Ep 51 Transcript: From Bartending to Building a Business

This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors in spelling or inaccuracies in the spoken words.

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and today I thought it'd be fun to learn a little bit about each other. Don't worry, I'm going to start, but I'll let you know how we can connect so that we can learn a little bit more about each other on a more personal level later in the show. But one of the reasons that I'm doing this today is it is my 47th birthday, the day that this episode is airing, and I thought it'd be kind of a fun thing to share a little bit.

not just about who I am, but what made me who I am. So I'm gonna be sharing today seven things that have shaped who I am today, from band geek to setting things on fire and to answering the question, was I always destined to be a crazy cat lady? So we're gonna dive in here and I wanna show you who I am and how I got here because there's so much about who we are today that

starts at a very young age and then there's other times where things might start later in life and it's interesting to see how all those things meld together to make you the incredible and wonderful person that you are today. And so let's get started here. So the first one I'm going to be sharing is a little bit about my time as a bartender and some of the skills that I learned with that. And so like I said, I want to relate these to how they shaped who I am, but you know, how did

What skills did I develop from this? Why was this important to me? So back when I was about 18, 19 years old, I decided I needed to help to fund my university tuition. so I thought, well, how am I going to go about doing this in the way that is most efficient? I've always been about efficiency. And so I took a look at some of the jobs that were out there and paying minimum wage at that time. This is back in...

the 1990s. again, I said today is my birthday. I'm 47 years old today. So I have taken 47 trips around the sun. So my university days were back in the late 90s. And so at this time, minimum wage was quite low. And I had no intention of working long and late hours that are going to take me away from my studies and from the whole experience of university to, you know, do whatever.

at minimum wage. So I was thinking, well, how can I make more money? And I thought, well, you know, the hospitality industry is a great industry to get into because you can make tips. But I had zero experience. So I thought, I'm to take a bartending course instead. And it was probably one of the best things I ever decided to do. I actually ended up spending 15 years bartending through university through my first career.

And through when I was starting this business or my first business, I should say as well, not this business, but my first business. And I met so many interesting people. I learned so much. And I would say a couple of the skills that I learned from bartending were risk management. And I'll get to that in just a moment. And customer service. And I've spoken about this previously about how customer service is so key when it comes to hospitality. You have seconds.

to identify the type of customer, or in some cases we call them guests, that have come into our establishment and how they wish to be treated and responded to, from the person who wants you to basically just blend into the background and make sure that all their needs are taken care of, to the one who wants you to entertain them with funny anecdotes and, well, sometimes full-out shows. So I decided...

just a couple of years after getting my bartending license and I was working as a bartender at a restaurant during the day and at a nightclub on weekends. And I decided, you know, wouldn't it be fun if I could get my pyrotechnics license? I had started to learn how to blow fire and that was pretty cool. And so we'd started incorporating that into some of our nightclub bartending and getting some great attention with it. So I actually decided to go and take a course on pyrotechnics.

So I'm not kidding when I say I was lighting things on fire. I was blowing things up. I was known as the fire girl and it was actually kind of funny because I would even go outside of my city and get recognized by people that would name the nightclub that I was working at and they'd be like, I saw your show. And it became a pretty big deal, which is kind of cool. And you know, definitely.

not something that I had ever set out to do necessarily, but I've always enjoyed entertaining. I've always enjoyed learning new skills. So this really fit into my wheelhouse here. And I remember my mom telling me one time, said, you know, I always thought I'd see your name up in lights. I never thought it'd be up in flames, but it was pretty cool. But aside from all the fun that we had with the Pyrotechnics, of course, I did learn how to do things like that safely. We weren't just.

blowing things up for the sake of blowing things up. There is an art, a technique, and a skill to it. And with responsibility, there's a lot of liability with things like that as well. So we had to ensure that we were taking on those challenges. A few things that I learned from bartending, aside from the things that I've just mentioned, there's some important, these are some important skills that I learned, but there were some certain kind of sayings and philosophies, I guess, that

