The New Heart for Life Community
Welcome to The New Heart for Life Community podcast, for a greater understanding of the New Heart for Life Community and its ambassadors.
Their founder, Dan Williams' passion is to inspire others towards a fit and quality life. Dan's journey, from near-death to achieving senior Olympic gold, along with his 21 Fitness Principles, serves as a guide for all, to lead a fit and quality life.
In each episode, Dan explores the stories and experiences of the New Heart for Life ambassadors—individuals making a positive impact by championing the New Heart for Life mission within their personal and social networks.
Every installment provides a platform for ambassadors to share their journeys, insights, and the meaningful changes they're creating in their communities. The interviews aim to facilitate connections among fellow ambassadors, enhancing awareness of their roles in promoting positive transformations.
So, listeners are encouraged to grab their favorite cup of coffee, unwind, and prepare for a rewarding and enlightening journey. Tune in to hear firsthand from ambassadors, actively inspiring others throughout the world.
The New Heart for Life Community
Making Peace with the Butterflies: Karissa's Story
Join us for an inspiring conversation with Karissa, a dedicated ambassador for the New Heart for Life community, as she shares her remarkable journey from homeschooling in North Texas to pursuing her dreams at Southern New Hampshire University. Karissa's passion for storytelling and marketing found a new dimension during the pandemic, leading her to a fulfilling role that echoes her values and ambitions. Through the prism of her experiences, Karissa candidly discusses her ongoing battle with anxiety, affectionately dubbed "butterflies," and reveals how her story, "Making Peace with the Butterflies," provides valuable lessons on embracing one's fears to unlock personal growth.
This episode shines a light on the power of understanding one's "why" and the importance of incremental progress in both personal and professional arenas. Discover how a growth mindset, coupled with perseverance and grit, can lead to significant achievements amidst life's uncertainties. Karissa's narrative illustrates the impact of setting concrete goals and fervently pursuing one's passions through determination and community engagement. Her journey with New Heart for Life Community exemplifies how decision-making and resilience are crucial for crafting a purpose-driven life, offering listeners inspiration to face their own challenges head-on. Tune in to explore how Karissa's insights can fuel your journey towards a more fulfilling future.
Visit our Community @ http://NewHeartforLife.com
Welcome to the New Heart for Life podcast for a greater understanding of the New Heart for Life community and its ambassadors, individuals making a positive impact by championing the New Heart for Life mission within their personal and social networks. Every installment provides a platform for ambassadors to share their journeys, insights and the meaningful changes they're creating in their communities. Now let's welcome Dan and today's special ambassador guest creating in their communities.
Speaker 2:Now let's welcome Dan and today's special ambassador, guest Carissa.
Speaker 3:welcome to the New Heart for Life Community Ambassador Spotlight. Thank you so much, dan. It's a privilege to be here today. The New Heart for Life Community has really made an impact in my life and it's great to be here to share how it's impacted me.
Speaker 2:And it's great to be here to share how it's impacted me and as well you have impacted the new Heart for Life community with your engagement and support, so we're so honored to have you here on our Spotlight interview. Just for some background, tell our audience a little bit about yourself, where you were raised, a little bit about you growing up, your passions, what college you went to and maybe some of the decisions that shaped that college direction and what you're looking forward to in your next phase of your life journey.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I was born and raised in North Texas. I'm a Texan at heart. I grew up in a homeschool environment and I was educated through a homeschool enrichment program, and I've always had a passion for storytelling and bringing to life people's ideas. I had been going to the same school this homeschool enrichment program since I was a small child, since kindergarten, and I'd grown up with the same teachers who empowered me to begin college classes throughout high school.
Speaker 3:And then, as I was getting ready to go out into the world, the pandemic hit, and one of the only focuses that I could keep my mind on as the only two options were either work or home was my insatiable curiosity, and I had started reading books on business, and I took practically any book I could get my hands on both storytelling and otherwise, and there I found my passion for marketing. My passion for marketing. I moved across Texas, from the North Texas around the Denton area to Central Texas, and I started a small business with a close friend of mine, and from there I discovered my passion for business and went to Southern New Hampshire University. From there, my love of storytelling has only continued to grow through marketing, and I graduated with a business administration degree with a concentration in marketing, and from there I found the New Heart for Life community and it has been the best first project that I could have asked for and really a community that I am excited to help get out there in the world.
