The Power of Reaching Out - Doing it Because of the Fear with Lynda Sunshine West

Paula Shepherd Author

Lynda “Sunshine” West shares her inspiring story from losing $70,000 in her business to a thriving publishing company through the “power of proximity”

What if you could create a life you love by just taking action & raising your hand to ask for support? In this episode, Lynda “Sunshine” West shares her inspiring story from losing $70,000 in her business to a thriving publishing company and receiving an abundance of opportunities through the “power of proximity”. Lynda shares her journey from unhappy corporate jobs to fulfilling, if sometimes unsteady, entrepreneurship by taking action, facing her fears and asking the questions she was afraid to ask! Her inspiring story begins with her “year of fear” where she faced 1 fear every single day to her new outlook of doing it “because of the fear”!

In this episode we chat about:

Lynda’s childhood and where her fear of judgement began.

The “Year of Fear” after Lynda quit her 49th corporate job at age 51.

Uncovering the common thread of your fears.

Replacing fear with faith.

The book that transformed Lynda’s life.

And so much more!

As the Founder and CEO of Action Takers Publishing, Lynda Sunshine West’s mission is to empower 5 million women and men to share their stories with the world to make a greater impact on the planet. She is affectionately known as The Queen of Collaboration. Lynda Sunshine is a Book Publisher, Speaker, Multiple Times #1 International Bestselling Author, Executive Film Producer, and a Red Carpet Interviewer. At the age of 5, she ran away and was gone an entire week. She came home riddled with fears that stopped her from living. At age 51, she decided to face one fear every day for an entire year. In doing so, she gained an exorbitant amount of confidence and now uses what she learned to fulfill her mission. Action Takers Publishing’s motto is “We take action so you don’t have to.”

Connect with Lynda!

https://actiontakerspublishing.com/

https://www.facebook.com/actiontakerspublishing

https://www.instagram.com/lyndasunshinewest

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ly...

Timestamps:

(03:20) Lynda shares her vulnerable childhood and how it began her journey from people-pleasing to her full “sunshine” self.

(06:14) Lynda ran away to a neighbor’s house at 5 years old and how this shaped her life experience.

(08:34) Lynda’s “Year of Fear” after she quit her 49th corporate job at age 51.

(12:17) Her “favorite” fears that she has broken through and uncovering the common thread of judgement in her fears.

(17:15) Replacing fear with faith and doing it because you’re scared.

(19:30) How Lynda lost $70,000 in one business venture and became a zero-outgoing home.

(21:59) “Because of the fear”, taking action and creating your life.

(24:15) “3 Foot from Gold” was a transformational book in Lynda’s journey and the power of proximity.

(32:30) How Lynda “found the money” for her first event.

(35:17) Lynda’s opportunity to interview famous people on the red carpet from calling an author she admired.

(37:00) The currency of opportunity and the power of reaching out and just asking!

(42:22) Action Takers Publishing - sharing stories and making an impact on the world in a positive way by taking the action.

Transcript:

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

fear, people, linda, money, life, called, jack canfield, book, greg, event, happened, felt, reach, action takers, interview, talking, years, stood, red carpet, story

SPEAKERS

Lynda Sunshine West, Paula Shepherd

Paula Shepherd 00:01

Hi, I'm Paula Shepherd, I went to college to get a good job and make a lot of money. Back then, no one talked about doing what you love. And while I successfully climbed the corporate ladder, I felt like there was something missing. So I left the seemingly comfortable corporate world at 40 years old for the freedom of full time entrepreneurship. Today, I get to help ambitious women go from entrepreneur to competent CEO of their lives and businesses. I created this podcast to share what I've learned with you to make your journey just a little easier, and to connect you with other incredible business owners who took a chance on themselves and who they are becoming. So whether you're just getting started, are all in or just when you hear friendly voice. Come on in and sit with us. Now, let's dive in. Welcome to another episode of The confidence Sessions. Today I have an absolutely incredible guest with me. I I cannot even tell you how excited I am that she said yes to being here. Welcome, Linda sunshine West. Linda is the founder and CEO of action takers publishing. And her mission is to empower 5 million women and men to share their stories with the world to make a greater impact on the planet. She is affectionately known as the Queen of collaboration, which I can tell you from experience she is she is a book publisher, the speaker a multi times number one international best selling author, executive film producer, and a red carpet interviewer which I've been dying to talk to her about. So hopefully she'll do that with us today. At the age of five, she ran away and she was gone for an entire week. When she came home, she was absolutely riddled with fear. And it stopped her from truly living at the age of 51, Linda decided to face one fear every single day for an entire year. And when she did that, she gained an absolutely exorbitant amount of competence. And she now uses what she learned to fulfil her mission. action takers publishing motto is we take action, so you don't have to welcome

Lynda Sunshine West 02:35

Linda. Awesome. So happy to be here, Paula. And when you said you're honoured that I said, Yes, of course. I'm gonna say yes. Because you're absolutely amazing.