I have continued to follow post bartending days. The first one is that no matter how badly you screw up, apologize, take responsibility, fix it and smile. All of these things go a really long way. And I think that we are especially now in a day and age where, you know, it's so easy for someone to fall out of good graces with someone. You know, we were sometimes quick to

do a one or two star review, we have this immediate way to be able to rate the type of service or the quality of something that we have. And sometimes we don't always offer the opportunity for someone to make it right. But I think part of that is kind because we've become a bit conditioned to being dismissed as though people don't want to make it right. And so I think that customer service really does go a long way still today. If you screw up,

You want to acknowledge it, take responsibility and apologize sincerely for any mistake that you've made. And then what can you do to make things better? I think that's the biggest thing that people are looking for before they're asking for a refund necessarily. They just want you to make it right and they want you to own it and acknowledge it. And doing this with a smile so that, you know, it's clearly this is not being done begrudgingly.

I think also helps to smooth things over as well. It shows that you are human. It shows that you understand the frustrations that this person is feeling, but you've got compassion and sympathy for them. Another thing that I learned from bartending, and this is something that I continue to reflect on consistently over the years, and that is that everyone has a story. Don't pretend that you know what it is. I think it can be really quick and easy for us to judge someone.

on sometimes the slightest thing. And really we don't know them at all. I can remember back when I had shingles back in 2017 and it was horrendous. I was in so much pain and I was wearing clothing that would cover it up whenever I left the house. And I wasn't contagious at this point, but I was still covered in the rashes that come with shingles.

and they were incredibly painful, but they also were terrible to look at. So I was embarrassed to show up somewhere where they were exposed. But unfortunately, wearing clothes over top of those areas was incredibly painful. And I can remember going to the grocery store and thinking to myself, I look like everyone else here. I look so normal and no one here has any idea the amount of pain and agony that I'm in. I remember thinking similarly.

when my friend was battling his mental illness and thinking how many people had no idea what he was facing every day. I remember when I lost that friend to mental illness, the grief that I felt. And again, being out in the world and just thinking no one has any idea how much pain I'm in right now. And I think that it's so easy for us to make assumptions. What takes effort is to be curious and lead with that.

and give people the benefit of the doubt. So another thing that I learned from my bartending days is that when things get crazy, keep moving forward. You will get to the end eventually. That doesn't mean that, you know, life is a journey. There is no end necessarily, but there is an end to certain difficult times. There is an end to certain situations. And if you keep moving forward, you will get through it.

It doesn't mean, you let's use grief for example, there is no end to grief, but you do learn to be able to move forward in a way that allows that grief to live with you without it bringing you down every single day. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Doesn't mean it's not still there. And let me tell you, I know about grief unfortunately a little all too well these last few years and it sneaks up on you in the sneakiest kind of way.

But you learn to live alongside it and enjoy the memories of that person that you have lost or that thing that you have lost. Grief isn't necessarily just about losing a loved one and it doesn't always relate to death. There's a lot of different forms of grief. the point is that when things get crazy, when things just feel like they're completely out of control, if you keep moving forward, you will get to the end. Now, as a business coach,

I know there's a lot more to this than just that statement. And I've obviously worked with my clients to help them to tame the chaos so that they're not just moving forward every single day with the same chaos of the day before. The whole point is that we're moving forward. We're doing it in a strategic and intentional way to ensure that we are eliminating, reducing that chaos as much as possible. And then for my pyrotechnics aspect of things, what I learned is that you can take risks safely.

with the right planning, with the right calculations. And so that is actually something that my personal Kolbe score, I'm a big fan of Kolbe K-O-L-B-E, it measures your natural instincts. And my Kolbe score actually says that I am risk adverse, which is actually not true. I love taking risks once I've calculated them. So a calculated risk is very different than just taking a risk on a whim. Not to say that people who take risks on a whim

can't be successful at them, but when you take the time to be more calculated about them, your chances of success increase significantly. Okay, so that was the first point about me. I was a bartender for 15 years and it's still a huge part of my life. I always say, you can take me out of the bar, but you'll never take the bartender out of me. The next one I wanna share with you is about how being in a marching band influenced me.

So I was in a marching band. actually joined a community band when I was about 12 or 13 years old, which from that community band, it was recommended that I joined this local marching band. And I did this with initially one or two friends, which turned into so many friends. I knew a lot of people in the community band. I wasn't necessarily friends with them, but I knew them. We were acquaintances. We'd been at the same sort of parties. We'd been in same circles as each other.

