Season Four Reflections

The gift of stepping inside the lives of this season’s guests gave me unexpected insight for my own challenges, struggles, and failures. Answers are there when we allow ourselves to listen.

·This world is full of landmines for those who have suffered from sexual abuse.  Victims No Longer author,  Mike Lew and the community of survivors prove that recovery is possible, providing much-needed hope.

·Architect and designer Eve Picker  transformed her adopted city of Pittsburgh after bankers refused funding.  Clear in her resolve, she went ahead and built the first lofts downtown guided by her commitment to impact investing, restoration, and historic preservation. 

·Master woodworker Cecilia Schiller has had to face many unknowns; she reminds us to lean into these dangerously vulnerable places.

· Stephanie Slocum, author of She Engineers, inspires us to take advantage of small windows of time. She encourages us to spend time looking inward and reminds us of the value of self-exploration.

·Everything has limitations—even self-reliance. Andre Williams experienced failure for the first time during his transition from high school to collegiate athletics. Having the courage to ask for help moved Andre forward, beyond his own expectations. ·Mary Sullivan realized that fun should be at the cornerstone of creating a sustainable business.  This former boutique Hollywood entertainment attorney left her practice -  inspired by an obvious need - to co-create the MikeRoweWORKS Foundation.

· Life’s detours are often the richest part of our journey. Kate Erickson leveraged early career struggles - missed promotions, devastating disappointments, and failures - experiences she now sees as paramount to the success of her world-leading Entrepreneurs On Fire daily business podcast.

·Makoto Fujimura welcomes us into his studio where he practices Nihonga, “slow art” crafted using precious handmade minerals. Mako wrote his book Art & Faith; A Theology of Making, during moments of meditation and prayer—waiting for his paint to dry.

·As we learned from DeeDee Trotter, a three-time Olympic medalist, our gifts and passions are not always aligned.  After embracing her gift, this “glitter-faced warrior” turned a career-ending injury into a blueprint for her remarkable success.

·Beatrice Welles, animal rights activist and sole heir of the Orson Welles Estate, reminds us of the alchemy of adversity, the potential building blocks to actualization. 

Thanks for listening and your support. Continued gratitude to our sound engineer Andy Hollingworth, who gives precious time from his acting and filmmaking. 

Transcript

Phil Wharton (00:00):
A lifetime of training, practice, study hard work through discipline, some achieve excellence, mastery, fulfillment, self-actualization. What can we learn from their beginnings, discoveries, motivations, and falls? How do they dust themselves off and resume their journey? During these interviews, stories and conversations, we reveal their intrinsic drive. The gift of stepping inside the lives of this season's. Guests
gave me unexpected insight for my own challenges, struggles, and failures. Answers are there when we allow ourselves to listen. This world is full of landmines for those who have suffered from sexual abuse.

Mike Lew (00:54):
Because what I believe is that all of the major ills of society begin with the idea of children as property. Because if something is your property, you can do anything you like with it. You can sell it, you can kill it, you can harm it. You can sexually abuse it, because it's your property, and I think if we can justify harming the weakest and most vulnerable members of society, we can justify anything.

Phil Wharton (01:36):
Through Mike's work and the community of survivors, I've learned there is hope and recovery is possible. I've found a family of heroes with the fighting spirit, and courage to move from the darkness of isolation, into the light of wholeness. One woman from Australia transformed her adopted city of Pittsburgh. Architect and designer Eve Picker built the first lofts downtown. When bankers refused funding, they were not able to see the value in impact investing, restoration, and historic preservation. This global city planning maverick utilized her relentless, no, no mentality creating the first real estate crowdfunding platform. Small change.co allows small investors, minorities, and community members from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, equity ownership in their neighborhoods.

Eve Picker (02:42):
I'm really driven by this need to do things that have some purpose and some positive results. I get a lot of joy from it.

Phil Wharton (03:00):
Like Master woodworker, Cecilia Schiller. I had to face my fears in new territory, stretching myself Within
new mediums, Cecilia reminds us to lean into these dangerously vulnerable places.

Cecilia Schiller (03:16):
When you're in a really vulnerable situation, I think magic happens a lot more than when you're in safe situations.

Phil Wharton (03:30):
Stephanie Slocum, author of She Engineers, inspires us to take advantage of small windows of time. She
encourages us to explore the self, spending time looking inward, reminding us of the value of self exploration.

Stephanie Slocum (03:47):
I went to Starbucks over lunch, and wrote chapters here and there. I got up early, right? I wrote a page, okay. I stood in line at the grocery store and voice memoed, so recorded and wrote it. I love it while I'm standing in line when something came to me. If you want to change the world, you need to change yourself first.

