19 Transcript: Creating a Life You Love (with Amber Lilyestrom)

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J: You’re listening to the Vibrant Happy Women podcast, episode number 19.

A: I’m happiest when I slow down and listen to my inner being and fully appreciate the opportunity that is my life.

Intro: Welcome to the Vibrant Happy Women podcast, stories of vibrant women living happy lives. And now, your host, Jen Riday.

J: Thanks for joining us on Vibrant Happy Women, I'm Jen Riday, your host. On our last episode, I spoke with Kimberly Bost about high-vibe living. “What's high-vibe living?” you might ask, well, go back to that episode and listen and you'll find out; it's a great topic that everyone should know about. So I wanted to let you know about a challenge that we have going on in the Vibrant Happy Women community starting on July 25th and that is ‘the moms 5-day sanity saver meditation challenge’. Who’s the challenge for? Well, anyone really, but especially moms who are feeling stressed out with the kids home all summer, feeling unbalanced lacking ‘me time’, this is for you. You can sign up for the challenge (and, again, it's free) by going to jenriday.com/challenge. It starts on July 25th and you'll get a free guided meditation audio in your inbox every day of the challenge. The meditations are quick and easy, 5 to 10 minutes, and they'll start your day off right, and you're going to find that your day goes so much better when you start it with meditation. Even if you've never meditated before, this is for beginners through experts. It's a fun opportunity for us moms to join together in a cause that brings us more peace. So, again, sign up by going to jenriday.com/challenge.

On today's episode, I'll be talking with Amber Lilyestrom about how she is creating a life that she loves. Amber has some great stories to share with us about how she found the courage to leave the corporate world and change careers and also finding her dream home. Amber's really an upbeat fun person and I think you're really going to enjoy this episode.

Okay, Vibrant Happy Women, let's get started. I'm thrilled to introduce my guest today, Amber Lilyestrom. So Amber is a soul based branding business and clarity coach. She is also a podcast host and her podcast is called the Soul Fueled CEO, so you'll have to check that out, and she helps entrepreneurs turn their… their passions into soul centered brands and thriving businesses. Amber lives in New Hampshire in her dream home on a lake with her husband, Ben, and daughter, Anni. Welcome, Amber.

A: Thank you so much, and I'm so excited to be here.

J: Thanks for taking the time to talk with us; this is going to be fun. So we'd like to start off our podcast with a favorite quote, so do you have one to share with us today?

A: I do and, you know, it was like thinking about all these different quotes, I… really simple one, just a really simple one and it's, “Be where your feet are.”

J: Ooh, I love that, “Be where your feet are.”

A: Yeah.

J: So are there ways you've been able to apply that in your life?

A: So many ways, but yeah, I think it's an… over and over, it's just a daily practice from moments when I'm changing my daughter's diaper to being on a client call to, you know, doing my journaling, just having conversation my husband, just whatever I'm doing in my life, one of my… my chief goals is to be fully present for the life experience that I'm… that I'm having. And that's just a cool little mantra that I just run through my brain around being where my feet are and just enjoying the process of the present.

J: Mm-hmm, enjoying that diaper change, right? (Laughs)

A: That's right, that's right. Because, you know what? Those days are numbered and so… and I don't mean that in a, you know, a super nostalgic, you know, sappy kind of way, but just in a way that, you know, this is such a special time in her life and in mine, you know, as this… this young mom, right, this newer mom. And… and I and I know, one day, I'll look back and go, “Oh, I want to… I miss that!” you know, just miss those moments, so I want to be where my feet are.

J: Yeah, I love that.

A: Yeah.

J: So let's jump into our next topic, your low point. Every woman has a low point and most of us have lots of them, but tell us about a low point that you want to share with us today.

