The Power of Self-Discovery: Unleashing Your Potential

Turning 50 can be a milestone that prompts us to reflect on our journey so far, and envision our future. In this episode, I'm joined by Andrea Johnson, an expert in optimism and transformational leadership coaching. We explore the importance of identifying personal core values, and Andrea shares a practical exercise to help you begin your transformational journey.

The ABCs of Personal Growth, Self Discovery & Leadership is an exciting journey of self-improvement! Recognizing and challenging our Assumptions, Beliefs, and Conditioning can be scary, but it's also a powerful catalyst for change.  Learn how resilience, courage, and support are key to uncovering your values and achieving your goals.

The Intentional Optimist website
Discover Your Core Values - Free Download

Human Design by Debra Jones
I AM. by Debra Jones
More about DISC on E46 with Maureen Ross Gemme

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This episode of OWN THE GREY is brought to you by I AM.

• Discover your unique talents
• Realize your potential
• Align to your path

Take the first step to Uncover Your Life Purpose by visiting www.debrajones.ca/courses

Transcript

Debra Jones: Welcome to Own the Grey, a podcast to dispel the notion that aging is undesirable and setting new positive attitudes. I'm Debra Jones, and I believe you can be vibrant and healthy throughout the best years of your life. Andrea Johnson is an optimism expert and a transformational leadership coach, and she's the host of the Stand Tall and own it podcast. She knows how to uncover your dreams, goals, fears, and how to conquer them. And she'll help you see that no matter what caused you to hide your leadership skills, it's time to find your voice and change your future. And I invited her on to own the gray to show us that it's not what you do, but who you are that creates the impact that you can have on others. Andrea says it's never too late to start, especially as those of us over 50 have already gained the wisdom we need to do the tough inner work, and that helps us to be the change makers we were created to be. Well, hello, Andrea. It is great to have you on own the gray today.

Andrea Johnson: Thank you, Debra. I'm excited to be here. This is a good conversation that needs to happen for women of a certain age. I am excited, absolutely.

Debra Jones: I looked at your website and I checked you out and I love how you empower people to embrace their unique strengths and gifts. I do the same thing. And I'm curious, what led you to become an optimism expert and transformational leadership coach? And can you share a little bit about your journey and why you help people uncover their dreams and conquer their fears?

Andrea Johnson: Absolutely. Before we started recording this, we were kind of chatting about how we, as podcasters and as coaches, share and do the things that, and help other people do the things that we needed ourselves. And for me, when I turned 50, I lost my mother to breast cancer. And I knew that where I was not where I wanted to be. And I had tried for so long, I had tried other entrepreneur, real things, like I was an Amway distributor, and I was a Mary Kay lady. And I just knew that that's not what I wanted to do. And I was sitting on the couch one day and I looked at my husband watching a television show and I said, I just want to help people. Is that a job description? And I was in not a bad situation. I spent 25 years in higher education, in administration and operations research, administration specifically, which is pretty much a very specific niche. There's always clinical research and that kind of thing. And I spent almost twelve years at two fabulous East coast universities in their schools of medicine. But I was managing people. And I realized I don't want to keep the status quo. I want to make changes. And I said, I need to do something to make changes. And I had been on my own self discovery growth journey since I was probably. I don't know. I'm a curious person. My dad used to say, stop belly button gazing and get to work. But I think I'm just one of those people who needed to understand myself. And I started that journey when I decided to put myself in the hospital for bulemia and depression at the age of 20. And that really was the first time somebody said, it's okay to be you. It's okay to have your opinions. It's okay to have your dreams and your goals. And so I pursued different things. But by the time I hit 50, I realized I had fallen back into the rule following and being safe and doing what everybody else expected me to do. And I just didn't feel any congruence for it. 

And so a friend of mine was a John Maxwell team member, and she know, you could look at Maxwell being a coach. It's a different kind of coaching. It's not like life coaching. It's kind of a hybrid where you do some teaching. And I was like, oh, that's fine. And I just pursued continuing other things. I looked at being an interior designer, but I would have people come in my office, Debra, and say, you're a safe space for me to speak. You're somebody that I can trust. And we're talking researchers, doctors, administrative assistants, people from other departments. I had one woman who worked for me and then left to work somewhere else, and one day came running in my office in tears, in a panic attack, and was sliding down the wall and said, you're the only place I knew that was safe. There's something here. There's something that I've not cultivated, that I need to be able to help people in this way. 

