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Introduction 0:02
Welcome to the #PirateBroadcast, where we interview #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings. Where you can expand your connections, your community, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree. Let’s get this party started.

Russ Johns 0:20
And it's a good time for a party, I think. The #piratebroadcast is here today. We have #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings every single day, five days a week. I invite you to join us in the pirate community, where you can connect with each other. You can have conversations, you can enlighten yourself on some of the things that we share every single day. I love the fact that we have an opportunity to meet new people, make new connections and generate new conversations. So today I have Judith. Judith is a friend of mine from Houston when I was in Houston. I was there for almost a decade, in networking and building things and creating things and meeting people and hanging out. I wanted to bring her onto the pirate broadcast to introduce her to the community, and allow you the opportunity to make that connection because she's doing some #interestingthings that we're going to discover today. Judith, how are you?

Judith Richey 1:23
Hi, I'm so good. Life is really good.

Russ Johns 1:28
I can't imagine all of the things that are taking place with everybody's life, here and there. You, not by too much, missed the hurricane, recently.So that's good. That's a good thing. I appreciate what you went through. I looking at the weather and it's like, oh! Prayers out to everybody that was impacted by the hurricane and I'm happy for those that didn't get impacted by that because I thought it was gonna be a nasty one. I was in Harvey. I was there for that. It's not something that I appreciate for anybody else.

Judith Richey 2:18
Yeah, we're very fortunate. My husband and I live in a rural community, west of Houston. It's particularly in times of pandemic quarantine, lockdowns can't go anywhere, hurricanes coming through the Gulf Coast, that we just look each other and go, we're really happy we live here. Very, very happy we live here.

Russ Johns 2:41
No kidding. No kidding. So tell us, the last time we talked, you were networking, you had a networking group. You had a lot of people involved and engaged in a couple of different activities. You were sharing, kind of like what I love to do, is highlight other people and bringing them together. Now, we have quarantine and pandemic and all this kind of 2020, we'll just call it 2020. You've had to adjust and modify some of the things you're doing. I know you went on a journey and you're developing and increasing some of the things you're doing. So talk to us about your journey from there until now.

Judith Richey 3:24
Yeah, so the networking has shifted and morphed. My tenure as the lead of a group in Houston, came to an end, and that got handed off to somebody else. So I'm enjoying my time now just as a participant in networking, and that looks very different. I have actually been using online communication tools for...I was thinking about that this morning, probably for about five or six years. I was introduced to Zoom awhile back. I mean, like back before anybody knew what zoom was and had that So now I'm participating in hybrid models, or some people are live and some people are online. I'm doing some strictly online work. My client base, I do 100% of that work online. So it's just been interesting to see how it shifted and changed.

Russ Johns 4:19
It's interesting how the technology is allowing us to actually expand our reach and our ability to connect with other people. So that has been your experience. Are you staying close to home and doing outreach on on a local level? Are you expanding your network out to other areas?

Judith Richey 4:41
Yes, so my network is actually the United States and Canada. And because I live in this little rural community, you probably remember, 290 live in Houston, and for those who aren't Houstonians, that was one of the major interstate coming into Houston. It went through, like most big cities, horrific construction, and things were dicey for a long time. When I looked at that, I determined that what I would like to do is be accessible online, to my clients. So that : 1, I didn't have to run up and down the roads and 2, I would be able to reach people all over. So I have been doing zoom meetings with my clients for several years now. I've got clients all over the United States and all over in Canada. It is just wonderful because I get up, I walk across the house. I have a dedicated office. If I need complete privacy, I'm able to close my door. My husband understands what that looks like. I work from home every single day it is just a beautiful, beautiful thing for me. There's no overhead except for a few little costs, like calendars, LinkedIn, and things like that, but yes, I really enjoy it.