A: Yeah. I think the one that's really resonating with my… with my story now as this mama-preneur that I am and business owner was the first day back after maternity leave. And I remember… back to my corporate career. So I used to work in collegiate athletics, I was there for a decade, I was really successful in the industry and I was really just kind of a rising star in that space. And I knew come back after maternity leave that I didn't… I didn't want to do that anymore, but I didn't know what I wanted to do. And so it was this really sort of dark moment day where I came home, I was exhausted, it was… I felt like I was an alien when I was back at the office, I felt like nobody really understood me anymore, that I had changed so much, and I was like, “Geez, you know, I was so passionate about this place before and everything we were doing and now I'm back and it just… it's just not jiving and it just doesn't feel like this is what I was called to do,” and… but I didn't know what the answer was. And I remember dragging myself in the door, my mother-in-law was there taking care of Anni and I just kind of, you know, just fell into her arms and I was crying, “Oh gosh!” you know, “I don't know what I'm going to do. This just feels like, you know, I don't have the answers and I'm so frustrated,” and it was just like a really… it was just a really hard day, you know, it's just a really dark and hard day and I was really emotional; and, you know, we can get to the next part, I guess. But that was… that was the really kind of a low point in a moment of just saying, “I can't. I can't continue like this, I can't. This is not how my life is going to go.”

J: Okay, so what happened next?

A: Yeah, so what happened next was I just basically made an agreement with myself and it took some time, but on December 31st of 2013, I wrote a letter to myself. In that letter, I outlined really specifically what I wanted my life to look like and what it was like. I was writing it from the vantage point of, “This is already happening,” so it was an ‘as if’ kind of a letter, and I do this now every New Year's Eve. And it's… my husband and I do it together and this just really cool ritual. And… and I wrote this letter to myself and I just decided that 2014 was going to be the year I was going to leave my corporate career and I was going to launch my business. And at that time, I literally did not even know what I was going to do. I didn't know how, I knew I was going to be a coach, I figured it might involve, you know, my expertise of marketing and branding that I had been doing my professional career for a decade, but I didn't have the specifics nailed down. And then, you know, just slowly but surely, it took inspired action steps each day, even when it was hard. And on May, you know, I wrote down for… as I was preparing for our conversation today that May 17th, 2014, I had vividly down how I wanted my mornings to look like; it was like my ideal day scenario. And on May 17, 2014, I woke up and it was literally like exactly that morning. I was… it was my first day of being my own boss. I had my quote-unquote ‘retirement party’ the day before my corporate job. I was awake and the Sun is coming through the window, I'm… you know, it was like, it was an easy wakeup, it wasn't an alarm or stress. I could hear my daughter in her crib, it was time to get up or have breakfast. I could wear whatever I wanted to wear, I didn't have to put on the work clothes or the heels or any of that and run around, and it was just this perfect illustration of really visualizing what I wanted for my life and believing in it, and even when it was hard, not stopping that belief and just continuing to take action steps towards it every single day. And I've never… and I haven't looked back

since, you know, I've just… I'm so, so grateful to get to be… to have my own business and to be home with my daughter and to serve in the way that I get to serve.

J: Hmm, I love that. And I can just hear whatever… what our listeners are thinking and that is, let's say they have an idea of something they'd like to do, but they're afraid to jump into that place or afraid to jump into it, what advice would you give them?

A: Yeah. I think it's getting really clear about what you really want and… and you don't have to know, you know, “I want to have a photography business,” you know, you don't have to get down to that… that level of specificity, but I think you do have to have an idea of the feeling state you want to be in and… and then slowly, but surely the more you practice that, the more the details will sort of fall into place and the opportunities will arrive in your life and you'll have those intuitive hits to say, “You know what? This is… this is what I should be doing and this feels good.” Follow your curiosity, go down that pathway with it, let yourself be the creator that you are. And then from the mechanic's standpoint, because it's all fine and good to be all super inspired and all that and aligned and… and that's… that is the most important part; let me just make sure I solidify and say that. But the next part is, take those inspired action steps to get the mechanics laid out which means, you know, my husband I had a hard look at our finances and we made this like epic spreadsheet of, “This is what our income looks like with my… with me in my job and with me not in my job,” and we were in the red. So it was like there was no real option there to… for me to just like quit and not have a plan, but we knew what it was. And so then, I was able to start to really focus in on, “Okay, what's my number?” and then as I was building my business and building these products and services and these… these coaching packages, it was like, “What does that translate into the number of clients I need to work with? You know, how many hours a week would I need in a part-time job?” You know, let's get really specific about those details so that it doesn't seem so big and impossible. You know, I’m… find out what it's going to take to have your own benefits if that's something you need to figure out. Without knowing that information, then we can't take any step forward. So that was a big… that was a really big part of that process for us.

