Speaker 1: 0:10

Hey there, I'm Jenny Perez. I'm a wife, mom and small business owner, and although I love being all of those things, I'm at the point where I feel like there's something more to life outside of those roles. Does that sound like you? If you're in search of that extra magic, craving a dose of positivity, purpose and real talk on being worthy, capable and able, you're in the right place. Let's kick off this journey together. Ignite that spark, radiate some positivity and discover what makes your life and business truly shine. Ready to jump in. Let's spark some radiance together. Hello and welcome to the Sparking Radiance Podcast. I'm Jenny Perez.

Speaker 1: 0:58

This episode, I get the chance to share a recent conversation that I had with a lifelong friend, someone who I truly admire professionally and someone who I admire as a wife and as a mother. She stands firm in her spiritual faith and she's really achieved so much. Some of her accolades include advancing her career and climbing the corporate ladder. She's become part of the winner circle in her organization. She's also involved with the winner circle in her organization. She's also involved with the Los Angeles Regional Starting Block Board and she's been a participant in the UCLA Reardon MBA Fellows Program. She's just someone that has spirit and ambition and initiative, and she's consistently striving for more in her personal and her professional life. I hope you enjoy this conversation that I had with my dear friend, mrs Elvira DeCure. Her and I sit and we discuss the art of balancing all of the various responsibilities that we have and some of the challenges that we face managing it all.

Speaker 1: 2:01

Hello and welcome back to the Sparking Radiance podcast. I'm Jenny Perez. I just want to check in with you all and just make sure that you are following us on Instagram at sparkingradiance. Sometimes I'll put some additional content on there, you know, especially if you're just going through the week and you need like a little boost. Check us out on sparkingradiance. Also, if you haven't already, please make sure to leave a review. It's the way to help this podcast grow. I'm excited to be able to add on more guest speakers to add value to the Sparking Radiance community.

Speaker 1: 2:35

So, with that said, I am quickly going to just talk about something that I heard a few weeks back in church and it was from an associate pastor of the church that I go to and one of the things he talked about is he talked about opposition and he talked about what happens during the opposition process and when he was speaking, I was like you are speaking to me and you are speaking to giving me input on what I should be talking about. I have this feeling that some of us that are listening, myself included, we may be going through some opposition in our life. I have a feeling that we are possibly maybe going through some hurdles and it really is what we do during that moment, or how we take that opposition as it comes and presents itself to us, how we overcome that or how we face it is where it leads to opportunity, okay. So the message that he spoke about was opposition is always going to be a chance for opportunity, okay. So opposition I kind of just googled what opposition means and it could mean different things at different times in our lives. So it could be, maybe, something that is showing resistance in our lives adversity, conflict, challenge, hindrance. Maybe it could be disagreements, it could be objections, a counter reaction. So these are just some ideas of what opposition could be in our lives.

Speaker 1: 4:08

Now, the easiest thing, the way for me to understand opposition, is I equate opposition to hurdles that I have to face, and I say hurdles because I feel that a lot of times we can't overcome the opposition and we're demonstrated that with other oppositions that we faced in our life. Right when we think, when we look back, like remember that one time I was worrying and stressed about that thing that happened, like where was I going to get the money or how was I going to overcome that? I mean, it's long gone now, it is a afterthought, but in that moment, when we were faced with that hurdle, how did we overcome it? Okay, so I thought it was a powerful message and I wanted to be able to share it with you all. And bear with me because I'm looking here at my notes and let's hope I can understand my writing here from that morning in church. Now, one of the things that he said was that the first thing when we face opposition or when we face a hurdle, the first, our initial reaction that we face is typically some form of deception. Okay, so it's deceit, and what that is is. We believe the lies we tell ourselves and some of the things that we first say to ourselves I know I have done this before it's like well, why is this happening to me? Why do I feel that I have to deal with this? We, our first initial reaction to any kind of opposition is an immediately deceit. We start to question like why is this happening to us? And I wanted to give you some examples.

Speaker 1: 5:46

Some of these may hit home for some of you. You may be experiencing this at this time, but some of us have maybe felt some career setbacks, right. Maybe we've lost our job or we've been passed over for a promotion. Some of us have maybe had a disagreement, conflict with a close friend or family member. That can definitely put up some hurdles for us. Some of us are expecting or experiencing, maybe a health challenge or maybe a diagnosis that we were not expecting. The other thing is a few of us may be having some financial loss or unexpected expenses in our lives that have presented themselves. Loss or unexpected expenses in our lives that have presented themselves. Some of us could have a business venture or maybe a creative project that didn't succeed. Maybe it's failing or it didn't work out altogether.