Speaker 2:We are so proud to have you as an ambassador with the New Heart for Life community. Your engagement, your support of others, your initiative, just being proactive, is what we're looking for, and you certainly reflect all those values of being very entrepreneurial and be able to take our mission of helping others live a fit and quality life, apply that to your own life and share that with your friends, family and colleagues. What was it about Southern New Hampshire University that triggered your decision to go there?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I really appreciated that it was a project-based school. I had always had such bad testing anxiety and I felt like I wasn't able to show my work to its fullest potential. So when I saw the potential to begin working on projects and making mock-ups in a way that felt like I was really learning those skills, southern New Hampshire University seemed like the best option, especially when most universities that would have really great in-person classes just weren't available at the time.
Speaker 2:It's amazing, isn't it, that there's really no coincidences when we look back. One of our principles is journey, and as we look back and I hear about your journey and your path to Southern New Hampshire University and just that it was the best fit for you at the time. Now it all tends to make sense, but you're courageous in terms of just taking the next step and, as we call it, baby steps and moving forward and, as I often say, more will then be revealed. Carissa, as you know, we have a number of initiatives that ambassadors like yourself get engaged in. The more they put into it as I say, like life the more they will get out of it.
Speaker 2:One of those initiatives is what we affectionately refer to as Tales from the New Heart for Life Community, and you've contributed a tale into our book, and we're so excited when it gets published for everyone to read it, but they get a preview of it during this interview. I love titles. Titles are so important in terms of capturing attention, and the title for your tale is Making Peace with the Butterflies. So, carissa, please share with our audience how you made peace with the butterflies and leave us with a couple lessons so that we also can make peace with that anxiety that those butterflies create.
Speaker 3:Absolutely Well. So many people think of anxiety as a fluttering sensation of unease in the stomach. We think about having butterflies when we're nervous or excited about something. But I suffered from anxiety from a very young age. It's integrated itself into some of my youngest memories and that sensation of the butterflies in your stomach became a severe stomach pain for me and it was taking over so much of my life. I had so many projects and events and competitions and family gatherings that I wanted to go to, but I had missed so much school at the homeschool enrichment gatherings that I wanted to go to. But I had missed so much school at the homeschool enrichment program that I went to.
Speaker 3:Because time and time again I had this terrible stomach pain and even though my symptoms were real, I felt like I was letting down my family and friends again and again and it felt like I couldn't get away from it that it was again and again and it felt like I couldn't get away from it that it was controlling my life. And whenever a teacher of mine mentioned a speech competition, it seemed totally out of the question. There was no way that I could join something like that because in my head I knew what was going to happen. I was going to get there. I was going to have my family be excited for me in a way that they hadn't seen me before on stage or in front of a panel of judges. And then I was going to get there and the stomach pain was going to take away that joy.
Speaker 3:So I refused at first. But a friend of mine sat me down and told me to do it, scared that this pain was taking over my life, and I couldn't even think about going to college because it didn't even seem realistic with the problems I was having. And whenever I went to my first speech competition after finally deciding to give it a try, the stomach pain was there. My hands went numb, I was shaking in front of a panel of judges and whenever those six minutes were over, it suddenly went away for the first time in months. It usually took hours to go away, but it went away instantly and it was replaced with a sense of pride that I had never experienced before. And then the next year, when I went back, being crazy enough to go back after that, I was able to win first place.
Speaker 2:That is so inspiring and a testament to courage and just taking that first step. It embodies your story, your tale. So many of the New Heart for Life, community principles. I think of grit, I think of teammates and reflect back on that friend of yours that urged you to go forward and that's why we need teammates.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. It was a classmate of mine that had seen me talk before for small presentations that I was forced to do for school and she knew that I had the potential to do it and she also knew of the terrible stomach pain and she was witness to me, my absences throughout the year and, yeah, she really pushed me to take that step.
