The Power of Storytelling - Episode 27
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Welcome back to The Power of Storytelling!
Kaitlyn, Hayley and Nancy - thank you for sharing your stories, your words, and your journey with all of us.
This month’s episode reminded me that our greatest joys often come in the most unexpected ways, and at the most unexpected times. And with that, so does our greatest journey, path, and purpose. Embrace the unexpected, the highs and lows, ups and downs, you never know where it might lead you.
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 Kaitlyn, and 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.
Kaitlyn A Faria is aspiring to make the world a prettier place through design. Currently based out of The San Francisco Bay Area, Kaitlyn works as a Product Coordinator & Designer for a furniture & home decor company. She also runs an interior design & lifestyle blog.
In this week’s new episode Kaitlyn shares with us her journey with design, and the postgrad journey she never expected. While in college, Kaitlyn found out that she had a brain tumor, she was diagnosed with anxiety, depression and PTSD. Once she graduated, she was over $100k in debt, and her first job was as a sales associate. While on her lunch break, Kaitlyn would go to a coffee shop nearby and write down what she was grateful for, and religiously listen to self-help podcasts. As she shares in this week’s new episode, there are two major things she learned during that process. One, write down the things that you want and be clear. Two, she decided that she was going to change her story. She wasn’t going to focus on the negative, but instead focus on the positive - she was young, passionate, and that her opportunities are endless.
Finally, everything changed. After sending out over 150 applications in an 11-month period, she met someone in her field, who just happened to be at the coffee she dreamed of working for. Today, Kaitlyn is a Home Product Designer, and she’s grateful for the lessons she learned from the moments that challenged her.
Today, Kaitlyn describes her interior design style as eclectic, mid century and bright. She has a passion for Product Design, Interior Design, Merchandising, Graphic Design, Branding and all things creative. Most importantly: she loves what she does!
“Through this postgrad journey I’ve learned to not doubt myself, and I’ve seen how far my design passion and persistence can take me. I’m 25 now, and I still have a long career ahead of me and one day in the future I hope to be a creative director or a CEO running my own company of home decor product. ”
Hayley Luckadoo is a serial entrepreneur, motivational speaker, and big dreamer who took a hobby business born out of a college dorm room and turned it into a successful multi-business success story. She runs completely on Dr. Pepper, and if it comes in pink you better believe she wants it. Now she spends her days dreaming up new ways to help creatives everywhere take risks, grow their business, and achieve their biggest dreams.
In this week’s new episode Hayley shares with us her journey ending her engagement, dropping out of college, to becoming an accomplished entrepreneur. It’s a story of becoming, and turning setbacks into blessings.
Hayley was definitely a logistics-minded child. She organized everything, things have always been straight and color-coded, and she was never lacking creativity. She started planning parties and formals in college, and then hit that age where everyone she knew started to get married, so after a series of pretty unfortunate events, her wedding planning business, Fairytale Pursuits, was born out of a dorm room, and grew quickly. Within 6 months she had a full-fledged business, and her life completely changed. She found something she was great at, continued it for the next 5 years, and enjoyed it even more when she got to plan her own wedding, and married her husband, Luke, in January of 2016.
Less than two years later, she was helping some fellow pros out with the marketing side of their businesses, and they told her that she had a talent for it. In no time she had a second business. What is now Luckadoo Media Co, their digital marketing company, was more successful than she could have ever imagined, and is their most profitable business to date. Since then, she’s added coaching, courses, podcasts, and she’s found her biggest passion in motivational speaking. I realized that speaking, and specifically motivational speaking, is my biggest passion and where my heart is. It's where I know I can make the biggest influence and it's the part of my business that I love most.
“I love getting to remind myself of everything that I’ve overcome, so that I know in the future that I can overcome absolutely anything that comes my way. I truly believe that when we share stories about our past, our dreams, our goals, and what we’ve overcome, we build connections and community around those stories. I love sharing what I’ve been through, and the crazy ride that I’ve been on so far.”
Nancy Davis Kho is a writer whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Adirondack Life, The Rumpus, The Toast, and numerous anthologies including Listen To Your Mother: What She Said Then, What We’re Saying Now (Putnam.) She’s been recognized as a Voice of the Year in the Humor Category by BlogHer and was the inaugural champion of Oakland’s Literary Death Match. Her book THE THANK-YOU PROJECT: Cultivating Happiness One Letter of Gratitude at a Time was published by Running Press in December 2019.
Nancy writes about “the years between being hip and breaking one” at MidlifeMixtape.com, and her Midlife Mixtape Podcast (available on all major podcast platforms) celebrates Gen Xers at midlife with humor, heart, and a really good beat. In August 2019, the Wall Street Journal named the Midlife Mixtape Podcast to its list of “8 Podcasts for Anyone Nervously Facing Retirement.” Nancy is from upstate New York and now lives with her husband and two daughters in Oakland, California.
In this week’s new episode Nancy shares the story behind her new book, The Thank-You Project. It’s the story of the year that she wrote thank-you letters to 50 people, places, and pastimes that had shaped her, inspired her, and helped her become the person she was. The list of recipients included family and friends, of course, but soon expanded to teachers, bosses, mentors, authors, cities, hobbies and even a handful of ex-boyfriends and former friends. It was a totally unexpected way to find more peace during what turned out to be a trying and turbulent time, and continues to yield benefits years down the road. Nancy’s story will remind you of the beautiful connection between gratitude and happiness, and give you practical and reassuring guidance to start your very own Thank-You Project.
“These thank-you letters that you write allow you to have a little bit more perspective than what you’d have when you were in the moment. It’s an interesting way to go back and reframe your story, really understand what you’ve learned, and understand that you did the best you could at the time even if maybe you’d make different choices now. It’s a great way to foster self-gratitude, too.”
To connect with Kaitlyn and her work, visit her website www.kaitlynfaria.com and on Instagram @oh_kayfairy
To connect with Hayley and her work visit her website https://www.hayleyluckadoo.net and on Instagram @hayleyluckadoo Facebook @hayleyluckadoo Twitter @hayleyluckadoo and her Podcast, Females on Fire, here
To connect with Nancy and her work visit her website www.DavisKho.com where you can get to the Midlife Mixtape blog and the Midlife Mixtape Podcast (available on all podcast platforms.) and on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
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