Speaker 1: 6:34

Some of us have been rejected in love. Some of us are going through a breakup, through a divorce, through a downturn of a relationship of someone we truly loved. Some of us have gotten some feedback. We've gotten maybe some harsh feedback on social media or at work, right. Maybe somebody has given us some public criticism. Some of us missed out on something. Our hurdle is we missed out on an important event, investment or opportunity. Some of us are not in agreement with, possibly, a group that we're working with or a team project, and some of us are working with our heads down, but maybe we're taking a little bit longer to achieve a goal or a milestone that we have set for ourselves, and our hurdle is that we're experiencing delayed success.

Speaker 1: 7:19

I share these examples. It's because I think that a lot of us are going through that. I have this feeling that it's part of life and it's part of our opportunity to be able to grow, and now it's just looking at the opposition represents the fact that it's our opportunity to grow, and now it's just looking at how can I turn that hurdle and how can I turn that opposition and turn it around and make it an opportunity. Okay, so we'll go back to how we can make an opportunity, but the first thing we have to do to overcome our first initial reaction of deceit. Okay, to overcome deceit, we have to be anchored in truth, and what that means is we have to take a step back and we have to look at what is true about me or about the situation? So when I ask myself the first question of why is this happening to me? Why does that person no longer love me, the first thing I have to do is step back and I have to anchor or counter that lie that I've just told myself with truth. What is true? Okay, what is true? What is true about me or the situation? So, if we're in a financial situation, what is true about this financial situation? Maybe I address it with instead of addressing it with a when that lie comes, because again, we're all going to lie, first to ourselves.

Speaker 1: 8:40

But then we have to overcome that deceit that we tell ourselves and we have to anchor it in truth, okay, and it all comes back to perspective. It comes back to perspective because what it is doing, or what that hurdle or opposition is doing, it is testing our belief system in ourselves. So, again, we're going to get. Initially, we're going to have that deceit and we're going to have that questioning of ourselves. Going to get. Initially, we're going to have that deceit and we're going to have that questioning of ourselves. But to anchor ourselves in truth and talk about what is the truth related to the matter is how we overcome that hurdle and overcome that obstacle that we're facing opposition Now. So if here's the problem, if we don't counter it with some sort of truth, what ends up happening next is we become discouraged. So we talked about deceit is our first reaction, and then it builds itself into discouragement. So in the second step, if we continue to deceive ourselves, we will then get to a stage of discouragement, and what we will do then is we will begin to believe the lies we have fed ourselves or the lies we tell ourselves about ourselves.

Speaker 1: 9:47

I'll give you an example of where a spiral can go and where we start to feel the discouragement. Why is this happening to me is our first thing. Well, this is happening to me because maybe I didn't get a college education, and this happening to me because I'm not as educated as those that I walk into the room. It's happening to me because I'm not as educated as those that I walk into the room. It's happening to me because I'm not as experienced, because I don't have enough knowledge with accounting. I don't have enough knowledge of marketing. This is happening to me because I was never the top of my class. This is happening to me and you can see where you can go down this spiral of this deceit, of what we then tell ourselves, but then what ends up happening over time is then we start believing it, we start believing those lies that we tell ourselves and then they turn into a stage of discouragement.

Speaker 1: 10:31

Here's how we can counter the discouragement. Obviously, the first thing, like I mentioned before, when we start to hear those lies, we will actually counter it with some sort of truth. So, for example, when I mentioned I'm not as educated as the people in the room, I'm going to counter that with a truth about myself. I may not be as educated on paper, but I can build a car inside and out without question. Or I can do some sort of construction, I can do some kind of manual or some truth about yourself that shows that you are as equally educated as they are, just because you don't have the paper. Okay, so we're going to counter it with the truth.

Speaker 1: 11:07

Now let's also look at some of those examples that I gave of where they may be opposition in your life, but let's change our perspective, let's test our belief in ourselves. So let's counter it, so we don't become just go to that stage of discouragement, and let's look at it from an opportunity perspective so our opposition can become our opportunity. So, for example, if we lost our job or we've been passed over for promotion, what that will our opportunity is we'll be able to reevaluate our career path, opening new doors to maybe new industries, maybe starting a business or learning new skills. Okay, we see this a lot where people are maybe we're laid off and boom, they start a new business and it completely takes off because it was an unexpected blessing. Okay, I always like to say and I've read this, you know, shout out to my girl, jamie Kern Lima but one of the things she says is that rejection is God's protection. So sometimes those things happen because we're getting set up for something better and greater.