Speaker 2:And what an important step that was Speaking. Speaking in public is considered by many studies as the number one fear death, shortly behind it, which suggests, as I've heard anecdotally, that people would rather be behind the person giving the eulogy than actually giving the eulogy themselves.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and it really changed my perspective on so many other aspects of life, because I had a fear of public speaking. Just like everyone else, I could hardly hold a conversation with someone, let alone speak in front of 100 people or more. That seemed impossible to me. So after having that under my belt, and especially after the second year and going and actually being able to win first place, which was amazing, it it's still dumbfound sometimes. It still dumbfounds me sometimes. It really changed my perspective of what I was able to do, despite the symptoms, despite the anxiety, despite whatever fears or self-doubt I might have had at the time.
Speaker 2:Well, you certainly have, carissa, reflected a number of principles in making peace with the butterflies in that story that you shared with us and that will be incorporated into Tales from the New Heart for Life community book. Let me ask you, with our principles, which ones are you applying or you look to apply, or that resonate most with you as you now have graduated from Southern New Hampshire University and you move on towards your career aspirations and later in life, just which ones, both in fitness, in your personal life, in your academic life and we never stop learning have been most impactful for you that you think you can take on your journey as you move forward.
Speaker 3:for you that you think you can take on your journey as you move forward. Well, I think that so many of the principles really have guided me throughout my life and are such a good way of naming the concepts that have pushed me through to different opportunities. But I would say that the principle that I've had most personal experiences with would have to be decide, which I think is great. That it's your first principle, because it's the first decision that you really have to make is to decide to change your life. If I hadn't made the decision to move across the state to try out that speech competition to pursue a degree, to try out that speech competition to pursue a degree, I wouldn't be sitting here right now and just deciding to take that journey seriously has been just such a huge part of making the difference, and that ties in with so many other things.
Speaker 3:That leads to change, which I think is one of the best principles. That applies to my life or even journey. They all tie in so beautifully with what it means to move forward and to make the most of your life. I do think that motivation and decide have been the two carrying factors to where I am now. There have been so many things throughout my life that have been huge obstacles, as are with everyone's lives, and making the decision to continue forward, to act despite the fear, or to have that motivation, to create that motivation whenever there seems not to be any, has been such a huge impact on how I view the world, and I think it's great that the New Heart for Life community brings people through that and coaches them into making that life-changing decision.
Speaker 2:And you've displayed a number of those principles within your story and what I've seen in terms of your engagement as an ambassador of the New Heart for Life community. You've mentioned so many and just to tie it together in the 21 fitness principles and you've mentioned decide. You've mentioned we've talked about teammates and how that teammate helped you move forward. Certainly there were lessons that you learned in making peace with the butterflies and I felt a lot of grit in your story and certainly motivation to keep on going. I also heard ACT, the principle of ACT. Action changes things and things change once you made that decision and then acted on that decision all part of your journey. You also shared about motivation.
Speaker 2:The root word in motivation is motive and I often talk about what is your why, and you don't necessarily have to have all of the answers. In fact, baby steps and just beginning on that journey is the most important step and then, as you go along, more will be revealed, and certainly it has in your journey and on that path with yours and your ambassadors, and in life. That journey is never a straight line. It's got its ups and downs, its setbacks, its celebrations, and so, with your journey and as you move forward. Can you share any parting words or any takeaway items as I call them golden nuggets that you'd like to leave with the audience?
Speaker 3:Absolutely Well. My journey is going to continue in pursuing marketing in business, whatever avenue that takes, finding places like the New Heart for Life community where passion runs through the organization, and being able to promote those values in a meaningful way. But if I were to give parting advice to any listeners that might be out there, I would say that one of the things that has made the most impact in my life is having a growth mindset and believing that you're capable of achieving the goals that you have. Setting those arbitrary goals and having this someday as a label in mind only allows it to be a dream, but really allowing yourself to surprise yourself with what you're capable of and going for it even if you don't think you're capable, is the only way you're going to make any meaningful growth. And I just really suggest that if you have a passion, that you run for it, because you only get one life on this earth, and I think that also reading the 21 principles to getting there will be a huge asset.
Speaker 2:So, carissa, thank you so much for sharing those nuggets and your story, your tale of making peace with the butterflies and leaving those lessons of grit, perseverance, decide lessons, all those principles as they gain more power as you couple them together. They gain more power as you couple them together that we're all bundled inside your story and what I've seen in your active engagement with the New Heart for Life community, helping us with our mission of helping others live a fit and quality life. So, in closing to our ambassadors, to our audience and to you, carissa, I end with four simple words Be fit, be well.