And then through joining the marching band, we all became this inseparable, supportive community and group. Not just this core group of friends that I had, but the entire band. And it really taught me lot of things, taught me discipline for starters. I mean, we would get up early, early, early on Saturday mornings. Have you ever tried to get a teenager out of bed on a Saturday morning?

When I say early, I'm talking 3, 4 AM sometimes because we would travel to do parades all over Ontario and Michigan. We were located in Windsor, Ontario, which is a border city to Detroit, Michigan. We would find ourselves all over Michigan, all over Ontario. Parades, as you probably know, usually start pretty early in the morning and we had to travel there, set up, prepare. There was a lot that went into this.

And so we didn't matter what the weather was. It didn't matter what the time of day was, but we were there and we made that commitment. And you knew that if you didn't show up, you were going to let down other people. It wasn't just about you. In fact, being in a marching band, it's never about you. You have to make sure that you're playing the notes at the right time, at the right pitch, in the right way. You have to make sure that you are in step in the right way. And we were actually very choreographed marching band, which was a little bit.

different for parade type marching bands. We didn't do field work. We just did parade type work, but we were very choreographed nonetheless. And so this was something that, you know, if I was slightly out of step, that was going to affect the next person. And so you had to be disciplined enough to learn the moves, learn the songs, and then execute it all correctly as well. But aside from the teamwork and the discipline,

It was the power of community that I found. And I believe so much in finding your people. It's really not much different than I find my people today. So I have my people for business. I have my people for fitness. I have my people in other personal areas of my life. I got a whole lot of my cat people and you know who you are. And to be honest, all animal people. And it's not to say that we can't be friends if you don't love or have animals, of course.

The point is that you can have different groups of people. You can have different communities that you're a part of, but each one of them helps to shape who you are. And it's not always about what you get, but it's about what you give. And that's the beautiful thing about community. You know, I've mentioned several times about my running and I've got a wonderful group of ladies that I run with and it's grown so much. This informal running group that we have.

where we now also have a training group. So we have our regular 5K group, actually I should call it a 5K plus group, because we run more than 5K sometimes. And then we have our regular running training group as well. So it's been such a great experience to know that I can give this training to people who are interested in learning how to run and also be able to still get my own exercise and my own fitness out of it as well, which is incredible. So that I would say,

you being in a marching band isn't just about being a band geek. And yes, I went to band camp and it was a ton of fun. Honestly, my band days were some of the best days of my life. In fact, my dad, he was in a marching band when he was younger as well. And so he was so excited when I joined this band and my dad was kind of an all in sort of dad. And if one of his kids was doing something, he wanted to be a part of it because he just loved being a dad so much.

And so when I joined the marching band, he decided to join the volunteer committee that helped everything run smoothly for this marching band, which meant that he was out on the parades with us and he was behind the scenes organizing all the things to make sure that that day was going to go smoothly. And he enjoyed it so much that even when I left the band, when I moved out of the city to go to university, he stayed with the band and in the end spent 25 years with this band. This is the Windsor Optimist Youth Band in Windsor, Ontario. And so much so.

that there was actually an award when he retired from the band, there was an award named after him. And it's called the Brian Simon Booster Award. And it's awarded each year to the person who shows the most band spirit because that's the kind of person my dad was. So I think I come by it honestly enjoying this sense of community and the spirit that comes along with that. Okay, so the next one I wanna talk about, number three, of things that shaped me into who I am today, both personally and professionally.

is where did I start becoming that crazy cat lady? What's really funny that over the last few years as my parents have aged, as my cousin's parents have aged, my aunts and uncles, we've been cleaning out a lot of things and with that comes the discovery of some things from my childhood. So one of my cousins was cleaning out some things that her mom has and found a letter that I had written to my grandmother.

