Not By Chance Podcast
Not By Chance Podcast
Sherry Fernandez: Love Your Kids Hard
Sherry Fernandez was a hippy turned business woman. With insane drive and
There are as many ways to parent as there are parents in this world. But there is one way to parent that wins every time. And that's doing it intentionally. This show is about helping things go right before they can go wrong. Each episode is chosen to help parents like you, who may be overwhelmed or uninspired. Find the ideas and motivation to give their best efforts to the people and place that matters the most. I'm Dr. Tim, Thayne, author of the book and host of the podcast, not by chance, I believe that a family's success and happiness is not by chance. So welcome to the podcast built especially for intentional families. Let's jump in. Well, I am really excited to be back here on the not by chance podcast with Sherry Fernandez. She's a Best Selling Author of Life Mastery, personal progression toward an infinite potential. And Sherry, I am drawn to the subtitle personal progression toward an infinite potential. I think that's kind of the purpose of life is for us to grow and develop. And in in the first part of your book, you you say something about happiness. And I'd love to have you tell us a little bit about just real quick this thought of, of self mastery, how that relates to happiness?
Sherry:Yeah, you know, that question comes a lot of when I speak, sometimes I'll ask people, What do you think you was? What's the key to happiness or whatever, it's so much easier to explain the reverse, like, everybody knows, if you're stuck, or you're dead, you know, you're, you're saying we say stuck, I'm stuck, I can't move forward. Or really, we're backsliding because no one's stuck, right, you're either moving forward or backward. We know that that's unhappiness, it can be depression, it can be lots of things. The opposite is true, when we're moving towards, we all have this infinite potential that will never reach in this life. And when we're moving towards that, we're happy. And when we're not, we're not happy. And it's just that simple. What's really cool about it, though, and amazing to me is I have to just take a few little steps forward, and the happiness comes. And then of course, more you take the more of happiness, but you can turn things around. So quickly, by just moving forward, taking some steps forward.
Dr. Tim Thayne:That's a really true principle and definitely brings hope, when you when you say it that way,
Sherry:it just has to be a little steps to it. I think we think, especially in this instant gratification world that we think we can just get from here to there that 30 pounds, or he just get that education, I can just I can just do what the state I guess could just get over there. And the key is you just start taking little steps there. Everything is supposed to be in big jumps. But it's not. There's no big steps, and there's not no big jumps to anywhere, all there are little steps that you have to be there before the happiness comes happiness comes in the process, or is it the process where the happiness comes?
Dr. Tim Thayne:You know, I learned that on the farm. You know, there are so many principles on the farm that are true. One quick example of that is we decided to get into hogs and raise pigs and sell the Whole Foods Market. And so you buy your first 20 females and you try to grow your herd and they do have a lot of babies pretty quick. But but it's all the food you got to feed them and the nurturing and protecting them against all the diseases they might have or, and finally you get that first letter. But then it's another year or so before they're ready to go to market. And the same thing is true with crops, you can plant the seed and you still have to do all the work in between all these little steps, but at the end of the harvest, that's months away. And but but that process is really can be a joyful journey. It's you can't skip steps. You can't just click your fingers and say, I want a full field of alfalfa hay. You got to go through the work. And before I go too far here, Sherry, I want to do justice to you and your your background. And, and you've got quite an interesting story. It's not a typical story. As far as you know, someone that's become really successful in a lot of ways in her life that didn't start out so much that way. And I would love to hear have the audience hear a little bit of your backstory. And then we're gonna get into some of the principles in your book and specifically, try and help some of the parents out there listening, tap into some of this success principles that you've learned and apply it in that most important role as a parent. So let's start with your story.