Russ Johns 6:01
It's interesting because what I've seen develop is there's the people that are really thriving in a remote workforce style working situation. The other ones that are going crazy because they don't have the community and they don't have the contact and the interaction with individuals. So we almost have to frame it in a way that says, oh, I enjoy working at home. You have to...oh, I, I get to, I get to enjoy my house today. I get to stay where I am and do what I want. It's not as if you're locked in your home, you can go outside, you can take a walk. Once in a while. I just get out and go for a drive, go out in the country and drive around, so it's not as if we're locked down per se. It's more that we are available to more people online. If you adapt this online behavior and adapt this connection, I've met some incredible friends that I haven't met in person, but I would consider them absolute friends over the years and even before COVID. I've been a remote worker for 10 years, doing work. Even though I networked in Houston, I still was doing a lot of the work that I do remotely. So, it's definitely an opportunity for a lot of people to adjust how they position themselves for work.

Judith Richey 7:40
So much of what you said, resonates with me because I did the same thing. I looked at my business model and I thought, how do I have the biggest impact and reach the most people? And that was through working remotely. Then I thought, how do I get the word out about it? So, I started doing that. Of course, networking helps. But, word of mouth has worked really well for me. My clients tell other people about me, and then they tell other people about me. So that has helped. We started here and then we expanded out and expanded out. When the quarantine came and we were on, we were literally on...don't go anywhere here in Texas, for a while. It was not a big huge shift for me. Another thing my husband and I talked about this. We're empty nesters. My youngest is 22. She's independent, lives on her own. I've got five adult children, his daughter lives with her partner up in Vermont. It's just the two of us on our cat. I can't imagine trying to make those adjustments and still have small children at home or teenagers at home. That would be a whole different place to be. So I'm very fortunate that I'm in this place in my life. My husband's been able to keep his business going remotely. In fact, he prefers it to what he usually does. So, it's been an easy transition for us, not so much for some other people. Other people are experiencing lots of stress around this and especially for extroverts, they are really missing being around people, and that's been hard for him. You mentioned going out for a walk. I started walking several months ago. I walk five days a week I walk two to three miles every morning, and I've got my husband and we're walking together now, so that's nice. Get out. See your neighborhood, see different things. We're having fun with that, too. I

Russ Johns 9:40
That's awesome. Good for you. I, unfortunately broke my hip, so I'm on the mend...

Judith Richey 9:48
Oh my goodness!

Russ Johns 9:48
for getting my hip back in place and starting to walk without a crutch.

Judith Richey 9:54
Wow.

Russ Johns 9:55
Yeah, I'll get back on track. I get back on track. It's kind of crazy. It's a crazy story because, as you mentioned, my dad passed away. We're at his service and I went out with my son to go take some pictures or doing photography and I went down to this short, apparently hill, and it just was longer and steeper than I imagined. I just launched like Superman and landed like a rock. We were 20 miles in the back country. Fortunately the car was nearby. So I was able to get back in the car and climb back in and get to the hospital and have surgery, but another adventure in the book of life. It's like another chapter. We just have to deal with it and we have to think about what we want to do next. You've had similar experience with makingchanges and adapting and learning that behavior.What are you focused on now? Are you focused on... with your business? What are you helping others with at this point in time?