And I don't know how old I was, but based on the handwriting, I want to guess I was maybe seven years old, seven or eight years old, if I had to guess. And in this letter, I am telling my grandmother the story of how I found a cat in the neighborhood and brought him home. And you can ask my parents how often I was doing this as a kid. In fact, I brought home any animal that I found. If I found a rabbit that was injured, if I found a bird that was injured, they were coming home with me. But if it was a cat, it didn't matter if it was injured.

it was coming home with me. And even to the point where cats were starting to just find me, they just showed up at our house and we just took them in. So I have a lot of cats in my childhood that I loved quite dearly. This particular cat, we named him Fonzie. He was an orange tabby cat and he was so cool, which is probably how he got his name, because he was super cool. But he would actually walk my brother and I to school every day. This was in elementary school.

It was walking distance and the cat would walk us to school. And then when we would get to the school yard, he would turn around and go back home to wait for us. It was adorable. There was also something I found recently when my dad passed, we were going through some of the childhood artwork that I had made for my dad. And of course, every father's day and every birthday, I had made things for him from cards and other types of crafts. And this was an assignment it looked like from school where it was sort of a fill in the blanks.

And one of the things he had to fill in the blank for was, I love my dad because, and the because was he let me keep the cat. So I don't know which cat that one was. I don't know how old I was when I wrote it. And I'll be honest, my dad couldn't say no to me anyway, but I really enjoyed seeing the fact that I was so obsessed with cats. I wasn't just interested in cats. I wasn't just someone who had a couple of cats. I was obsessed with cats from a very young age.

And I can even remember getting one of my longest living cats, which was Woody. I got her at 10 years old. And I remember just begging my parents to get her. And when we found her and we brought her home, I was so in love with her. And I said, I will take care of her. I will do all of the feeding. I will clean the litter box. I will bathe her. And let me tell you, I actually gave her baths and everything. I will give her flea treatment. I did it all. I took her to the vet. I did all the things.

And I know you often hear kids are like, I'll do all the things. Let me tell you, I did all the things. So much so that I actually moved her with me when I moved away to university. She moved into my first house with me and lived a wonderful 20 year life. And I was so grateful to have had her from 10 years old to you got it 30 years old when I lost her. So that was pretty incredible. And it was.

after she passed away, was a couple of years after she passed away that I decided to adopt two adult rescue cats. And then shortly after that, I began fostering with my local humane society. So if you're wondering, has she always been a crazy cat lady? The answer is absolutely yes, I have. And how has this shaped me? So what does this have to do with anything, right? I think it goes back to just that finding your people.

You over the years, I've always authentically embraced being a crazy cat lady so much so that I've even had friends that say, you know, if you talked about cats a little less, you might actually find a man. Those are always entertaining comments because to be honest, if I met someone who wanted me to talk about cats less, we're probably not going to be a good match for each other, right?

I definitely didn't pay attention to that comment, but instead I've gravitated towards the people who, again, not just care about animals even, but just have that natural compassion to want to help others, all living beings around the world. And I think that it kind of lends itself to the authenticity that I've always tried to approach all the things that I do with, and especially this podcast, my coaching, the training that I do. And I would also say that it

you know, gives me an opportunity to be a little extra creative and a little more personal with some of my social media stuff and my content as well when I can relate it back to all the things that the cats say. All right, number four, things you may not know about me, but things that have shaped my life is that I am addicted to tough mudders Now, if you are not familiar with a tough mudders is I will give you a very brief overview. It's basically a 15 kilometer

obstacle course. So within those 15 kilometers, there are usually approximately 30 obstacles. And like the name implies, it is mostly quite muddy. I've done nine tough mudders at the time of this recording and counting. I, that might sound like a lot, but I got to tell you when you start doing these as often as we have, you meet a lot of people who have done hundreds of these mudders but there's a whole community around it. So

First of all, I do the Tough Mudders with a very dear friend of mine. We are three weeks apart in age, so I think that's definitely been a bit of a motivator for us that, you know, it's like, wow, we're hitting this age, we might as well go and do another mudder or two. And in fact, that was part of our incentive when we hit 40, we said, why don't we try to do a mudder every year in our 40s? And as you can probably tell by the fact that I've done nine of them, we've been doubling up a little bit as well, which is kind of fun. But we've traveled all over the place doing these.