Sherry:So I graduated from high school was just kind of left adrift at 17. And I just it was the it was the sex drugs and rock and roll there. It just told me wasn't I just looked good to me and, and that's where I lived, you know, and for years and got a little bit of the drinking problem it was, you know, it was just starting to really get me unmet kin and I have a child in there i but me Can we fall in love we can marry but we are not used to saying, you know, we met the same culture we did not all those years of personal growth that you get education and all that kind of stuff. We just parted out all the ways to now we get married, we just pour them dirt. And nobody would have given to Salesforce. I mean, eBay going to our wedding had to pick up chicken they had gone. What in the world, you know, we didn't really have people here to speak of not much. And we just got married here and got married, but the people one died. Now they were just thinking all this. And we did was really hard. Ken would work two jobs. And I was doing daycare job and be home with my baby. It wasn't very long before I was pregnant again. We had another one we eventually had six. But I I just knew that they we were above we were we both fell. I don't think we even knew about each other before we got married. And we were too busy with other things, I guess. But we both really felt that we were above our circumstance. We weren't we could. We were better than that. And I picked up a book. That's an old one. Now it was new at the time, called see at the top by Zig Ziglar was at my mom's house. She was gonna read it she was much better off than we were. So I read that book. And we just started this journey of I said, I know I can have I wanted. I want people to have babies and to have a sexy rocking body all my life. But I wanted to be sexy and have babies every woman wants that right. And I wanted to have this being eating living hand to mouth was not fun. We we weren't miserable because we were happy with each other and our little family but I wanted to be have. And Ken We both want financial freedom to do it. We don't want to live like that. And I want to make up for the education and it's not formal. But I wanted to I would been a debater high school, I was smart. And I wanted to learn all the things I didn't get to learn. There was just a spiritually, I wanted to reach spiritual life, I wanted everything. And I really believed I could have it, I just needed to apply the principles, I think he could do like it. So I went on this journey and came to this a little own kind of path. And we sort of shared what we learned. We just started making changes and developing different habits. And we read and we listened to and we just went after it. And we did everything and everything that I wanted that I desired. I had at least tenfold, maybe 100 fold in Scripture says it really did happen like that, like I would have settled I thought if I could just be here, it would be so awesome. And I'm way past that money wise, the kind of home I wanted, the kind of marriage I wanted, the kind of help I thought I could have. I was able to exceed all those kinds of things. And by just the regular application of the principles I teach.
Dr. Tim Thayne:When I think about your story there, the one of the first things that comes to my mind is that you had to have a point in time, maybe a moment of inspiration, or a sense of clarity about you, and what you would like to have in your life and that you believed you could achieve it that had to be there. And then you went from there. And I think that all of us have these opportunities where we have moments of inspiration, where we sense who we are and what we can achieve in our lives, or what kind of parent we want to be and all of that, and then the challenges of life come in. And sometimes we'll upset that that goal that we set. And I think you've developed a lot of things in your in your life and in your book that you put out there that helps things move forward, even in the messiness of life. And that that that really align with our vision and what we really want, but helps us do that when we're struggling to do that. And I'd love you to if you could go into some of the principles that that you believe are generalizable to any any situation that people might have out there, where they're trying to achieve something in their life. What are some of the big things you found that would help someone move forward on that, that path of infinite potential?
Sherry:Of course, that's totally my jam, right? It's helping people do that that very thing I was very undisciplined is when I was young, and I learned a new right off that will take some discipline to get where I want to go. The problem with goals is that we as we don't have systems to implement those goals. We just that we lose them in the busyness of life. That's what happens. I think that people set new year's resolution goals are goals are, how are they set up, they're really sincere. And then we laugh at these goals and they don't make them happen. But the problem is that they don't have a system was doing all that reading and trying to find out the keys to success, I got motivated and lots of motivation stuff. Nobody told me how to do it. I said, just give me a steps give me some place that I can start. So I had to find my own starting place. And this is a practice is first practice. And to tell you that and why this works so well is I started, I just got this idea from a children's chart. And I started, it's very simple. I make these sheets available on my website, every website or business I've had, for the last couple of decades, I've made these great, because they just worked so good. You just track the daily goals that you want to have. Because your life is what you do every day, right? That's where your lives taken you. So what you do every day, and if you've got those kinds of habits in place. So I started with three, they were prayer, reading in journal, right start with three things. And I put this little chart I made this chart put up on my kitchen counter. That was 40 years ago, Tim, I'm still to this day, I use a tracking sheet, I tracked a lot more things down, I track 14 things right now, currently. But the if you're doing that as part of your planning everyday, you don't lose it, what happens is, the upsets of life happen. And then you sort of lose your grounding. And you you're busy doing this and this and you forgot you were going to work out every day. I mean, it's not, maybe you missed one or two, and then you didn't get back to and then pretty soon life kind of settles back down. And I learned with all those kids was six kids, you know, we were busy. And we both had to have heavy church responsibilities, heavy community responsibilities, we were doing a ton of stuff. And I learned if I could get those daily things done, and do them make them a priority. Everything else would work out. Okay. And of course, you know, always a big family like that with a whole bunch of disasters. Those a day was a good day, if I didn't do them, it didn't work out so
Dr. Tim Thayne:well. So what you're talking about here is that it requires some self discipline. But it's not just that, in fact, there's some systems that need to be put in place that they help carry things forward, when maybe you're not as disciplined or you may be struggling or you're out of energy or or you just don't feel good. You need something to carry that forward. Right?