Speaker 1: 12:09

Down the line, personal conflict, if we have a disagreement with a close family member or friend, our opportunity is it helps us improve our communication or empathy or ways to set healthy boundaries with each other. If we are our health challenge, if we have an unexpected health issue or diagnosis, what that will do, our opportunity is that it'll help spark us to reassess our lifestyle choices, leading us to healthier habits and maybe a renewed focus of our well-being. If we've had, if we are currently experiencing, financial setbacks, I'm with you. I've been there before. But if you're feeling significant financial loss or unexpected expenses, what this will opportunity allies or a perspective where we should keep our focus is it focuses us to be creative and budgeting, finding new strings of income or learning better about financial management skills. If we've failed at a business venture or maybe a creative project that we didn't like, what that'll allow us to do.

Speaker 1: 13:09

Our opportunity there is that it encourages us to deep dive into what went wrong and how we can improve the next steps. If we've been rejected in love, just keep in mind that our opportunity there is. We have that time to reflect in our self-reflection, our healing and discovering what we really want in a partner. If we've been criticized on social media or at work, it's our chance to reassess our message or work and improve. If we've missed an opportunity, an investment or an event, what our opportunity looks like is that it pushes us to find new ways to create value elsewhere or sharpen our focus for the next chance. If we're experiencing any team conflict or group conflict, it forces us to collaborate. It forces us. Our opportunity is we're going to become better communicators. We're going to become better problem solvers. And if we are experiencing delayed success and I feel a lot of us are that way. Right. Why are we not achieving those goals or those milestones that everyone else is? Well, what that teaches us, or what opportunity we have there, is that it teaches us patience and persistence. And in that time guess what, while we're thinking it's a delay, we're actually allowing. It's a time that's going to allow us to continue to sharpen our axe and our skill of development.

Speaker 1: 14:31

And I give you all of these examples is because every time we feel or we sense one of those hurdles that have presented themselves in our lives, I want you to take a step back, counter that lie with some sort of truth so you can see it clearly from an opportunity standpoint. And this isn't easy. This is not an easy task because if you are currently in one of those states or a hurdle has been put in front of you, it's not easy because you're emotionally connected to the situation. Sometimes it requires us reaching out to people, and I've said this in the past reach out to someone close to you. Have them take a look at the perspective, because they're not emotionally attached. They can give someone close to you. Have them take a look at the perspective because they're not emotionally attached, they can give us a different perspective. They can testify to what they know is true of us, right, what they believe in us and what is true in us. They may be able to see it and their word is going to conquer those lies that we tell ourselves. Okay, and if you don't have anyone to reach out to, like I said before, reach out to me. I'd be more than happy to take a look at what hurdle you're facing and how we can look at that as an opportunity for growth.

Speaker 1: 15:40

So, with the deceit, if we don't check it, it then becomes a discouragement and then from discouragement, it just becomes a delay. It just becomes a delay in our life and that hurdle, actually it will block us from whatever we were, what path we were ever made to take. We become delayed and we never move past it. Okay, so going back to my example of if I walk into a room and I don't have that Harvard PhD that everyone in that room has, and I decide, you know what, I'm not even going to go into that room, I'm going to delay it and I'm going to block it. I will never know, if I would have walked into that room who I would have met or who I would have connected with, just because of that lie and discouragement that I believed about myself. I found an article in the Psychology Today magazine and it was by Mel Schwartz, and it's an oldie but goodie. It was actually posted on October 20th 2011. I'm going to call it an oldie but goodie, but the title of the article and I'll put that in the show notes for you is Turning Crisis into Opportunity. Steve Jobs did it. Now it's your turn, and he mentions in the article crises come into our lives no matter how we may try to avoid them.

Speaker 1: 16:55

They are troubling, unwanted experiences or events that take us out of our comfort zone. Typically, crises result in some type of loss. The very nature of a crisis is anti-ethical to our core values of certainty and predictability, as they vanish in an instant. We desperately try to restore order to our lives as chaos seems to prevail. Yet if we learn to reframe how we see crises, we might actually take advantage of it. There is the potential for alchemy as the crisis unfolds into a gain, provided we learn to stop resisting the unwanted change.

Speaker 1: 17:36

The crisis may be financial, relational, health or spiritual in nature. Those crises that are intentionally driven, tend to be relational, psychological or emotional. Ordinarily, we try to avoid these upsets as best we can, yet upheavals are at times leveled upon us and may not be of our making. We may feel like victims of the circumstances as we struggle to hold on to life as we knew it. Typically, personal change requires our motivation and our intention to serve as the catalyst to power.