We've traveled as far as Liverpool, as far as Arizona. For those who are not familiar, I am in Ontario, Canada. And so these are some pretty big distances. We've done Nashville, Tennessee. We've done, gosh, Chicago, Illinois. We've done a lot of different places. And that's been the fun part about it is that we get to not only see these beautiful cities and explore the towns that we're in, but we also get to meet a whole different community of people on these mudders.

And what I love about the Tough Mudders is the camaraderie that comes with them. It is not a race. And in fact, it is really drilled into you at the very beginning that it is not a race. It's about helping each other. The course has been designed to lean on other people to be able to help you to complete each obstacle. And in turn, you're helping other people as well. It's that pay it forward sort of thing. Every person that you see

throughout that day, throughout that course, is considered your teammate and it is your responsibility to make sure that they have the best experience possible as well. And so it has been so heartwarming for me to have received the help that I've received on these courses and to have also been able to assist others. A big part of Tough Mudder is challenging yourself, giving it your best. How can I do better next time? And there are people of all sorts of ages.

all sorts of physical capabilities. And there is nothing that will stop any of them from doing these things. Not missing limbs, not weight, not overall fitness level, not age, not anything. Because the beautiful thing about this is that we can all complete these courses if you've got the right support behind you. So I would say this, you know, relates really well to

A couple of the pillars that I teach about in my training, but the one that it definitely relates most to is that health and wellness aspect of it. It's a big thing that I focus on throughout my program and throughout these podcast episodes, you know that I'm always going back to health and wellness. And one of the things that I teach in that is when it comes to your physical activity, it's important to find things that you enjoy and things that can give you that, that community of support and that accountability that you need.

Some people are perfectly fine working out on their own. I'll admit, I'm one of them. I do most of my workouts solo, but there are certain workouts that I especially enjoy with others. And for example, running and for example, the Tough Mudder. I enjoy some fitness classes. I enjoy my boxing with other people as well. So it's nice to have sort of that mix of things, but it's important whenever you are looking to increase your fitness or your health in any way that you find things that align with

who you are and what you enjoy and you find things that you're actually going to be able to stick to. That's the importance of building habits. And we cover this in great detail in pillar two about how to build those healthy habits one step at a time. The other thing that I would say that this sort of lends me to talk about is, you know, I've spoken many times about being a runner. And I think one of the reasons why I became a runner in the first place, well, actually, you know, I shouldn't say that. Sorry. Let me try this again.

I would say when it comes to running, I always enjoyed running as a kid, but I was told I wasn't any good at it and I couldn't be a runner mainly because I had asthma. So I wasn't encouraged to be a runner because of that limitation. And I am all about overcoming limitations. I don't like when someone tells me I can't do something. You know, my usual response is watch me. And so when I got into my early 20s,

I really felt like I wanted to run. I was always so envious of runners. It looked like so much fun. I remembered as a kid enjoying it. And so I decided to teach myself how to run with asthma, which nowadays is not that big of a deal. But at the time, it was a little unheard of. Again, this is going back to the 1990s and running for leisure was still a relatively new thing. So I decided to take up running.

and taught myself on a treadmill how to run. And the more I did it, the more I really, really leaned into it and I enjoyed it. And so when I was in about my mid-twenties, my dad was diagnosed with MS officially. So we had, actually, sorry, I wasn't even in my mid-twenties. I think I was maybe 19 years old, but it was when I was in my mid-twenties that he started showing symptoms of his MS. And that's when I started really feeling the impact of

You don't want to take anything for granted. So I watched my dad go from walking with a cane, which was his earliest symptoms of MS. And this was in August of 2002. He was using a wheelchair by July of 2003. So within 11 months, he went from a cane to a wheelchair and essentially had lost the ability to walk of any significance. He could still stand. He could still walk the odd step, but he couldn't go anywhere. Like his main way of getting around.

was a wheelchair at this point. And I watched this happening and I thought, you know, I don't ever want to take it for granted what I can do today because who knows what I won't be able to do tomorrow. And so I've often said that I run because he couldn't, he couldn't even walk. Don't get me wrong, my dad was never a runner, just to be clear, he was never a runner. But I became a runner, I think, because I felt that I wanted to take it to that next level. And so I've been running since I was in my 20s, I would say.

most consistently in the last several years, but I've been running since I was in my twenties. And I think it's a great example of overcoming limitations. When people meet me today and find out that I have asthma and yet I'm able to do the distances I can do, I can do the speeds that I can do. And I outrun a lot of people half my age. There's something to be said there. So don't ever let someone tell you you can't do something. There's always a way around things.