Phil Wharton (04:12):
Everything has limitations. Even self-reliance. Andre Williams experienced failure for the first time
during his transition from high school to collegiate athletics. In this and other situations. having the courage to ask for help moved Andre forward beyond his own expectations.

Andre Williams (04:34):
It was a sense of I knew it was there, right? But I was something was missing, right? Yes. Something was missing. You helped me. Tommy helped me. Yes, and just going and just going back to, just going back to when I was on a verge of flunking, out of out of school. I asked for help, right? Yeah. And I went, I asked for help.

Phil Wharton (05:03):
Mary Sullivan realized that fun should be at the cornerstone of creating a sustainable business.
Mary Sullivan (05:10):
It also gave the opportunity mostly because I had no idea what I was doing, and probably he didn't either To not try to fit something into a box exactly. I would figure out what does he want to do and how can we make that happen? What's going to make it more likely that it would be engaging and that he'd want to, as opposed to a lot of times the industry, if you go to an agency, they try to pull from their vending machine.

Phil Wharton (05:42):
Inspired by an obvious need. This former boutique Hollywood entertainment attorney left her practice to co-create the mikeroweWorks Foundation, turning the Dirty Jobs television series into a successful mission highlighting, the skilled trades and four year degree alternatives. Life's detours are often the
richest part of our journey. Kate Erickson leveraged early career struggles, missed promotions, devastating disappointments and failures, which she now realizes were paramount to the success of her world-Leading Entrepreneurs on Fire, a daily business podcast that she manages alongside her husband and partner, John Lee Dumas.

Kate Erickson (06:32):
When I didn't get that promotion at the bank, when my first business failed, when I kept feeling like I was, all my ideas were shot down and nobody liked the work I was doing at that marketing and advertising agency I was with. All of those things, brought me to where I am.

Phil Wharton (06:53):
Makoto Fujimura, welcomes us into his studio where he practices Nihonga-- slow art, crafted, using precious, handmade minerals. Mako wrote his current book, Art and Faith; A Theology of Making, during moments of meditation and prayer, waiting for his paint to dry. We learned of Kintsugi, the Japanese practice of mending broken pottery with lacquer and gold, a beautiful metaphor for celebrating our own
potential to move beyond brokenness into wholeness.

Makoto Fujimura (07:33):
You have to go through almost like this reality of you being polarized or being paralyzed by what you are experiencing. And yet, the art has the capacity to create moments of reflection and transcendence.
Beauty that carries us, carries us through.

Phil Wharton (08:07):
Sometimes our gifts and passions are not always aligned, which causes turbulence. As we heard from three time Olympic medalist, DeeDee Trotter, this fearless glitter faced warrior turned a career ending injury into a blueprint for remarkable recovery, and inspirational success. As a motivational speaker and pastry chef.

DeeDee Trotter (08:32):
Let your failure be the blueprint of your success. Beautiful. Take everything that you have gone through, everything that you feel maybe has tried to stop you along the way, and if you've given up on your dream because you've failed, because you've lost, because you've been disappointed, because you've been hurt, because you fear, because you have doubt. All of those things are simple motivators if you
learn how to transform them into positive power.

Phil Wharton (09:06):
The artist's path is often non-linear, requiring us to push through barriers and roadblocks, often created
by our own internal critic, Beatrice Wells, animal rights activist, and soul heir of the Orson Wells estate
reminds us of the alchemy of adversity as the alloy of actualization.

Beatrice Welles (09:31):
That's what makes you, it's that not the good things. No. The good things, no. Yeah. What makes you as the hard things. The good things are. The good things are I think you're lucky that you get the good things. That's what we got to start thinking is how lucky we are when we do get the good things. Yes.

Phil Wharton (09:51):
Thanks for listening. We are humbled by your support, continued gratitude to our sound engineer Andy Hollingworth, who gives precious time from his own acting and filmmaking projects. This show would not be possible without the brilliant inspiration and creative insight from our producer, Ellen Strickler. We're back in the studio. In the words of Chauncey Gardner from being there after the winter, there will
be spring. Drop us a note. Let us know what stories you'd like to hear on the next season of Intrinsic Drive™. Thanks for being with us. We appreciate you opting in, subscribing, and reviewing us. For thumbing us up, and following us on socials. Liking us. We like you. Drop us a note. Tell us what stories move you. For books, videos, resources, and more information. Visit us at www.whartonhealth.com/shopwhartonhealth,and be sure to join us for the next episode of Intrinsic Drive™.