And so I went looking back at Maxwell and realized, you know what? I don't want to keep the status quo. I want to actually help people develop. And I realized that all these years I had had this disdain for people who didn't want to better themselves, which is actually not the best attitude to have, but when you're not aware, then you have those types of attitudes. And I realized I can actually do something with that. I can turn that around to something positive. And conquering your own fears and uncovering your own dreams is some of the scariest work you will ever do. And it is the, oh, gosh, but I needed that transformation. So I sat down and said, what is it that I need to do? And got to work and allowed for my employer to pay for some of my licensing and looked for ways that I could help others. And I'm not finished, but that's how we get there. And I've gone through different titles. I call myself the intentional optimist. That's the name of my business. I can share in a little while what the tenets of intentional optimism are. They came out of that crucible of grief when I lost my mother. 

But I was listening yesterday to Julie Louis Dreyfus's podcast. Jane Fonda was being interviewed, and one of the things Jane Fonda pointed out was when she was turning 60, she said, this was my third act. And she said, if you're an actor, you know the importance of the third act because it makes the first two acts make sense. And I thought, oh, my gosh, that's exactly what I've done. Right? So for me, this is kind of like my third act, paying attention and saying, what do I want to do? What kind of impact do I want to leave? And how can I leave a big impact? And it doesn't mean that I'm teaching 10,000 people in an arena. It could be, and I wouldn't turn it down, but it might just be a big impact on the people that would speak at my funeral and my son, who's adopted and turning 15 this weekend. It might be that the impact is on my husband and on my family and on my friends. And the best way to do that is to be me.

Debra Jones: I don't even know how to follow that, But I hear what you're saying, and I'm sort of doing check marks in my mind, because when I reached 50, it was the same thing. And I've done some research about the age stages that we go through, and 50 is almost like a chance to be reborn. It's basically we go through a phase and then at 50, we start it all over again. So the phase from when we were born up to 50 is first phase, and then the second phase is 50 onwards. And I like the idea of the third act because maybe it's more than three acts that you have in your lifetime, right? Yeah. But the idea of giving yourself permission to look at your life rather than just go through the motions. And I think at that age, we are assessing, whether deeply or on the surface, we're assessing what we've chosen and what do we want to go forward with and what's fulfilling or what's not fulfilling. And so the idea of, for you wanting to make a difference in the world, that was exactly the same for me. It's like, how can I do that? I've been doing it in my small arena, but now I see myself stepping into more of a leadership type role, which is scary because I've not really been there. But the idea of, there's so much to share. We have so much wisdom when we get to this stage, as you were saying. So with the work that you do, first of all, why do you do it?

Andrea Johnson: I do it because I can't not do it. I know that sounds crazy, But I can't watch someone stumble off into the woods when I know the path is right here and it's not a, hey, you, come back over here. Get on the path. It's here's a light. I'm shining it right here. It's like, this is open and available to you. That's the way I present everything. 

I was one of those people that was taught not to share my opinion. So this is some conditioning that I'm working at 57 to overcome. And yet, at the same time, I can still shine a light without sharing. This is my opinion. I can shine a light and say, this is what's good. This is what's available. And when I work with women and they don't even realize what's available to them, that they've been living under someone else's rules, someone else's structure, someone else's, and whatever their path or the system, because I come out of the evangelical Christian world where it's very systematized and being able to say to other women, you don't have to. You can have your own impact without regretting at the end. 

I think that was the thing that I looked back when I was 50, and the process of looking back and saying, my mother did certain things really well, and it's a story on my website, right. And she was a powerhouse. I grew up in Korea. My parents were missionaries, and my mother worked for the American Red Cross volunteer, and she was in charge of all of the volunteers for Asia and the Pacific, which meant she was a US governmental GS 13 volunteer, which is a level of colonel in the US Army. Right. The UN, four star generals and that kind of stuff that were there for NATO forces were all, sorry, it wasn't UN forces. Sorry, not NATO. She would take them up to the demilitarized zone. She went to Switzerland, to the International Red Cross. I mean, she did all these things. She was a project manager for building 16 new townhomes on our mission compound. But when she came back to the States, she was an administrative assistant until she died, until she retired. And I thought she had so much more potential than that. She chose. She didn't really regret. There were times that she learned to make the best of it. I thought, I don't want to do that. I don't want to look back and say, I could have done this thing and I didn't because I was a coward or I didn't because nobody gave me permission. 