Sherry:Right. It's a, it's a doing this kind of tracking. Well, Peter Drucker said, what gets measured gets managed, right. And that's us, we're what gets measured gets managed. So having a tracking sheet and tracking your daily goals helps you remember what you got gone, it also adds a sense of accountability, I got this things I got to do, you know, every day. So it's a it's a method in it to bolster yours, your own self discipline. And that will grow as you do this, the more you do it, the more you grow those first three habits. And we just didn't wouldn't even need to track we've been doing them for 40 years, right? And then to aim for 100 people say, Well, why don't you just do them, sometimes? Well, you set it out for yourself, and you do it, you just do it. And you just and the more you just make say this, I will do this or die trying, I will do this, no matter what happens today, I will do these things. I will not go to bed tonight until I do these things. Yep, that
Dr. Tim Thayne:is the Met is the measurement really. And then things will will carry forward. Yeah, and it's pretty cool that you just just quoted Peter Drucker who is who is not, I don't know if I would have seen him as a someone in the Self Mastery world, but but it's really amazing. True. I had a professor at Virginia Tech that was not in my area is in management systems engineering. And he quoted that and that was a big part of, of what he kind of did an experiment on the all the students every semester. And he had basically just measure what was going on and constantly put it in front of them, the measurement of their their grades, their progress, all of that. So it's this tracking idea, right? And what what it came down to is if you measure it, and and show it to the students on a regular basis, they automatically start doing more and and doing better. And so he proved it out each semester with a new class, he would do that same thing he talked about Peter Drucker he would then implement this process of measurement and, and tracking and and then having them be able to see it. And that process brought it to their awareness. And so I think that's that's a really powerful principle that you've tapped into and discussed in your book. Are there other principles that you'd like to throw out there that you think are generalizable that we need
Sherry:to get up I get a chance to speak and I get to pick that when I when I speak if I get to choose the topic, or they asked me to talk about I usually talk about my favorite is why systems are more important than goals. Because you're what you're saying what Peter Drucker did, it's just he did it in business to do education. It's a true principle everywhere. If you You want to grow, you need to measure things. So I don't want to lose the tracking thing is such a simple process. It's just like a calendar. More or less you write to all things you want to do every day you put a checkmark if you get it done, you put an excellent wasn't required that day. In other words, like you plan in advance, I'd like I don't work out on Sundays kind of thing. Or, if you don't do it, you leave it blank. And you cannot believe how bad our ego hates that blank spot. So you're using your, your ego, and your and that little bit of the little endorphins, or we call it well, you know, the little good feeling dopamine, dopamine thing, when you check it off, you're using that system to help bolster it plus you see it right in front of you. There is another system because not everything fits into I want to say one more thing when I have clients come in and start with me. And we start with daily habits pretty fairly early on. And they'll say, Well, I want to do this thing. I do a half do do it. Now while I do it, most of them working out typical. I will How was your workout but probably three or four days a week? Then they start tracking guess what they find out? They were not then no way they were maybe one or two or three days a week if they were lucky, right? Way to make it keep us honest, that one. But not everything fits that we this has to be very measurable. Did I work out it in a workout? And you have to understand what the parameters are when you write it? What is the workout? It's 45 minutes of this? Or it can be this or this or this. But you have to know very clearly what is and what isn't. You put it on your chart. So that works good for those kinds of things. Did I read for 20 minutes today? Did I walk the dog? Did I make 2020 sales calls, like I said I would you know do these things, yes or no. But some things you want, there may be even more important, like maybe you want to be a better listener, or you want to smile more, or you want to be more courteous, in your whatever, anything like that you can measure something like that, right? But they're still really important and they're very valuable gold. So the second system I teach and this is the bomb. And here's a lot of silly talk a lot about out there about affirmations the most was just foolish. But if you you write it, if you write the daily written affirmations, you write the same thing. You have things you want to improve in yourself. You write the same ones every day. And you write them every day. And you just do it every day and takes a few minutes you develop what they are. And you write them every day in the planner that I developed that Roxanne's helping me with, there's the places we did the planet is a place for affirmations and a place for tracking. So if you do that every day, the miracles that happen because you've probably done this do you think I want to be I'm going to be nicer I'm going to be kinder all there. I'm going to respond with kindness to everybody talks to me all day long. And like 20 minutes in the day