Paula Shepherd 02:44

I think the same thing about you. I think we just like, dump flattery at each other and not even true compliments because I do you're just so amazing. It's I think when we find somebody that has a vibrant personality, like I know that you do for my experience and engaging with you. If I just want to be around you more, do you hear people say that a lot about you?

Lynda Sunshine West 03:07

I do now. So you know, we'll go into my story a little bit. But you know, I grew up in a very volatile, abusive, alcoholic household. And you know, that's why I ran away when I was five years old. I was gone a whole week. But you know, when I came home from being gone, I came home riddled with that fear. And that fear caused me to really like shrink and shrivel up inside. And here's the thing is, outwardly, I was this person that was a gregarious and outgoing, but inside, I wasn't that person at all. Like I was this, this little flower that was shrivelled up and dying inside. So it's interesting that Not until I was about 53, or 54, did people start calling me sunshine? So sunshine is not my given name. It's the name that was given to me, after I started my personal development journey. So the reason I mentioned all that is because that stuff didn't start happening until I started to find out who I am. And what I'm all about, and started showing up as me because I was a people pleaser, for so many decades, all that fear caused that people pleaser syndrome, as I'll call it right now. But, you know, once I, again started finding out who I am and discovering what value I have to offer, and started showing up as me without fear of judgement without worrying about what other people thought about me without caring if people liked me or not, you know, it's it's interesting how that's when my shift from the inside, started showing up on the outside. And that's when people started calling me sunshine. It was random. People would say, hey, sunshine, like, are you talking to me? I didn't believe it, you know? And so I said, Oh, okay, it was the four people have called me sunshine. There must be something here. I'm just gonna go ahead and adopt Do it and see what happens. And I'm so glad I did. Because it helps me to remind myself that this is who I really, truly am deep down to the core.

Paula Shepherd 05:11

It's this beautiful mixture of optimism and grit, I feel like with you. And I mean, I have a six year old. So I can't imagine a five year old, right? He's newly six. So we'll just say he was just five last week, and to have to think of him running away for an entire week. And me not knowing where he was or how he would feel lost, and how traumatised, and PTSD and all of that that would come about as a result of not being at home where you're supposed to feel safe. That how many years did it take you truly to get to the point where you went from reliving that moment, or those moments across that week to feeling like you needed to face your fears.

Lynda Sunshine West 06:05

46 years, 46 years, six years. So here's the thing I want to comment about that is that my mom knew where I was. I was just at the neighbor's house. But I'm five years old. And I didn't know my mom knew where I was. So what happened in that time, and it took, it took time for me to like, look back at this and figure this out. And with help from other PTO coaches and stuff. But at five years old, I'm gone. Nobody comes to get me. So what happened in this little five year old brain was, they don't love me. They don't want me around. I was right. I knew it. They don't like me at all. That's what happened. And that got locked in solid. Now, I didn't find out until many, many decades later that my mom didn't know where I was. And I never asked her about it because I had so much you know, just distaste for my mom, you know, because she stayed with this abusive man for so many decades and, and I never really thought about my mom and who she really was all about and and the strength that she had to stay with him until after she was already passed away. So I remember her one day she said, Yeah, I You were gone for a week and I called the neighbour and I said Linda has been gone long enough. You can send her home now. And she laughed about it. And I was like, Okay, I guess it was funny. You know, but as I look, as I looked back, once I got older, and she was already gone. I said, You know what, my mom probably did it, she probably was allowing me to exercise my independence. From my mom's perspective, okay, she's gone. She's safe. The neighbours gonna take care of her great neighbours, you know, I know where she is. And after a week, I guess I better bring her back home. She's been independent long enough. So it's kind of interesting as we look back in life, and we have these different scenarios that happen to us or and or for us, these different things that happen in our lives, like, how do we respond or react to them then? And then how can we shift it today? Because now I have this respect for my mom, that my mom, let me exercise this independence. That's my story. And I'm sticking to it. I don't know what her story was. Because I never had an opportunity to ask her when she was alive.

Paula Shepherd 08:25

Wow. Does your year of fear did that help you come to that conclusion?