And when you look at your potential at the age of 50, you mentioned we have so much wisdom. I joke and I say I've been around the sun Enough times because it's like just simply living your life gives you wisdom. And many of us do not have any idea what kind of potential we have because we haven't looked at. We've been fulfilling, we've been checking off boxes. If we're married with children, we've been doing certain things for them. And it's so easy to forget that we have values, skills, strengths, experiences and interests. And looking at where those overlap helps us understand what kind of potential we might could have. And when people are living to 91 hundred years old now, 50 is nothing. But we tend to think that we're done. And so I think that's kind of the work is to be able to say, you have options. You have options.

Debra Jones: Yeah. And I think it's really important work to work with somebody that can show you different perspectives on what you're looking at. And that's the kind of work I do as well, is opportunities and options. And have you considered this?  I did a little research when I knew I was going to be speaking with you. And I listened to a podcast by John Maxwell and I wrote down a quote which ties in perfectly with what you just said. It's the only quote I wrote down, so it's kind of cool. He says, ‘if you don't follow your passion, you will have regrets.’ And that is a fact. And your passion, that's the question, what is your passion? What are your values? What is important to you? And I think that's a really great segue into the work you do. What can you talk to about passion?

Andrea Johnson: Well, the first thing I want to say is that it's not this nebulous thing out there that is really, really hard to find. It's not. It is what you think about every day. What you are passionate about is what you think about on a daily basis. If you have a hobby that you go to work and you come home and you're ready to do it. My sister makes cards, and I used to scrapbook, and there are people who, women who play pickleball and, I mean, all those kinds of things will kind of give us an idea as to what our passion is. But another thing you can do really easily is kind of look at the things, and this is in my core values, work that I do as well, is look at the things that really kind of upset you and lit you on fire. And what is it? It's really hard to hold your opinion about those things might be an indication of what your passion is. And it may not necessarily be that you need to go volunteer in the Middle east to bring peace, but it might be that it's all about equity and people getting along and treating people as humans rather than being us or them. There's different things that you can look at to see what your passion is. But for me, being able to say my passion is literally helping other people understand that they have the ability to make a difference because nobody really, I mean, I had mentors when I was younger that said, oh, you can do anything you want. That's too broad for me. And then I was told, no, stay in your place.

And I think in post industrial revolution, we're taught to be cogs in a wheel. We are taught to fit the system. We are taught to not be the thing that messes up the conveyor belt. And I think back to I love Lucy and her and Ethel trying to get the candy in the boxes and they end up having to eat it. And it's just hysterical. But that's a really good commentary on us trying to make sure we do all the right things. It's not possible. We're not all cut out for that kind of work. We're not all cut out for those things. And so being able to say, you have permission to be who you are, and let's look at what's keeping you from going there, because would you rather end at the end of your life? And you've heard this one before, most people don't want to get at the end of their life and say, I wish I had worked more. They will say, I wish I had spent more time with my family, or, I wish I had gone around the world, or, I wish I had done those things. And then it's just a matter of figuring out what is it you don't want to regret, and then how are you going to mitigate that circumstance? How are you going to keep from doing that?

Debra Jones: SO then my question is, what kinds of things do you hear as excuses from people as to why they're not doing what they identify as being passionate about? What kinds of excuses do we give.

Andrea Johnson: Ourselves, especially for those of us over 50. I'm so close to retirement, I can't tell you how many people have said to me, I just have eight more years to retirement. I took a job, and the guy who was in the position before me stopped by to say hello and said, don't get to know me. I'm only counting the days till I retire. I can't even imagine living that way. Now, if your passion is outside of your job, that's fine. But I would just suggest that maybe you work on your attitude at your job, and there are some people who really want to do it that way. But the biggest obstacles I see are, first, we think we've already had our run, right? It's like, just kind of like, you see a lot of older models coming in with gray hair and stuff, and I've let mine go completely natural since March of this year. And it's still a little stark and staggering. When I look in the mirror and I see this white. Thank you. It's genetic. But to be able to say no, to be a model, you don't have to be 20. You can be 60. To be a coach, you don't have to be 20. You really shouldn't be 20 because you don't have any wisdom yet. You should be 50 or 60 to do some other things. And I think it's just a great opportunity. The other thing that I think is really hard for us is that we think change is too difficult. We think, no, it would overturn the apple cart. I can't make a change this late in my life, and I quit my job. I do not recommend doing it that way. But I got so fed up that I just quit my job. I was not financially ready to do it, but I just did. And I am so grateful I did because I then developed more after I did. But the biggest thing and what I'd love to talk about is what I call our ABCs, our assumptions, our beliefs and conditioning.

Debra Jones: Go for it.

