us. And a lot of people have a lot of judgment of Brooke for some of her different views.

And I say, Brooke, please go after what you desire because you know what? However, many years ago it was, probably 20 years ago now. Brooke Castillo decided that she was tired of being overweight. She wanted to be skinny. The way she tells the story, “I just wanted to look like Whitney Houston.” She wanted to be skinny like Whitney Houston and she couldn’t figure out how to overcome her weight problem and not be a wreck. And so she set out on a journey to figure out how to get skinny.

Now, a lot of people will say that’s shallow, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter but she wanted it, she desired it. And as she pursued that desire and that interest and that what we might call vain or shallow goal, she discovered a world of self-help. She discovered the world of mindfulness. She discovered that thoughts create feelings and that your feelings are driving all your actions. She discovered that the reason she was overeating was because she was trying to feel better.

She discovered that the way to feel better isn’t food. She discovered and implemented all of these things in her own life and then she started teaching other people how to lose weight. And when people would lose weight with Brooke Castillo, they had fun losing weight. But they said the most amazing part was how they learned how to be happy, how to feel better, how to like themselves, how to be in control.

And as she continued to teach people how to lose weight and how to feel better, people said, “I want to be able to do what you do, Brooke. I want to teach people how to feel better.” And so she started teaching people how to be weight loss coaches. And as she taught people to be weight loss coaches and people loved it and were successful with it, eventually some people said, “I want to help people who don’t necessarily want to lose weight.” So she said, “Alright, I’m going to teach you how to be a life coach.”

That’s about the point when I found Brooke Castillo. She was teaching all the tools that she teaches today. And if she hadn’t chased her goal of getting skinny like Whitney Houston I wouldn’t be here today. I wouldn’t have been able to teach any of you in this room, who I’ve taught. Thank goodness she didn’t listen to people who said, “That’s a silly, selfish, shallow desire, Brooke Castillo.” That’s why when she comes up with whatever crazy thing she’s going to come up with next, people will sometimes message me and go, “What’s going on with Brooke?”

And I say, “I don’t know, but I hope she goes all in.” Because when Brooke goes all in on whatever, I benefit, we all benefit. And you can take what you like and leave what you don’t. I certainly do that. But I’m so glad that Brooke Castillo went all in on her dream. Listen, you’ve got to go all in on your dream. You’ve got to go all in because you are going to make an impact in the world that you can’t even anticipate today.

So last thing I want to say, and then I might have a couple of minutes for some questions or anything, any comments if you guys have anything to add. When you go after your dream, when you keep that healthy relationship with your dream there will be people who will show up in your life to help you, people like Celia Barnes.

Celia Barnes, I didn’t pay her a dime for that year and a half, two years’ worth of work she did on my book. I don’t know how her job works. But that seems like a lot of time she put in for not a lot of payoff. In fact, later on when I was talking to one of her colleagues about that experience, she said, “You know what happens sometimes in her role? You work on a project and then it doesn’t go through.” And she said, “Celia was really crushed when your book didn’t go through.” It wasn’t the first time that’s happened to her. It was just the first time on a project that she really loved.

She showed up in my path and Thomas McConkey and the group Faith Matters showed up to help me. People will show up, you have to accept their help though. You have to say, “Yes, thank you. I don’t know what I’m doing. Please help me.” Events will show up. You have to show up too though. You have to show up even when it’s boring, even when you think this doesn’t matter, nobody’s listening. I’m not good at it. You have to show up anyway. Not because you’re trying to prove something.

Don’t be trying to prove anything because you’re going to have people out there that are going to tell you the opposite, not because you’re trying to believe. Remember, just believe. Remember, every time you see the clock say 2:22, even though you don’t know how, even though you have no evidence, just choose to believe. Engage with your dream.

Last thing I want to share with you is right after coach training I actually worked at The Life Coach School, I worked for Brooke Castillo for a little bit as I was building my coaching practice. I did sales for Brooke. I sold coach training actually. We’d set a goal, I remember at the time it was, can we get 18 people in this coach training class? I don’t know, could we do that? And some people are laughing now because people are beating down the door to get in. That’s why I don’t work there anymore.

But at the time we were just getting started and so we’d set a goal and we’d also raise the price each time. So it would be, can we get this many people and charge more? Can we get more people and charge more? And it was always a stretch and I was pretty good at hitting my goals, even though they were always a stretch. And then one time, I don’t know what happened, we changed the goal too much or maybe I was pregnant again or something.

And I just remember getting on my call with Brooke to check-in, and I just started sobbing. She’s like, “What is happening, why are you crying?” And I’m like, “I am not going to hit that goal, Brooke, I’m just nowhere near. I don’t have people in the pipeline. It’s just not going to happen.” And she’s like, “But why are you crying?” I was like, “Because I just feel bad. I mean this is my goal and I really want to be able to do it.” And she said, “No, no, no, we’re not doing this.” She’s like, “I don’t care at all.” I think the goal was 30 at this point.

She was like, “How many are you going to get?” I’m like, “I don’t know, 15.” She’s like, “15, that’s it. That’s all I want, 15. Don’t do any more than 15.” And I was a little shocked because I came from corporate where that doesn’t ever happen. They’re just like, “We’re going to have to write you up.” So we just did 15 that time around. And then we regrouped and then she said this to me, the next time we set a goal for the next project, she said, “What do you think we could do?”

And we picked a number and we came up with a new plan for how we’re going to hit that number. And then she said to me, “Let’s just do it because it will be fun.” I was like, “What are you talking about? This is not fun.” She said, “No, wouldn’t it be fun if we trained that many coaches and we charge this amount and we got that many in the room, wouldn’t that be fun?” I was like, “Yeah, that would be fun and the bonus I would get would be fun too.” She’s like, “Yeah. And if you don’t do it I don’t care at all.”

And that moment changed my life, some of you know that is my favorite thought. And I want to encourage you to go after your dream because it’s going to be fun. Thank you.

Coaching changed my life and I’ve watched it change the lives of thousands of men and women since, but is it right for you? You’ll only know by giving it a try. Try it out today at jodymoore.com/trial.