Lynda Sunshine West 08:33

That was part of it. It's been a it's been a long, fun journey. You know, first of all, why would I face a fear every single day for a year? Well, what happened was in August of 2014, I was 51 years old. And I was driving to work one day and I at this point, I had worked in the corporate world for 36 years, and I had 49 jobs. So here I was driving to work my 49th job, I was working for a judge in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which in California, that is the highest court, you can work and I was working for the number two judge in the entire state. And I was like, oh my god, I hate my job. I hate my job is so boring. I can't stand it. You hear I'm driving to work every day. You're just like the drudgery of life. And I was hating life. Literally hating my whole life except for my husband, who I love. But I was driving to work and I was like, Oh my gosh, I just hate this so much. What I don't understand what is the purpose of this whole planet? What's the purpose of life? What's the purpose of my life? And that was when things kind of started to like Centre in. Why am I even here? Why am I on this planet? I'm such a waste. I'm worthless. I truly believed all this stuff about me. This is the these were my beliefs at age 51 that started at age five. And I just carried them around with me forever, you know? And so when I got to work that day, there was a Facebook Post inside of a group. And there was this woman I didn't know her. He said, I'm a life coach, I took some time off, and I'm looking for five women who want to change their life. And I was like me, I'm in. I don't know who she is, but I'm in. And that was the greatest gift I ever gave to myself was to raise my hand and say, I'm ready to change my life. And that started it. So once I was working with her, I worked with her for five months, every single week, I gotta tell you, I hated her so much, because she, she dug in deep. I had never had anybody do that before. I cried every single week. And I was, I am a really good student. So I did all my homework. And by the end of my time working with or five months, the end of November 2014, I made a decision, I'm going to quit my job. And I'm going to become an entrepreneur. I'm going to become a millionaire in a year, because that's what they all told me what would happen? Well, yeah, hasn't happened yet. But whatever, it doesn't even matter anymore. And I did it, I took that leap of faith to, to do this, you're with 49 jobs, you don't have a pension, you don't have a retirement, you just don't have any of that. And so I took this leap of faith, and then jumped into entrepreneurship. So December, I was by myself, I didn't have a life coach, I wasn't working with anybody. And January 1 2015, something snapped inside of me. And I just woke up that morning, I don't do New Year's resolutions, because I break them all. And so I said, something has got to change. My life has been so sheltered. You know, I have so many fears. Oh my god, I'm gonna break through a fear every single day this year. So that was how it started. There was no plan, except one thing, only one plan. And that was that. Every morning, I wake up. Before I get out of bed, I'm going to ask myself one question, what scares me? And then I'm going to lay in bed, I'm going to wait until the answer comes, whatever that first answer is, is the fear. I'm committed to breaking through that day. And that's what I did. 365 days in a row changed my entire be who I am.

Paula Shepherd 12:11

What was the very first fear that you conquered?

Lynda Sunshine West 12:15

Oh, gosh, I wish I could remember that's it. Nobody has ever asked me that question. I didn't journal anything. Oh my gosh, you know, like, I have all these should have. One of those is I should have journaled the journey. I will just I'm just not into journaling, you know, but I can tell you that the one I thought was the most interesting, I had most of my fears. I'll share in a second like what my most of my fears were. But this one, I was like, I'm afraid to talk to a stranger in a Starbucks. Like, it was so specific.

Paula Shepherd 12:49

You know, you were afraid. Wait, I Oh, hold hold the phone here for a second cue. Linda, we're afraid to talk to a stranger.

Lynda Sunshine West 12:57

Oh, I still am.

Paula Shepherd 13:00

I steal it. Hey, yeah.

Lynda Sunshine West 13:03

Oh, yeah. And it was a really funny one, because I showed up at Starbucks. And I stood there and I waited it because I'm very literal. To talk to a stranger in a Starbucks. It wasn't a group of strangers. It was. That was the fear. And so I waited until one person came in, he sat down and, and I saw him and I was like, Oh, my God, there he is my victim the day and I walked over and I said, Excuse me, sir. I'm breaking through fear every day. And one of my fears is to talk to a stranger in a Starbucks. Do you mind if I have a seat? And he said, Sure, go ahead, weirdo, even say weirdo. But I'm sure that's what he was thinking. So I talked to him for about five minutes. And then I got up and I thanked him for his time. And I walked out. And I literally felt like throwing up, like, Oh, my God, I just did that. I approached a stranger and talked to them. And it was interesting, because as I made it through these different various fears, about six months into it, I just asked myself this question is like, what's the common thread here? What there's got to be some sort of common thread. And I discovered that it was the fear of judgement. What is he going to think about me? If I go out there and I talked to him? What are people going to think of me? When I'm on stage speaking? What are people going to think of me if I ask them to interview them? Like interviewing stars on the red carpet? I mean, hello. That's a little out there. That's like talking to strangers like the whole time. That's why I can't wait to get to that part. Yeah. And it's but all of it was because I decided to break through a fear every single day. Every single day, I became immune to fear. I mean, it's just so crazy. So now what happens I'll just share real briefly. Now what happens is when I experience fear, because fear is nothing more than an experience, it's an energy. It's just energy. First of all, I focus my end Big when I'm feeling scared, I use the word excited. I'm so excited. I never say I'm scared. I never say I'm afraid I always you'll hear me say I'm excited all the time. Because that's my replacement word. And what happens now is when I recognise I'm feeling fear, I oh my god, that's fear. Okay, cool. I'm gonna do this, because I'm scared. Because I'm scared. I'm working on my TED talk right now, by the way, you're talking about fear and doing it because you're scared.