Speaker 1: 18:11

The transition Crisis, on the other hand, removes the self-motivating requirement, as it places us squarely outside of our familiar zone. The crisis literally removes the boundaries that we have circumscribed us, if it is as a tornado has slept in and when we open our eyes, everything has changed. The maelstrom places us well beyond the bounds of the known. We typically find ourselves wanting desperately to get back inside the comfort zone of the known, but the crisis precludes that option. There is no going back, but that is where the opportunity lies. So he gives an example of Steve Jobs. And so Steve Jobs, he says, might have felt self-defeated and victimized himself after he was fired from Apple many years ago, but he chose otherwise. After his dismissal, he grasped the crisis by the horns, seeing the opportunity where others did not. He went on to lead a small animation company and it turned into what is now Pixar. When the Walt Disney Company bought Pixar in 2006, jobs immediately became the largest shareholder in Disney. So he gives this example and he says the moral of the story is that unwanted change happens. Look beyond it and embrace the discomfort, so embrace the hurdle, and so later in the article he mentions like so where's the opportunity? How do you face this obstacle? And see it from a point of opportunity, and I think this is very crucial or what he mentions here and he says where is the opportunity? Let's delve a bit deeper into the opportunity that prevails through these hardships.

Speaker 1: 19:56

A crisis is defined in Webster's Dictionary as a crucial or decisive point or situation, a turning point. If we focus on the phrase turning point, we might ask ourselves toward where are we turning? Oh my gosh, that is so powerful. And I think about. This is what I see in my mind when I read this article, when it says if we look at the hurdle or the opposition or the detriment that we're currently in the way I see it is, I picture myself running on a track field. Now, was I ever in track and field? No, but in this example I see myself on a track field.

Speaker 1: 20:35

When I think of a hurdle, I think of the hurdles that runners face when they have to jump over them. And if I were to stand in front of a hurdle, if there was a hurdle in front of me, if it was above me, wider than me, taller than me, longer than me, instead of focusing on oh my gosh, I can't get over this hurdle, he's saying, if we focus on the word turning point, we might ask ourselves what are we turning towards? So it's questioning well, how can I overcome this hurdle? Who can I work with to provide me resources to help me overcome or feedback to overcome this hurdle? So it's just if you understand that when the hurdle presents itself, when that opposition that you face presents itself, if you understand that that is a moment where it's a turning point, where something can happen, you become non-reactive to the hurdle, so you actually see it as an opportunity. He mentions this potentially becomes obscured when we're focused on the emotion, but again, it's just becoming comfortable with, when the hurdle presents itself, to look at it as an opportunity. What is the turning point here for me?

Speaker 1: 21:47

So let's go back to looking at those examples that I gave and I'm just going to give you some benefit from some of the examples that we mentioned. So if we have a career setback, we knew that our opportunity was. We can maybe reevaluate our career path, open doors to new industries, starting a new business or learning new skills. So what is the benefit from that opportunity? The benefit is that you gain the chance to pivot. You're potentially discovering a role that maybe is more fulfilling, that you had you not gotten, you know, lost your job. You wouldn't have found otherwise. So there's the otherwise, so there's the benefit. So there's always going to be the hurdle or the setback, or the opposition. Then, from the hurdle, we're going to look at the opportunity and then, from the opportunity, there's always going to be some sort of benefit. I'm going to randomly choose.

Speaker 1: 22:32

Let's talk about the financial setback. If we're experiencing a financial setback, that's our hurdle, our opportunity we talked about it forces us to be creative in budgeting, finding new income streams or learning better financial management skills. Well, what is the benefit of that? So the benefit of that is you emerge financially smarter and more resourceful. You're gaining long-served ability, right Like if you've ever made a financial mistake most likely nine times out of 10, you're not going to make that same mistake again. So there's benefit from that. There's growth there.

Speaker 1: 23:00

I'll give you one more example of one that we talked about. Maybe those of you that are having some delayed success. Right, it's taking longer than you expected to achieve your goal or your milestone. That is our hurdle, that is our opposition. But our opportunity was that it teaches us patience and persistence and it'll allow time for that skill, or skills, to develop. Well, what's the benefit of that? There always is going to be a benefit from an opportunity, and the benefit is that the delay often results in a deeper growth of yourself, allowing you to appreciate success more when it fully does come right. Think about that. If it took you a long time to achieve something, think of how much more satisfying it would be when you finally do achieve it versus if it came overnight, because you actually have sweat, tears and equity involved in that. So that couldn't be more true for sure. So, when whatever we're looking at opposition, we might initially think that they're setbacks, but in the long term, it leads us to long-term growth and it teaches us to be resilient, patient and adaptable.