Okay, so number five of things that have shaped me into who I am today and how I apply both personally and professional is my very early time working. So I started earning my own money at the age of 12. And this was through both babysitting, which is pretty common for most young girls, especially, but young children, any child of 12 years old can usually become a babysitter.

I took the training. I found neighborhood kids that needed looking after and I started earning some money. But I also became an umpire for the local baseball league, which was super fun because I got to tell you as a 12 year old girl, I was not tall. I was very tiny. I was skinny. I was short and I was this tiny little thing and I'm throwing coaches out of the game. Sometimes it was a lot of fun. I'm not going to lie.

But it wasn't just about that aspect of it, but I mean, there is a lot that comes with it. There was so much responsibility to both of these jobs, to both being an umpire and a babysitter. There's responsibility, there's learning how to deal with difficult situations, learning how to navigate some tricky things and learning how to navigate different people's personalities. But I also think that it goes to my entrepreneurial spirit. I wanted to buy things for myself, so I wanted to go and get a job.

And I can remember as a babysitter, I was reading all the babysitter's club books and I was creating this brand for myself as a babysitter. I was so sought after that I was charging double what most babysitters were charging at that time. So it just goes to show that if you create the value, people will certainly pay for it. So I learned responsibility, I learned finance management, I learned customer service, and of course I learned the value of a hard day's work. Okay, number six.

of things that have shaped me into who I am today is I actually became a vegetarian at the age of 10. So there's a lot of things that you can, as I'm sure you can kind of see now, a lot of things that I really did in my childhood. And I want to say, before I go further on this story, how much I appreciated my parents and how much they supported me and encouraged me as a child. Were they perfect parents? Find me someone who is.

Don't get me wrong, we definitely butt heads. There were definitely times where I thought that they were the devil. But when I reflect back, I'm so glad that they allowed me to be my authentic self as a child. And part of that was being a vegetarian. Now, aside from the sort of obvious that I'm sure you can probably figure, you know, she's always loved animals. That must be why she's a vegetarian. I'll be honest, that was not my main motivation. In fact, it was something very different.

I was actually always told I was a very fussy eater as a kid. And it was really frustrating to me that I would find myself stuck at the dinner table for hours being forced to eat one more or two more bites of whatever they had put in front of me. And so I was difficult. I was fussy. It turned out I just really disliked meat. So I...

decided at the age of 10 years old, discovered what a vegetarian was. And basically all I knew was that they didn't eat meat. And I walked into the kitchen one night and I said, I was a vegetarian. And I think part of me expected that my parents were going to throw their hands up and try to fight me on it. But in fact, the opposite is true. My mom kind of looked at me, she's like, yeah, OK. So she didn't make it easy for me.

She, needed to ensure that I was getting what I needed. And so I learned from a very young age how important it is to prioritize your health and ensure that your body is getting the nutrients that it requires. And I learned that there were certain nutrients that you get from meat products that you cannot necessarily get from other fruits and vegetables. So you would have to supplement those things. So I was sent to a dietitian. We started doing blood work with me annually and I was sent to the library. That's right. Good old fashioned library.

sure if I've mentioned this previously but my mom was actually a librarian so that tracks. So I was sent to the library to find 10 vegetarian recipes for my mom to cook that I would try. Well it turns out I wasn't that fussy of an eater after all. We came up with some incredible recipes that I am still using to this day and I learned how to almost second nature know that I'm getting enough protein, enough vitamin B's, enough iron.

in my body on a daily basis to be healthy. And it's something that like I said, comes quite naturally to me now and partly because I built the habit at such a young age. One of the things that I will also say and reflecting back on this as I was creating this list, I thought, you know, it really goes to show though that if you want something badly enough, you'll put in the effort to do it. So I was kind of reflecting on this. like, there's things that, you know, over the years I've given up on and I thought to myself like, should really get back to doing that.