Paula Shepherd 15:29

Amazing. Oh, my gosh. But were there ever days where you were lying in bed trying to come up with the thing you were afraid of? And there were so many things you thought, I don't know which one to choose first? Or was there always one, one that came first?

Lynda Sunshine West 15:45

There was always a thought that came first. And then if there were any other ones, I just, just like, let them out of my mind, because it was a daily thing. So I never planned out any of them. You know, people ask me that all the time. So what would you have a list like, No, I didn't have a list. I never jumped out of a plane. I never bungee jumped. I never ate bugs, you know, like fear factor or anything like that. My fears were so deep rooted in that fear of judgement, that they were they were things like, again, you're talking to a stranger going to a networking event, and not sitting in the back row. Today, I'm going to go to a networking event and just like and not sit in the back row. So it might be the second tobacco, you know, but then it eventually got to, I'm afraid to sit in the front. I'm afraid to reach out to an influencer and just ask them, Hey, can I interview you on my show? Just to even reach out, even though they might say no, or they might never get back to me. The fear was so real. So Real. And this is one thing like there's that there's that saying that fear is false evidence appearing real? Well, one day I was brushing, brushing my teeth, and I was like, false evidence appearing real. There's nothing false about my fear. It doesn't appear real, it is as real as real can be to me. And that's what matters is to me is real. So I ended up coming up with my own acronym. And that's that faith erases anxious reactions. When your faith is strong, your fear is weak. So one of the questions I'll ask myself, and I'm experiencing fear is I'll say, Linda, how strong is your faith right now? Your fear is taking over. We gotta check that in and we got to get faith, faith in myself. Faith in those in my surroundings, and faith in God, tap into all three of those, because that's when you can just do it now. Because you're scared.

Paula Shepherd 17:36

Wow. Okay. So you, you leave your job, just you have to recap this here, you leave your job, you are questioning why am I even here? What is this even about? Why why do I even matter? What am I even here for? You work with a life coach, feel this massive shift and transformation. And then December, you're basically I want to say on your own, but left to your own thoughts. January comes, you start this year fears where you start to conquer all of these fears. But let's let's just remember that at the same time, you are running a business, while you're conquering your fears. Did in some way you start to integrate the fears that you wanted to conquer. You mentioned reaching out to influencers with your business, did you start to see that momentum pick up where the fears you were conquering were more related to your success as an entrepreneur?

Lynda Sunshine West 18:39

Definitely big time because oh my gosh, the fears I had around entrepreneurship were vast and wide. You know, because just talking to new people or trusting a virtual assistant, you know, there's actually fear in that trust, right? That lack of trust, or my very first thing I did, Paula is I said, I'm going to start all these different businesses, I had seven different business ideas. And nobody could tell me, you should only do one, because it was like this caged up animal that had finally been released. And so I was going to do whatever I wanted to, for the first time in my life, I'm going to do what I want, you know, it was all the wrong stuff. But at least I did it and I owned up to it. And I was like, this was my failure. You know, I'm not a failure. These were failures. These were bad ideas, or these were poor, poorly executed. Right was a lot of one of the events I held. It was called lemon zest and garlic fest. Great name. People were like, Oh my God, that's so amazing. I was on TV. I was on the news during the year of fears. You know, I was reaching out to newscasters can I be on your on your programme? He was I was doing a whole bunch of things that were so scary for me but I knew I had to do these if I wanted to have success. Now that event I lost $70,000 $70,000 We had taken a second mortgage out on our home so that I could become an entrepreneur. And I lost all of our money. So at the end of that day, I looked at my husband, I said, I said, we got to sell our house. We just got to sell the house. Now, it had been in my family since I was two years old. But, and they have a positive emotional connection to my house. Right. So we ended up selling our house and bought a fifth wheel. 28 foot fifth wheel trailer sold 85% of our belongings became campground host at a local park here in San Diego, California, so that we would have zero money out go so that I could follow this dream and passion of becoming an entrepreneur and becoming a millionaire, which still hasn't happened. But we're still looking at young millionaires.