Andrea Johnson: Many times I like to use an iceberg model for this. Our assumptions are the tip of the iceberg. They're the thing that we see, and they show up very easily. They're knocked about. We get chips on them easily. But, boy, do we know when our assumptions have been challenged. Because something, it's like, right there and then our beliefs are right below that. Some of them are above the line, some of them we're very clear about, I believe, such and such. Some of them are very murky and they're at the waterline, or they're below the waterline. And they're beliefs that we've held since we were children. We've never questioned them. We've never looked at them. What do you mean? It's not this way. That's just what I believe. And below that is our conditioning. That happens as we grow from the moment we're born. And until we are willing to go down below that surface and look at the beliefs and look at the conditioning, we're never going to be anything but what's at the top of that iceberg. And so that's why it's scary hard work, because we have to go below the surface, but when we are willing to. 

For me, I started not just a real self growth when I turned 50, but about three years ago, I hit a point where, because I said, I am in the evangelical Christian tradition, and I hit a point where I was like, oh, everything that I thought about the people in the hierarchy and the people that were teaching me and everything I thought about all the political aspects of this, that's wrong. And if that's wrong, is anything right? And I went through a full deconstruction. It took me about three years, but I call it a deconstruction reconstruction. And I'm still finding conditioning, and we always will. Once you start doing that work, you will notice as soon as someone says something to you, you'll feel this bodily response, and that's like, there's your conditioning and it just comes up. And I think because we think we're close to the end because we think we've done it, because we think we've got the answers and we like that feeling of security. We don't want to do the work. I think those are the biggest obstacles that keep us from moving forward.

Debra Jones: Yeah. In the healing realm, we call that state that you were talking about, the dark night of the soul, when everything just falls away and you are looking at yourself or at your life with brand new eyes. And it's scary. It's debilitating to some degree.

Andrea Johnson: I was on the floor in tears.

Debra Jones: Yeah, exactly.

Andrea Johnson: More times than I want to admit.

Debra Jones: Yeah, I've been there, too. But I find that that is the catalyst for the next chapter. Right. That's the catalyst that you have to kind of reach those depths to then come back up. It's like the bottom of the ocean. You got to then rise back up and get your air. And I think the work that you do and the work that I do are helping people to go faster, to get that air so that they can start to breathe, and then look around and see where you are.

Andrea Johnson: Right.

Debra Jones: It's like navigating, renavigating your life again.

Andrea Johnson: Right.

Debra Jones: What kinds of tools do you use to help people after they've taken that one breath and they see I'm in a whole new place, I don't know where I am. Help me. What kind of tools? What kind of help do you offer?

Andrea Johnson: I have three main tools, or four, I guess, that I use. And like we've mentioned, I am a Maxwell trained leadership coach. But I start with, if I can. I start with core values, which a lot of us like to think we know what our values are, but I start and tell them, it's not what's outside of you, it's what's inside of you. It's the principles that guide you. It's the principles that have affected and guided and somehow been a part of every decision, every argument, every good thing, every bad thing you've ever done, thought, or said. And people are like, are you serious? I'm like, yes. These are the guiding principles that guide you. So, when we know what our core values are, and that's a process, and I can share more about that in a little while, then I'm also a disk consultant, which. DISC is a behavioral analysis tool that helps us understand how we communicate to others and where we have gaps in our leadership style and teach us how to recognize patterns in communication. So, when you know your core values, then we work with a tool called DISC, which stands for the driver or the dominant, the influencer, the steady, and the compliant or creative. So, it's an acronym. And when we understand that each one of the. We have a little bit of each one of those in us, but we're a dominant in at least one of them. One of them, we fall in one of the quadrants. And when we understand what language we speak, then we can start recognizing how we can communicate our core values to those that are around us in ways that help us establish our boundaries without having to put the hand up, help us in our relationships without destroying them, because we're listening to people in different ways, help us build collaboration rather than competition. Those two tools alone are very helpful.

And I also use, as a Maxwell trained coach, I also have books that we walk through on leadership or communication, different things that, depending on the client what they might need. But my third piece is then taking it and saying how I do what I do. Is my six tenets of intentional optimism. And that's what I would just call a personal growth lifestyle. It's like I said when I sat down at 50, when my mother died. And there was this crucible. And I said, what do I even believe? What do I even think about myself? What do I even want to stand for? My mother was very clear where she stood on a lot of things. And I was always afraid to do that. And it gave me the opportunity to brain dump it all. And over the course of about a year, put it into six basic tenets. Which are optimistic, present, courageous, energetic, wise and intentional. And when I go to live out my core values. And communicate them in a way that others can receive. And I live present with joy and courage and resilience. And with hope for the future. But wise from the past. And where I'm going to go. That is like the recipe for me to be able to say, okay, I don't think I'm going to have. I may not have any regrets when I get to the end. But I offer those tools to my clients.