J: Hmm, okay. The first part of that formula, you mentioned shifting into the feeling state you want to be in, can you elaborate more on how someone would do that?

A: Yeah. So the good news is, is that we are in control of how we feel; we are absolutely in control of how we feel all the time. Everything else is simply conditions and those conditions evoke an emotional state, but we still have the opportunity to influence that emotional state. And so if you are wanting to attract more abundance and you are wanting to attract a feeling of freedom in your life, well then, feel free, you know, do things that help you feel more free. Feel… revel in… be appreciative of all of the blessings that you have already and just really be present with… with what you can create in your life around what already exists. And I think it's like, this is part of the reason why it's so challenging for lottery winners, right, because they're just… they've lived in this scarcity mindset and then all of a sudden, they're just… there's this whole pile of money that's dumped on them and then they're like, “I don't know what to do with it and they, they're still operating that sort of old mindset and so it doesn't work, right? That's why you hear about so many of these folks losing their… their whole fortune really quickly. And so I think it's just this matter of practicing, you know, just it's a really… it's a daily practice. And… and that's why I talk about being present with myself and asking myself, you know, “What do I need to feel right now and how can I… how can I honor that feeling right now in this moment?” No matter what it is, whether, again, if you're changing a diaper, whether you're sitting in a cubicle, whether you're sitting in traffic, you get to decide how you respond and react to the situation.

J: Mm-hmm, choosing to feel abundant, choosing to feel successful and…

A: Yeah.

J: … choosing to feel happy; all of those things we want.

A: Yes, yeah, all the time, because you know what, Jen? That's really… that is the greatest project of our life, happiness is really the greatest work of our life because without… what else do we have ultimately?

J: Mm-hmm.

A: And that was a big shift and a nuance for me to recognize that I want to be unconditionally happy, I want to be unconditionally present, I want to be unconditionally grateful. And just that in and of itself is… it just creates this release and then a really powerful shift.

J: So unconditional gratitude, let's go there a little bit. Let's say life isn't happening the way you want it, how do you choose to be grateful, but still move your life in the direction you want it to go?

A: Yeah, so I like to use the… the technique that Abraham Hicks talks about a lot around zooming out. So I… and I literally, like I always use my hand, I'm doing it right now while I'm talking to you. So when you get more general and you get more… more general with the conditions and less specific, it's easier to be grateful. So it's like I'm in a job that I don't love, but I have a job that provides me with… and this is really what I did. I'm in a job that provides me with the benefits and the paycheck every, you know, other week or whatever so that I can fund my dream and I can continue to plan and work on what I want to work on in the pockets of my day, which at that time were tiny, teeny, teeny pockets because I was working such a full time crazy job. But I was just… I was able to just zoom back out on that and find the gratitude. And then, you know, I'm human, so I would get in it, you know, I'd be there and I'd be really frustrated, but I would just have these… these little mantras to really just zoom myself back out and say, “Okay, I'm grateful, you know, I have this job I have this education that allows me to get this job and… and the… the skills and the resources to figure out what it is I want to do and the opportunity to meet and welcome the right people on my path to serve me, to move me forward on… on this journey that I want.” And I think we can find appreciation in any moment, truly, we really can in any moment, even the hardest moments. Because when we feel pain, pain is just simply an illustration of the absence of love and I think, even when I think about… you know, this is like going really deep, but even when I think about, you know, a loved one that's ill and it has a terminal diagnosis, it's really hard, like it's really, really difficult to put words to that. But the reason why… and this is where I go is, the reason why it hurts so much is because the love is so deep. And I am so grateful for that, I am so appreciative of having the opportunity and the experience in my life to love someone that deeply.

J: That is brilliant.

A: Yeah.

J: You can find something to be grateful for in every situation.

A: Yes.

J: Hmm. So you're a coach, tell us more about what you do for people.