Paula Shepherd 20:50

But you have abundance in so many other ways. Exactly. I really, I really want to bring attention to that. Because everything that I see you do I really I admire your gusto. Like I said, your brilliance and your vibrance and the way you approach situations, I never would have known that you do things because you are afraid I always say like, in spite of the fear, but I love that I do it because I'm afraid. It's like challenging yourself a bit. How did you start reaching out to people? Or there's probably people listening right now saying, well, she must have known somebody showed up on TV or somebody told her how to reach out to someone or how to do it effectively. There's so many courses out there and things that you can pick up where you have to figure out how exactly do you write to that influencer? How exactly do you write to that author or to that television producer to tell them that you're interested in doing this thing? And they want to do it? Right? What? What was your mentality going into this? Were you doing a lot of research, were you getting a lot of help?

Lynda Sunshine West 21:59

Zero research. And really, it was just the breaking through the fears that led to me, led to me becoming coming into an environment of people that happened to be influencers, it wasn't for thought at all. So first of all, I want to address the, in spite of the fear and the because the fear for me in spite of the fear has a negative connotation to it. And I'm always looking for the positivity and things. And so one thing I realised is, as I was breaking through all these fears, that 100% of the time, 100% of the time that I broke through a fear, I felt good about it later. Now, I may not have felt good about it while I was going through it. Or when I like that I left that Starbucks, and I felt like throwing up. But after I felt like throwing up, I was like, oh my god, I did it. Look at that, I did it. And I felt so proud of myself, so proud of myself for doing that thing that scared the crap out of me. And so this was happening on a daily basis where I was scared. And then I felt great scared, felt great for 365 days. So I said, You know what, I gotta do these things, because I'm scared. Why am I depriving myself of that good feeling of feeling good about myself? That I did it or, or the result that I'm gonna get, maybe I'm gonna get an amazing result. But I would not get that result if I didn't break through that fear. So to answer your question, it was about January of 2015, probably about the 15th or so. So I'm only 15 days into breaking through fear. And my life coach said, Hey, there's, there's a vision board event going on, let's go attend it. And I'm like, What's a vision board? You know, I don't know. I don't know anything. And she said, Oh, it's just when you envision what your life's gonna be, and you put it on a board, and I'm like, Okay, let's go as a free event. And so we both attend this event. And they had five speakers that day. And there was one that really stood out to me, it was the keynote speaker. And his name is Greg Reed. So Greg Reed was up there on stage, he was speaking and He always gives away books. And so he gave away a book called Three Feet From Gold. And I've actually mentioned it on bookish because it's a book that really was the catalyst that changed my life. It wasn't the book as much as the fact that I stood up there. And I grabbed that book out of his hand, while I'm facing a fear every day. And so what happened is, I read the book in a day or two, which I'm a slow reader, and I could not put that thing down because it was very just transformational for me. And so during the event, though, Greg invited people to attend his event called Secret Knock. I didn't know anything about it. I didn't know anything about Greg. I didn't know anything about personal development, all this stuff. And I'm like, oh, that sounds awesome. But it's really too expensive is $1,500. Like, I'm not going to attend an event for $1,500. And so my life coach walks over to me, she says, I got my ticket to Secret Knock Are you going to go? And I'm like, Are you kidding me? I'm not going I pay that kind of money. And she said, If I could get you a discounted ticket, would you go, I'm like, I am not going to pay that kind of money. And she looked at me and stared me in the eyes and said, she said, You don't understand. You have to be there. And I was like, Okay, I will go, I will pay that money. hesitatingly I paid the money. And I showed up. And it's a three day event. And I literally spent the three days standing in a corner on my phone, not looking at anybody, I was so terrified to be there. But every 10 minutes or so, my life coach would bring over somebody, Hey, Linda, you need to meet so and so they're they do this and that. And Linda does this and that. And she would introduce me to these people because she knew how scared I was. And so by the end of that three days, Greg Reed had invited us all to attend another event called CEOs face $7,500. This is a lot of money. I don't have all this money. But I wanted it so bad that I found the money.