Judith Richey 11:15
Let me set this up a little bit for you, so it makes sense. I went through a really messy divorce about 23 years ago. In the middle of the divorce...I was raised that the family culture was, you don't get divorced, you work it out. You stay married at all costs, no matter what. So when my husband came in, announced that he wanted a divorce. We tried to work it out a couple of times. I ended up pregnant. This is why I've got a 22 year old. We ended up continuing the divorce. We got divorced, we had some ugly things going on with custody battles, and I jumped straight into supermom mode because I have an infant and four other kids from 12 to 8. I never took the time or even knew the necessity of healing that I needed to go through. And subsequently remarried. I married a man who didn't raise kids who didn't have the same family culture that I had. Needless to say, that was a pretty rocky marriage to still married to him. That's part of the story. It took a moment in time for me to decide that everything that was going on in my world, the career I had, the way I was living my life, the way I related to my children, their way of relating to my husband, didn't work for me. I pretty much put a hard stop to it all and took what I call an adult timeout for my life and really got introspective and spent a lot of time healing and taking the time to forgive myself and be willing to think about forgiving my ex husband, and prioritize what I wanted for my life. It was interesting because I was on an airplane coming home from a convention and I was sitting next to this woman that I was an acquaintance with. She wasn't one of my favorite people in the world. Then when I saw that I was going to sit next to her on the plane ride home, I was like, oh great, I've got to sit next to her! It was really funny. We were doing the whole little, tell me about your life kind of conversation. So I told her, that I had left this fantastic career as a financial advisor. I was making well over six figures, I was winning all these awards and trips, and that I had left all of that. I had seen that coming from a place of weakness and failure. She looked at me and she said, what gave you the courage and strength to do that? That question completely changed the trajectory of my life because she reframed what I did for me. And it gave me the courage to keep going in reframing. So the healing journey led to one thing which led to another thing, I got certified as a healer in some different modalities. Now that's expanded even more. So my practice now is a modality called Healing from the Body Level Up, I use other modalities that I'm also certified in. What I do is I help people heal. I help people release all of the blocks, and the baggage and the nasty stuff that they're carrying, that's keeping them from living their best life, fulfilling their potential. It sounds so trite, but it's so deep and so important. I think sometimes I'm living in an alternate universe because I look at all the unrest that we've got in our country and my heart hurts over it. I look at the political strife that we've got. I look at the things like hurricanes hitting Louisiana. Yet, every day I can get up and I can be in a complete state of gratitude, and truly say it, as well, with my soul. I know, in my heart of hearts, that no matter what the circumstances, we can find that place of peace and gratitude and live in that.

Russ Johns 15:34
I wake up every single day with gratitude.

Judith Richey 15:38
Yes, I know that about you.

Russ Johns 15:42
Well, you've known that about me for a while, because I've been through a few circumstances that are not necessarily a comfortable environment.

Judith Richey 15:53
That's a very slight way of putting it.

Russ Johns 15:58
I think you're absolutely correct because right now, we see a lot of conflict being broadcast. I don't know that it's necessarily accurate for 95% of people in the US. I think there's a lot of people that are very comfortable with where they are, and what they're doing, and where they're going. They know and understand that if they have little gratitude, and a positive attitude, you can be challenged by a lot of things. You can still make it through to the other side. It's just an experience that we have lessons to learn and we really don't understand the value and the joy of the small things in life until we've actually had to be challenged by some of the other things in life. I see a lot of people becoming more in alignment with healing and understanding what their emotional triggers are and why they feel a certain way and how they can change the way they feel. I think it goes back to what your original point was. Forgiveness. We can't change the past, let it go and allow it to be a lesson that we can use to move us forward. I think that's a really important lesson that we can actually take with us and make sure that we understand that there is hope, there is love. There's a little bit of kindness because #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree, as I say, every day. It costs nothing to be kind to somebody. So let's make sure that we can actually use that as a guidepost for what we're doing in our life and gratitude is a big part of that.