forgot all about it. That there's somebody that happens at the subconscious maybe non conscious level even and so at the conscious level that works on the works on these things, and you'll find funny stories I put I smile at everyone this is years ago, I think I might have this in the book, I smile at everyone and I just put I really thought about it might just want to smile more because I you know, so let's mama and we took a trip and we're in the airport in Denver and on the plane and on the in the airport I just kept on these people were smiling at me and I kept thinking, if I got something I said to Ken, would you look at me because I can think of the people are smiling at me I think there's something silly and then I really realized I was smiling at them I had not even consciously aware. So this is what always happened quite that easy. But when you want to change fundamental things like that, that are difficult and not not measurable, daily written affirmations and they can be then they can also they can also reaffirm your your tracking sheet you can be like, I'm I am I eat well, but you might have other things like tracking sheet I four times a day, I like this, I like this. You might be I take care of my body or whatever you might have on your affirmations to
Dr. Tim Thayne:go through the mechanics of of the affirmation. Okay, good. That's what really what is what makes it effective? Well, let's just start what are the mechanics? So
Sherry:first of all there you choose them. I have people like I listened so and so's affirmations for 20 minutes. Okay, well, that's that person stuff in your head. Like there's already people trying to get in your head all the time. You know, that's it needs to be something that is important to us. And that we choose it. We don't choose it because sounds so successful. They're an influence or whatever they say this or this. No, you you get serious with yourself and say, We don't want to change, we want to be different. And then you write it as if it already was I am. And you can do things like I smile at everyone. I stopped them. Listen, those are pretty good. But you can also do things like I mark my tracking sheet every day or I am financially independent. You do want to avoid negative words as much as possible because we say like, I am debt free rather than I'm financially independent, then the focus is on the debt, right? So you want to make sure that you work things in a positive way. So the focus is on like you wouldn't say I don't eat sugar. That's a charade of identity. Like I don't care. All right, so we try to keep up words like I clean like that. So you don't draw yourself does it cause a reverse effect, but just do it every day and you just have it in a written place. If you've read no book, you would have had a planner, do you write
Dr. Tim Thayne:five, three or four of them do I write all three every every day,
Sherry:but once you have on, and I would suggest that people have at least five or six and not more than 12, you need enough of them to make it feel important. And then this is one thing I say it's about a lot of the things I do. But seriously, this one thing only takes a couple of minutes, and I would not miss it. I noticed I backslide one day, and I backslide a little bit. So this is one practice that I've done this one for, I learned this from Brian Tracy, by the way, I've been doing it maybe 15, close to 20 years, 15 to 20 years, 15 years, another thing, and it's just it's the bomb for changing internal.
Dr. Tim Thayne:I want to talk directly to the parents here. Because what you're talking about here, Sherry is you is probably in direct contrast with what they're often doing. What comes naturally is often not the best thing for us to do. What comes naturally when we're in a challenging life situation with our teens is to maybe notice all the things that the teen is not doing. And also notice all the things that we're failing at as a parent. And so we're really affirming a lot of negativity, a lot of things that we don't want to be. And we may not write that down, but it's going through our minds almost on a constant loop at some, in some ways, if we're not careful, we have to be conscious of this because being in a chronic challenging situation usually invites this negative thinking to come in. And what I hear you talking about here is, I think really important for us as parents to, you know, just in a in a, you know, if you think about the roles that you have in life, yes, you want to have some affirmations about you know, the way you feel and your personality and you know, things you want to personally grow in. But when you think about all the roles that you have, there's probably not any role that you have that is going to be more impactful on your mental health, on your personal well being and your happiness, then the role of how you're doing as a parent. And I would say this affirmation can counteract some of the it can be an antidote to some of the negative thinking that we often fall into as parents, because we become Ultra self critical. And and we're also doing the same thing with our kids. We were focusing mainly on the negativity and I wonder what would happen if we wrote this, just to kind of a thought that just came to my mind, what would happen if we wrote some positive affirmations about our kids, and, and ourselves, I think we would notice those things more often. We might even invite it, if we start to believe that about them. I think our behaviors to them would invite more of what we believe. And that would be an interesting, I think, an interesting twist on these affirmations that it may not be just for our own development, but it might be for the development of our attitudes towards our children.