Lynda Sunshine West 26:04

I found that money, and I ended up signing up to go to CEO space. Well, what ended up happening is during this time that I'm really stretching myself out there, putting my money where my mouth is, and I'm meeting all these incredible people. Greg Reed ended up becoming my mentor. So Greg Reed knows people like Les Brown Jack Canfield, the president of Mexico, the founder of Pictionary, the founder of Ugg boots. So these all became friends of mine. Because the power of proximity pop, we call it PLP power of proximity. I am in Gregg circle, because I said yes to Secret Knock. I attended CEO space because of Secret Knock. I wrote, I was in a book, there was a book Greg was doing called footsteps of the fearless because of Secret Knock. I ended up writing my own book, the year of fears after I was done facing a fear every day, because Greg, my mentor said, you need to write a book about that. So I wrote a book about it. Then I wrote my own collaboration book called Momentum 13 lessons from action takers, who changed the world, this one was a really interesting one. Because what happened is, I was like, I had this title of a book. And I needed to find 13 people. And I said, I'm gonna reach out to the founder of Ugg boots, became a friend, right? I'm going to reach out to the, the inventor of the credit card magnetic strip that we use today, a friend of mine, I'm going to reach out to the creator of the Make a Wish Foundation, a friend of mine, I'm going to ask them all will you be in my book? And every single one of them said, Yes. It was scary, even though I knew them. I had this fear of reaching out to them. Why? The fear of judgement? Like they would judge me. But I said, that's okay. Just do it. Do it, do it because you're scared and see what happens. And they all said, Yes, of course. Just tell me what I need to do. And that really was instrumental in me saying that, all you need to do is reach out. So when I reach out to influencers, I reached out to one recently, and I just said, Hey, I love what you're doing with ABC, will you be part of 123? You know, and it's amazing. You'll be amazed at how they do respond. A lot of people do. So that's the short of it. But yeah, like interviewing stars on the red carpet. Oh my gosh, I was terrified to do it. But I did it. I was terrified. When I interviewed the president of Mexico, the country. That was my frickin Barbara Walters moment, Oprah Winfrey moment. And I walked down there. I was like, I did it.

Paula Shepherd 28:48

And Linda has some of these on her website, which I'm going to make sure that I link all of this her her book, her social media, everything in the show notes because you've got to see some of these interviews. They're they're pretty cool.

Lynda Sunshine West 29:00

But I want to tell you, one of them Jack Canfield. He's the, you know, he's co author of Chicken Soup for the Soul with Mark Victor Hansen, which I've interviewed him and his wife as well. You're on these red carpets really cool. And so the the red carpet interview of Jack Canfield was really funny because I interviewed him, I don't know, it was maybe like two or three minutes, you just do these short spurts, interviews. And at the end, I said, Jack, tell everybody what you love about me. And he gave me a testimonial standing right there because I asked him tell everybody what you love about me. Now, how did that happen? I'll tell the short version of the story. I was attending this event. It's the Academy Awards after party where I'm having this opportunity to interview stars on the red carpet. It's my first time I show up at the venue about 130 And everybody's at lunch earlier there had been like 500 people in this in this conference room. Jack Canfield had been one of the speakers that day, and when I walked into the room, there was Jack Canfield with three other people. Everybody else was gone at lunch. He was talking to these three people, while they were talking for about maybe five or 10 minutes, and I stood there patiently like, there he is, I'm gonna get a picture with them. I was so excited. And then when those three people walked away the other way, Jack happened to turn and walk towards me because I was near the exit. And he said out loud, I'm hungry, I'm gonna go get some lunch. He wasn't talking to anybody, because there was nobody else there except me. And I grabbed him by the arm. I said, oh, cool, I'm going to take you to lunch. Where are we going? And he said, I don't know, where do you want to go? We went to lunch. And I gotta tell you something that happened in that, that moment, there was not only cool that I asked him that he took him to lunch. But as we were walking to lunch, because we were about maybe an eighth of a mile away from the venue to eat. And as we're walking there, all these people knew him. Because he's a he's a celebrity, right? And they're like, Jack, I want to picture Jack, I have a new product, will you look at a check? Will you endorse my book? Jack? Will you sign my everybody wanted something from him? So I got to see the site of celebrity. What's it like to have everybody wants something of you? This was so important during this journey that I've been on, and I'll share with you why. So we got to lunch. The first thing I said was, Jack, I'm not here to take anything from you at all. I just want to be in your presence. That's it. And he was so relieved. We sat there for two hours and just talked about our lives. So when it got to the red carpet, and I said, tell everybody what you love about me. He had just had to ever lunch with me. He knew what I was all about. And he knew who I was. So I took advantage of that moment. And it was so great. Just so great. So there's I have so many stories, because because of breaking through fears every day.

Paula Shepherd 31:49

Wow. Okay. I, you mentioned something a while back. So you talked about proximity, which I believe in the power of relationships. I know you do, too. So when you say proximity, it's being around people, and again, being willing to give without asking for anything in return, just like you said, being in Jack Canfield presents. But to those people who might be listening and saying, Well, Linda, you found the $7,500 to get to that thing that allowed you this other opportunity. They see it building and they go, there's no way that I'm going to find $7,500 Would you be willing to share what you mean, when you said I found the money?