A: Yeah, so… so I like to say really, in a nutshell, I help people come home to themselves, and in doing so, they are able to come home to their loved ones and they are able to be more present more, you know, just joyful and just the best version of themselves as a result. And what I mean by, “I help them come home to themselves,” it's really around getting crystal-clear on, “What makes you tick? What makes you feel alive? What thrills you? What is your gift to this world and how can we translate that into work, essentially, or a life experience that is going to be fulfilling to you?” And so there's… there's so much deep work and then in it really… it's kind of like wrapped around this idea of branding. And I kind of look at branding in a very different… through a different lens than what you might just read in like a textbook, but branding, to me, is… is our sacred opportunity to show up as ourselves and it's… it's a sacred opportunity to express ourselves in the world through branding identity elements which are like, you know, your digital… something like this podcast, right? All these things are opportunities and mediums through which we can communicate our message with the world. And so that's the work that I do with people as a coach, we… through sessions and then through even some design work depending upon what the client's needs are. But it's a really intimate process and it's transformational, it's… it's really sort of life coaching wrapped in brand and business coaching.

J: Okay, so if a woman wants to start a business, do you take her from 0 to 100 or…?

A: Yes.

J: Wow, that's great.

A: Mm-hmm.

J: You helped her get clarity on what she wants to do and then to build that brand and… and also the nuts and bolts…

A: Yep.

J: … like finances. Hmm, that’s…

A: Yeah, (unclear) [16:37] plan…

J: … a great service.

A: … the whole kit and caboodle, we’ll, you know, do your logo and help you write copy and all that stuff, while keeping in mind the entire time, sort of like this crusader that I am, we design it in the way that it's going to align best for you and really position you to be your best self; like that is… that's the non-negotiable and that's what is the golden thread that runs through all of the work that I do with my clients.

J: Wow, that's great. So tell us more about what it's like for you to be an entrepreneur and a mom and to balance those 2 things.

A: Yeah, it's a dance, you know, and I think the work that I… that I really am committed to is remembering… remembering those… the ‘why’ and remembering those stories of… of my former self and how deeply I yearned for this. And so when… you know, it's easy sometimes to get kind of caught up in the swirl of everything that's happening and in progress and wanting to kind of really fast track and move things forward, but remembering that that's not the point ultimately. You know, I want to be successful in my business, but my definition of success looks different than maybe someone else is. And so my definition of success is being… being present for my daughter and being part of her life and as much as I possibly can, while also growing a business that fulfills me and helps me thrive and grow. But when it starts to feel like it's too much one way or the other, then I have to just kind of have… check in with myself about it, you know, and make sure that I have enough of that time to go take care of me and have that creative outlet and that opportunity to connect with other women in the way that I do, but also recognizing that I have to weave that into the pockets of my day. You know, and right now, it's nap time while we're doing this interview and that is… that's really how I run my business is pretty well in in the moments when my daughter is asleep which is 2 hours a day and then when she goes to bed at night. It's a moving target, but that is… I think I love to talk about that because I really want to show women that it is possible, that you literally can create a successful business, at least a coaching business in the pockets of your day.

J: Hmm, okay so if a woman wanted to start up a business, what's the minimum startup cost that would be involved for a website and maybe hosting and stuff like that?

A: That's a great question. I am a huge supporter and… and fan of the of the tool Squarespace, which is a sort of all in one website solution.

J: Mm-hmm.

A: And so I… I really… I do a lot of my build outs mostly predominantly on Squarespace for my clients because what I find is that most of my clients are coming from other disciplines and so website maintenance and building is not their first skill and it's not their forte. My goal is to show them that you can use this really easy to use platform, have a really great looking website, and still, you know, make a big impact on the world and connect with your clients. And so the startup cost over there somewhere around… ooh, I'm not remembering exactly at the top my head, but it's just… I think it's over… just a bit over $100 (maybe $120 or something like that) for the year and it includes hosting, it includes, you know, a certain number of pages, which is pretty much unlimited storage, and it… they even, on the business account, will weave in a business email address and it's just… it's an incredible tool. And I think building a website is an important part in the process, obviously to communicate your message, get yourself out there, but I think for us internally, it helps us get really clear on what it is we're communicating into the world from a branding perspective and also from a services perspective and it helps us legitimate… (that words a really difficult one) gives us more credibility internally for ourselves around our idea and what we're actually launching out into the world.