Speaker 1: 24:01

So here is our activity for the week. All right, so we're going to do a little bit of retro. Okay, so we're going to think, because I know we have all had a setback. It's part of life, it's part of being in business, it's part of being a parent, it's part of being focused on our career or in our education. We're always going to have hurdles and setbacks, okay. So I want you to think of a time that you faced some sort of opposition, hurdle, setback, conflict, challenge, however you want to call it, but there was a hurdle, a rejection, but there was a hurdle that you had to overcome.

Speaker 1: 24:37

Okay, so I want you to write that out. And you can just do one, right, you can just do one that you had in the past. So I want you to write that out and you can just do one, right, you can just do one that you had in the past. Then I want you to write what opportunity could come from that, okay, so what opportunity could come from that? So, again, anchor it in truth. Don't listen to yourself. You want to listen to the truth of what is true about you or the situation. Okay, so that is the opportunity. So, like, for example, in Steve Jobs' case, he took the crisis of him being let go from Apple and him taking what he knew, realizing that he can lead a small company, he can start another company, and that was his opportunity, knowing that he could take those leadership skills elsewhere. And what the benefit? So the next thing. So of the three.

Speaker 1: 25:21

So you write down what the setback was. You talk about what the opportunity may be and sometimes, for seeing the opportunity, take yourself out of the picture. What advice would you give somebody else? What advice would you see if you weren't emotionally attached to that? That's how you can also see the opportunity. And then what you're going to write is what benefit did you get from it? What benefit did you get from it? What benefit did you get from it? Because from every setback, there is always going to be an opportunity and there is always going to be a benefit from the opportunity.

Speaker 1: 25:49

That is going to be something that you're going to do. You're going to write down one from that happened in the past, okay, and we've all been there, we've all had some sort of setback. Then what we're going to do is we're going to write down a current day setback what's happening right now in our lives, where are we facing hurdles, where are we going to find the turning point to overcome this hurdle. And so we'll write down the same thing, what setbacks we're facing now, what opportunities lie in the current setback. And then we're going to forecast and say what benefit can I get from this? So you're going to do one from the past and you're going to do one from the present, and really what this activity will teach us to do is it'll teach us when those setback comes.

Speaker 1: 26:28

It's funny because there are those hurdles and I've kind of interchangeably used the word hurdle opposition, setbacks, rejection, all of those things. They mean the same thing. But when those hurdles come face to face with us, we have the opportunity to ask ourselves how it's more of a how how can I overcome this? How can I make this an opportunity? Because every single opposition and every single hurdle that we have faced in life, there was always an opportunity for growth there. It has to be there. And I kind of think back to the track runner, right? Who's going to be jumping those hurdles? Well, guess what, every time they jump over those hurdles, what happens? Their brain gets stronger, it grows in the calculation of when they should jump and when they should let down, right. Also to, their muscle memory again grows when they jump over that hurdle of you know. Their muscles are getting stronger, faster and leaner and their skill sets just continue to develop as they continue to go over hurdle and hurdle and hurdle, to the point that it then becomes can subconsciously just go ahead and complete the race right. And I always wonder, like, how do they they go so fast and they do so much while they just keep doing they face hurdle after hurdle after hurdle, so that they it becomes second nature to them. So I hope this helps, guys.

Speaker 1: 27:49

I feel I heard this message and I feel that you know maybe there are some of you out there that are facing these, these tough times, and it's really just all about perspective and don't believe the lies that you tell yourself. You are your worst enemy. You have to understand that you counter yourself with truth. What is true about you? You all have a light. You all are filled with so much positivity and there are so many great qualities about you and I hope that you're listening and I hope that you hear this from a place of love for myself that I genuinely feel that and I genuinely feel that you will overcome that hurdle. In the moment it may not feel like it, but just keep in mind, that hurdle is going to lead you to an opportunity and from that opportunity guess what guys? You are going to have some benefit. So I'm excited. Share with me what hurdles you have overcome, because maybe I haven't faced that hurdle yet, but maybe you have. And that also gives you the ability to help and share with other people. When we overcome hurdles, we might run across people that have. But share with me what you're writing down your past and maybe share with me what you have going on present, because maybe I or somebody I know might be going through that same thing.

Speaker 1: 28:57

So, with that said, guys, thank you for tuning in. Again, please make sure you are leaving your reviews. We'd love to grow the Sparking Radiance podcast and if you're not following us already, please make sure to check out sparkingradiance. And with that said, guys, love y'all. Can't wait to talk next week. You hear that clap. That's me cheering you on for completing another episode. I don't know about you, but, man, that was quick. If you like what you heard, hit the subscribe button or share the episode with someone you think that might need a little spark and help us grow by leaving a review. Remember, keep sparking that radiance from within Until next time. Shine on.