But if you reflect back on those things, do you really wanna do that? Because if you really wanted to do it, if you really wanna do something badly enough, you will put in the effort to do it and do it well. One of the comments that my running friends and I have commented on is, know how there are people who are like, you're lucky you have time to work out. I don't have time to work out. And there we are at 5 a.m. going for our runs. You know how you make the time? You find the time, right? So the things that I prioritize,

I can make the time for and there are things that I say all the time. I don't have time for that, but the real answer is I'm not prioritizing that in my life and that's okay. There are certain things that someone else might prioritize that I'm not prioritizing, but the point is so that if you really want something bad enough, you will make the time for it and you will put in the effort to do it well. I've always been someone who's very determined when I make my mind up. Yeah, it's pretty hard to change it sometimes and I learned

the importance of research and preparation from all of this as well. Okay, so number seven, I couldn't resist putting on here, and I've already actually kind of spoken about this, but number seven is learning that my dad had MS in his diagnosis. So back in 1994, while I was still in high school, my dad had his first episode. Essentially he woke up one morning and couldn't move and my mom had to call an ambulance.

He went to the hospital and was told by the doctor that it was highly probable that he had MS, but that the tests that he was running at that time couldn't show that. So he sent him for annual MRIs and three years later in January of 1997, my dad was officially diagnosed with MS. But the good news was he was living symptom free at the time. And in fact, the doctor in 1994 had said he believed it was a mild case and worst case scenario, he would be walking with a cane in 10 years.

This is before the time of the internet. So it wasn't easy to get the information that you need or that you want on a disease like this. So we were really relying heavily on what we were being told by our doctors and frankly didn't take the time to necessarily do our own research. They weren't far off. My dad started walking with a cane, as I said, in 2002. So it was eight years after that, first episode, but it very quickly progressed and he was elevated to what's called a primary progressive MS.

very early on with the onset of his symptoms. And he was using a wheelchair, as I said, by 2003. And so back in the year 2000, I decided to start participating in my local MS walk. And I really enjoyed the community that was there. And I didn't know at the time what MS looked like for my dad in the future, but I knew that I wanted to be a part of that community. And when my dad's symptoms started progressing,

It was important to me to know that I was doing something for that community. In 2007, I joined the volunteer organizing committee for that local MS walk. And I have actually been a part of it ever since. And I'm actually now the chairperson for it and have been for the last several years. So what did I learn about my dad and his diagnosis with MS? I would say that it shaped me in a lot of ways. One of the biggest things that taught me was patience. When you live with someone with a disability like this,

It's not as easy as just popping out of the house for a few minutes. Everything takes planning. Everything takes time. When we would go out places, people would often not want to be behind the wheelchair. We were considered slowing them down and there was always a sense of urgency. And people would rush to get in front of us, which would often end up causing us to have to abruptly stop his chair, which could be really painful for him. And so we learned how to just take things really slow.

and really patiently so that we weren't having to jolt him in his chair too much. I learned about accessibility needs and the different disparities that exist and how our world continues to learn and adapt to a world that needs better accessibility. We have a long way to come. We really do. We have a long way to go still when it comes to accessibility and the needs of the people in our community.

We've made some incredible progress, but it's still not nearly enough. And so the best advocates for those living with disabilities are not necessarily the people with disabilities, but the people who are closest to them, because we keep putting the onus on those with disabilities to solve all the problems of accessibility. And so I have learned how to...

navigate the world from the perspective of someone who could feed accessibility accommodations. It has helped me in my interior design business to incorporate accessibility design, or more importantly, what we call universal design, which I'm not going to get into a ton of detail here, but it's also given me a unique perspective when I encounter others who might have.

physical disability and how I interact with them in a natural way and the empathy that I can provide with them without necessarily treating them as though they are lesser than they can still be celebrated and assisted all the same time. And so I've learned how to naturally take care of others. And it's kind of shaped how I interact with everyone, not just those with accessibility needs. It taught me what caregiving

looks like and feels like. And I will be honest, I very much enjoyed helping to care for my dad over the years. I had no idea that MS could progress to the point that it did. At the time that my dad passed away, he had no mobility, so he could not move anything from the neck down on his own. He required assistance with everything from scratching his nose to feeding to everything else you can imagine. And he couldn't.