J: Hmm.

A: So to answer your question more specifically, $200, I mean…

J: Yeah, it's not bad.

A: 200 bucks like…

J: Yeah.

A: … rock and roll, yeah.

J: Have business for 200, that's amazing, mm-hmm.

A: Yeah, really, truly. I mean, that's how I… that's how I started so, yeah.

J: Great. Alright, Amber, so we've reached a the fun part, the most fun part of our show, which is hearing about your favorite things.

A: Great.

J:The nitty-gritty. So share a favorite personal habit that contributes to your success.

A: Writing every day. I have these moleskin journals that are like my little personal Bibles, you know I… some… in some moment, whether it's before bed or first thing in the morning, I'm writing, I'm just writing, I'm journaling, I'm talking to myself in my journal and about what's going on. And I think being able to have that conversation with myself is… it's a game changer, it helps me expand into the places I need to as a… as a coach and also, it's just a profound way for me to continue to do my work.

J: Mm-hmm. And would you say you do a brain dump or also just some analysis of what you're feeling?

A: Yeah, it depends on the day. Sometimes, I start with like my own sort of, you know, manufactured writing prompts or things like, “I am,” or, “I believe,” or, “What does my soul… what does my soul need today?” I mean, like that's the letter, it's very open-ended kind of stuff, you know, it's not… it's not super strategic. But ironically, a lot of times, many of my blog posts are born on those pages because I just kind of go there and I share stories about what… you know, what's happening in my life and in my day and how I'm interfacing with it, and that has just been… it's been a real game-changer since I started committing to that practice every… every day since about March of last year, I've really noticed in my business, from a revenue standpoint, but just from a connection standpoint and being more on purpose in my work and really attracting the… the clients that I know that I can serve the best.

J: Hmm. And what's a favorite easy meal that you like to eat regularly?

A: Yeah, I'm totally hot to trot lately. When I put my daughter down for her nap, I make these green smoothies and I have this like vegan protein powder that I love. I'm not vegan, but, you know, I like… I like the idea of it. So I make these fruit and kind of, you know, green smoothies that are the recipes borrowed from one of my friends owns a local café, a vegan café, and she's… and it… I love it and I love that I can just make this at home and I whip that up and then I just come in and I sit down I get to work and I have that and just really fits into my… my lifestyle.

J: Do you have a recipe for us that we could share on the blog…

A: Yeah.

J: … on the show notes?

A: Totally. Do you want me to say it now?

J: Sure.

A: Okay. So basically, I don't really like rules so I like to just kind of free flow of things. But like a handful of spinach, I like to do like one stalk of kale because kale’s got a pretty intense flavor to it, a 3/4 of a cup of frozen mango, some almond milk like, you know, it's really to your preference, but I would probably say, I don't know, start with… with 10 ounces, 8 ounces, and then a little dash of cinnamon and blend that up… oh, and a banana (and a… and a full banana) and blend that… blend that baby up and taste it and then you can kind of tweak it according to, you know, your taste preference. Sometimes, I’ll throw strawberries in there too, it just depends on the day.

J: Yum.

A: So good, so good.

J: Okay. What's your current favorite household item?

A: It's my house. (Laughs)

J: Hmm.

A: My favorite household… so my home, we live on the New Hampshire seacoast and we are… we're just nestled in this little divine spot that 6 and a half years ago, my husband and I completely fell in love with. We were… we were dating at the time, we weren't married, and we were kayaking with friends who live on our lake and we came upon it and saw the ‘for sale’ sign. And just like being curious people, knowing that we were like… we were going to be together, you know, that we really liked each other and we just curiously said, “Oh, is that… your house is for sale?” and they said, “Yeah, you want to come have a tour?” and we were like, “Okay.” And they took us up and we met the owners and we did this tour and we really just imprinted on this place and we never forgot about it. Life went forward, we moved in, we bought a house in 2009 and, you know, got married a little ways after that and… and then just magically, this past summer in 2015, it was around this time I stumbled across this listing on… and I just was like, “It's our house. Our house is for sale, we have to do this.” And it was kind of crazy because I was… I was now self-employed and it hadn't even been 2 years and to be pre-approved for a mortgage and all that, it was like I didn't know how this was going to happen, but it was; it did. Somehow, we sold our home in 9 days, we put in a full price offer on this home, they accepted it, and it was like the wheels are in motion and… and here we are. So every day, I look out on the water, we have loons that live on this lake which are just like such a spiritual, powerful animal to me; they're a bird, if people are not sure with a common loon…