Lynda Sunshine West 32:35

Yes, definitely. And also when I'll expound on that, because there's money if there's an abundance of money, and there's like gazillions of dollars on this planet. One of the ways one of the things I've done is I looked around my house and I said, I don't use that. I don't use that. I don't use that. You know what, I'm just going to put it up on offer up and sell it. So I just started going through, you know, there's an app called offer up which I love. Yeah, one day I made $1,200 selling my own crap. So here's the thing anyway, I wasn't using anyway. And so people don't like to part with their stuff. But you know, what I would have, I would have sold well, we did sell our house. I would sell our house, you have the things that, that taking those risks have given me in my life with the confidence I have gained with, like showing up. And just being myself, I no longer have that fear of judgement, which is huge. The fear of judgement is the number one fear. And it's stopping most people from being interviewed on the podcast, from starting their own podcast, from taking a risk and saying, You know what, I don't know what is going to happen when I invest this money. But let me see is that fear of judgement. So just whatever it is, figure it out. Find that money. Don't let money, don't let i get i love it got passion. Don't let money stop you from living your life. You know, I grew up in the poor household. We didn't know where we were going to get our next meal. So a lot of times, you know, my mom was like scrimping and saving, trying to make it like the last two days of the month before dad got paid again. My dad was a drunk. He was an alcoholic. He was a gambler. He spent all of our money on gambling and booze, you know. And so we really did not know sometimes when we were going to eat. So I grew up in that mentality to shift to make that shift out of that was work. It was a lot of work. But I'm so glad that I took the chances on myself and did it. You know, oh my gosh, I could go on and on and on. As you can tell, I got

Paula Shepherd 34:47

you you have stories for days and I love it. But the one thing you didn't cover when we talked about the red carpet because we got there and I'm like yes to the things and I've seen them and they're amazing and they excite me. But the one thing that I can can't connect the pieces together is how did you go from saying yes to your fears, and doing the thing that you were afraid of? And getting to interview people on a red carpet? Where does where it will get what am I missing there? Where's the gap?

Lynda Sunshine West 35:16

Again, that power of proximity, right? So Greg Reed, who became my mentor, how did it all start there? How did he become my mentor? So Greg spoke at this event, I won his book. He always gives his phone number out when he speaks, because no, Pete, nobody calls him. So he gave out his phone number. And I called him and I said, Hey, can I come hang out at your office? And he said, Yeah, gone. Here's my, Here's the address. And so I went to his office, and I hung out for about four hours. At the end of the four hours, he says, so why did you come by? Why are you here? You know, and I just said, I just wanted to be around positive people. That's it. That was it. And so I showed up again, I called again, Hey, can I come again? And so like two weeks later, and go to his office hang out for just like a half hour, just to get that positive energy, you know, to be around that? Well, Greg, through that ended up becoming my mentor. I didn't say, Hey, will you be my mentor? It just happened. He would say, hey, go try this. Go try that, you know, hey, when you're when you're gonna go and talk to somebody, say this instead and see how it works. So he just started mentoring me through this journey. Well, how I got on the red carpet is Greg is one of the keynote speakers at the this Academy Awards after party. He's actually interviewed like John Travolta and Halle Berry, and like these, you know, these alias stars, you know, and so he said, Hey, I'm going out to this event, do you want to go, and it was gonna cost some money, I was like, I don't have any money to do that. So I turned it down. The next year, he says, Hey, here's this event. And at that time, something had changed. I ended up becoming his personal assistant. Now, I was doing it as a volunteer. I wasn't getting paid anything to be his personal assistant. But because I was his personal assistant, he invited me everywhere he went, and I got to go for free as his guest,

Paula Shepherd 37:11

but you were paid. So to me in that way being paid, you weren't being paid in a tangible currency, you will be paid. And well, even that much better. It was a different currency. That allowed you have the opportunity to that would probably be greater than a an hourly rate wage that you would have received to be paid as a personal assistant. And I love that you think of things that way. And really looking at the abundance and opportunity versus cash, you know, like cash is just the thing. And but it's not the only thing, how many free things have you done, or I've done or other people have done that went? Wow, if I really look at that, where was the look at the value there, look at what happened as a result. And I think that that is a great, great point that you just

Lynda Sunshine West 37:59

made. And I think a lot of times people are when they're looking at things like that. They're thinking about how you know, how am I going to get paid, how much am I going to get paid paid money, money, again, money. Now, I volunteered for great for two years. What I gained in that two years is worth way more than any dollar wage, he would have paid me way more, because I grew. I grew into who I am today with this confidence by being surrounded by people like him by by meeting the people that he knows, I wouldn't have interviewed the president, Mexico if it hadn't been for Greg. I made that connection because then what happened is his events Secret Knock that I first attended, scared to attend scared to pay some money to attend that I ended up becoming a volunteer at that event. I volunteered there for two years, and then the organiser of the event ended up moving so she couldn't organise and he asked me do you want to organise the event, which I had already done? I'd already done like 100 of my own events. So I was I knew event organising. So I ended up becoming the event organiser. So then when I had this opportunity, I was like, okay, President of Mexico, he's going to speak at the event. I'm going to reach out to his assistants, they put me on his calendar that I and that happened so that I reached out to Kevin Harrington's assistant, because Kevin Harrington speaking at the event, put me on Kevin's calendar. Okay, I'm going to speak to so I ended up just making this happen. Now here was a really just a mind blowing opportunity. Again, Les Brown, one of the speakers, so I less didn't have an assistant at this time. I was shocked that he didn't so I call him and I'm coordinating his hotel and his flight and all this stuff. And one day after talking to him probably three times you have to coordinate everything. One day, I'm doing a Facebook Live. And I get this phone call is Les Brown calling me and I said Oh, I gotta go. Les Brown is calling. So I pick up the phone. Hey, Liz, it's Linda, what's going on? And he goes no I just wanted to call you and tell you that you are an amazing servant leader. And when I am in town, you make sure that you stop my my room because I'm going to teach you how to leverage my name.