Debra Jones: Okay? So when somebody comes to you. Because they've reached that point where they're reviewing their life. You put them on track with some of the tools that you use. It's funny, my mind keeps going back to resistance. Because the work that I've been doing to better myself. I've learned so much. I've used human design, and I used Clifton strengths. And astrology, even. And I became an astrologer a couple of years ago. Just because it fascinated me. The information that you can gather. That is based on the truth. What's up there in the sky isn't lying to you, right? So you can actually trust it. But as far as all the things that I've been learning. It's great to have that knowledge. But the application of the knowledge is sometimes where I need some more assistance. Because I forget. Or I fall back to old patterns. Or there is resistance because of maybe fear. What can you talk to about the Resistance? How do we deal with resistance. To shifting and growing. To this kind of unknown person that we want to become or we feel we want to become. But it's not who we've been. So it's not very comfortable.

Andrea Johnson: I think the first thing I would say is, I think there's a resilience piece in there. And I talk about that a lot. And that's part of courage, is that it is a muscle that has to be developed and I don't remember who it is, that it's a quote that we've all heard in the healing and coaching sphere, but basically that which you resist persists. And to be reminded that if I'm resisting something, that means it's going to stick around because I'm giving it attention. And I practice that in my relationship with my about to be 15 year old son. And that's a really great place to practice it because it's live every day. But to recognize that for me, I am more interested in becoming than what I was. So it's that point, it's that tipping point where the fear or the hardship of staying where you are is worse than making the change to be something else. And that's what we do as coaches. Right, Debra? We hold people's hands. And I love to say this to potential clients because I find that I'm very drawn to women who have needed to do a deconstruction and want to do that reconstruction or need somebody to hold their hand and did the deconstruction. I had people who stood next to me. I had people who held my hand and said, wherever you go, I'm right here. It's okay. My husband was even like, I'm here, right? He's a pastor. So it was a scary thing. And so that is what I offer. Like I shared earlier, I shine a light on the path. I don't necessarily say, you have to be over here. It's like, I'm here and I've got this light. I'm willing to hold your hand. And so I think being able to either find a coach or find a friend or a loved one that's willing to do what I call gentle accountability. You said this is your goal. How are you doing with that? But you said this was your goal and you're doing this now. Not helpful. Not helpful. General accountability is finding people who and if you. I tell my clients this all the time. When you get your disc report and it tells you there's pages in there that tell you, this is how I like to be spoken to or communicated with. This is the stuff I bring to a group or these are my core values. I tell my clients, take those to your boss, take those to your spouse or your loved ones and say, I may not have known how to communicate this, but this is what I need. So that's another way that we use tools, which I think is brilliant, that we have them on paper. It's like you talked about things that are true. It's like something that's tangible, right? That we can say this is what it is, but being able to say to other people, I did this just this last week because I realized there was this major conditioning piece that was coming up for me, making me physically ill. Making me physically ill. And I was trying to figure out what it was. And when I finally did, I went straight to the people that I know I can trust and I said, I figured it out. My body thinks December is a dangerous month for me, and I'm learning to tell my body that it's not a dangerous month. And I just need you to know that's where I am and that if I seem anxious or whatever, all I need you to say to me is, you are safe. Wow. Or depending on where you are, God's got this, right? It's like, you are safe. And even my sister said, thank you so much. I had no idea what to say to you. So when we, as the grower, can say to others, I have this very small need and I'm letting you in my inner circle, that's a vulnerability piece. Right? So it's like people that you trust. So I think those are pieces that will help us, I hope work with resistance, either as coaches or as those who are growing.

Debra Jones: Yeah, no, I love that. And it's that transparency piece, too. Not pretending that we've got it all together or we know it all and just letting people in and just telling it like it is. I think there's so much freedom that comes from being honest with yourself and with those that you care about. And I do agree that it needs to be a trusted person. You're not letting everyone in the inner circle. The inner circle is small. It's those that have proven that they respect who you are and your feelings, because that can set you back. Right?