J: (Laughs)

A: … if that's not where you live. They're just these amaz… these amazing birds. And I go kayaking and I go inward and I just have… you know, bring my little phone out there with some music and the waterproof bag and I and I just go out there and I do a little my own processing of meditation. And I'm just so home, I'm just so at home here and I feel like I can really just unfurl into who I am and into my being, and it's just…

J: Mm.

A: I'm so profoundly grateful.

J: So let me make sure I understand correctly, you saw the house and then…

A: Mm-hmm.

J: … they sold it to someone else at that time.

A: Yes.

J: And then 2 years later, it was up for sale again and you happened to see the ad?

A: Yeah, yeah. So it was 2 thousand… they sold it then in 2000, whatever year that was, I think was 2008 or 9, and then they… yeah. (Laughs)

J: Wow.

A: Those people lived here for about 6, 7 years and then they were like… I think of it as like, they were just like protecting it for us; they were just keeping it for us.

J: Oh, oh, wow.

A: And… and they lived in it sort of like as a seasonal property too.

J: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

A: So they weren't full-time living here, and so it just… it's such a cool story. And then… and then it happened and really amazing enough to add on to, my brother and his fiancée are going to get married here in October, which just like brings it so full circle.

J: Mm.

A: Like what a special… you know, what a special gesture and it just…

J: Yeah

A: … you know, makes me just well up when I think about it.

J: You can never move, it's true. (Laughs)

A: No, no, we’re here, this is home.

J: Oh, nice. What's a favorite book that you'd recommend to the Vibrant Happy Women community?

A: Okay, so this is a… this is a good one, right, I mean, because it's just infinite. I love the book… I didn't write this down because I want to see what came up today, and here's what it is. There's this book called ‘The Game of Life and How to Play It’ by a woman named Florence Scovel Shinn; S h i n n. And she has this sort of compilation that you can get on Amazon and you can probably put the link up, but it's just this really powerful book around manifestation and the power of the spoken word and it's really kind of a law of attraction type book; it's an old book. And I… it's like on my nights and it's one of those books that I just… I find myself just cracking it open and reading it all the time, you know, just to kind of like reset and reconnect, and it really shifted the way that I'm thinking. And I… when I first started reading it, I actually did like a little, at the time, Periscope challenge where I started reading this book and within… I was… I like, very intentionally decided I was just going to manifest $5000 in a week. And I would… just like a sort of arbitrary goal, but I was like, “I'm just going to do this,” and I did it. And so I think that it's really powerful in that realm of like abundance in law of attraction and it's just a great… it's a really great book.

J: Okay, we’ll check that out. What's a favorite item on your bucket list and why?

A: Super timely and poignant, one of my bucket list items is I really want to do a keynote address at my alma mater when I am down the path, you know, when I've written some books; I'm in the process of writing my first book now. And I drove through this weekend and I… and I visualize because it was graduation and we live 2 seconds from my… where I went to school. And… and I just…. I want to be able to kind of give back in that way. I want to… I want to share from the vantage point of like having been in those seats and having no idea and having this thought about how life is supposed to go now and thinking that I had to play by all these rules and I did and I did them really well, but I always knew that there was a deeper calling and… and something else inside of me and it took a while for me to get that, and actually took… it took me having a near-death experience during my daughter's birth of stopping breathing on the operating room table. And I think that I just want to share that, you know, from being someone who is so profoundly grateful for all that that institution gave to me in my life and being able to

come back and share that from that place, it just feels so exciting to me so that's one of my bucket list items.