Sherry:Totally, it's a totally way that we that we can change the we have a zillion you know this zillion thoughts, tapes playing over and over and over in our head, we can break the cycle a little bit, we can't get rid of them completely. But this is one way you can do it. A couple of things to say about that. And again, I raised six kids, and they're all adults, and you don't do that with lots of trauma, the trauma and get up and you know, so the two things that I just think, you know, I just hope you your parents will listen to this, because I wish I'd done this, I learned it in the process. But I wish I'd have known it sooner, first of all, and when you do your affirmations, you never ever do an affirmation, somebody else changes the way you possibly affect the people, you really do change you, you get you work on you, and you make that number one top priority. And that gives you an anchor piece of full cup. So if you're gonna commit to your workouts, your education, your spirituality, your things, that will be one thing, you make it a priority above everything else, because you're gonna break
Dr. Tim Thayne:in here for just a second Sherry because I want to modify what I said a second based on what you just said, it needs to be about us.
Sherry:It's only about and so change us. Right, right. We can
Dr. Tim Thayne:only change us. So maybe let me modify a little bit what I said. I think maybe what we could do is say, I see you know, I see the positive in my children and that affirmation is about me, but it's really about them too. And you know, they're going about their lives and, and there's going to be positive and negative out there. And if we change ourselves to be able to look through a lens, where we see the positive things going, that they're doing, that normally we're blind to or with somehow we filter that out, because we're too attuned to the, the negative, I think we're following the principle you're talking about there. But you're also applying it in a really specific way to start to reshape the relationship you have with your child.
Sherry:I think you said until I do that, and I think you can even maybe do some even with some thoughts, and maybe even better affirmations. And even that, I mean, you could really some one thing, the second thing I was going to suggest on that first of all, work on you first and make it a priority, it really matters. That really matters. If and you said earlier, when you get to the traumatic times used to hang on to those habits, you make those no matter what because and you're also modeling for your children by the way, and it's going to bring happiness, the other thing is in their realm, your children are perfect. They're just perfect. And if we can see that this is what I learned. I don't pray for my children to teach, are they all doing everything I'd like them to do? Not really. But I see the nails all perfect. They're just perfectly in their sphere. They're doing what they're doing. They've got some things. Now I'm not saying they don't. But as they are in this world, perfect in the realm that they're in, they're just perfect. And it's arrogant for me to pray for them to change. I pray that they'll be watched over or I'll pray for or, or to write affirmations that they will change. I work on me love them hard. And you just deal with what comes up. And not. I used to see my children some were doing and some were not doing. Now I see them all is just the great. They're just marvelous. If you can find that place. It takes all the stress on
Dr. Tim Thayne:how has that? How were you able to do that? Let's get into that a little bit. Because that may somebody out there, you know, people out there even me at times I hear you say that and say, No, they're not perfect. They're not in a perfect place right now. They're really struggling, it's painful to watch. How, how were you able to make that change in your mind, and how is that affected? You and them,
Sherry:they can be struggling and doing things even bad things. And that doesn't mean that they aren't, you can be happy, they can be both. They're learning. They're growing, they're on a path of their own. And when you step back and see how beautiful they are, now, if you're a parent, when you look at your children, you see they're beautiful, right? They're just beautiful if we focus on that part, and, and this was an all at once, I mean, I used to do this, if they would just do this, they would just do this, they would just do this, I got these that are these that aren't. And now I just I just love them hard, because I got plenty of work to do here. And then we're there to pick up the pieces we've had this goal getting better with some pretty big traumas, a kind that you would deal with about a year ago. And yet, but you still can be happy through it. And then they come to you, they're more willing to come to you because you're not judging and you're not critical. And you're not, you're just loving them hard and say, Gosh, what can I do? You know? And how can I support you, and you're making choices, but you kind of do that by working on you. If you want to change your children, your spouse, the world, anything, the way you do it is you fix you. That's really all we've got, right? And we get all caught up in why our kids aren't doing certain things, all we do is make everybody miserable. When they and you want to help them be home, just love them hard. Be a good example, wrap your arms around them until they're perfect.