Andrea Johnson: Yeah. And I will say this. There are days that the safe person that I talk to is the woman in the mirror. Right. I may not voice it to anybody else, but I talk to the woman in the mirror because she gets me. She's right there with me. And being able to say things out loud takes some of their power away. And that's where I started with this particular incident that I shared. It's like my body thinks I'm not safe. Dear body, you are safe. Right. Thank you. And then I just said, thank you so much for getting me to 57 years and for reminding me that many times December is not a safe month for me, but this year it actually is. And I know you think that I need to have my armor on, and I know you think that I need to look for things that could possibly go wrong, but I think we're okay this month. And so just sometimes doing that and Then even asking yourself serious questions is what I am dealing with and resisting, or the thoughts that I'm having about it or the resistance I have about it, what's real, what's logical and what's true, because many times whatever we've got going on in here will not pass muster of at least one of those things. And so that's the other piece. Use.

Debra Jones: Yeah, that's. That's really cool. That's cool, Andrea. So my question to kind of wrap this up and also to share anything else that you think our listeners want to know, what advice do you have for someone who's just starting out on their journey of their self discovery and achieving new goals or a new life path? What advice do you have for them?

Andrea Johnson: Well, for sure, start if you haven't yet, if you're just thinking about it, start. Even if it's just one step, just do something, even if it's a new thought. Right. Start. But the next piece is be gentle because it's taken you a lot to get to this place, or all of a sudden something has slapped you in the face and you're like, oh, my goodness, I have to change. Right? But be gentle and be kind to yourself, because I say this to my clients all the time, and every time I say it, they go, oh, that's right. We only know what we know when we know it. So for those of us post 50 who are doing a major change, and for me, it was deconstruction, reconstruction and personal growth and changing my job. I wanted to kick myself so much for the things I thought, said, did, believed, espoused, promoted, and there is a very real place for lament, and we need to do that. But it doesn't need to be something that we hold on to. You only know what you know when you know it. So be willing to lament, decide to change, and take one step at a time.

Debra Jones: Great advice. I use the same idea as far as why are you berating yourself for not knowing something that you didn't know? The decisions that you made were based on the information you had at the time.

Andrea Johnson: Right.

Debra Jones: And then that light bulb goes on.

Andrea Johnson: You've seen it, too.

Debra Jones: Exactly. So then you have created something for our listeners especially to go to. And I'll put a link in the show notes. Would you like to share with us.

Andrea Johnson: What that is, certainly I love working with people from the inside out. Most of us need to start from the outside in, but if you're willing to start from the inside out, it will move faster for you. And so that is starting on your core values. And it's a core values exercise. It's a simple download. If you just go to www.TheIntentionalOptimist.com/grey spelled with an E, because every time I put it in my notes, it says, that's wrong. And I'm like, it's not wrong. You just don't know how to spell it this way, but spell grey with an E and it should get you straight to the page where you can download a one to two page simple exercise for you to start the journey of your core values. Included in there are instructions what core values are and what they aren't. How to be in touch with me. I do have a higher level, like I have mid and high levels working with core values. I do have a digital course that you can also do that's just a little bit more guidance. And I do have a hybrid program that I'm beta testing, and I would love to have more people participating in that where you get access to the course and you work with me in four separate Zoom calls or more if necessary, to kind of work through the stuff. Some people, if you've done human design, you understand I'm a pure generator 63. So I know that this is why I love podcast interviews, because half the time I'm making notes because I'm coming up with new things as we talk based on your questions. And so if you're somebody who needs that back and forth that's available, but just starting with your core values, you may be surprised. And I'm just going to say, if it's outside of you, it's not a core value, it's something you value. So if people say faith, family and country, I'm like, no, try again. Go with what's inside, Debra. Let's go with what's inside. Andrea.

Debra Jones: Yeah, that's brilliant. And I'm always curious, when you are no longer here on earth, what would you want to have been known for?

Andrea Johnson: I think today, asking me this question today, I would like to be known for the idea that anybody that came within any circle that I was involved in was welcomed and felt like they belonged. That, to me, is. That's my second core value of my top three. Belonging. And coming to that realization helped me understand my longing for community. It helped me understand my longing for acceptance. And the other thing about core values is they're not just for me. They're also for anybody around me. So that's another way you can know whether it's a core value for you. It's a principle that holds true 360. And so for me to be able to say if we're looking at my headstone or my gravestone, we all felt like we know around Andrea, that would be ultimate for me.

Debra Jones: This episode of Own the Grey is brought to you by I AM. Discover your unique talents, realize your potential, and align to your path. Take the first step to uncover your life purpose by visiting www.DebraJones.ca/courses.