The Power of Storytelling - Episode 26
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Welcome back to The Power of Storytelling!
Shayna, Juliene, and Laura - thank you for sharing your stories, your words, and your journey with all of us.
This month’s episode reminded me that often the path towards unlocking our true authentic joy is filled with ups and downs, highs and lows. The key to unlocking this joy is often found in the moments that challenge us, bring us perspective, and serve as profound opportunities for growth. When you’re in the midst of this though, it can feel challenging, brutal, and often unrelenting. But if you can hang on for a little bit longer, I promise you that what’s on the other side is more wonderful and profound than we could have ever imagined.
It’s truly my honor to share the stories and provide the space here to share a little bit more about the change makers behind these words. I encourage you to check out Shayna, Juliene, and Laura after you listen to this week’s new episode.
*Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this episode are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Seek The Joy Podcast.
Shayna Norwood founded her company, Steel Petal Press in 2011 to share beauty and humor with the world through her collection of handmade stationery. What began as a part–time endeavor in 2008 has grown to include three presses, a paper cutter, and a small + awesome team. Together they print, package and ship each item by hand.
In this week’s new episode Shayna shares with us her journey starting her business. She’s a professionally trained visual artist with a BFA from San Francisco Art Institute and has been letterpress printing since 2004. Steel Petal Press was born when Shayna decided to design and print her own holiday cards to send to friends and family. Since then, the business has expanded to include a full line of greeting cards sold across the country, home goods, wedding invitations, and personal stationery.
Shayna also so beautifully and openly shares her journey with anxiety, and the impact it’s had on her life and her business. In 2016 Shayna was dealing with the stress of the election, she had just opened up her retail shop, and so much had happened at the same time. She was still having panic attacks and having trouble going into work, and there wasn’t any way for her to step away from it. Fast forward to today, she feels much more stable and clear and she knew she wanted to share her experiences, and use Steel Petal Press as a platform to do that. She wanted to create a product that would allow her to tell her story, be useful, and impactful. She launched Mental Health Trackers - different notepads with prompts to journal and share your feelings. When you write something down it helps you get out of your head, gain perspective, and help people become more comfortable in sharing their own stories. In this week’s episode she also shares her top tips for anyone that is struggling with anxiety and mental health - and you’re going to want to write these down.
“Today, I want to speak more publicly about my struggles with anxiety. I feel like the more people talk about it and share their stories, the easier it is to feel like you’re not alone in your struggle. There is so much stigma around it, and so much shame, it’s easy to get trapped inside of your own head of blaming yourself and feeling bad, and then isolating yourself.”
Juliene Sinclair is a Bozeman-based artist who believes in fiercely pursuing your dreams. For Juliene, this includes a combination of persistence, patience, perseverance, failure, hard work, trust, doubt, self-forgiveness, and self-motivation. She turns boring walls into epic attractions, and in this week’s episode she shares her journey following her inspiration, and the twists and turns along the way.
Juliene has always been an artist, and as a kid she drew, painted, created and imagined. As she shares in this week’s episode, as she got older, art fell by the wayside. It wasn’t necessarily her passion, and like so many of us do, she chose to go in a different direction. She found herself studying international business in Spain for her first year of university, then moving to Southern California and spending a few semesters at community college. From there, she applied to an environmental engineering undergrad program. She picked painting back up as a hobby, but at the time it wasn’t her main focus - and she continued to work towards becoming an engineer.
It wasn’t until her first job as an engineer that Juliene realized something was missing. She wasn’t happy or fulfilled the way that she had hoped or anticipated, and she started playing around with the idea of having a side hustle in the hopes that she could start painting again. In the meantime, she sat for the professional engineering exam - and she failed. It was devastating, but she continued to work towards becoming licensed and she took the exam again. Regardless of whether she wanted to be an engineer or not, she knew that she wanted to prove to herself that an artist could also be an engineer. (P.S. she passed!)
During the months that that she was studying to re-take the exam, Juliene was able to fit in her first (unpaid) mural for the City of Bozeman in one of their parks, and in some ways the rest is history. She won the Bozeman Beautification Award, and she leveraged that award and press coverage to get her first commissioned mural in downtown Bozeman. She realized realized that creating art wasn’t supposed to be the destination, it actually needed to be the journey no matter what her circumstances were.
“Sometimes our own voice and vision gets bogged down by everyone and everything around us. I found though that if you focus your attention on settling the chaos, clarity will emerge. The clarity that emerged for me was the notion that if you can’t be where you love, then you better love where you are.”
Laura DiBenedetto is an author, business expert, and creator. Laura has always been an entrepreneur, and her story begins when she was 19, when she decided to build a company that she wanted to work for, that paid her what she felt she was worth.
Her company changed her life, and Laura always wanted to create her own path, and to find real joy and success on her terms. She retired from her first company when she was 38 years old, after realizing she needed a change - she worked to make it happen. In this week’s new episode Laura shares her “90 day get out of her own way” program to find her joy, and she started to dig deep. Next thing she knew, Laura began a passion project that shortly became so much more. She wrote a self-help book about how to powerfully manifest joy and abundance, a companion independent coaching program, and a 90-day life-changing program. Laura realized that it all came down to six habits that we can all develop to bring more joy and abundance into our lives. She had found her passion and her fire, and she knew it was something she needed and wanted to share with others.
Laura leaned in, and she’s proud of her journey, her struggles, and the wealth of pragmatic business and leadership expertise under her belt. There’s a spiritual experience and divine light inside of her, and she’s honored to share these gifts and help serve others in a uniquely accessible, truthful, and loving way. Today, she’s an executive coach and self-help guru working with people one-on-one to help them step into their incredible lives. As Laura shares in this week’s new episode, she’s excited to spread the truth and accessibility of joy. Joy isn’t hiding in the latest and greatest trend or project, it’s not even in your spouse or your children. It’s within you! Hiding within the cracks between your habits.
“I actually found joy and it was within me all along, hiding in the cracks between my habits. Once I did the work on my habits, joy was unavoidable. I also discovered that joy had some friends that wanted to come to the Laura party too. Namely courage, clarity, adventure, commitment and a real deep, unshaken love for self. Finding the magical recipe for joy has been a game changer for me in all ways. ”
To learn and connect with Shayna and Steel Petal Press visit her website https://www.steelpetalpress.com/ and on Facebook @steelpetalpress Instagram @steelpetalpress and Pinterest @steelpetalpress and if you’re interested in the Mental Health Trackers use code “NOTALONE” to receive 15% off!
To learn more and connect with Juliene and her work you can visit her website www.julienesinclair.com and follow her journey on Instagram @julienestudios
To learn more about Laura and her work visit her website www.lauradibenedetto.com and on Facebook @lauraldibenedetto and you can find her Facebook group here and on Instagram @lauraldibenedetto on YouTube here and on LinkedIn here
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