J: Hmm, that's an impressive goal actually, I'm thinking. (Laughs)

A: Yeah, yeah. Hey, well, you know, you got a dream big, right?

J: Yeah, I like that. What's the best advice you've ever received?

A: You know, I go back to this one all the time. So my dad said to me at one point, “You've only got you for the rest of your life so (in my dad's eloquent way) you've got to find a way to like yourself. You got to find a way to get along with you and celebrate you.” And that was just really profound advice because it's so easy to just get caught up in worrying so much about what other people think and making big life decisions based upon other people's opinions or our perceptions of their opinions. And I just go back to that over and over and over again that, you know, I have to pick myself for my own team; we all do. We have to pick ourselves first for our own teams if we want to be the highest version of ourselves and the person that it… that we truly… the person that we truly were meant to be. So… so good old dad was just really, really powerful advice that I'll be forever grateful for.

J: Hmm, that's great advice. So, “You've only got you for the rest of your life and you got to like yourself,” is that how it goes?

A: Yes, you got… you got to find a way to… you got to find a way to like you, to celebrate you.

J: Looking back on your life so far, tell us about your happiest moment.

A: There are just so many, and I think you probably hear that a lot. I think the most recent most happy moment, happiest moment, would be Easter Sunday, we were here at the house and we hosted… we hosted Easter and everyone was here in our family from, you know, our… just our core, core family. And just that moment of like we're here together, you know, and I'm a mom, you know, and… and my mom's here and Ben's mom's here and it's… you know, I think in these moments, especially having someone who is ill and our family, it's… you just think about, “We're all here right now,” you know, and I… and I just really was present for that. And, you know, it… that may not happen again, and I don't mean that in a negative way, but it was like I got to fully be there. So I think that's it, you know, just like seeing my daughter's joy for her grandparents and for us and, you know, for her uncle all that. It's just… this is what… this is what life is all about, you know, this is what life is all about.

J: Yeah.

A: And so to be able to create the… the space and to have those moments to cherish with… with the people we love the most is… is everything to me.

J: Mm-hmm, life's all about those connections.

A: Yeah.

J: You can find links to everything Amber's been talking about in this episode by going to jenriday.com/19. We'll have a link to the book and we'll have that recipe listed there. So, Amber, now we’ve reached our final and most important question, the happiness formula. If you had to create a formula of 3 to 5 actions, beliefs or ideas that maximize your happiness, what would that include?

A: I'm happiest when I slow down and listen to my inner being and fully appreciate the opportunity that is my life.

J: Hmm, slow down, listen, and appreciate; thank you for sharing that.

A: You’re welcome.

J: I've loved listening to what you have to share today and your ideas, you're a super inspiring person and you just radiate an amazing energy.

A: Thank you.

J: Thank you. Give the Vibrant Happy Women community a parting challenge and then share the best way we can reach out to you.

A: Sure. So I would love to challenge the audience to… to write out a list of your heart's true desires. And I think that one of the things we don't do enough is give ourselves permission to really want what we want outside of the framework of what our life looks like right now. So I want to challenge you to dream really big and to talk about that keynote address, if that's what it is, and to put out that… that big goal. And it honestly should be a little bit embarrassing, but in the most beautiful way. And so I challenge you all to do that and I'm so excited to hear what some of those hearts desires look like and… you know, and then we can talk about it from there. But… so that's that, and then you can find me over at amberlilyestrom.com.

J: Perfect. So if we wanted to email you, it's amber@amberlilyestrom.com?

A: Yep, that's right.

J: And that's your website as well, great.

A: Yes, yeah.

J: Thank you so much, I've really enjoyed everything you shared, Amber. Take care, Amber.

A: Thank you.

J: Thanks so much for joining us today on Vibrant Happy Women. And be sure to join me next time when I talk with Esther Littlefield about how self-care and gratitude can improve our marriages and relationships. Also, if you haven't already, be sure to sign up for the free ‘moms 5-day sanity saver meditation challenge’ by going to jenriday.com/challenge. Talk to you next time and take care.

Outro: Thanks for listening to the Vibrant Happy Women podcast at www.jenriday.com.