Judith Richey 18:01
I really agree with you. To get a little existential on you, I heard someone posit one time that there is no good and no bad that occurs in our life. Everything simply shows up for the lesson that we have in it. This journey is for us to learn from and to evolve from and to keep growing from. When you look at it that way, it takes the bite out of the horrible, yucky bad feeling stuff because then you can step back and you can say, what is the lesson for this? When I first started thinking about forgiving my ex husband, I couldn't in my flesh forgive him. So I created the space for that to happen. I actually stood in that space for many years and I asked source to come in. I call it the Holy Spirit. I'm a faith filled woman. I have my words that I use to describe it. Other people have other words. I asked the Holy Spirit to just kind of stand in that gap for me until I caught up with it. It was the moment that I really, really got it. I mean, not just in my head, but I mean that in every cell of my body, that I really got that we all have stuff. We all have family dynamics, generational patterns, life experiences. We even carry forward things into this life that every one of us has that. It's what creates our actions, our beliefs, our thought patterns. When I really, really embody that, that's the minute I was able to step into forgiveness for my ex husband and why I'm able to live without all that anger because I see that everybody's got their stuff. It's been a real interesting thing for me watching Facebook posts, particularly, because I'll see people and the vitriol and the hatred and the fear. You can just see it spewing out of their post. I read those and I feel for them that they're carrying all of that with them because you don't have to stay in that state. There is a way to release all of that. That's what I work through with my clients. That's what I help them get to, is a place of peace. We're not discounting any of the experiences or any of the things that have happened. We're just moving into a different state around them, a different way of being around them.

Russ Johns 20:53
It has to feel much more peaceful, releasing the toxic feelings you had for your ex previously. That's a lot of years of not feeling completely 100% comfortable with yourself.

Judith Richey 21:10
You're right. The real effect that it had on my marriage that I'm in now, with my second husband. We have been to hell and back a few times. Some of it was him and some that was me. When I started my healing journey, basically around the stuff that happened with my ex husband, it has healed my marriage, too, because the more I heal, the more I grow and it kind of pulls my husband along with me, because of course, that radiates out. I've shifted energetically. I've shifted at the core, and those shifts have radiated out. So it's been very, very neat to see.

Russ Johns 21:55
Yeah, we we cannot live in a vacuum. Things that we do or feel or have control over in our life. When we're around other people, either they bring something to the party or we deliver something to the party. So we're all connected in some way and that energy that we have, either positive or negative will allow other people to feel a certain way. I see it time and time again, like you mentioned, on Facebook. It's terrible. I'm on Facebook, this pirate broadcast streams on Facebook, YouTube, Periscope, and LinkedIn live. There's so many wonderful people here in this community and I just want to highlight a few of you. You may know Hiett Ives. He's in Houston as well and Gabriel. Gabriel is someone else that you need to meet. He does a show. Good morning fellow pirates. I'm always excited to see every single one of you wonderful people. He's an amazing individual that has a wonderful show every evening. Michael Baker says, it's within you...life coaching of spiritual means guidance to achievement. Georgetown, Florida. Fantastic. Michael, thank you so much for being here. Slaptagz says, when you hunt for something positive, you will always find it. I love that. I love that so much. Angie Schuman says, good morning, everyone. She's an amazing supporter and she's just a positive individual that I love being around. Michael Baker says, morning Angie. Angie says, good morning, Michael. And I'm reading these off because right after this broadcast, the podcast is created. So the people that listen afterwards, can understand and engage with what we're saying. Michael Baker, faith overcomes fear. I love that. I'm currently trying to find the lessons in my current situation. Yeah.

Judith Richey 24:15
Angie is somebody I would love to have a conversation with. Offer her that hope that you're talking about. You said something that was interesting, Russ, you said about being able to control it. Sometimes, we can't control situations. You might be driving down the road and somebody t-bones you or somebody almost t-bones you, right? You can't control that. What you can control is your reaction to it, your emotions around it. That's 100% of what we have control over. What I have learned in my life is, the more I release, the more I clear, the more I balance. The easier it is to just have a, oh, ok, that happened kind of reaction. I had a guy who was coming down the street at me in a one way street. I was heading north and he was coming south. I looked at it and I went, okay, well, that's interesting. That guy's going the wrong way on the street. I use some meditation techniques and deep breathing. I looked for what my reaction would be, oh, I can turn off over here and get out of his way. There was no excitement. There was no fear. There was no anything, no panic. It was just like, okay, that's happening. Here's, a solution. That's a beautiful way to be that calm. I've got a solution, or I can find a way up or I can do this without going into the panic. That state is just a beautiful place to be.