communicate. couldn't, well sorry, he couldn't speak. We were able to communicate still but he couldn't speak and it was difficult and you know I've spoken about him numerous times because he taught me so much but I wouldn't trade the time that he had MS because of the lessons that it taught me. So I would love to say that I wish that there was a world where my dad never had MS but if that was the case I wouldn't be who I am today because I've learned

how to navigate the world in a way that sees it through a different lens, in a way that everyone is equal, that everyone requires to be or deserves to be treated with the same respect and communicated with from such a place of humanity. And so that would be probably one of the biggest lessons I would say that I've learned throughout my life is just how to have

grace in the face of adversity, how to navigate the challenges, how to interact with people who are facing these difficulties and how to do what we can to help advocate for them and accommodate things. So, okay. So that covers seven things that make me who I am today. And I want to thank you so much for paying attention to all of these things and for tuning in week after week. I'm going to throw one

bonus little tidbit, little fun fact here, and that is that all of these podcast episodes are recorded usually between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. And the main reason for that has nothing to do with my work hours. It has to do with the fact that that is the nap time for my cats. I don't know which one of them made up that schedule, but for the most part, my cats tend to be less active during that time.

So if you're ever watching this on the video version on YouTube and you're seeing cats hanging out in the background, it usually means that I recorded the episode either before 10 a.m. or after 3 p.m. that day. OK, so I'd love to hear about the things that have shaped you into who you are. The good, the bad, the ugly. And so if you've been thinking about joining the Real Women, Real Business Mastery program that I have talked about numerous times on this podcast, there has never been a better time.

because in honor of my birthday, I've got a really special treat for you. I want to help you to take that first step towards transforming your business and your life. And we're going to be raising the price of the program very soon because we've been in the process of rolling out a lot of the lessons for this program. So as it continues to get built up, it's now time to raise the price. But before we do that, we have a very special offer. So I want you to book a call with me. If you've thought about joining the program,

If you're thinking that you could use some additional support, if you want to find your people, get that sense of community, that accountability, get the lessons that we teach as well as the support that we provide you in our twice monthly coaching calls, our library of resources, our incredible community of women. If you feel like you are ready to make this transformational change by following the 12 foundational pillars of success that we teach and that we outline in this program.

I would love the opportunity to chat with you and talk about whether or not this is a good fit for you. And so right now, if you book a call with me, simply go to aboutshonalin.com forward slash birthday, and you can set up a call with me. And as a thank you for booking that call and showing up, of course, you've got to show up for the call, but as a thank you for booking that call and showing up, you will receive an exclusive resource.

value of this is $399 and it has been designed to help you to gain clarity and confidence in taking those next steps in your business. But this is a limited time offer. So don't miss out on this. I want to take that you to take this opportunity to unlock that true potential that you have. Now we've never given this resource away before and it's not available to the public. And like I said, it's worth almost $400.

and all you have to do is book a call and show up and have a conversation and let's talk about your future in the Real Women Real Business Mastery Program. But remember the price goes up March 1st for the program. But if you are listening to this episode and you book a call with me using the link about ShaunaLynn.com/Birthday I will honor today's pricing. But you have to do that before this promo goes away. Okay, so we're doing this for a very, very, very limited time.

So all of the resources that I've talked about, anytime I'm doing one of these shows, all the things that I talk about, I will put those in the show notes so you will have a link to this call in the show notes as well that you can check it out there. And I hope that you will continue to join me and allow me to join you on your journey week after week. And thank you so much for joining me on my birthday and having a little celebration with me. And listen, if what I'm saying here today resonated with you about any of the lessons that I've taught you, all of these lessons show up.

throughout the 12 pillars of our course. And so I would really invite you to book that call with me. I hope to see you again next week. Don't forget to subscribe to us on your favorite podcast platform, leave us a review of course. And if you know of another woman who would get a kick out of these stories or enjoy learning a little bit more about me, or maybe you think that this program might be just the perfect thing that they need to help them to take their business to the next level, to help them to create those bigger dreams and achieve them.

very much appreciated if you would forward this episode on to them so that they can be empowered and so that I can support them on their journey as well. So until next time everyone keep thriving.