Dr. Tim Thayne:Yes, I love it so much. And I you know, it's close to your heart, I can see as you think about your children and you think about how beautiful they are. I can see you're feeling a lot of love for them as you do that. And, and I have to admit, I've gone into that place and then been pulled out of it and back into it. I mean, it takes a lot of self discipline to stay there. And to stay in that place. I I have told my kids at times, hey, we're in this together, you know, and I'm gonna be here with you no matter what and, and in a way because, you know, that depth of love that you feel for your child. It almost feels right, and good to feel the pain that goes with that. And, and when you feel that as a parent, you just kind of feel like hey, this is you know, this is the learning experience we all need. And it's it's just fine. And so that I can relate with that. I have to admit sometimes I'm not there and and struggled to get there. But it is the place to be. That's where our greatest influence will be. He, that's when our greatest joy will be. And and our ability to, I think weather the storms that come?
Sherry:What do your children hear? If you're saying if you just do this, if you just do this? Or hear me, I'll do this or why can't you do that that kind of stuff. all they hear is there's a wrongness that was wrong with them, that they don't understand that it's coming from our love. They all they hear is criticism and not love. Now, if we did more of your great, it's tough. We'll work it out. But you've got this, and I'll be here to help you. And I love you and you're perfect. And if they only heard those messages, only those messages, they would get through it fine. And they will, your children are all I mean, you got plenty to worry about. I'm not saying that one way or another is all going to work out. But you have to have a lot of energy. Like you said, you lose it sometimes. Right? I would say, to beat this drum just a little bit. But I'm a prayer I've I've made that very clear. But but meditation, real meditations when you're aware of your thoughts, right? When you're thinking one thought at a time you bring it back to this certain doubt, bring it back to an acre. That's what meditation, by the way, because again, there's a lot of questions around about that. But that helps us be aware of how we think and service all day long. So then when things come up, we're less reactive. So this is something to practice by doing it for quite a while now. But it is the bomb for being able to get in that zone. Being aware, I'm thinking those thoughts again, and come back and bring it back. Just that daily practice of meditation.
Dr. Tim Thayne:I love that too. I mean, we often you know, in the mental health field, we talk a lot about intentionality. And we talk about self awareness. And what you're talking about there with meditation is a practice to develop those skills. And it is a skill, it really is a
Sherry:skill, you have to practice it, practice it, practice it, then when you need it. If got it, right, Viktor Frankl said, between stimulus and response, there's a space in that space lies our power to choose. Well, how do we make that space big enough that we remember to choose before, right? But we can make that space bigger and bigger and bigger. And one of the best ways we can do that? Maybe the only way is through meditation.
Dr. Tim Thayne:It's almost like if you could freeze the moment and then kind of step out of it. And it's like an I don't Roxanne and I've been watching K dramas, believe it or not Korean dramas. There's one that where where time stops. And they pause and the person the the main character, he can move around and look at what's going on. Everybody else is frozen. And so I want you to think about that. Because I think that's a pretty powerful idea that if you're in the moment, and all of a sudden, you could imagine time stopped and give you a chance to broaden the space between stimulus and response. And make a clear choice. Yeah. differently. And I
Sherry:that's basically meditation, right? Because you can stop it, or at least what's going on up here? Pause and respond better?
Dr. Tim Thayne:Yeah, if I just had a button and everybody just froze, right?
Sherry:Let me start with anything to this. Would that be good? How many things we would not? How many more things? Would we not say? If we had? Wouldn't
Dr. Tim Thayne:that be amazing?
Sherry:Yeah, somebody was I remember. I can't remember exactly how the book goes. But he said, I'm most proud of all the things that didn't say, are most proud of my life's all the things that didn't say,
Dr. Tim Thayne:that's a really powerful idea, you know? So so we've got to learn how to have that pause button inside us somehow, it's not a physical thing, we can really freeze everybody and do that. By the way, my mind goes this way. But how long would we stretch out a year? If we paused every time? It makes me what makes me wonder, would it be like 18 months? Really? How much time would we take to pause and make really, really good decisions? It might be significant. And so we have to learn how to do that, on the split second in the moment, make those decisions. And it starts with really an awareness of what is better, what's good, what's better, what's best. There are levels of of reactions in every given situation. And if we have enough knowledge base, you know that, that we can see that there really are levels of how I can respond to this. And if we can hit the pause button real quick and say I'm gonna choose that next level up versus what I naturally want to do here, and you're gonna have a completely different outcome.