Russ Johns 25:48
Yeah, it's almost as if we sit and we can just extract ourselves outside of our thoughts and say, oh, that's an interesting idea. That's an interesting thought. Why am I feeling that way?

Judith Richey 26:04
Exactly...

Russ Johns 26:06
Observe it, take in what we feel is important and necessary and release the rest. Our mind is a funny thing because we can tell our mind, and this is not easy to do, however, it sounds pretty simple. You could convince yourself that, if anything, okay, this is x or this is y, or circumstance, your mind doesn't know. It's gonna release, it's gonna accept anything you tell it. So you might as well tell it good things, right?

Judith Richey 26:40
Exactly. The other part of that is, when we have those negative emotions show up, they're just a normal part of our fight, flight or freeze reaction. We're wired that way. That's part of our limbic system and when that fires off, we're wired that way. What we want to make sure we do is just release them. Release those negative emotions. It's when they become trapped and get caught up in our septic tank is kind of a way to put it and then don't release and create all that sludge. That's when all the yuck kind of starts showing up for us. Methods and ways to do that, too.

Russ Johns 27:22
Well, and everybody can connect with you. I know you're out there at judithrichey.com. We'll leave this all in the show notes at russjohns.com. People could connect with you, they can meet with you, you're on LinkedIn. Tell Judith, that you're a pirate and your in the pirate community. Leave her a nice note and let her know that you're interested in connecting. Jimmy says, sorry, I'm late to the party. Late to the table. Jimmy, we have to connect soon. I haven't heard from you for a while and we haven't connected. Michael Baker, says connect with me if you want to learn life coaches, spiritual means a guidance to achievement. I'd be happy to serve, help and figure out...it sounds like you're both doing very similar things.There's a lot of people out there willing to help. They're in a mode of helping and I think that's a beautiful thing and very helpful and needed right now. So everybody, find the person that is going to help you improve your life. There's no reason that we can't improve our situation. Learning every day, being a better person than you were yesterday. All of those things are important. Hiett says, Judith looking forward to connecting with you. Michael Baker says yes, sharing our experience, strength and hope. It's amazing to think about how we can proceed forward. What we can do? Judith, do you have any legacy thoughts that you want to leave with everyone here today and share a few ideas that we can walk away with and go about our day and maybe have a lighter step in our walk and do a few things that are positive in the next little while?

Judith Richey 29:26
Sure. The one thing that I focus on is the fact that we're all connected. You said it earlier, we're all part of the collective consciousness. One of my clients asked me, how do we achieve world peace, and I said, it starts with achieving peace in yourself. So my thought is, if you're not feeling peaceful, in whatever area, I mean, you may have some over here and not over here. If you're not having peace in any area of your life it's achievable, it's obtainable, and it's through the work that I do, and others, that we can help you get to that place of peace. Then as you live in that state of being, that radiates out, other people connect with you. They feel it, and that encourages them to seek that for their lives, too. That's a great way for us to be.

Russ Johns 30:14
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for being here. I really, truly appreciate you. It's so wonderful to connect again. I thank you for the opportunity. And yes, it's so good to connect with you. Now you're part of the pirate community, you're a pirate.

Judith Richey 30:33
I need to get a flag and put it behind me and get my iPad.

Russ Johns 30:38
Well, and, and the whole point of the pirate community is kindness. #Kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree. I really, truly believe that we all make a difference. We all have a gift. We all have something we can deliver to the universe. If we make a positive impact in someone around us, that has a ripple effect and it continues out. So, it doesn't matter what you're doing, just stay positive. Make sure that you're moving forward doing what you can with what you have, and just do what you can to improve the day. So, thank you so much for being here. I do look forward to the next opportunity. And as always, everyone, I'll say it again. I'll continue to say it. I've been saying it for years, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree, and you #enjoytheday. Take care everyone.

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