Paula Shepherd 40:13

Wow. Exactly. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, so you were meeting all these people, you you have had, I feel like we could sit here for hours. Because you have and continue to have so many amazing stories, the people that you've connected me to, just by getting to know you. For those of you I didn't say that at the beginning, Linda is a co host with me on bookish which is on thriving women network streaming on E 360. TV. And the people that Linda just meets are absolutely incredible, and are exactly the way that she describes really generous, generous with their knowledge, generous with their time. And I encourage everyone that's listening to this to consider instead of chasing the money, Chase, your fears, your desires, without any monetary goal in mind, be willing to listen to what the possibility can be as a result of your desire. I mean, I don't even have a better way to put it. But if Linda has explained how her fears have really helped her grow, and and I can't even imagine you as the person that you described on the first day of your year of fears. I'm so grateful for you. As we're wrapping this up. Can you just share a little about action takers publishing and what you stand for there? And why people should care?

Lynda Sunshine West 41:57

Yeah, and that's, I love what you said about you know, Chase, chasing the desire, because, you know, in Napoleon Hill's book, you know, thinking grow rich, he talks about that burning desire, and that burning desire, what is that? What is that deep inside of you, you may not even really know what it is because you haven't dove deep, right? You're on the surface level. So really, really dive deep and figure out what that is. Me, for me, um, action takers, publishing, what it's all about is, it was about three years ago, or so when I had this, it might be silly to some people. But to me, it was a huge epiphany, that without action, nothing happens. You know, nothing happens without action. And, and I realised that I had been taking action. And that's why I was having so many shifts in my life. And I wasn't letting fear stop me. The fear of growth, the fear of success, the fear of failure, no fears, you know, stopping me from doing what I'm doing. So action takers, publishing was actually kind of born out of that nothing happens without action. And for me, it is all about the story. Our mission, again, is to empower 5 million women and men to share their stories with the world to make a greater impact on the planet. Because it was when I started taking action, that I started making a positive impact on the planet. And so this is what we're all about. I'm always looking for people who have a story to share, that's going to impact the world in a positive way. So we're not looking for just any, any stories to share. But this is such a big deal for me, because my mentor has a publishing company. And so I looked at that I said, Why not me? Why is it in the world I'm in because, you know, Greg is my mentor, he's a man. So the majority of people that I meet are men. And I just look at them, like, why not me? So here's a woman that's going off to do her own thing. You know, yes, there's other women in the publishing. But still, a lot of times we won't do things because we don't know how we don't know what steps to take. And I gotta tell you, I didn't know what steps to take either. Until I got into it. So just do it. I

Paula Shepherd 43:58

look at you. Now look at you just do it. Take the action. Linda, thank you so much. Thank you for taking the time to be here. Thank you for encouraging me to not ask you and get the answers to all the questions before this interview. Because I I've been dying to know them since I met you and now that we've had this, it's made it even more exciting. So thank you for being here and sharing your story in your year of fear with I'll have

Lynda Sunshine West 44:24

to do a volume two, because Yeah. You mentioned the stories. When I first started this entrepreneurial journey, I had one story. I had one story. I grew up in an abusive environment. That was basically the story. But since I started raising my hand and putting myself out there and breaking through those fears, because I'm scared. I have tonnes of stories to tell tonnes of stories.

Paula Shepherd 44:52

Well, thank you for telling the ones that you have up until now. We will definitely have to have a volume two, because you will have way more thanks to him. everybody for listening, Linda, thank you for being here. Please connect with Linda. All the links to do so are in the show notes. And I will see you next week on another episode of The confidence sessions. Thank you for listening to this episode of the confident session. I know there are hundreds of 1000s of podcasts. And I'm so grateful that you chose to spend your time today with me. Head on over to be fearless with paula.com forward slash podcast to check out the show notes from today's episode and grab links to all the amazing goodies mentioned today. Also, if you love this episode, as much as I loved making it, make sure you don't miss any future ones by hitting the subscribe button right now. See you next time.