Sherry:Yeah, I agree. And that's been your your acting rather than reacting because you made the choice of what Hear what you're going to say. And then you know, if you take it back again, but most of our misery most of the problems we cause when we react, or what comes out of our mouth, you know. So again, remembering, if I'm not thinking, if they're all those thoughts are already in my head, this person's not made, you're not, they're not measuring up, they're not measuring up. And then the moment comes in my self control, and under the self control the shop, but those aren't my head in the first place, they're not going to come out my mouth, right. So that's really our all day long thinking as well as the moment pausing in the moment. And since you don't have a magic button, all I know to offer is learning to recognize what you're thinking about, before it's too late, before it comes out your mouth.
Dr. Tim Thayne:This is this is really powerful stuff here. And it goes right along with the title of the book, again, Life Mastery, you know, if you think about Life Mastery, it starts with self and understanding what's going on inside me and being able to master that. And from that comes all kinds of wonderful outcomes, with relationships, with, with businesses, with our health, you know, in every way we can think of. I really want I wish we could honestly, I could talk to you for a long, long time. Sherry, I mean, he's had like, 10 Yeah, let's do it. Again, I've had like, 10 things pop into my mind, like, really dive into to, you know, choice, because that's a that's a big topic. And I personally believe that, that is why we're here on the planet, is to be able to choose between all the options out there, and, and make really consciously make decisions in our life and, and that that ends up being a part of this Life Mastery. Well, Sherry, your, your delightful person, I can see why Roxanne talks about you so much. And how come you know she's excited to be able to work with you on your book and your your planner? It makes sense that you would build a planner, honestly, because you're talking about tracking and being intentional about your life and your goals and how you're going to get there. And and so where can people find some of the materials you've created? And the website the book? What how can they find you? Well, the
Sherry:book is available on Amazon, of course, it was on the Wall Street Journal bestsellers list will be two years in July. So it's, it's done, I think, pretty good. It's not, you know, yeah, I'm not run the New York Times. So let's say when you get down on Amazon, it's hardback paperback Kindle, it's on Audible. As you can also get it on Audible. And then the plan or if you'd like the planning have to contact me, because we're still working, we got we've got got them and I'm sending them out. But they're not quite ready to put out on Amazon yet. We're still working out a few kinks. That's why I work them out too quick, and Roxanna maybe have other projects that I won't get to talk to.
Dr. Tim Thayne:Either they get a hold of you,
Sherry:I get super good feedback on the planner. And you know, the fundamental habit everyday is planning. You know, that's your habit, right? You got plan, you don't plan your days, you don't plan your life. So you plan and all your affirmations and your tracking is all right there in your planning in the planner. So that's it super good planner, thanks to Roxanne and her hard work. So a couple things I want to work hard, but no, nobody else. notice them. And then there's also a workbook that I just I use with my clients, and I just put it up on Facebook. I mean, I'm not Facebook, but on Amazon in case it was useful to people who are trying to make the same changes. Just reading the book,
Dr. Tim Thayne:and it's great. And how do they get a hold of you? What's
Sherry:his life mastery. info.com I'm Cherie at Life Mastery. info.com and I respond to all emails if you have and I this is this is my thing. Now my fans, I'm just trying to make other people's world go round. And so somebody reaches out to me, I always respond and do the best I can to to help so you can get me at Sheree sh t ry, Life Mastery. info.com.
Dr. Tim Thayne:That's fantast on Facebook, and
Sherry:get on Instagram. So I've sent me on there, though.
Dr. Tim Thayne:That's good. Well, Sherry, one of the things we're working on, is is an app. You know, you think about all the principles, you're talking about putting in place planning, systems, tracking all of those things. A lot of time we have those tools for for lots of areas of our life, but we don't have great ones for family life and where it's comprehensive. And anyway, stay tuned. We're going to be coming out with the beta version of that in probably in July. We'll have it out. So I just wanted the audience to know about that. If they want to learn more about that go to trusty.com that is trusty with two y's on the end.com. That's a brand new website. We just got it up. It's not completely finished. But if you're interested in Following the progress of this, this app essentially it's a way for parents to build trust with themselves and with with their their teens and their CO parents. Go to trustee.com tr u s t. Y y.com. Well, thank you again, Sherry. This has been such a pleasure to meet you to hear so much about you and then being able to have such a neat interview, where so much wisdom was shared. Thanks for your time and definitely hope you'll let us bring it back on again later. Parents, your time is valuable, and I'm grateful you spent some of it with us. What you're intentionally doing in your home life is inspiring and unmatched in its importance and long term effects. Ask yourself, What am I going to do because of what I've learned today?